The first tactic was isolation.
No one was willing to talk to Jiang Fuyue.
Although it had been like this before as well, people hadn’t resisted work-related communication. Now, however, even professional communication was gone.
The summary meeting held once every three days, the experience-sharing session held once every five days, everyone acted as if they had forgotten there was such a person as Jiang Fuyue. They didn’t even bother to inform her.
Clearly in the same experimental zone, she was nevertheless isolated outside the space.
Xin Hongcheng snorted coldly. “Humans are social animals. One or two days is still bearable, but long-term silence and lack of communication, I don’t believe she can keep holding on!”
If this caused her mentality to collapse and made the attenuated live vaccine project fall through…
That wouldn’t be their fault. It would only mean Jiang Fuyue’s endurance was too low.
Swept along by the general trend, Xu Kuan was also forced into silence.
Among these people, he was considered bold, hot-tempered, and the least afraid of trouble. He dared to snap back at Xin Hongcheng, to sarcastically mock Dan Pinghua, and he hadn’t had only a few confrontations with team leader Bai Chuanhao either. But in the current situation, where everyone had unified their firepower outward and jointly isolated Jiang Fuyue, he absolutely could not sing a different tune.
Otherwise, the next one to be isolated would be him!
So how did Jiang Fuyue react to all this? Everyone secretly expected her to soften.
However, as time passed, no reaction was her reaction.
They didn’t call her to summaries or experience-sharing sessions, and she didn’t go.
Everyone didn’t talk to her, and she didn’t speak either.
She accepted all the isolation and targeting as they came, no anger, no complaints, no concern.
Every time Xin Hongcheng saw that overly calm face, he clenched his teeth in fury.
But in the end, aside from his own toothache, Jiang Fuyue didn’t lose a single hair.
“Is she a monster or something?”
“If no one talked to me for two days, I’d probably die. It’s been a whole week, how is she still acting like nothing’s wrong?”
“A loner? Autistic? Born socially anxious?”
“Her state makes me feel like I’m the clown.”
“……”
Under such discussions, Jiang Fuyue remained exactly the same as ever.
Every day followed a straight line between three points: laboratory, cafeteria, dormitory.
She could work continuously from eight in the morning until ten at night. Apart from eating, drinking water, and going to the restroom, all other time was devoted to research, completely focused, without distraction.
Originally, this was meant to let Jiang Fuyue know what would happen if she acted special and offended everyone. Yet the result was that she didn’t budge in the slightest, while they themselves couldn’t sit still anymore.
Finally, someone couldn’t help but go ask her, “Jiang Fuyue, haven’t you noticed that something around you is different?”
She first showed a puzzled look, because she didn’t recognize the person in front of her.
Then she became even more puzzled, because of the other party’s nonsensical question.
“What’s different?”
“Well, the atmosphere around you, and also…” everyone’s attitude toward you.
Atmosphere?
Jiang Fuyue thought for two seconds. “Recently everyone’s been quite quiet, no idle chatter, no gossip, no joking around, focusing on work. The entire experimental zone isn’t as smoky and chaotic as before.”
That person: “?”
“Please keep it up.” Jiang Fuyue nodded, offering her affirmation.
“……”
So their “joint isolation” had become “keeping quiet” in Jiang Fuyue’s eyes?
D*mn it!
So infuriating!
……
After learning that “isolation” didn’t work, everyone stopped insisting on it.
They switched to behavioral targeting.
Specifically, whenever Jiang Fuyue needed to use equipment, someone would always seize it first.
Although Kaza had provided her with dedicated instruments, those were highly specialized analyzers.
As for routine equipment, it was all shared, such as microplate readers, chromatographs, mass spectrometers, spectrometers, coupled instruments, conductivity meters, PCR machines, and so on.
At first, Jiang Fuyue didn’t notice, because the first phase didn’t require much instrument use.
Later on, a few times when she needed equipment, people came to compete with her for it. That was when she noticed.
But she only left behind a single sentence, “Boring.”, and then turned and walked away.
Leaving the other person red-faced.
Honestly speaking, even he himself felt it was pretty boring.
It happened two or three more times afterward. Each time it was a different person, some stammered and couldn’t get their words out, some were awkward and at a loss.
Of course, there were also those self-righteous idiots who wanted to use this to strike at her and thereby vent their resentment, such as Xin Hongcheng.
Jiang Fuyue lifted her eyes coldly. “If I were you, having traveled a long distance to F Continent, carrying on your shoulders the heavy responsibility of international aid, with the halo of the Huaxia team over your head, yet instead of doing your job properly, wasting time here on scheming and excluding others, I’d rather dig a hole, face down, and bury myself. Because, ”
“You are unworthy of the motherland, unworthy of the people, and even more unworthy of sacred scientific research!”
Xin Hongcheng froze on the spot, unable to react for a long time.
“Professor Xin? Professor Xin?!” someone called him.
“……Ah?”
“What’s wrong with you? Are you okay? Your face is so pale…”
After that incident, no one ever came to cause trouble again when Jiang Fuyue needed equipment.
That sentence, unworthy of the motherland, unworthy of the people, and even more unworthy of sacred scientific research, pierced not only Xin Hongcheng, but others as well.
Two rounds of targeting, both ending in failure.
Whether the blow was too heavy for them to recover, or whether Jiang Fuyue’s words truly had an effect, in any case, everyone quieted down.
And Jiang Fuyue finally had some peace.
……
In the blink of an eye, it was mid-February. On the twentieth day after Jiang Fuyue arrived in F Continent, a Feasibility Report on the Research of an Attenuated Live Vaccine for the Schankwo Virus appeared on the discussion table of the high-level leadership of both the Soviet and Huaxia sides.
Two days later, Jiang Fuyue was officially approved to conduct research on the attenuated live vaccine. Both the Soviet and Huaxia sides would fully support and cooperate.
When the news spread, everyone was shocked,
“It, passed?”
Dan Pinghua’s expression froze.
Bai Chuanhao couldn’t help but be astonished as well.
He hadn’t read Jiang Fuyue’s feasibility report, nor had he heard her talk about her specific ideas. He could only imagine how she had, in less than half a month, relying solely on herself, secured a complete project.
If the same thing were done by his team, it would take at least two months, and whether it would get approved in the end was still uncertain.
Xu Kuan said, “She really is a monster. Too terrifying…”
“Now I finally know why Jiang Fuyue didn’t bother with us.”
“Why?”
“People with real confidence never bother with fighting, because winning has already become a habit.”
As soon as these words came out, silence spread.
Xin Hongcheng gave a dry laugh. “It’s just approval to establish the project. Whether she can actually research anything out of it is still uncertain…”
Yet no matter how one listened, there was a hint of lacking confidence in his tone.
……
That afternoon, Jiang Fuyue was summoned to the office for a confidential talk.
High-level representatives from both China and the Soviet side were present. The intelligence bureau, security bureau, health department, and research teams were all in attendance.
The room was subjected to multiple counter-espionage and anti-eavesdropping sweeps inside and out, ensuring the absolute confidentiality of this talk.
The entire process was recorded, and afterward sealed and archived by dedicated personnel.
Here, Jiang Fuyue saw for the second time the legendary “head of the Huaxia Chief Think Tank,” Dr. X.
A silver mask covered the man’s entire face, reflecting a cold texture under the lights. Only a pair of black eyes, as deep and vast as the night sky, were exposed.
It was him!
A year ago, at the Kedi Auction Company, Jiang Fuyue attended the auction as the head of the Yufeng Group and seized the red chalcedony from Lou Mingxin.
At that time, this Dr. X was in the neighboring private room.
After she won the red chalcedony, she discovered that Lou Mingxin wanted to play dirty. She simply went along with it and turned the tables on her.
Everything had gone smoothly, until just as Jiang Fuyue was about to get away, she was suddenly entangled by a man wearing a silver mask.
The two fought fiercely, and in the end she escaped by sheer luck.
Back then, Jiang Fuyue hadn’t connected the masked man with the one in the private room, the “Dr. X,” whose background was deep and whose origins were anything but small.
Now, taking another look, everything instantly became clear.
The masked man was X! That weirdo who had inexplicably fought with her!
Heh…
You’ve been exposed, you know that? Little brat!
Jiang Fuyue wasn’t worried about being recognized by him. She had been wearing a layer of human-skin mask back then; even her facial features were different. If he could recognize her, that would be truly strange!
Dr. X, namely, Xie Dingyuan, sat quietly in his chair, watching with leisurely composure as the girl’s eyes darted around and her expressions shifted. He knew she must be mocking him for not recognizing her.
Little did she know that as early as their laboratory accident, when he had seen her completely naked, he had already noticed that the positions of the injuries on her body perfectly matched the places where the person who fought him had been injured.
After checking further, sure enough, she hadn’t been in Linhuai during those two days, she had gone to Yue Province.
So the one who had exposed their identity first was her!
But now it seemed she didn’t know that, and was secretly laughing at him for being exposed.
Xie Dingyuan lightly tapped his finger against his leg. Beneath the mask, the corners of his mouth curved upward.
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