Bootlicking Gets You Nowhere

Mu Tao knocked on the door. "Boss Zheng, are you busy?"

Zheng Ren turned to face the man. He seemed familiar, but Zheng Ren could not pinpoint his identity.

An awkwardness hung in the room.

A few seconds of pin-drop silence ticked by. Finally, Mu Tao decided to crack a smile and say, "You must have met a lot of people in the past few days. I am Mu Tao, Professor Wu's disciple."

Realization dawned on Zheng Ren. They had met before in the research building.

The quiet spell now broken, Zheng Ren stood up and extended a hand to Mu Tao. With an apologetic look on his face, he said, "My apologies, Dr. Mu. I have a bad memory. Please, have a seat."

The words sounded sincere, so Mu Tao let the blunder pass.

"Are you looking at scans?"

"Yes. I was studying the images—it seems like there are many cases of malignancy, but it's hard to decipher hepatic nodules from tumors based on the scans," Zheng Ren said truthfully.