The Fourteenth: A Tool Man Who Was a Huge Help

"So I've always said that Folk Scientists can't be taken seriously. I've always been committed to popularizing knowledge and exposing pseudoscience and fake scholarship to the public, yet this time, we've embarrassed ourselves abroad.

"I specifically went to Mote to take a look. There are already several thousand reposts and over ten thousand comments. This is an extremely negative influence.

"Now, let me briefly explain what the journal Science is..."

Xue Chuan wrote a lengthy illustrated post, constantly showing off his knowledge. Between the lines, he made it clear that he had studied abroad and that this was his specialty—he was very familiar with this field.

Most of the article was devoted to displaying his knowledge, filled with praise and admiration for Science. The journal was supposedly incredibly impressive, far beyond domestic ones in ways impossible to measure, while the Science Promotion Association was supposedly an equally incredible organization—the world's foremost international scientific organization.

"...Those who know me will know that I questioned Zhu Han's SCI paper ten years ago. After questioning Xiao Zhuan, I was even retaliated against when he hired people to take revenge on me. But at least they had something to show for it—they really had published papers. This academic fraud, however, is purely a clown seeking attention, ruining all of our image.

"I saw the original post on Mote. He borrowed the banner of racial discrimination, causing many foreign netizens who don't know the truth to support him. Once they discover the truth, the extreme contrast will immediately greatly worsen their impression of us."

Xue Chuan gave full play to his specialty of one-sided claims, though in truth, he had not even finished reading Wang Yi's post.

At this point in this parallel world, Xue Chuan's double standards and various disgraceful deeds had already begun to come to light. He was lenient with himself and strict with others.

However, his public persona had not yet completely collapsed, and he still had considerable influence.

Wang Yi immediately picked this useful pawn. He tagged him directly on Weibo.

"I am the person involved. May I ask whether Mr. Xue Chuan has read my full Mote post? Can you understand my proof? If you can't, please find someone who can and ask them first."

Xue Chuan himself was indeed a genuinely outstanding student. He held a PhD from Michigan State University's Department of Biochemistry, roughly equivalent to a top-tier domestic 985 university.

It was just that he had settled in California in 2002 and earned an income as a "consulting expert." He had also let slip that he received funding from foreign foundations.

Xue Chuan had always been extremely proud of his academic credentials, and that was why he had been able to maintain his footing while exposing fraud.

Even though if he went three days without studying his chosen field and direction, he could fall behind, and now that he was busy earning dirty money, he had practically forgotten most of his professional knowledge.

But questioning whether he "could understand" was absolutely stepping on his sore toe and touching his reverse scale.

Without even caring whether this was really the person involved, he grabbed his keyboard and started hammering out a response.

Afterward, he deliberately went back to Mote and read through it carefully, intending to quickly find a few points to slap Wang Yi in the face with.

Yet when he saw the paper excerpts Wang Yi kept posting afterward, his heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Though he had forgotten most of his professional knowledge, his English proficiency and familiarity with paper formatting were still there.

At least after a rough scan, he truly could not find any obvious flaws that could easily be used to attack it.

As a professional contrarian, he spotted the loophole in the work address, but he also knew that bringing it up would not seem very useful.

Because he genuinely could not understand the derivation.

Different professions were as far apart as mountains. These days, even reading a cutting-edge paper in his own field would be too much for him, let alone a proof of a mathematical conjecture.

But after Wang Yi had specifically mocked him, it was impossible for him to admit that he could not understand it.

Setting everything else aside, when it came to stubbornly bluffing, Xue Chuan was absolutely among the very best. Even if his entire body were cremated, his mouth would still remain.

Everyone had their own strengths and different stores of knowledge, but Xue Chuan was different. He would never admit his weaknesses.

Even though mathematics did not lie—if he could not understand it, then he could not understand it—he still had to keep up the pretense.

After searching for information related to the Goldbach Conjecture and consulting a few friends, he immediately launched into a lengthy counterattack against Wang Yi.

"Hehe, of course I can't understand your derivation, because it's an entire set of theories you made up yourself. You need to first understand what the significance of the Goldbach Conjecture is! If you really solved it, then your name would definitely be on next year's Fields Medal shortlist, wouldn't it?"

After writing that, he added a note, not forgetting to educate everyone.

"The Fields Medal is the Nobel Prize of mathematics. At most four people are selected every four years, and the next awards will be given out next year. Let us congratulate Master Yi in advance."

A post from a tiny account like Wang Yi's would normally have amounted to nothing, but once Xue Chuan responded, it instantly drew massive attention.

Quite a few people poured into Wang Yi's Weibo as well.

"The person involved?"

"Is this real?"

"Delete your post now! Don't smear us!"

"You've embarrassed us abroad."

"No way, you actually dared to respond?"

"Your tags actually say Independent Musician and researcher?"

"That's seriously neglecting your proper work."

"Go back to writing songs."

One user who also had the Independent Musician tag commented, "Please remove the Independent Musician tag."

Many other musicians replied beneath that comment, expressing their support.

There were also plenty of remarks that would be censored the moment they were posted.

Overall, criticism was definitely the mainstream.

But Wang Yi did not care. After tagging Xue Chuan again and leaving the words, "I'll take that as your blessing," he turned off his phone.

Because he had arrived at the Market and needed to prepare some beef bones...

However, the online discussion would not stop escalating just because Wang Yi had left.

Compared with the slow warming of the situation on Mote, things ignited extremely quickly domestically after Xue Chuan—a figure who came with his own controversy and traffic—personally entered the fray.

The blogger Studying Abroad in the Beautiful Country, who had first reposted the matter, naturally stood firmly on Xue Chuan's side.

They constantly reposted Xue Chuan's doubts and commented on Xue Chuan in those reposts, introducing him to others as a fraud-fighting crusader and explaining his educational background.

The implication was clear: this was authority, and this could settle the matter once and for all.

Yet it was precisely because Xue Chuan had entered the fray that many netizens who had begun to dislike him due to the personality issues he had exposed also started speaking up for Wang Yi.

"I looked through his Mote too. What was wrong with what he said? Isn't an instant rejection discrimination? Even if it was really terrible, they shouldn't have acted like that. They didn't even look at it. That's far too disrespectful."

"Person above, are you an ally or what? Which side are you even on?"

"I looked too. The blogger who reposted it brought in subjective emotions and deliberately distorted what was said. That wasn't right."

"Still, that paper's formatting looks pretty convincing."

"Can you understand it, person above? Translate it for us. It's all English screenshots and formulas—I'm completely lost."

"Don't make things hard for me. It's a mathematics paper."

"Unrequited love has no results. For example, I love mathematics."

"I sent it to my advisor. I hope he won't mind..."

At this point, it gradually became Wang Yi's turn...

Two updates done~

This novel's setting includes the existence of magic. Even if magic in the main world is extremely dormant, there must still be some manifestations of it. That is why there are certain elements involving Resentful Spirits, mainly to make the worldbuilding logically self-consistent. There may occasionally be some passages showing this from the side.