Early morning.
The School of Pharmacy's second cafeteria.
Many students were eating around the dining tables. Unlike their usual yawning mornings, every one of them was unusually energetic, excitedly discussing things with one another:
"Have you heard? Someone's started submitting papers, and Dean Song approved a scholarship of ninety thousand right away!"
"Who needs to hear about it? Lu Geng already posted a video. I was so envious I couldn't sleep half the night!"
"Fuck, I'm dying of envy! Staying behind to work overtime during the vacation was the right choice! I've only got a few groups of data left. Once I finish running them, I'll write up the paper and submit it. Then I'll just wait to get rich!"
"I slacked off. I didn't do enough of the experiment, so I'm planning to fabricate some data and give it a try. Heh heh."
"Don't! Dean Song emphasized that fabricating data isn't allowed. Lu Geng also said the screening was extremely strict and warned us not to use any shady tricks. Even several harmless paragraphs of filler he'd added were spotted."
"Of course it's easy to spot padding! How would they know if you fabricated data? I asked around. Fake data and falsified figures are everywhere. It'd be good if half the papers in top journals could be replicated. There's no way to tell at all!"
"Exactly. Fabricating data is a technical skill. If you fabricate within a reasonable range, no one will go to the trouble of replicating your experiment. Even if they can't replicate it, just tell them it was experimental error!"
"Are you out of your minds? Have you no shame? I'm absolutely not going to fake anything! I'll hurry and finish as much data as I can these next few days, write as much as possible,