Inside a materials laboratory at Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Liu Xiaodong was analyzing a pile of experimental results in his hands.
He was a postdoctoral researcher who had come to this laboratory about a year and a half ago.
As a postdoc, the pressure he faced was even greater than when he had been pursuing his doctorate.
After all, doctoral students were still students. They had little to worry about as long as they could graduate successfully.
Postdocs, however, were completely different. They were no longer students, but working stiffs.
What he needed to consider next was how to meet the requirements to remain at the laboratory and become an Assistant Researcher.
According to his laboratory's requirements for postdocs, they needed to publish two first-quartile papers during their postdoctoral period before they could become Assistant Researchers.
And they only had two years.
Two first-quartile papers in two years—the pressure was imaginable.
Fortunately, he had already published one first-quartile paper.
He was also highly confident that the project he was currently working on could be submitted to a first-quartile journal.
Then he would successfully advance to Assistant Researcher, effectively becoming a university lecturer as well, with a lecturer's salary to match.
Just as he was imagining his bright future, his supervisor, Zhao Guoqing, somehow appeared beside him and said with a smile.
"Xiaoliu, I heard you've wrapped up another paper recently?"
Liu Xiaodong froze for a moment and turned to look at his supervisor, a bad feeling rising in his heart.
However, Zhao Guoqing was his supervisor, and his opinion would be decisive in whether Liu Xiaodong could remain there in the future. He could only answer honestly, "More or less... It's almost finished. I'm just short of two experiments, and I'm analyzing one of them right now."
Zhao Guoqing laughed and