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墨書 Inktalez
The air in the conference room seemed to freeze for a moment. I noticed that Professor Zhou's expression remained unchanged, but a strange glimmer flashed in the depths of his eyes. It was a sharpness I had never seen before.
"It might be an issue with the experimental conditions," he said calmly. "Let's discuss the specific parameters in detail this afternoon. This project is very important and cannot afford any carelessness."
I nodded and lowered my head to continue taking notes. I could feel Senior Zhang's gaze upon me, but I did not look up to meet his eyes. To some extent, I was afraid of seeing confirmation of my suspicions reflected there.
After the group meeting, as I packed up my notebook, I suddenly noticed a document left on the conference table—it was the review comments for the paper we submitted last week. For some reason, I glanced at it:
"Figure 3 shows significant anomalies, with results differing greatly from existing literature... It is recommended that the authors provide the raw data..."
"You don't need to worry about this." Professor Zhou appeared beside me out of nowhere and took the document with a natural motion, still wearing a gentle smile. "Just focus on completing the repeated experiments; I'll handle the rest."
As I walked out of the conference room, the smell of disinfectant suddenly became overwhelmingly pungent. It dawned on me that this laboratory, where I had spent two years, was filled with incomprehensible secrets. An unprecedented sense of fear enveloped me—I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a vortex, with the ground beneath me slowly collapsing.
That afternoon, I worked mechanically at the lab bench, recording data while reflecting on every detail of these past two years. Those high-scoring papers that once made me proud, those seemingly perfect experimental results, now cast a suspicious shadow over everything.
My phone vibrated suddenly; it was a message from Xiao Zhang, the laboratory secretary:
"Professor Zhou wants you to organize the original experimental records from the past three years; next week we need to review the Academician's defense materials."
My hands trembled slightly. Perhaps this was an opportunity. The hidden truths would eventually be revealed at some point. As a researcher, my conscience would not allow me to turn a blind eye to these doubts.
The dust in the archive room made me cough uncontrollably.
Habitually biting on my pen cap, I flipped through the Experiment Records from the past two years. Professor Zhou had asked me to organize materials for the Academician's review, but the more I looked at these data, the more unsettling they became. Similar experimental conditions and close processing methods yielded results that were unnaturally perfect.
In April 2021, I circled the data with my pen. "The control group..." I compared the two sets of data back and forth with my finger. This wasn't experimental data; it looked more like a meticulously designed template.
Footsteps approached the door.
"What are you looking for?" Senior Zhang's voice startled me, nearly causing me to bite down on the pen cap. He leaned against the doorframe, casually twirling a cup in his hand, but his eyes were fixed intently on the open Experiment Record spread across my desk.
"What's wrong? Even you have to keep an eye on me now?" I replied irritably. For the past few days, I had felt as if there were eyes watching me in the Laboratory. Even when I went to the restroom, I would encounter different people "strolling" in the hallway.
Senior Zhang stepped closer and lowered his voice. "Be careful. Professor Zhou has been... unsettled lately."
I scoffed. "Is it because of that article rejected by Nature's subsidiary?"
He remained silent, placing a USB Drive on my desk. "There's something you want on here. Don't ask where it came from."
I clenched the USB Drive tightly but hesitated to plug it into my computer. This small metal object might hold secrets capable of destroying an entire Laboratory.
"Why are you helping me?" I stared into his eyes.
Senior Zhang rarely showed a hint of a bitter smile. "Because I don't want to see anyone repeat the same mistakes."
"Sister Li Ling?" I blurted out. The doctoral senior who suddenly dropped out last year; Professor Zhou claimed it was due to family reasons.
He nodded. "Do you remember her last unfinished paper? Data fabrication was discovered by the reviewers. Professor Zhou made her..."
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