The night before the college entrance exam results were released, I redeemed my Peking University ad

When Ji Bai posted that photo on Weibo, the entire internet exploded.

The boy in the photo is standing next to a white sign with black lettering. The sign reads: Ji Bai Research Institute!

The background is an old factory building with newly painted white walls, newly replaced aluminum alloy windows, and the faded red characters for "Safety in Production" can still be faintly seen on the wall.

"Holy crap! Ji Bai Research Institute???"

"Hahahaha! He definitely chose that name himself!"

"This overwhelming aura of adolescent chuunibyou! This undeniable narcissistic halo!"

"Dean Ji! From now on, we'll call you Dean Ji! Hello, Dean Ji! Have you eaten, Dean Ji? What are you researching today, Dean Ji?"

"Hahaha, a naming genius!"

"By the way, if Ji Bai goes on to pursue a doctorate, what should he be called? Ji Bo?"

"Ji Bo is killing me! Hahahaha!"

"What if you become an academician in the future?"

"What if you win the Nobel Prize?"

"That's enough! If you keep going, Ji Bai's academic titles will be longer than his name!"

One name sparked a frenzy of memes among netizens, with the top comments section filled with all sorts of silly jokes and laughter.

But the joyful atmosphere didn't last long.

"No, this dilapidated factory building, the walls are freshly painted, the cement on the floor is newly laid, the protective film on the window frames hasn't even been removed, and this rudimentary laboratory, you want 100 million?"

"Do you know what 100 million yuan can build? It can build a municipal-level key laboratory! It can buy three high-resolution transmission electron microscopes! It can buy half a floor of office space in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen!"

"So this is what Ji Bai ended up doing?"

"How much does it cost to renovate an old factory? Painting the walls, laying the floors, and replacing the windows might cost at least 500,000 yuan! So where did the remaining 90 million yuan go?"

"Isn't this too blatant? At least other people who scam funding put on some semblance of a proper lab building, but he doesn't even bother with that. He just hangs up a sign and calls himself a research institute?"

"This brand was custom-made on Taobao, right? Including shipping, it shouldn't cost more than eighty yuan!"

"We strongly demand that Ji Bai disclose the details of how the funds were used! Taxpayers have the right to know where every penny of the 100 million yuan research grant went!"

"If this leads to superconductivity, I'll eat shit while doing a handstand!"

"Freshly made and eaten on the spot! Eating live!"

"I not only ate it myself, I also treated the whole class to it!"

"If superconductivity could be developed in this run-down factory, all the superconducting labs in the world could shut down! Those lab managers who spent hundreds of millions building cleanrooms could all commit suicide!"

"Remember this ID. I've already taken a screenshot. Although I don't believe Ji Bai can create superconductivity, what if he actually does? What if he really does it by hand?"

"If he actually manages to pull it off, this guy who ate shit will go down in history."

"Don't worry about 'what ifs.' If superconductivity could be achieved in this environment, I'd eat my keyboard. A mechanical keyboard, blue switches, with a satisfying crunch."

Just then, someone suddenly shouted in the comments section.

"Look! Ji Bai is live streaming!"

"Where? Where?"

"On Douyin! He just started a live stream, and the room is called 'Ji Bai Research Institute'!"

"Holy crap, is he serious? Why is he going to do a live stream? Is he going to conduct an experiment on the spot?"

"Quick, quick, send me the link! I want to see what's going on!"

In an instant, countless angry netizens, bystanders, royalist fans, and haters waiting to see a good show flooded into Ji Bai's Douyin live stream.

The number of viewers in the live stream jumped from a few hundred to several thousand, then from several thousand to tens of thousands, and broke through 100,000 in less than five minutes.

In the scene, Ji Bai is wearing a crisp white lab coat with a neat collar and the cuffs buttoned up meticulously. A pen is also tucked into his breast pocket.

His lab coat was so white it practically glowed, giving him the air of a serious scientist, if you ignored the flip-flops he was wearing.

Ji Bai held a welding torch in one hand, the pale blue flame leaping at the tip of the nozzle and making a slight hissing sound.

With his other hand, he steadily held a silver sheet the size of a fingernail. It was the target material base for the buffer layer, with a purity of 99.99%, and it gleamed with a soft silvery-white luster under the flame of the welding torch.

The camera zoomed in: the flame of the welding torch precisely licked the edge of the silver sheet, which glowed slightly red at the high temperature, before being quickly clamped onto a pre-treated strontium titanate substrate. The solder spread evenly on the contact surface without any overflow.

Netizens were stunned.

Dude, are you really that good?

As Ji Bai operated the device, he looked up at the camera and smiled, revealing a set of white teeth.

"Welcome everyone to my live stream. Today, I will be demonstrating... hand-made room temperature superconductivity."

The live chat exploded instantly.

"??????"

"No, what did Ji Bai say???"

"Did I hear that right? Room temperature...superconductivity?"

"Wait a minute, isn't Ji Bai a mathematician? Why is he working on superconductivity?"

"Did you just get internet upstairs? That guy's got a clever brain; he's probably gone to the Materials Pit to scam funding."

"Shouldn't the focus be on 'room temperature' superconductivity?"

Do you know what room-temperature superconductivity means? Zero resistance! Zero resistance at room temperature!

"If this could really be achieved, power transmission loss from the power plant to your home outlet would be reduced to zero!"

"The world's power grids will need to be rebuilt! Maglev trains will be more widespread than high-speed rail! MRI machines will be so cheap that even community clinics can get them!"

"If this were true, the Nobel Prize would be lined up to award him!"

"What are you thinking? How could that be?!"

"Countless top physicists around the world have spent decades trying to achieve high-temperature superconductivity, yet they still can't break through minus 100 degrees Celsius. And he, a recent high school graduate, is going to try to create room-temperature superconductivity by hand?"

"This lousy lab? I don't believe it!"

"What's the difference between this and saying, 'Today I'm going to handcraft a nuclear submarine in my bathtub at home'?"

"I'm waiting to see him make a fool of himself. I want to see how he'll cover up this lie in the end."

The screen was filled with doubts and question marks.

The barrage of comments was so dense it almost covered the entire screen, and the number of viewers in the live stream had already exceeded 500,000, and was still climbing at a visible rate.

When Ji Bai said he would create room-temperature superconductivity by hand, the entire internet exploded.

Office of Academicians, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Wuhan University.

Academician Zhou was sitting with his legs crossed, drinking tea. He had completely relaxed these past two days.

Ji Bai is working on high-temperature superconductivity, a field that has been explored worldwide for decades without any breakthroughs. How could a high school student like him possibly make a breakthrough?

He has been sleeping well these past two days, has a good appetite, and didn't even scold students for making silly mistakes during their defenses.

Just then, one of his doctoral students burst in without knocking, holding up his phone:

"Teacher! Ji Bai has started a live stream! He said he's going to do hand-rubbing... hand-rubbing room-temperature superconductivity!"

"puff--!"

The tea that Academician Zhou had just drunk was sprayed directly onto the doctoral student's face.

"What did you say?"

"Room-temperature superconductivity?"

"Still hand-rubbing?"