Hard-Core! An Academic Genius!

However.

Qin Xin remained cold and distant, completely unaware that she was wasting the handsome young man's dazzling good looks and earnest enthusiasm.

Ao Xinghao said, "Do you know why she's called Little Dragon Girl? Because Ao is a major surname. After all, the ancient Dragon Kings all had the surname Ao..."

This time, Qin Xin finally looked up at him. "You mean the dragon Nezha skinned?"

Ao Xinghao choked. "..."

After a long moment,

he burst out laughing. "Do you know, you're really interesting when you roast people. And you know so many obscure facts."

Qin Xin rolled her eyes inwardly.

Ao Xinghao kept smiling, his handsome eyes curving into crescents. "You probably don't know this, but you don't need to feel insecure. You're fine just the way you are. I make friends based on personality, not looks, and I don't think you're ugly..."

Qin Xin said, "..."

What the hell made this dumb bug think I was insecure???

He didn't think she was ugly? Was he blind?

==

Associate Professor's Office.

Gou Dachun stormed in, fuming. "That scumbag Ao Meng is getting more and more brazen. She actually talked back to me in front of the students..."

He was just about to vent to his colleagues,

but nobody paid him any attention.

They were all crowding around a computer, jostling to view a foreign academic website and discussing it excitedly:

"BMP-16 has been developed! My god, this research is incredible!"

"I heard the lead researcher is from the Empire, and pretty young, too..."

"Hard-core! An academic genius!"

BMP-16?

Why did that sound familiar?

Gou Dachun suddenly remembered. No wonder it sounded familiar. In the anatomy class for Class 2 just now, hadn't he asked that sleepy underachiever where BMP could be extracted from?

That brat had nearly infuriated him by claiming BMP-16 could be extracted from plants.

As if he didn't know the latest drugs worldwide had only reached BMP-12, while domestic laws hadn't yet been relaxed enough to allow anything above the most basic BMP-8 drugs to be imported. The only extraction method involved vertebrates.

"BMP-16? What kind of international joke is this? Anyone capable of developing BMP-16 could win the Nobel Prize in Medicine!" Gou Dachun scoffed.

Several colleagues rolled their eyes. "What are you talking about, Old Gou? We don't have time for you. BMP-16 is a highly pure, highly active bone morphogenetic protein. If the research can one day be applied in clinical practice to treat fractures, broken bones, and disabilities... its potential is limitless!"

"Holy crap, could it make people who can't walk get back on their feet?"

"Of course it could."

"The researcher said in the paper that it requires enough sea urchins and extracts from a specific plant..."

"Who is this researcher? The paper is signed QUEEN? Queen, huh? Pretty bold!"

"Queen? A woman? Could it be one of those eccentric professors at the Royal Academy?"

"Who knows? The whole world is looking for her. I heard her contact information is only available through the International Federation of Red Cross. But you know those people at the Red Society—they're so high and mighty, they'd never reveal a single detail..."

"True. A world-class academic genius like this is a treasure to the whole world. Why would she show herself so easily..."

Listening to his colleagues' exclamations, Gou Dachun's jaw nearly hit the floor.

Sea urchins?

Plants?

A world-class academic genius?

Could it really be such a coincidence? The academic genius's paper described exactly what that underachiever, Lan Qingxin, had said.

Gou Dachun muttered to himself:

"Impossible. Absolutely impossible. That underachiever always ranks last. Forget a world-shaking academic paper—even if she could just pass her final exams..."

"I, Gou Dachun, will write my name backward!"