Chapter 40: What a Good Paper!

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Just thinking about not being able to complete the task today, Wang Lili cursed to herself, "Horse's Fortune, I'm done with this!"

"Senior, why is your breathing so rapid? What's wrong?" Zhang Yuan scratched his head awkwardly.

In the middle of the night, rapid breathing, and even making a phone call, could it be she's looking for some excitement?

"What... heavy?" Wang Lili finally regained her senses and snapped, "Let's just leave it at that, I'm hanging up!"

Zhang Yuan felt a bit puzzled, but he couldn't be bothered to think about it more. He just closed his eyes and quickly fell asleep.

After confirming that she couldn't save the day in a roundabout way, Wang Lili could only send an email to her teacher, admitting her lack of ability: "I don't understand, I'm sorry." She also included the opinions of several senior brothers as a backup, indicating that she had already tried her best.

"My credibility scores are going to be completely deducted..."

She sighed heavily.

...

The next morning, Lin Wenda arrived at his office and brewed a cup of green tea.

The first thing he did every day was open his email.

Various miscellaneous tasks usually lasted until ten o'clock. But today there were particularly few emails, only a handful.

"Hmm, Wang Lili didn't understand the article?" Lin Wenda was slightly surprised. Seeing the email was sent at two in the morning, he decided not to blame his student.

"It seems she really didn't understand, interesting..."

Wang Lili was a student who, although not the most talented, had always been reliable in her work.

Since there were fewer affairs to handle, Lin Wenda thought to himself: I might as well take a look myself.

He opened the email and began reading carefully.

At first, his brow was tightly furrowed, but soon enough, something caught his attention, and he continued reading intently.

A fine layer of sweat gradually covered his forehead.

His expression grew more and more excited, to the point where his hair stood on end.

A very valuable article!

"The kinematics of humanoid robots are clearly described using a new method!"

"No, this is just a framework, a grand theory; many details still need to be perfected..."

What did this mean?

It meant countless subsequent papers, it meant related industries might further upgrade!

A groundbreaking discovery!

As an insider, he deeply understood the article's value.

At that moment, Lin Wenda felt a temptation to claim the paper as his own.

The rewards from this paper were simply too enormous, especially the fame!

He could already foresee a constant stream of awards, to the point his hands would cramp from receiving them.

However, he quickly restrained this desire.

The paper was sent over by Professor Wang. If he dared to claim it as his own, with Old Wang's prowess, it would take only a second for him to turn into ashes... the energy of an Academician was not something a regular professor could rival.

Besides, it was really unethical to engage in academic misconduct, even though one heard about such shenanigans quite often in the circle.

"It's better to be honest, there's no need to snatch from others; writing some follow-up expansion papers by myself is already quite impressive."

"Yes, there's a lot of follow-up work to do!"

As he thought this through, Lin Wenda felt inspiration flowing like the Yangtze River, able to write effortlessly.

As for the current projects... compared to writing papers, they were nothing.

These were not filler papers; they were quite valuable.

"Knock, knock, knock!" Someone stood outside, knocked on the door, and then coughed.

Lin Wenda looked up, seeing it was Lu Junzhe, the dean of the Mechanical Engineering College.

Professor Lu smiled and asked, "Professor Lin, what are you looking at? So engrossed and even giggling. I've been standing here for ages..."

Lin Wenda instinctively wanted to hide Zhang Yuan's paper but thought better of it and took it out.

"Professor Lu, have a look at this paper, it's quite interesting!"

An interesting paper?

Lu Junzhe skeptically walked over and skimmed through a few lines.

"A novice writing their first paper, as bad as an undergraduate thesis."

"It does look a bit like that."

"Undergraduate theses are mass-produced garbage, but there's nothing you can do."

Then, as if something caught his attention, his breathing became rapid.

A new method!

His eyes gleamed brighter.

Its value...

Immeasurable!

After reading the entire paper, he hurriedly turned and left, urgently in a rush.

"Professor Lu, where are you going?" Lin Wenda was a bit confused.

"Going back to write!" Professor Lu hurriedly said, "Inspiration is the most valuable thing; I can't waste it!"

"No, what did you come to me for?"

"..."

Professor Lu remembered his initial purpose and stopped.

He slapped his forehead, "Actually, it's nothing much. The annual departmental evaluation is about to begin. Last year, our college didn't produce any outstanding work and might slide in rank again, so I came to talk with you all. If there's any important article, publish it quickly. We must maintain our rank; otherwise, everyone's funding will reduce by a tier."

There's competition among universities, and rankings among departments too.

Xisha University's "Mechanical Engineering" was a top-notch field, but it hadn't produced particularly outstanding work in recent years, always hovering around fifteenth or sixteenth nationally, much to Professor Lu's anxiety. As the dean, he was responsible.

How were rankings made?

Academic reputation, employer reputation, paper citations, and all sorts of index weights. Anyway, papers were certainly the top priority.

Lin Wenda collected his smile: "This paper was written by... Zhang Yuan, Zhang Qiming's son, who's about to board the spaceship, part of the Deep Space Foundation. And it was completed independently by him, so it can't be attributed to our college."

"Zhang Yuan? I've heard of him." Professor Lu blinked, "Like father, like son, such a pity it's not our college's achievement... What a shame."

Lin Wenda laughed heartily: "Old Lu, don't be anxious. Isn't the extension of this paper good work? Based on it, we can at least write ten more highly valuable articles!"

"The paper has just come out and hasn't been published yet; no one else has seen it."

"We saw it first, that's our opportunity. Let's seize it and fleece it for what it's worth!"

Professor Lu's eyes shone as he slapped his thigh: "Right! It's just a broad framework and can't be applied concretely yet; there are still a lot of details to discuss."

"Just the expansion tasks are too much for the two of us..."

He quickly made a call to notify his assistant, "Little Yuan, quick, gather all the professors, there's a major task to distribute to everyone."

...

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