I Agree

Jinling University called an emergency meeting, chaired by Principal Xu himself. The leaders of the Software Institute were required to attend.

Several professors had been in their labs, only to be summoned by phone.

The meeting had one simple purpose: to discuss an article causing an uproar on Weibo—"A Look at Academic Culture on Hua Nation's Campuses: Starting with an Undergraduate's Papers."

The article claimed that an undergraduate had published nine computer science papers in SCI journals within a month. Using that as its starting point, it criticized the academic culture at Hua Nation's universities and the lax review standards of a certain journal. It also named Jin University as the student's school.

It had put Jin University squarely in the firing line.

An elderly professor from the Software Institute adjusted his glasses, stood, and said evenly, "...I've read those nine papers. They're actually quite good. It's genuinely difficult for an undergraduate to write papers like that. Calling them filler is a stretch; plenty of submissions to computer science journals are worse. That Zhu Fangcai... education commentator may not understand information technology at all. Perhaps if we speak to him and point out his mistakes, we can get him to delete the post."

Since when did publishing too many papers become a problem?

Many professors were thoroughly confused. The whole meeting seemed absurd!

"That won't work... Does Zhu Fangcai really not know how little he understands? Look at his titles: education commentator, popular science writer. Does either sound like someone we can reason with?" The secretary at the conference table shook his head. "He's clearly here to stir up trouble. Why would he negotiate with you?"

It really was a difficult situation.

The student had done nothing wrong, and there was no way the university could discipline him. Yet public opinion had turned into a one-sided condemnation.

The whole affair was almost laughable: an outsider using his social standing to pass judgment on something he knew nothing about.

As for his motives, the university leaders couldn't quite make sense of them.

At least this hadn't happened a month earlier, when students were choosing their universities. Everyone in the room would have been cursing up a storm.

Whatever the case, the university's reputation had already suffered serious damage!

Principal Xu looked grim. After roughly half a minute of silence, he said slowly, "The issue now isn't whether the papers are good. People from all walks of life are questioning our university's academic culture. Our first priority is to answer those questions and clear things up publicly. We also need to find out exactly what happened!"

After an afternoon of discussion, the meeting arrived at two decisions.

First, to protect the university's reputation, it would address the public reaction to the blog post: issue a statement clarifying the papers' academic value and send a lawyer's letter demanding an apology. Second, the department heads were to find the undergraduate surnamed Lu and ask him what had happened.

Nine SCI papers in a month—one more and it would have been double digits. It did sound fantastical. The Software Institute professors present had published their share of filler papers; they knew how much weight a computer science paper carried. But none of them had ever gone this far!

What the university leaders didn't yet know was that Lu Zhou really had published ten. The other one just wasn't in computer science. It was in Mathematics...

Weibo, comments section.

[Holy shit, an undergraduate published nine SCI papers? Who's he kidding? Are they that easy to publish?]

[...Feels like I could do that too. (doge)]

[Support Teacher Zhu! Crack down on academic rot! Put an end to this unhealthy trend! (fist)(fist)]

[As an international student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I can say this would never happen in the United States. No need to think twice: the author must have exploited the sham review process at some domestic journals...]

[How sad. What sort of students are our universities producing? What use are researchers who only write papers? Can papers become atomic bombs? Even an undergraduate can churn out this many! It shows just how sick our country's academic world has become...]

[Those defending him can save it. Try writing nine papers in a month yourself. If you can't, stop running your mouth.]

What the fuck was this garbage?

Wasn't there a single comment from someone with a functioning brain on my side?

Twenty thousand reposts, ten thousand comments, and countless likes!

Sitting in an empty classroom and scrolling through Weibo, Lu Zhou grew angrier with every post, but he had no good way to respond.

People didn't really care what the truth was. They only wanted to see what they already wanted to believe.

An authority figure brought down, a "product of exam-oriented education" exposed, some hidden genius among the masses, the "hypocrisy" of academia unmasked... As for whether the papers were really as worthless as Zhu claimed, how many people would look at them with their own eyes?

None.

Lu Zhou had even registered a Weibo account specifically to argue with the trolls. But his comments, despite coming from the person at the center of it all, vanished without a trace. Not one person even liked them.

Perhaps that was the tragedy of being a nobody on Weibo...

After telling himself a few times to stay calm, Lu Zhou shut off his phone screen and ran a hand through his hair.

He had thought he'd chosen the easiest task. He hadn't expected such a huge pitfall hidden inside it.

Really, he had been careless. If he'd published the papers under a pen name, no one would have noticed. But it was too late for regrets now.

Just then, his phone rang.

He picked it up and saw that Old Tang was calling.

Lu Zhou's expression turned odd. He couldn't think why Old Tang would be looking for him. Could it be about the papers?

Surely not?

Uncertain, Lu Zhou answered.

"Hello?"

"Lu Zhou, what are you up to?"

Old Tang sounded fairly calm. Lu Zhou steadied himself. "Studying in a classroom... Is something up?"

Tang paused, then said, "Come by my office if you can."

"Now?"

"Yes. Right now."

Lu Zhou packed his things, slung his computer and books over his shoulder, and went straight to Tang's office.

When he walked in, he found Director Lu of the Applied Mathematics Department and Zhang of the Computer Science Department there as well.

The three professors smiled at Lu Zhou as he entered, then exchanged subtly uneasy looks. After a brief, silent consultation, Tang sighed and got straight to the point. "Lu Zhou, I need to ask you something."

"Go ahead, Professor," Lu Zhou said.

Tang asked, "A while back... after you published that Mathematics paper, did you submit anything to an SCI journal?"

Knowing there was probably no hiding it, Lu Zhou sighed inwardly and answered honestly. "Yes."

Zhang looked at Director Lu and said helplessly, "Just as I thought... The moment I heard the surname Lu, I started thinking there weren't many students named Lu in our department. I asked every one of them. Forget writing a paper—they didn't even know how to submit one."

Tang grew anxious and pressed him again. "It was a Mathematics paper you published, right?"

"Yes..." Lu Zhou nodded, then added quietly, "I published some other papers too... on Artificial Intelligence and Geographic Information Systems."

Tang's eyes nearly popped out. "You... why did you go and publish computer science papers too? Weren't you researching Mersenne primes just a few days ago?"

"I found out that journal pays for submissions. One paper earns 150," Lu Zhou said softly, glancing at Tang in embarrassment. "So I split what I'd researched into nine parts, wrote them up as papers, and submitted them... Was that not okay?"

Tang: "..."

Director Lu: "..."

Zhang: "..."

Was there a problem?

Of course not. The university encouraged students to publish papers. Publishing them for the submission fees sounded strange, but it wasn't a bad thing...

Except somehow, this time, it had become a problem.

An awkward silence settled over the office. Finally, Director Lu cleared his throat and said in a friendly tone, "Well... Lu Zhou, did you write those papers yourself?"

"Of course." Lu Zhou nodded. "I wrote them in the library."

That much was true. Obtaining the papers from the system hadn't been enough. If he couldn't understand the concepts in them, he couldn't have written them up at all; at most, he could have copied down the algorithms.

To finish those papers, he had read over a hundred research articles, not to mention the specialist books.

So they could check the security footage or quiz him on Artificial Intelligence and GIS systems right there. He could answer without missing a beat.

Of course, if they asked questions beyond that scope, such as applications of Artificial Intelligence in other fields, he might be in trouble. But with the system, he could redeem the necessary knowledge with points on the spot. It would just cost him a little...

Now Director Lu didn't know what to say either. In the end, Zhang of the Software Institute stepped in with a smile. "Director Lu didn't mean anything by that. We simply didn't expect you to have such a strong grasp of information technology as well as Mathematics. I've seen your C language grade. Ninety-five is excellent, and of course we believe you wrote the papers yourself... But some people don't, and they're using this to stir up trouble. Have you been on Weibo?"

Most Artificial Intelligence programs were written in C++, but a C language exam grade had no direct connection to Artificial Intelligence. Apart from the basics of using C++, their teachers didn't cover anything advanced.

On the other hand, someone capable of writing papers like those was unlikely to struggle with something as basic as a C language exam. A score of ninety-five met Zhang's expectations.

"Are you talking about that article?" Lu Zhou asked.

"Yes." Zhang met Lu Zhou's eyes and nodded. "You've seen it already?"

"I have." Though he was furious inside, he had to maintain his composure in front of others. Lu Zhou waved a hand dismissively. "It's just one baseless smear after another. I can't be bothered to stoop to his level."

Even as he said it, he wanted nothing more than to cut the man down.

"Lu Zhou, I must correct you on one point," Director Lu said sternly. "You are not just acting for yourself. You are a student of this university, and you represent its reputation! We will not tolerate academic misconduct, nor will we allow anyone to maliciously smear our students. I hope you'll take this incident seriously."

"But Director Lu, what can I do? I sent him a private message and he ignored me," Lu Zhou said helplessly.

"Director Lu only means that you shouldn't be so passive," Zhang said in a gentler tone. "The university will respond publicly. We just hope you'll work with us and speak up for yourself—and for the university—when the time is right. Can you do that?"

So they were going to stand up for me...

Why didn't they say so sooner?

Lu Zhou breathed a sigh of relief and nodded.

"I agree!"