PCJ – Chapter 603 I Want to Be Myself

After Zhang Jiaohua finished cleaning the lab equipment, Mei Qing handed him a stack of documents.

“Take these materials home and look through them. In a few days, you’ll be responsible for part of the experiment as well.”

Zhang Jiaohua accepted the stack, but instead of showing the excitement Mei Qing had expected, he took them calmly and began reading in a composed manner.

“What’s wrong? You’re not interested in the experiment?” Mei Qing asked.

Zhang Jiaohua shook his head. “Can I work on my own project?”

“Why?” Mei Qing asked, puzzled. Naturally, she didn’t think a freshman with no research experience could conduct independent research.

“I don’t want to waste time. My time is tight — I have to prepare for my thesis defense next year,” Zhang Jiaohua said.

Mei Qing nodded. “I understand your situation. When the time comes, you can use some of my data for your thesis. Undergraduate theses don’t have such high standards anyway.”

She thought he was simply worried about being unable to complete a graduation thesis.

“No. I read through your experiment plan. If I follow it, even if I work on it until graduation in four years, I won’t get any meaningful results. And even if I do, it would just be reheated leftovers. I’ve already seen similar results in journals — those were done by others one or two years ago. Continuing in this direction is meaningless. By the time your results come out, others will probably have published new findings.”

Zhang Jiaohua had used his spare time while cleaning to study Mei Qing’s experiment proposal carefully. Thanks to his extraordinary memory, he compared it with the research papers he’d read.

Mei Qing’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected her research to be questioned by a freshman. Her experimental design had been reviewed by several experts in her research group, who all considered it innovative and internationally competitive.

“Before you question my experiment plan, you should read more literature,” Mei Qing said, suppressing her anger.

“If you weren’t our class counselor, I wouldn’t bother saying this. Here, look at these papers and you’ll understand why I said what I did.” Zhang Jiaohua pulled out a sheet of A4 paper from his bag, filled with references.

Mei Qing glanced at him with suspicion. The list was all in English. While she could understand it easily, she was surprised. Even if Zhang Jiaohua had a good grasp of English, it would be very difficult for a freshman to comprehend these journals. Yet the references were written in a very formal style — clearly not just copied at random. These journals were available in the school library. Some of them Mei Qing hadn’t read herself because their titles didn’t seem closely related to her research topic — which may have caused her to miss them.

“Alright, I’ll take a look.” Mei Qing put down her work and immediately headed to the library.

At the library’s periodical section, Mei Qing quickly found the journals Zhang Jiaohua had referenced. Flipping through them, her expression turned grim.

Zhang Jiaohua was right — her research direction was indeed repeating existing work. Luckily, she had caught this early. Any later, and she’d lose not just research funding but, more importantly, time.

Mei Qing’s face shifted between expressions. “How did he even find such specialized journals?”

Her mind was in chaos. All her recent preparations had been wasted. She’d have to come up with a new research plan.

“Right, didn’t Zhang Jiaohua say he wanted to do his own project? I wonder what direction he has in mind.” Mei Qing was curious, but not with the intention of stealing his ideas. With her capabilities, she could find a new topic — it wouldn’t be easy, but it wasn’t impossible either.

As Zhang Jiaohua left the lab, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He glanced at the caller. It was Mute.

“Jiaohua, where are you? We planned to get together this weekend. Why haven’t you come back yet?” Mute shouted on the phone.

“You guys go ahead and get ready. I’ll be home soon,” Zhang Jiaohua said and headed back.

Not long after, he reached the house. Before opening the door, he heard someone say inside, “Do you think Jiaohua will be surprised to see me?”

It was Zhang Yuanbao’s voice.

Zhang Jiaohua opened the door and said flatly, “I’d be surprised if you didn’t show up.”

“That’s harsh, little bro,” Zhang Yuanbao said, pretending to be hurt.

Zhang Jiaohua ignored him. “I’m warning you guys — don’t just play around. If you don’t graduate, you won’t have the face to go back to Meizi’ao. I’ve joined a research lab now. I probably won’t even have weekends free anymore.”

“Jiaohua, are you really trying to graduate in a year? Don’t leave us in the dust, at least give us a chance to catch up!” Zhang Yuanbao groaned. He was a few years older than Jiaohua, and yet had been overtaken. If Jiaohua graduated even earlier, the pressure on him as the “older brother” would be unbearable.

Qi Xia and Nie Tong laughed — they too found it hard to keep up with Jiaohua’s pace.

“This time, I’m going to beat Mute. I’m planning to join a professional basketball club. The Beijing team has already made me an offer. I’m taking a leave of absence to give it a try,” Mute announced.

“You’ve trained in martial arts. Is it even fair for you to play with normal people?” Zhang Yuanbao asked, scratching his head.

Mute grinned. “There’s no basketball rule that says martial artists can’t play.”

Though he had practiced Meishan martial arts, Mute hadn’t trained in Meishan magic, so playing basketball wasn’t a problem. His physique just gave him an edge in physical matchups — but what really counted was his skill.

“Did you bribe someone?” Qi Xia teased.

Mute groaned. “My skills are good enough — they’d be blind to turn me down. You’ll see, I’ll be playing pro games soon.”

“Did you go to them, or did they come to you?” Qi Xia asked, clearly envious. He loved basketball and admired Mute’s chance to go pro.

“One of my coaches recommended me to the club. They invited me for a trial, and I passed right away. The coach said with my abilities, I’ll be game-ready in no time,” Mute said proudly.

“Jiaohua, what if I went for a trial? Think I’d make it?” Zhang Yuanbao asked, tempted. He had no great interest in studying, but he liked basketball.

“You can’t handle the grind,” Zhang Jiaohua replied bluntly, wounding him.

Meanwhile, Mei Qing walked into Dean Huang Zhongfang’s office.

“Professor Huang, there’s a problem with my project,” she said grimly.

“Oh? Hit a snag? Just find a way to work through it,” Huang replied.

“No. I went to the library today and discovered someone’s already ahead of me.” She placed the copied papers on his desk.

He glanced at them and frowned. “Good thing you found this early. If you’d only discovered it during your thesis defense, that would be a big problem. Where did you find this paper?”

It was from a biotech interdisciplinary journal — not something commonly consulted, and its title didn’t hint at relevance to Mei Qing’s topic.

“A freshman found it. He said he doesn’t want to do my project and wants to do his own.” She explained Zhang Jiaohua’s idea.

Huang was about to criticize the student for being reckless — then he looked at the document again and hesitated. Did this kid actually read through the entire library collection? It was impossible for anyone to read every journal manually — researchers typically search by keywords or abstracts, which can cause them to miss things.

“You said he wants to do his own project? Did he submit a proposal?” Huang asked.

Mei Qing shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Have him submit one. If it checks out, let him proceed. If he needs reagents or supplies, help him get them.”

The next day, Zhang Jiaohua received Mei Qing’s approval.

Mei Qing thought it would take him a few days to prepare a proposal — but he immediately pulled out several pages from his backpack. Though the formatting was rough, the content shocked her. He had proposed a topic she had never even encountered — and it was a recognized challenge in the field.

“You think you can actually do this?” Mei Qing asked, concerned.

“If it were easy, it’d be an experiment — not research,” Zhang Jiaohua replied.

Though the topic was novel, it seemed feasible.

“Dean Huang said you can proceed with your own project. Let me know what supplies you need.” Mei Qing led him to a nearby lab bench. “This will be your workstation. If you don’t know how to use any equipment, ask me or the senior students.”

Zhang Jiaohua was excited, like someone who had just learned a new magic spell. He immediately scribbled a long list of reagents and materials, leaving Mei Qing stunned.

“Have you done this kind of experiment before?” she asked — and instantly regretted it.

“Where would I do these kinds of experiments? My high school lab couldn’t possibly support this,” he replied.

She nodded — no high school, even abroad, could offer this level of facility.

“I saw these reagents in the lab manuals,” he explained.

Mei Qing looked over the list again, astonished. Some of the reagent names were so obscure that they’d be hard to write down even when copying directly — and this kid wrote them all out from memory.

“I’ll hold on to this. The lab doesn’t have everything on this list, and ordering them will take time. Start with some prep work or smaller experiments with what we already have,” she said calmly, trying to hide how impressed she was.

Zhang Jiaohua quickly started gathering what he needed. He was eager to get started.

“This project is extremely difficult. Cultivating embryos in vitro and inducing them to develop into full organisms — no one has succeeded at this. Don’t be blindly optimistic. For a bachelor’s thesis, just completing a part of it is enough,” Mei Qing reminded him.

“I know it’s hard. But I still want to try.”

Zhang Jiaohua had his reasons — he wanted to explore some questions. Solving them might help him understand principles of cultivation. After reading many scientific papers, he had the sense that cultivation could be explained scientifically. Now, he needed experiments to verify some hypotheses.

Despite never having done lab work before, his first experiment was smooth. His time cleaning glassware wasn’t wasted — he had secretly learned every operation from the other lab members. Now he just needed practice.

Watching Zhang Jiaohua skillfully prepare the equipment and reagents, Mei Qing felt like she was watching a monster. She herself was known for excellent hands-on ability, but compared to Zhang Jiaohua, she sighed — hard work couldn’t make up for talent.

And soon enough, she found herself being bossed around by him.

“Ms. Mei, could you grab the agar and prep some LB medium?” Zhang Jiaohua called. He was too slow working alone, especially with so many reagents to prepare and sterilize.

Fortunately, the glassware he had cleaned earlier had already been sterilized and dried — ready for immediate use.

Mei Qing wasn’t busy anyway, and she was genuinely interested in Zhang Jiaohua’s plan — especially how he’d solve some of the key problems, which hadn’t yet been cracked even internationally. But she had a feeling that maybe, just maybe, Zhang Jiaohua might pull it off.