Surgery Godfather
Chapter 1320 - 998 Collapse_2

Chapter 1320: Chapter 998 Collapse_2

Academician Xiang frowned, clearly unhappy. This kind of meeting was supposed to be a defense session, where one should directly answer questions from others. Always beating around the bush—doesn’t that tire your throat? After all the circling, you finally tell people your throat hurts. It’s obviously disrespectful and doesn’t align with the purpose of the meeting.

At this moment, the atmosphere of the meeting fell into a brief awkwardness, as no one dared to ask any questions. It seemed as if asking would just be tormenting Guan Ruyan, who had already mentioned his sore throat. To ask further would surely seem inhumane.

What to do? Several professors from Nandu Medical University looked to Principal Ruo, hoping for a response. Principal Ruo said, "Wait a bit; let’s talk when Lu Xiaolu comes back. Do you have any other assistants to help answer for Professor Guan since he’s feeling unwell?"

An assistant was outside the door but clearly couldn’t substitute for him in providing answers. Even Guan Ruyan couldn’t respond; how could this young assistant, who was just an unfinished doctorate, possibly provide clear answers?

"It’s fine; I’ll answer!" Guan Ruyan coughed a few times, then took a sip of water, his expression one of extreme pain.

"It’s like this—"

No sooner had he begun, then a violent coughing fit ensued.

"Sorry, very sorry—" Guan Ruyan appeared genuinely unable to continue.

Soon after, the student who had gone to look for Lu Xiaolu returned. Principal Ruo anxiously asked, "How is it, how is Professor Lu?"

"The security guard said Professor Lu nearly fainted in the restroom. Just now, the guard helped call a car to take Professor Lu to Affiliated Hospital No. 1 for rehydration."

Principal Ruo was completely flabbergasted, quite angry on the inside. What’s the deal here? You two, before such an important meeting, didn’t give any heads-up, and now one has a throat sore, the other diarrhea, and has directly headed to Affiliated Hospital No. 1.

Guan Ruyan was now utterly bewildered. Damn it, during such an important project, Lu Xiaolu just walked out. Given how busy he’d been, he hadn’t paid much attention to this project. It was always Lu Xiaolu who took the lead, and he was too occupied to familiarize himself with the project beforehand or to communicate much with Lu Xiaolu. Rushing into the field unprepared, how could he possibly speak of the details? This really was a dilemma he’d never faced before.

Now that the assistant had gone to the hospital, you couldn’t say that without the assistant, you’d fail to complete this defense session. That would be like children playing house, wouldn’t it? A sore throat, a cough – it’s not that serious. You could endure and say a few words.

"Call the school doctor to bring some throat spray and two tablets of Asthma over," said Principal Ruo, who understood medicine and had encountered such situations when teaching students. It’s an easy solution: acute upper respiratory tract issue – a sore throat needs just a spray of throat steroid to definitely relieve it instantly. The cough, Asthma tablets also work well.

This meeting was too important to cancel over such a minor issue. It’s important to know that some of these experts came from Beijing, some from Shanghai, and others flew back from the United States. Who doesn’t have a minor cold now and then?

Guan Ruyan, finding himself in a spot where he couldn’t intervene nor refrain, was utterly at a loss. With Lu Xiaolu gone, no plan would work unless he fainted on the spot. But staging a fainting episode? If not for a somewhat sturdy mindset, Guan Ruyan’s forehead would have surely been covered in sweat by now.

"Is Professor Lu okay?" Guan Ruyan asked with concern to buy time, and then to think of a strategy.

"Don’t know yet; probably dehydration. I’ll call Affiliated Hospital No. 1 and check," said the student, who promptly left the meeting room.

The throat spray and Asthma tablets were delivered, along with some warm water brought right to his hand. With no other choice, Guan Ruyan took the two Asthma tablets and then used the spray on his throat. Principal Ruo inquired, "How is it? Feeling better, right? This is what I do whenever I have a cough or sore throat during lectures; it never fails."

"Let’s continue the meeting, everyone. Professor Guan is a bit under the weather, please be understanding. We’ve delayed your time, and I apologize," Principal Ruo personally apologized to everyone.

The quality of these professors was indeed high, meeting such an unforeseen event, they refrained from whispering among themselves or showing impatience. They were very accommodating to Professor Guan, and thus the meeting went on as usual.

Other experts were quite considerate, knowing that Guan Ruyan was feeling unwell; they only asked symbolic questions, implying that the conference was going to be a mere formality from then on. But the American wasn’t courteous at all.

"Professor Guan, I’m not sure if you didn’t hear my question clearly? My question was how you implemented the theory of two advanced technologies to achieve your targets, such as the details mentioned in your paper: building a compound library based on a dual-click chemistry strategy, which is necessary preparatory work for your subsequent research, isn’t it?"

Guan Ruyan tried his best to answer, "My paper mentioned the reactive fluorosulfonyl isocyanate, which, acting as an amphiphilic electrochemical reagent, realizes the amide formation of carboxylic acids and amine blocks through SuFEx sequential linking. Both of these reactions can be carried out under simple conditions, and most substrates can convert nearly quantitatively, enabling us to achieve excellent yields of N-sulfonyl fluorides and N-sulfonyl amides respectively, serving as the base of our follow-up research on protein modification and labeling."

"All these details are in the paper; I want to know the specifics beyond the paper, such as how many microwell plates your initial experiments were conducted on, what the conversion rate was, and so on."

The American posed very detailed questions and liked to ask them in a tracking manner; you answer one, and he would continue to pursue based on your answer.

This type of tracking questioning left Guan Ruyan bewildered. Since he hadn’t designed the experiments, how would he know the underlying ideas and details.

Guan Ruyan got stuck, and the American was not ready to let it go, waiting for his response.

"Just tell him directly; there’s nothing that needs to be kept secret here," Academician Xiang was quite dissatisfied with Guan Ruyan’s performance.

First, claiming a sore throat to avoid answering questions directly, and now, you’re stumped by someone else’s question. How could you not know about your own project? Even if as a hands-off boss, you delegated specific tasks to the graduate students, you were the one who did the basic design of the experiment, at least the concept was yours, right? So, you should definitely be able to answer this question.

Yang Ping thought Guan Ruyan’s hearing might have been impaired due to his cold, not having heard the American’s question clearly, so he helped translate, "He wants to know how you completed your preliminary research. Just tell him the details of implementation, like how many microwell plates were used, what the conversion rate of your target compounds was, and so on."

Guan Ruyan quickly flipped through data on his computer. The computer was connected to the projector, so the screen showed the chaotic switching of slides due to his frantic searching.

Where was it? To be honest, today’s slides were all prepared by Lu Xiaolu; he was not familiar with them at all. He had only briefly reviewed them before coming here. How could he possibly know the details?

"Sorry, I really don’t remember these specific figures; I need to look up the data." Guan Ruyan had no choice but to say so.

Lu Xiaolu, oh Lu Xiaolu, you have really put me in a hole today. Why did you have to get diarrhea now of all times, and at Affiliated Hospital No. 1, no less.

At this moment, Principal Ruo, Academician Xiang, Yang Ping, and several others all turned their eyes toward him. You don’t know? How is that possible? How could you not know such important data? Even if you didn’t, you could at least provide an estimate, and if you still didn’t know, you could deduce it from the predicted data in the project proposal, which were derived from these figures using a formula, right?

This was beyond the pale!

"Just give a rough estimate, that’s all he wants to know. It’s because if some indices don’t meet the standard, they can’t be applied to your project," Academician Xiang reminded him kindly.

But he didn’t know even an approximate figure, and he was completely unaware of the details inside. It was like a director who had just received a script, briefly glanced over it, and then went up to speak. Then someone seriously asked about specific details of the script—how could he possibly answer? It was an unfair challenge.

It wasn’t too bad until everyone started pressing; now, Guan Ruyan was even more anxious. The key point was that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing; it was all outside the scope of the project—not included in the project plan.

He couldn’t afford a breakdown today; Guan Ruyan forced himself to stabilize his emotions.