The Mysterious Night of Beijing

Lin Lengyan's heart skipped a beat. She quickly sat up in bed, her face immediately contorting into a tearful expression.

"Brother Xian'an, I... I was just in a bad mood and venting. I didn't say anything about my sister..."

She threw herself into Jiang Xian'an's arms, burying her face in his chest, her shoulders trembling.

"I just feel so wronged. So many people are criticizing me online, and I can't say anything... I really can't take it anymore..."

Looking at the girl trembling with tears in his arms, Jiang Xian'an's doubts and displeasure were replaced by familiar pity.

He sighed and patted her on the back.

"Okay, stop crying."

"Don't post these things online anymore; it will only make things more complicated."

His tone softened.

Lin Lengyan lifted her head from his embrace, her eyes as red as a rabbit's.

"Brother Xian'an, do you also think that I'm being unreasonable?"

"No." Jiang Xian'an wiped away her tears. "I know you're upset."

He just felt a little tired.

Since Lin Chuxiu left, his life seems to have fallen into a mess.

Nothing went smoothly for him—not at the company, not at home, and not even with Lin Lengyan.

He would occasionally think of Lin Chuxiu.

He recalled how she used to be quiet and well-behaved when she was by his side, managing his life perfectly, unlike Lin Lengyan, who required him to coax her all the time.

That woman seemed to never cry.

Even after being hurt like that by him, and being cursed by everyone, her eyes only held coldness and hatred, not tears.

The moment the thought popped into Jiang Xian'an's head, he was startled.

How could he compare Yan Yan to that woman?

He must be under a lot of pressure lately.

"You should get some rest," he said, helping Lin Lengyan lie down and tucking her in. "I have things to do at the company, so I'll be leaving now."

"Brother Xian'an..."

Before Lin Lengyan could say anything more, Jiang Xian'an had already turned and left.

Hearing the door close, the gentleness and grievance on Lin Lengyan's face vanished instantly, replaced by a chilling expression.

Jiang Xian'an's expression changed just now.

He began to doubt her.

It's all because of Lin Chuxiu!

Lin Lengyan clenched her fists, her nails digging deep into her palms.

……

Yenching University, Laboratory Building.

Lin Chuxiu has been in the laboratory for half a month now.

Her daily work involves processing those complex waste liquids.

Filtration, distillation, extraction, chromatography...

Once you go through the whole process, a whole day is gone.

Xu Ziming never came to see her again, but occasionally when he passed by her lab bench, he would glance at her bottles and jars with a look of amusement.

The other people in the project team were still very polite to her, but no one talked to her about the experiments.

She was like an isolated, invisible person.

Zhao Jia came to see her several times, and was furious to see her doing these chores every day.

"Xiuxiu, that Xu Ziming is bullying you! You're the deputy team leader, why should he make you do these things?"

"It's nothing," Lin Chuxiu simply shook her head.

She didn't explain to Zhao Jia.

Because she discovered that the waste liquid that Xu Ziming treated as garbage was not garbage at all.

They are treasures.

During the repeated separation and purification process, she discovered that in addition to the target product and impurities, there was also a trace amount of a byproduct with a very peculiar structure in these waste liquids.

This byproduct is chemically unstable and present in extremely low quantities, which is why it was overlooked by everyone in previous experiments.

But Lin Chuxiu's intuition told her that this thing was very important.

It may very well be the key to unlocking Meng Huizhou's conjecture on "orbital hybridization".

Therefore, instead of complaining, she handled the waste liquid more carefully than anyone else.

She carefully collected and preserved every tiny bit of byproduct she obtained from each separation.

That afternoon, Professor Zhou Wenhai came to the laboratory again.

He walked straight to Lin Chuxiu's experimental table.

"Chuxiu, how have you been lately? Are you settling in alright?"

"That's good, Professor." Lin Chuxiu was recording data and didn't even look up.

Professor Zhou glanced at the bottles and jars on her desk that were being separated, and her brows furrowed almost imperceptibly.

He called Xu Ziming over.

"Zi Mo, didn't I tell you to let Chu Xiu familiarize herself with the core parts of the project as soon as possible? Why are you making her keep doing this?"

Xu Ziming adjusted his glasses and said neither humbly nor arrogantly, "Teacher Zhou, Lin is new here. Let her familiarize herself with the basic operations first. It's responsible for her and for the project team."

"Moreover, the work of recycling this waste liquid is also very important. It had been piling up for a while, but Lin came along and helped us solve a big problem."

His words were so precise that Professor Zhou couldn't say anything more.

He simply walked over to Lin Chuxiu and whispered, "Chuxiu, don't be upset. Zimo doesn't mean any harm; he's just quite strict about academic requirements."

"I know, Professor." Lin Chuxiu nodded.

"Hmm," Professor Zhou took a USB drive out of his pocket and handed it to her. "This is the dissertation of one of my doctoral students. The research direction is somewhat similar to yours. Take it back and take a look; it might inspire you."

"Thank you, Professor."

Lin Chuxiu didn't think much of it, taking it as normal care from a teacher to a student.

Unbeknownst to her, Professor Zhou took out his phone and made a call as soon as he stepped out of the lab.

"Mr. Meng, everything has been done as you instructed."

"However, it seems that Xu Ziming has some issues with Miss Lin, and keeps making her do odd jobs."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.

"Ignore him," Meng Huizhou said calmly. "Let her handle it herself."

"Understood." Professor Zhou hung up the phone and shook his head.

These young people, each and every one of them, have such deep thoughts.

He really understands it less and less.

Lin Chuxiu took the USB drive and returned to her dormitory.

She plugged the USB drive into the computer and opened the doctoral dissertation.

The title of the paper is "Design of chiral catalysts based on novel rhodamine derivatives and their application in asymmetric catalysis".

Lin Chuxiu's eyes lit up after just one glance at the summary.

The core skeletal structure of the "novel rhodamine derivative" mentioned in this paper is seven or eight parts similar to the mysterious byproduct she separated from the waste liquid!

The authors of the paper successfully synthesized a highly efficient chiral catalyst by modifying this framework.

Lin Chuxiu's heart began to pound uncontrollably.

It seemed she had grasped a crucial clue.

She immediately opened her experimental records and compared the various data she had previously measured about the byproduct with the data in the paper.

Mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared spectroscopy...

The more she compared them, the more alarmed she became.

That byproduct was not some useless impurity at all.

It is the most crucial, and also the most difficult, precursor for synthesizing that new type of catalyst!

Xu Ziming and his team accidentally synthesized this precursor in their previous experiment due to a slight deviation in the operating conditions. However, because its content was too low and its properties were unstable, they treated it as waste and threw it away.