bayedsolid Chapter 189: Fiercely Competitive
Chapter 189: Fiercely Competitive
He opened his computer and pulled up several monitoring pages.
Among them were a social media trend tracking system and a few public data scraping tools.
He had already asked his assistant to set up keyword alerts. Any content involving "Cao Daqiang," "Liu Yingzi," or "devoted husband" would be automatically flagged.
"No, no, it’s okay! Thanks for your concern, Dad! I can handle this myself. It’s a sure thing!"
Shanshan quickly waved her hands, afraid Ling Anxun would probe for details about her plan. If he found out about the whole scheme, he would definitely flip out on the spot.
She placed her phone face down on the table and let out a long sigh of relief.
That phone call had been more nerve-wracking than any exam.
Just as she had expected, Cao Daqiang’s good reputation was growing by the day.
During meetings at his workplace, his superiors would single him out for praise. The matter of his promotion was also on the agenda.
The HR department started gathering feedback from the masses, and many people voluntarily wrote letters of recommendation for him.
Even colleagues he wasn’t particularly close with praised his strong sense of family responsibility in meetings.
Shanshan recorded all these shifts in public opinion in her notes, sorted and filed by date.
Shanshan wasn’t in a hurry at all. She was just waiting for him to get carried away by his success and fly a little higher.
She checked the public sentiment data daily, monitoring his follower growth curve and the frequency of media reports.
When a major public account published a special feature interview with him, she knew the time was almost ripe.
She deleted several exposés she had prepared in her drafts folder and decided to wait a little longer.
Right at this juncture, her advisor suddenly accepted a new student, who became her junior.
The enrollment process was handled quickly; her file was in the system the very same day.
The advisor sent a notice in the research group chat, asking everyone to help organize some materials to welcome the newcomer.
No one raised any objections, but in private, they were all a little confused.
Although this person was enrolling several years later than their cohort, she was a good deal older than Shanshan.
On her first day, she showed up in a formal suit, carrying a designer bag and wearing a watch on her wrist.
Her tone was composed during her self-introduction. She claimed she had worked out of town for a few years and was now returning to school to further her education.
She spoke respectably, but her eyes kept darting toward the advisor’s face, as if gauging his reaction.
The advisor hadn’t wanted to accept her, but her father was a big shot in the military with powerful connections. He had pulled strings, sending several acquaintances to speak on her behalf.
During the admissions meeting, someone mentioned her lack of academic potential, but they were cut off by other committee members before they could finish.
In the end, the vote was unanimous. The process went unusually smoothly.
After signing the papers, the advisor sat alone for a long time and smoked half a pack of cigarettes.
The professor couldn’t afford to offend him, so he had no choice but to hold his nose and accept her.
One would have thought she would just muddle through her days and wait for graduation.
She’d punch in on time, sit in the back during lectures, fudge her way through labs whenever possible, and put off her thesis for as long as she could.
After all, the advisor didn’t manage her closely, and everyone else was busy with their own projects. No one paid special attention to who was doing more or less work.
As long as she didn’t make any mistakes or cause any trouble, she could just coast through the next two years, grab her diploma, and leave.
But who would have known that not only was she fiercely competitive, she also couldn’t stand seeing girls prettier than her in the spotlight.
From her very first day, her gaze swept over everyone’s faces, and she was especially sensitive to girls who were neatly dressed and carried themselves with a natural grace.
The moment she saw someone get called out for praise by the professor or answer a question fluently in a group meeting, she would immediately tense up, her fingers tapping unconsciously on the desk.
Her tone would gradually turn cold when she spoke, and she would look for any opportunity to interject, not feeling comfortable until she had torn the other person down.
As soon as she entered the lab, she set her sights on Shanshan, finding fault with her at every turn. Xiao Yu would join in, making trouble for her both openly and behind her back.
She’d walk in one morning, see Shanshan organizing the reagent cabinet, and say the items were out of order.
When Shanshan’s handwriting was a bit too neat while taking notes, she would mutter that she was just putting on an act.
Even if Shanshan wore a brightly colored coat, she would roll her eyes and comment, "Clearly her mind isn’t on her studies."
Xiao Yu was always chiming in from the side. The two of them would huddle together, whispering, and occasionally raise their voices so others could hear.
"Shanshan, the professor just announced we have to finish this part of the experiment today."
Her senior walked over, clutching a stack of documents. Her forehead was beaded with sweat; she had clearly been busy all morning.
She panted as she flipped through the folder in her hands, her voice laced with clear anxiety.
This was a last-minute task with a tight deadline. Just preparing the materials would take a significant amount of time.
The senior handed the materials over, and Shanshan casually took them and flipped through.
She glanced down at the data tables, then quickly scanned the procedural instructions.
Her fingers tapped lightly on the edge of the paper twice before she looked up and smiled.
Sunlight streamed in from the window, tracing the contour of her profile and making her expression seem exceptionally relaxed.
"Oh, I already finished this up this morning. You can just hand it in."
She pulled open a drawer, took out a printed report, and handed it over. The pages were all there, and the charts were clear.
The data for each stage was annotated, outliers were noted, and it fully met the submission standards.
Xiao Wang, who was nearby, peeked over and couldn’t help but let out a soft sigh. "Isn’t that a little too fast?"
"Oh my god, Shanshan, are you a reincarnated savior? I was about to be crushed!"
The senior’s hands were trembling as she took the documents. She practically threw herself at Shanshan and hugged her shoulders.
She had been juggling two projects recently, was severely sleep-deprived, and was on the verge of a complete breakdown.
Having someone suddenly take such a heavy burden off her shoulders felt like being pulled out of a swamp.
Looking at the data Shanshan had given her, the senior was so excited she almost picked her up and spun her around.
Her laughter rang through the entire lab, causing a few people to look up.
Shanshan stumbled slightly from the force of the hug but managed to steady herself with a smile, gently patting her senior’s back.
Seeing this, the others also gathered around to ask what was going on. After learning the whole story, they all gave her a thumbs-up.
It turned out that Shanshan hadn’t just done her own work; she had taken care of her senior’s share as well.
She had anticipated a possible urgent task the night before and had run through the relevant parts in advance.
She had arrived at the lab before 7 a.m. to boot up and calibrate the equipment. By the time everyone else arrived, she had already run the key procedures three times.
She had saved three backup copies of the data and printed out a hard copy, ready to be handed over at any moment.
It wasn’t that the senior couldn’t learn it; it was just that that part was too much effort, so she put it off as long as she could.
The senior had been stuck on a parameter adjustment step, failing the validation test five times in a row.
Each reconfiguration took nearly two hours, and she had to repeatedly recalibrate the instrument’s status.
The more anxious she got, the more prone she was to making mistakes with her hands. In the end, she didn’t even dare to try anymore, just hoping someone would take over.
Now that she had a huge chunk of time freed up for her own work, it felt like a pie had fallen from the sky.
She could immediately get back to building her core model and would have the confidence to report her progress at next week’s group meeting.
Plus, she now owed Shanshan a favor, which would make it more natural to ask for help if she ran into difficulties in the future.
She took Shanshan’s hands and shook them again and again, her face filled with an unconcealable gratitude.
Yuan Zhihe stood to the side, watching them talk and laugh. She let out a heavy snort.
She had been sitting near the door, holding a pen and pretending to take notes, but in reality, she had been eavesdropping on their conversation the whole time.
Hearing Shanshan so casually mention that she had solved the problem made her chest tighten with frustration.