The old residential area of Nandu dical University, Academician Xiang’s study.
In the dead of night, the eighty-three-year-old Academician Xiang was wide awake. The study was dimly lit, and the air was filled with the unique scent of old books and ink. He trembled as he held a magnifying glass, reading word by word a docunt about the "Breaking Wall" plan.
When he read about Yang Ping’s team having to use "local thods" for expression and purification due to a shortage of imported specialty enzys, and how the researchers’ hands were stained from the culture dium, Academician Qin’s hand trembled violently, and the magnifying glass almost slipped from his grasp. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, as if trying to inhale the bitterness and resilience of those long-gone years back into his lungs.
The floodgates of mory swung open, and the sealed hardships, the faces of those who struggled together, and the pure passion to serve the nation’s needs surged like a tide, as if he had returned to those years of burning passion.
He suddenly opened his eyes, his cloudy vision bursting with a youthful sharpness. He set down the magnifying glass, grabbed the phone on his desk, his fingers trembling with excitent, yet his dialing was extraordinarily firm.
The call connected, and the respectful voice of his most prized student, now the dean of a top dostic university’s School of Life Sciences—Professor Li Mingda—ca through: "Teacher, it’s so late, you’re still not resting?"
"Mingda!" Academician Qin’s voice was insistent and even had an uncommon harshness, "That ’Breaking Wall’ plan, do you understand the ins and outs?"
"Teacher, I know, we are closely monitoring and considering how to cooperate..."
"Just monitoring and cooperating is not enough!" Academician Qin interrupted him, his tone intensified as if striking heavy blows, "This concerns the nation’s lifeline and people’s welfare! We, the old ones, are buried up to our necks in the soil, unable to charge the front line, but you all? You are in your pri, the backbone of the national scientific cause! I heard what they lack most now is not money, not equipnt, but top talents who can take on critical roles and tough battles! Talented young people with a solid foundation and the courage to break through!"
He took a breath and continued with undeniable firmness, "That Zhao Mo under you, the young man who independently published a protein structure paper in Nature last year, shows great promise! And Li Ying, who recently returned from an exchange at Stanford, doing computational biology and AI-assisted drug design, has very forward-thinking ideas! They are good prospects, diamonds in the rough! You need to work on persuading them to put aside those trivial projects and imdiately join the ’Breaking Wall’ plan!"
On the other end of the line, Dean Li seed hesitant, "Teacher, I understand what you an. But... Zhao Mo’s doctoral thesis is at the critical stage of wrapping up data, Li Ying has just secured a national youth fund, and... several top overseas labs, like Davidson’s lab at Harvard and LMB at Cambridge, have offered them postdoc positions with very favorable conditions... At this ti, asking them to shift direction, won’t it..."
"Favorable? However much they offer abroad, it’s just adding to what’s already there! It’s making wedding clothes for others!" Academician Xiang’s voice suddenly rose, trembling with emotion, "Returning to join ’Breaking Wall’ is like bringing a tily aid! It’s about striving for dignity not dictated by others! Does that an the sa?! The thesis can graduate later, funds can be taken along, and foreign offers can be rejected! Tell them, this is the request of Xiang Wangshan! It’s the only ask from an old man coming to the end of his life!"
His words carried the expectations, regrets, and entrustnt of the older generation of scientists, weighing heavily on the silent Dean Li on the other end. In the study, only Academician Xiang’s sowhat heavy breathing could be heard.
After a long ti, a deep and determined response ca from Li Mingda, "Teacher, don’t be agitated, I understand. It was my montary confusion, forgetting the essentials. Rest assured, I will personally talk to them. No matter what, I will make sure Zhao Mo and Li Ying find their way to the positions where ’Breaking Wall’ needs them most!"
After hanging up, Academician Xiang seed exhausted, slowly leaning back in his chair, staring into the dark night outside the window, his eyes shining with both relief and anticipation.
He began contemplating where to call next. Xiao He from Nandu dical University’s Digital dical Center was already a pillar of the Breaking Wall plan, and Su Qingyun, the president, needless to say, was surely strategizing carefully, not needing him to say more.
Besides Li Mingda, Academician Xiang had many accomplished students currently holding important positions, so still at top universities or laboratories abroad. Thinking about overseas brought to mind Zhang Chunquan, causing a faint ache in his heart.
Zhang Chunquan was the student he had once poured most of his heart and hopes into, but, but...
Alas! A deep sense of sorrow and inexpressible discomfort surged in Academician Xiang’s heart.
...
United States, Massachusetts, Cambridge City.
The Whitehead Biological Laboratory at MIT enjoys a global reputation, and the twenty-eight-year-old Chen Xiao had just graduated with a PhD here.
He stood there, gazing out of the floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the twinkling lights and passing sailboats on the Charles River. Outside the window, Cambridge City’s prosperity and tranquility, inside, his heart was experiencing a tempestuous surge.
He had just finished a lengthy conversation with his ntor—Nobel Prize winner Professor Davidson, who earnestly invited Chen Xiao to stay at the lab as an independent PI (Principal Investigator).
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