Nature

After Chen Yuanguang returned to Jiang City University from Shu City, he was practically draped in glory. He first sought out his academic advisor, showed him Michael Levitt's letter of recommendation, then said that he wanted to collaborate with Levitt on a paper for Nature and needed to use the School of Biology's laboratory.

With his Science Fiction New Star Competition gold medal as proof, along with a recommendation letter personally signed by Levitt, the matter was highly credible. Besides, the laboratory Chen Yuanguang wanted was nothing unusual to Jiang City University. Forget publishing in the main journal Nature—even publishing in a Nature subsidiary journal would be an incredibly profitable deal for them.

The advisor quickly went to see the dean, then helped Chen Yuanguang arrange access to a laboratory.

Once it had been arranged, the advisor surnamed Liu sighed with emotion. "Yuanguang, you really are full of surprises.

"You were doing so well writing novels. Why did you suddenly decide to go abroad?"

With Levitt's recommendation letter, the world was his oyster. He could originally only have applied to universities ranked around the US top fifty, but now he could apply to schools within the US top twenty.

If he published in Nature, he could take his pick from the top ten universities.

"Director Liu, I still want to go out and see the world." Chen Yuanguang said after taking the key from his advisor.

Advisor Liu suddenly understood. "Is it because of Lin Jia? Never thought you were such a devoted romantic."

Chen Yuanguang did not explain further. "Director Liu, just wait for my good news."

The computational simulation of directed protein evolution was not a difficult experiment. For Chen Yuanguang, whose theoretical knowledge was already maxed out, it took roughly two weeks to transform a nonfunctional short peptide into a peptide segment capable of binding nucleic acids.

That result was already enough to prove the feasibility of the simulation method he had designed.

After he sent the experimental results to Levitt, Levitt's team replicated the experiment even faster. They replied within a week, telling him to combine the two sets of results, and the paper would be ready for publication.

With Levitt backing it, the review was completed in two weeks, and it was published in the main journal Nature before November.

For any university in China, publishing in Nature was news worthy of the top spot on its official website, especially when it was a Nature paper published by an undergraduate.

Moreover, both the first author and corresponding author of the paper were Chen Yuanguang. Levitt was merely listed as a coauthor.

"Historic first! A current Jiang City University undergraduate publishes a Nature paper as first author, independently completing over ninety percent of the work."

"Nature published an Article on Chen Yuanguang of Jiang City University's Chemistry and Molecular Sciences School, concerning a new method for the simulated directed evolution of proteins.

"The paper's first affiliated institution was Jiang City University. Its first author was Chen Yuanguang, a 2015 undergraduate student at Jiang City University's Chemistry and Molecular Sciences School, while Stanford Nobel Prize winner Michael Levitt was the paper's second author."

After the Nature paper was published, Jiang City University's official website quickly released the news, while its WeChat official account and Weibo promoted it heavily.

For Jiang City University, this was a perfect opportunity to beat Jiang City University of Science and Technology in this year's admissions campaign. Our undergraduates win science fiction awards and publish Nature papers, developing in every aspect—morality, intellect, fitness, aesthetics, and labor. Do you have undergraduates this well cultivated?

The rivalry between Luojia Mountain and Yu Family Mountain had existed for a long time. Their admission scores were similar, both were located in Jiang City, and each had its own strengths and weaknesses. Even being collectively called Hua-Wu could not erase their habit of comparing themselves with one another.

"This year, the Chemistry School's admission cutoff should rise by at least five points." The director of the Academic Administration Office in charge of admissions joked.

Advisor Liu said, "Five points? At least ten! When we lead teams to high schools for recruitment this year, we can keep bringing up Chen Yuanguang's case."

The office director said, "The disadvantage of biology, chemistry, environmental science, and materials science has existed for a long time. Chemistry has poor employment prospects, so many parents are skeptical of it. If Chen Yuanguang were a student of the School of Biology, even five points would be impossible.

"People are very realistic these days. Majors that are hard to find jobs in simply cannot command a higher price.

"If we were a computer science department, I'd believe we could raise the cutoff by ten points too."

Advisor Liu said, "That's true."

The office director continued, "I'd heard of Chen Yuanguang before, but I never expected him to build up quietly and then launch such a huge satellite for us right before graduating in his senior year.

"The dean of the School of Biology and the university's deputy Party secretary have both come looking for me. The School of Biology is too shameless! They asked whether we could say Chen Yuanguang was jointly trained by the Chemistry School and the School of Biology, since the paper falls at the intersection of structural biology and computational biology.

"We finally get such a prized asset, and they want to take half of him away.

"The university's deputy Party secretary asked whether it might be possible to keep Chen Yuanguang here for graduate school and have him join Boss Deng's team.

"We could guarantee that after he completed his PhD, he could stay on as an assistant professor with a guaranteed permanent position. Sound him out later. If he isn't willing, forget it. We won't be the bad guys; just mention it once."

The office director saw things clearly. With a Nobel Prize winner's recommendation letter and a first-author Nature paper in hand, Chen Yuanguang could easily apply for a direct PhD program at any top overseas university. If he produced even a few results abroad, returning as a Young Thousand Talents Plan recruit would be easy.

Therefore, Jiang City University's promises held absolutely no appeal for Chen Yuanguang. The school would not bother trying to persuade him, and the office director wanted to preserve this connection so that Chen Yuanguang might return to teach at the Chemistry School after earning his PhD.

The advisor surnamed Liu repeatedly agreed, then forwarded the news of Chen Yuanguang's Nature publication to every student group chat in the Chemistry School.

"@Everyone, senior Chen Yuanguang has published in Nature as first author. Everyone should learn from him and strive to produce research results before graduating as undergraduates." This was sent to first-, second-, and third-year students.

"@Everyone, Chen Yuanguang has published in Nature. Anyone who wants to publish in Nature can ask him privately for advice." This was sent to fourth-year students, graduate students, and doctoral students.

The younger students who saw the news were fine. They were all at that hot-blooded age, and grand ambitions rose in their hearts. They knew publishing in Nature was difficult, but surely they could publish in a domestic journal.

But students in their fourth year and above felt a surge of disbelief when they saw it.

"Director Liu, stop kidding. If I could publish in Nature, pigs would climb trees."

"God of Light is finally showing his power—winning the Science Fiction New Star Award and publishing in Nature."

"God of Light is too awesome."

"God of Light is too awesome."

Chen Yuanguang's former roommate sent a meme made from Chen Yuanguang's photo into the group chat. It read, "God of Light is too awesome." Everyone then began copying it in sequence, filling the chat with the exact same meme.

Chen Yuanguang glanced at the group chat and secretly felt delighted. Publishing in Nature had not stirred much emotion in him, but seeing the classmates he had spent four years with praising him like this still made him very happy.

When they had first arrived as freshmen, everyone called one another gods. As time passed, they began to realize they were all ordinary people, and gradually stopped using such titles.

Usually, everyone simply called him Yuanguang. After he won the Science Fiction New Star Award, his nickname at school had become Great Writer. Now, it had directly upgraded to God of Light.

When Chen Yuanguang won the Science Fiction New Star Competition, people had not felt it so deeply, because too few people walked that path. No one aimed to become a writer, let alone a writer in the niche field of science fiction.

Before midnight, there were still