Yan Xiao finally caught the flaw in Lin Fangxin's words.
He told Lin Fangxin in a very deadpan manner that his ideal in life was to lie down and count money,
while his second-tier ideal was to play every game available or eat his way through all the takeout in the world.
As for things like studying hard and working hard, he felt it was better to let nature take its course.
The two of them finished eating around eight o'clock in the evening and went their separate ways home.
Meanwhile, Zhao Xiaolei, a judge for the National Agricultural Science Essay Competition, had just finished dinner and was preparing to continue reading the papers collected for this event.
This competition took place every two years.
From the initial blooming of a hundred flowers and contending of a hundred schools of thought,
to nowadays, it had basically become rather mediocre.
The main reason was that the pace of technological development had slowed down, leaving not nearly as many new things to be invented or discovered.
After three consecutive days of reading, Zhao Xiaolei was actually very disappointed with the quality of the essays this time.
Yet, no matter how disappointed he was,
he still had to read through what was assigned,
because he could not simply leave the awards vacant.
Zhao Xiaolei brewed himself a cup of tea, sat down at his computer desk, and turned on the computer to start reading the papers.
One paper, two papers, three, four papers,
five, six, seven, eight papers,
every single one of them was mediocre.
They were all rehashed leftovers, and some papers by self-taught folk scientists did not even qualify as rehashed leftovers.
To evaluate from a professional standpoint, Zhao Xiaolei felt that they were merely taking mistakes from decades ago and bringing them up again as brand-new discoveries.
Patience wearing thin, Zhao Xiaolei finally clicked on the paper written by Yan Xiao and Lin Fangxin.
Research and Preliminary Exploration of Insect Phototaxis? That title actually sounds quite interesting. I wonder whose leftovers they are rehashing this time.
When his gaze caught the author's affiliation written in the email, Zhao Xiaolei knew this paper was likely a "combined punch."
A so-called combined punch meant synthesizing and summarizing various research results to put forward some viewpoints.
Of course, typically with such papers, even if you got an expert to write them, they still wouldn't contain any originality.
Zhao Xiaolei clicked on the attachment,
and began to read.
He thought this submission would take up at most three minutes of his time,
but when he read the abstract of the paper, he was immediately startled by its contents.
What? Experiments have proven that placing Black Lights in farmland can increase the efficiency of electric grid pest control by nearly thirty times? Are you kidding me?
harboring doubts, Zhao Xiaolei continued reading.
He had to admit that unless the paper was spouting sheer nonsense,
then this truly was a good paper.
It not only detailed the experimental environment but also provided four hypotheses that made sense logically.
However, the problem lay in the fact that you couldn't just fabricate a "Black Light" capable of attracting bugs purely to prove these four hypotheses.
Zhao Xiaolei was quite familiar with ultraviolet lamps.
That was because they were used in certain agricultural laboratories.
Changing the frequency to make the light's wavelength turn into 330nm-400nm could cause large-scale attraction to insects? Are you playing with me?
Wasn't that the stuff used in medical treatments for "lupus erythematosus"?
Although he didn't believe it in his heart, Zhao Xiaolei still patiently finished reading the paper.
Shaking his head, he closed Word, and just as he was about to toss the email into the "draft trash folder," he noticed two videos were also attached to the email.
On an inexplicable impulse, Zhao Xiaolei clicked download.
The video file was huge,
and the download was very slow.
Zhao Xiaolei thought about it, and while he left the download running, he still moved the paper written by Yan Xiao and Lin Fangxin into the "draft trash folder."
Then he went back to reading other papers.
One paper after another, Zhao Xiaolei read all the way until one o'clock in the morning,
finishing roughly a hundred papers.
The result remained just as he had imagined from the very beginning: not a single one was capable.
Sigh, if things go on like this, we won't even need to hold this essay event anymore in a few sessions. Zhao Xiaolei sighed.
Just as he was about to shut down the computer, the download software popped up a notification that the download was complete.
Huh? What on earth did I download?
Subconsciously, Zhao Xiaolei clicked play.
Then, he heard a tense piece of music and the sound of "electric sparks."
This was the footage Lin Fangxin had recorded in the car.
Zhao Xiaolei frowned and moved to close it with an X.
Suddenly, the screen changed to daylight, and Lin Fangxin appeared. "Respected judges and teachers, this is the experimental footage we filmed. The imagery you just saw was recorded on the night of our experiment: 'footage of bugs being electrocuted by the electric grid.'
We originally wanted to record the footage from several experimental sites, but the other lighting wasn't very cooperative.
To avoid redundancy, I am only showing five seconds of operation from the 'Black Light high-pressure insect-killing network'."
Zhao Xiaolei followed the video and continued watching.
"Now, let me take everyone to look at our extermination results from last night. To give everyone a more intuitive feel for the function of the 'Black Light high-pressure insect-killing network,' let's look at this first."
As she spoke, the screen shifted to the dense piles of bug corpses on the ground.
"What?!" Zhao Xiaolei cried out.
His eyes widened in shock. The ground was densely covered in insects, the majority of which were scorched black by electricity.
At that moment, the scene shifted again, returning to Lin Fangxin.
"Respected teachers, you must have already seen the results. From 8:37 PM to 5:37 AM, over a total of nine hours, the 'Black Light high-pressure insect-killing network' killed a total of 11.62 kilograms of insects.
The specific data has been written into the paper by myself and the primary author."
The video filmed by Lin Fangxin continued.
The latter portion showed the biomass of insects exterminated by other lights,
and there was simply no comparison.
Zhao Xiaolei was practically going crazy at this point!
A major discovery!
If the results of this experimental data were real, then this was the single greatest discovery in agricultural science and technology in recent years!
Trembling with excitement, Zhao Xiaolei hurriedly opened the "draft trash folder."
He rummaged through it frantically.
Due to his excessive excitement, he accidentally clicked and opened several other manuscripts by mistake.
After a great deal of effort, Zhao Xiaolei finally hauled the paper back out of the "draft trash folder."
If his first reading of the paper written by Yan Xiao and Lin Fangxin had been filled with total disbelief,
then his second reading had shifted to a state of lingering skepticism, yet coupled with a growing sense of recognition.
Of course, as a judge, Zhao Xiaolei still needed to conduct further verification of the paper.
That was a matter for later, however, and it did not affect his preliminary evaluation of the essay.
Read.
Read it word by word.
Whenever he read certain sections, corresponding images would flash through Zhao Xiaolei's mind.
After reading it through three whole times,
the more he read, the more he felt that if this paper was true, the grand prize would undoubtedly belong to it.
Furthermore, it wouldn't just be for this award.
This invention and discovery was already worthy of winning a major prize at the "Agricultural Science Annual Conference" at the end of the year!
With his mouth dry and throat parched, Zhao Xiaolei reached for the water cup by his side, only to find that the water was completely gone.
He wanted to stand up,
only to discover that because he had maintained a single posture for too long, his lower back was aching fiercely.
Looks like I need to change positions more often. I really am getting old.
Thinking this to himself, Zhao Xiaolei supported his aching waist with one hand and slowly stood up.
Instead of pouring water, he picked up the phone on his desk and dialed a number.
The call was placed to the conference chairman.
Such joyful news absolutely had to be shared at the very first moment!
Even though,
it was currently three-thirty in the morning...
Before you continue