Chapter 55

Both of them engaged in small talk for a bit before the interview officially began.

Huang Hongda turned on his laptop and voice recorder pen as he smiled and said, “Doctor Zhou, please give a brief introduction of yourself.”

Zhou Wen felt rather embarrassed at first, but he soon grew comfortable with the process.

What he wanted to say in the interview was all the truth; there were no lies that he had to cook up, and there was no need for him to be modest either.

“My name is Zhou Wen; I’m born in the year 1997, and I’m 23 years old this year. I come from Jiangdu District, and I’m a fourth-year student in Jiangzhou University’s School of Life Sciences. I majored in the Biotechnology course…”

“Through my continuous studying and hard work, I mastered the DNA extraction technique…”

“The DNA that I extracted was coincidentally discovered by a senior pathologist, the team leader of the PCR team from First People’s Hospital known as Zhang Shuguang, and I managed to receive his gratifying attention…”

Huang Hongda’s hand that was jotting down the conversation paused for a moment. In the end, he could not refrain himself from asking, “Doctor Zhou, what you’ve told me… is all real?”

Zhou Wen nodded smilingly. “It’s real, of course. You can ask the people from the university or hospital if you don’t believe me.”

Huang Hongda thought about Zhou Wen’s performance from the other night and believed that he deserved to be introduced into the hospital as a unique talent.

“Alright, please continue.”

“Mmhmm! Due to my job scope being quite leisurely, I continued to carry out research from the university during my free time at work and continued to carry out my rice root aphid’s genetic modification research…”

Zhou Wen narrated fluently for half an hour.

As for the professional terminologies used in genetic modification, Zhou Wen tried his best to explain to Huang Hongda using terminologies that could be easily understood.

The more Huang Hongda listened, the more astonished he grew.

When Huang Hongda heard that the professors from Tongji University, Fudan University, Jiao Tong University, and Tungnan University came to listen to his oral examination, his expression was of disbelief. He felt as if he was caught in a dream.

How was that possible? The expert professors from the top universities of Project 985 and Project 211 were all here to listen to an undergraduate student’s oral examination like yours?

It truly sounded rather boastful.

Despite having experienced Zhou Wen’s capability, Huang Hongda found that he was incapable of typing anymore…

If all this was true, China’s newspaper proprietors such as Southern Weekly, Humans Daily, Youth, Guangming, Cheeloo Telegraph, Changchun News, and Longbridge News would certainly come knocking on his door. There was no need for a small newspaper proprietor like the Jiangzhou Post to carry out exclusive interviews like this anymore.

“Brother Zhou, your story… Your story is a little too exaggerated. I can’t publish this; please allow me to touch up this part for you ever so slightly.”

Zhou Wen understood what he meant by ‘touch up’ of course. He laughed and said, “Everything that I told you is the truth without any fabrication at all.”

As he was speaking, Zhou Wen took out a USB flash drive from his pocket. “This is a video recording of the oral examination event that took place a few days ago. You can take a look if you don’t believe me.”

Huang Hongda was stunned for a moment. Soon afterward, he connected the USB flash drive to his laptop eagerly.

If it was true, he was not doing a favor to Zhou Wen anymore, but it was Zhou Wen who did him a huge favor.

“If I were to report news like this, it would certainly cause a sensation. By then, a promotion and pay raise…”

He clicked on the video recording in the USB flash drive. The more Huang Hongda watched, the wider he widened his eyes…

…

After confirming the validity and accuracy of the information, Huang Hongda immediately arranged for the chief correspondent in the newspaper office to interview Zhou Wen’s colleagues and leaders.

At first, Sun Jing, Liu Weiping, and also Zhou Wen’s direct superior, Zhang Shuguang, were interviewed.

Everyone praised Zhou Wen profusely, just as expected. They complimented him for his outstanding professionalism, ability to work well with his colleagues, eagerness to help out others, and more.

Huang Hongda studied the interview records for an entire day before he scrapped it and started all over again at last.

He came up with a brand new concept.

Three days later, a feature story of great length – over 10,000 words – was produced.

As for the title of the article, as an experienced editor who understood the essence of news reporting well, Huang Hongda could not possibly use the lame title of ‘Rice Root Aphid’s Genetic Modification Technique’ because no one would read it.

On the other hand, as the formal media, they could not possibly adopt a clickbait title like ‘Shocking! He’s employed by the hospital even before he graduated from university, the reason is…’.

Upon careful consideration, the article was titled ‘Who’s Carrying The Burden Of Life For Us?’

Firstly, the title sounded very positive.

Secondly, it was very attention-catching as well.

Everyone would certainly think of the two professions of doctor and police as soon as they saw the title.

In order to confirm if their guess was true, there was a high probability that they would take a glance at the article.

On the other hand, what happened next exceeded their expectation tremendously.

This was because this article interpreted the healthcare system from a different angle.

Being angels in white, doctors occupied 99% of the public’s attention.

However, who would have thought that there was an even more heroic group of laboratory technicians behind the doctors?

They did not shine, and they were not the focal point of the public. They worked with viruses and bacterias all year long, and they were not even addressed as doctors.

They were a group of people that carried the heavy burden of life on their backs, completely unrecognized for the health of mankind!

In a tear-inducing article like this, Zhou Wen’s hard work, intelligence, and capability at a young age were given prominence and used as the tipping point.

Of course, the other common, yet heroic, people like Sun Jing, Liu Weiping, and Zhang Shuguang were acting as a dramatic backdrop for Zhou Wen.

The result was well within Huang Hongda’s expectations.

On the morning of the 24th, when ‘Who’s Carrying The Burden Of Life For Us?’ was published in unison on Jiangzhou Post’s Sina news website, Wechat page, and official website, it immediately drew in the close attention of the public with many of the nation’s important media websites sharing it.

The elements of a unique point of view, special personnel, and a genius university student formed the characteristics of a viral article.

After 12 hours, the article made its way to the top of the trending list on Weibo and Toutiao website at eight o’clock at night, just as expected.

Countless internet users shared the article, and hotly discussed it.

‘To all the impressive people, here’s an upvote for you!’

‘This is so touching! All of you are the warriors of today!’

‘Thanks to your silent contribution, we are able to live safely and happily!’

‘Respect! God bless you!’

‘…’

On the other hand, Zhou Wen had also turned into the focal point of the numerous internet users’ discussion as the core personnel discussed in the article.

‘Hah-hah-hah, he’s from our Jiangzhou University.’

‘I was there at his oral examination. He is an extremely impressive senior.’

‘He got employed by the First People’s Hospital even before he graduated from the undergraduate program; I’m so jealous, so jealous…’

‘I’m a Biology undergraduate student too; why do I feel like my graduation certificate is bought…’

Everyone’s discussion was focused on Zhou Wen’s age, basically.

As for the topic of genetic modification and the rest, almost no one paid attention to that because 99.9% of internet users had no idea what those were.

On the 25th, at eight in the morning in Jiangdu City, Rolyan Agricultural Chemical Co. Ltd., vice president’s office.

Zhao Yixin was reading a report on her laptop when a market researcher sent over the link of an article to her.

She clicked on it, conveniently.

‘Who’s Carrying The Burden Of Life For Us?’ Zhao Yixin frowned ever so slightly.

The employee was getting more and more out of line for sending such a boring news article to her. Could it be that he hoped that she would give it an upvote?

A short moment after she closed the link, the market researcher sent her a message.

‘President Zhao, what do you think of the article?’

Zhao Yixin could not refrain herself from replying in an infuriated manner, ‘Don’t send me a side story article that is unrelated to work like this anymore.’

The message was just sent out when the employee replied swiftly. ‘This is not a side story; please read it carefully, President Zhao.’

“Hmm?” Zhao Yixin felt puzzled. She clicked on the link once again.

The opening sang praises on laboratory technicians before it went straight to the point of the central idea of this article – aphid’s genetic modification.

Zhao Yixin scrolled through the article swiftly and revealed an expression that was at a loss of whether to cry or laugh. “He’s just a university undergraduate student; how can he carry out genetic modification on aphids? What kind of joke is this?”

“Oh no!” Zhao Yixin suddenly reacted to the situation. The style of writing for this article did not assume the bombastic tone of we-media. She could tell that this was produced from normal media at one glance.

She checked on the author and found that the author was from Jiangzhou Post.

“Since when did Jiangzhou Post turn into a people pleaser like this?” Zhao Yixin felt puzzled in her heart, but she read through the article again in the next moment.

She discovered soon that an oral examination had already been carried out in relation to the genetic modification technique. Moreover, the professors from the top universities attended the event.

Zhao Yixin immediately reacted to the situation by picking up the important message contained in the article.

She grabbed her phone and contacted a professor that attended the oral examination event.

The person replied, “I can’t confirm that for the time being because I will only know more when the experiment result is out tomorrow.”

Zhao Yixin narrowed her eyes ever so slightly when she hung up the call and toyed with the phone with her right hand subconsciously.

She considered for a moment before she called up the chairman of the company.

After explaining the situation, Zhao Yixin said, “I wish to head over there now… Right! It will be best if I can get on a flight because it will only delay the trip by one day at most.”

“If this is real, the genetic modification technique will affect the sales of all agricultural chemical companies immensely and will reduce the sales of paddy pesticides substantially.”

“Moreover, according to Professor He, the genetic modification technique has not only reduced the reproduction rate of the first generation of aphids tremendously, but a large number of the next generation aphids are also deformed.”

“In reality, it’s highly possible that the reproduction rate has been reduced to 50%. We must take this matter seriously.”

“Alright, I’m heading to Jiangzhou now!”

There were a few local, large-scale agricultural chemical companies that were aware of this matter too. However, these companies were still waiting for the experiment results all this time.

They would leave this matter be if it was fake, but if the reproduction rate of the rice root aphids was truly reduced, then they had no choice but to adopt some changes.

This would affect all the agricultural chemical companies’ foundational profit, so they had no choice but to take this matter seriously.

This article from the Jiangzhou Post would disrupt their plans.

After going through a series of emergency business meetings, the companies had all sent out respective representatives to head to Jiangzhou…