True and the False Daughter 15
The Hua Country Science & Technology Prize is awarded once every three years, and since its inception, it has strictly upheld the principle of “better to leave the award vacant than award it indiscriminately,” which makes the prize highly prestigious.
This year, there were originally only two professors set to receive the award for their outstanding achievements in chips and wind energy, when Qin Jingzhou’s “Intelligence Potion Hat-Trick” burst onto the scene. The Elders and a group of senior academicians held a special meeting and unanimously decided to add him to the list.
Because his selection was a special addition, it wasn’t seen as taking anyone else’s spot, so there were no grievances whatsoever.
After returning from the meeting, Academician Qin came to tell him, “All of us old folks really owe you one… the decision passed with unanimous votes.”
Qin Jingzhou grinned and replied, “I’m actually terrified… if I end up in another coma, Teacher, you can use this potion to wake me up.”
Academician Qin immediately grew serious. “Still no leads?”
Qin Jingzhou told him, “I have some suspicions, but no proof.”
After his awakening, he’d declared: he had fallen victim to an unknown neurotoxin, which is why, even after acquiring a rough recipe for the intelligence potion himself, he remained in a coma for nearly two years like a vegetable.
Having personally tested the effects of the intelligence potion, Academician Qin and the others couldn’t possibly dismiss his words. Unfortunately, those in charge assembled an elite team to investigate the case, but after half a year, still hadn’t turned up any clues.
Academician Qin pressed further, “Tell me more?”
Qin Jingzhou shook his head. “Let me keep this in suspense for now. You’ll see eventually.”
He wasn’t anxious in the slightest and kept emphasizing the existence of this unprecedented neurotoxin as foreshadowing: in the future, once everyone is drinking potions as casually as tea and their intelligence stats break through 25 points, when they encounter Jin Li, seeing is believing—they’ll understand.
After chatting with Academician Qin for a while, the old man hurried off. With the year-end approaching, one summary meeting followed another. Plus, as the researchers personally trained by Qin Jingzhou were maturing and the quality of the intelligence potion was now stable, annual production estimates ranged from 800 to 1000 bottles. The Elders and the “lead” academicians from each field also had to sketch out preliminary distribution plans for the next year before year’s end.
Qin Jingzhou saw Academician Qin out, then returned to the lab and said to his students, whose eyes were bright and lips curled up, “Tidy up. Tonight’s on me, let's have a proper meal together.”
Amid cheers, he asked Gao Wen to book the whole place.
Gao Wen, for once, was beaming. “Boss, what's our per person budget?”
Qin Jingzhou said, “Around two thousand per person. Count yourself and Xiao Zhang’s team too.”
The cheers grew even louder.
Qin Jingzhou glanced over this group of young people. “If you all can keep up this performance, I have no plans to take on new grad students next fall.”
The students widened their eyes, while the more excitable ones jumped with joy on the spot, spinning around just like He Chunxi.
There were eight students and four researchers in the lab, all assigned by the higher-ups half a year ago.
The four young researchers had already made up their minds to stay with Qin Jingzhou for their postdoc work.
And among the eight students, four were PhD candidates and four master’s students. All of them were willing to abandon the theses they’d half-finished elsewhere and start over as grad students under Professor He, as long as he would give them the chance.
Now that the opportunity had come, of course they were astonished and delighted.
He Chunxi tugged at her father’s hand. “Dad, can I bring Shang Xi?”
Qin Jingzhou laughed. “Does your dad look stingy enough to deny him a meal?”
He Chunxi hugged his arm, grabbed her phone with one hand, and sent a voice message to Shang Xi.
After class, Shang Xi sped over on a shared bike, hands full with a big bag of drinks and fruit. “Congratulations, Uncle He!”
At least half the drinks and fruit were He Chunxi’s favorites.
Although Qin Jingzhou had reservations about his daughter forgiving Shang Xi so easily and getting back together, his treasured daughter liked Shang Xi, and Qin Jingzhou found him agreeable, so he couldn’t bring himself to interfere.
Having traveled through so many mission worlds, Shang Xi’s abilities among all the Fate’s Sons were only average, but his sincere affection for his precious daughter was obvious. So Qin Jingzhou pinched his nose and accepted it.
Once he gave tacit approval, Gao Wen and the others treated Shang Xi as half a son-in-law.
Not just this time; for the next several team-building events, Gao Wen even started discussing the details directly with Shang Xi. Gao Wen didn’t want to bother the boss with trivialities, especially now that his status surpassed the past.
All through November, Qin Jingzhou participated in several key meetings with Academician Qin.
In his spare time, he prepared three bottles of the public fortified version of the intelligence potion in the lab: first for his daughter, then Shang Xi, and the last went to Gao Wen.
He told Gao Wen, “Drink this potion, and you’ll owe me at least five years of work. Think it through before you say yes.”
Gao Wen accepted without hesitation. “It’s what I wish for.”
It should be noted that the official intelligence potion had become a critically strategic resource. Establishing rigorous protocols for its production and allocation was so important that the Elders and “lead” academicians had been meeting, off and on, for over half a month, and they had extensively considered Qin Jingzhou’s input as the inventor.
Come January 1st, even Qin Jingzhou would have to submit a request before making an intelligence potion, and could only proceed with approval. The finished potions needed to follow allocation rules; failing the evaluation would be pointless—there was still more than a month before the rules took effect, but Qin Jingzhou had no intention of exploiting the loophole.
As one of the rule makers, he had no desire to break them first, so this fortified public version, sculpted by his “precise knife skills,” had only one-third the strength of the official potion.
Still, even with the effectiveness greatly reduced, this special batch was enough that after his precious daughter, Shang Xi, and Gao Wen took it, their spiritual power radically transformed and their intelligence shot past the 20-point threshold.
Qin Jingzhou watched over the three young people as they completed their “transformation”: his dear daughter and Gao Wen both landed right at 20 intelligence points, while Shang Xi climbed to 21.
After adapting to their new selves, He Chunxi looked at her father, genuinely impressed. “Dad, you’re incredible!”
Shang Xi rubbed his face. After taking the potion, many confusing things became instantly clear. “Uncle He, are you… laying long-term plans?” After a pause, he added, “The other side has already taken the bait.”
After his intelligence upgrade, Gao Wen no longer balked when Shang Xi spoke in riddles—he just looked at him, saying nothing.
Qin Jingzhou suggested, “You should all go see for yourselves.” He turned to Gao Wen. “Remember to bring enough people. Evolution only happens in your brain. Your new mind might make you feel invincible, but your body will remind you it’s just an illusion.”
He had always exhibited an intelligence of 35 points; to leading experts like Academician Qin, whose intelligence neared 30 after the potion, his abilities inspired respect but not fear or suspicion.
His precious daughter was the same.
By the way, in most low-martial worlds, intelligence had to reach 20 points for spiritual power’s first transformation. The second transformation, allowing spiritual power to influence reality, required a minimum of 50 points.
In this mission world, top scientific researchers hovered steadily at 18 or 19 intelligence points. So, Qin Jingzhou had indeed pushed this world forward a step, but not so far as to break anything fundamental.
After sending off his curious and cautious daughter and the others, Qin Jingzhou returned to his desk and began writing a report: he planned to develop an instrument to measure spiritual power strength and to standardize spiritual strength scales.
He didn’t want to bite off more than he could chew, so he decided to follow the path of a brain specialist to the end.
Shang Xi took He Chunxi’s hand as they left Uncle He’s lab, got into the business van Gao Wen had arranged, and immediately called his best buddy Ji Chun.
Ji Chun’s arm had healed, and though he’d only seen Shang Xi in person less than ten times over the past six months, the two chatted by voice daily...
Shang Xi’s father was still a rising star among the rich, while the Ji Family had been wealthy for three generations. Even so, the Ji Family had no idea Professor He had “ascended to the ranks of immortals.”
Shang Xi understood discretion, so he never told his good buddy about Uncle He—he just asked, “Do you know where Jin Li is right now?”
Ji Chun replied instantly, “Bring her up and I’m instantly wide awake!!! That lady either let herself go or is really at her wit’s end, turning into a social butterfly!!! The key is, that group of sly bastards keeps fawning over her, and apparently several are genuinely smitten!!! Didn’t Du Jiahui say he was going to get engaged to Jin Li? Even though she’s putting on such a show, there hasn’t been a single reaction from Du Jiahui’s side!!! No matter how lucky she is or how sharp her tricks, it’s just ridiculous nothing’s blown up yet!!! Damn it, I feel like Jin Li is even scarier now than when she made my IQ tank back then!!! I’m so mad!!!”
In just that short message, there were almost as many exclamation points as words.
Clearly, even someone as experienced as Ji Chun had been thoroughly shaken over the past months.
Shang Xi handed the phone to He Chunxi, then Gao Wen. “Jin Li is up to her old tricks again.”
He Chunxi asked him, “Back then, the move Jin Li used on you and Ji Chun… this is it?”
Shang Xi answered weakly, “Yeah.”
Gao Wen finished reading and pushed up his glasses. “From my previous perspective, there really wasn’t anything exceptional about Jin Li’s appeal.”
But since the boss told the three of them—now on the potion—to go see for themselves, clearly Jin Li had something unique, and only in their current state could they perceive it.
Shang Xi replied, “I get you. See if you can figure out where Jin Li’s headed now.”
Ji Chun agreed, then started reaching out to their mutual friends. Few responded promptly, so he scrolled through his social feeds...
With the screenshots Ji Chun provided, Gao Wen contacted a few colleagues, and within five minutes, they’d pinpointed Jin Li’s location and headed there.
Right then, Jin Li was holding one of her “Mystery Salons” at a five-star hotel owned by one of her many admirers.
She was willing to use up skill cards, and at the moment, all the young men in the room were utterly entranced. She basked in her system’s string of good news, reporting boosts in favorability from this one and that.
Gao Wen and the others, not wanting to alert her, decided to wait at the hotel entrance. According to Ji Chun, Jin Li would finish her “afternoon session,” take a break, then dutifully attend her “evening session.”
They waited less than half an hour before seeing Jin Li, surrounded by admirers, looking more radiant than ever, come out the hotel doors.
It took less than three seconds for Jin Li to go from stepping outside to getting into her car, but all three—He Chunxi, Shang Xi, and Gao Wen—saw, stuck to the back of Jin Li’s head, a strange and indistinct thing that was impossible to describe...
He Chunxi took a deep breath and spoke first. “I want to examine it more closely, but instinctively… I feel like that thing could kill me…”
Shang Xi grasped her hand, his face a little pale. “Yes…”
Gao Wen removed his glasses and carefully wiped them clean. “This is troublesome.”
No wonder the boss wanted them to see it for themselves, and to bring backup—just in case.