The Omega who burst in had a head of shimmering golden hair and a small, delicate face framed by large emerald eyes. He looked sweet and fragile, especially with the tear stains marking his cheeks, making for a truly heart-wrenching sight.
This reckless intruder was none other than Hill.
He looked so exceptionally frail that no one could fathom how he had managed to bypass the Research Institute’s multiple layers of security to storm inside so successfully.
Upon seeing this sudden interloper, the high-ranking officials of the institute—their meeting interrupted—all began to frown. This was particularly true for the Alpha Vice Dean of the "orthodox" faction. He immediately recognized the golden hair and green eyes; this was Hill, the very culprit who had caused his favored protégé, Benjamin, to return in ignominious defeat.
Recognizing the youth’s identity, the Vice Dean’s face darkened. "Who allowed you in here?" he barked. "Get out at once!"
Hill, however, remained unmoved. The fragile-looking Omega took a deep breath and declared loudly and firmly, "I want to appeal!"
Meeting the glowering Alpha’s gaze directly, Hill’s stance was resolute. "I did not commit academic fraud. I have proof!"
Unwilling to listen—or perhaps simply uninterested in Hill’s rambling—the impatient Vice Dean prepared to have him thrown out. However, things did not go as smoothly as he expected.
"Wait." Just as the Vice Dean was about to order the security bots to remove Hill, a man’s voice rang out. Moments later, a man dressed in a Major’s military uniform strode inside.
The newcomer radiated a powerful Alpha aura. His hawk-like eyes locked onto the Vice Dean, and his high-level pressure bore down heavily on the middle-aged Alpha. It was Ji Wei.
Seeing the arrival of this "toxic" duo, Feng Zhixi’s gaze settled on Hill. This time, his upgraded "little tool" finally succeeded in capturing that flickering, strange energy fluctuation.
The captured energy fluctuation was like the loose end of a ball of yarn. When Feng Zhixi finally spotted that black thread, he instinctively reached out, wanting to snag the end.
But what should he use to catch it? As he pondered, his gaze fell upon his wrist. On the cuff of his white shirt sat a black-gold cufflink shaped like an antique crown. It was exquisite and clearly expensive—Ji Yeran had put it on him this morning.
*Who knows why an Alpha would have so many random trinkets at home,* Feng Zhixi thought to himself as he unfastened one cufflink and began to toy with it in his hand.
The sharp point of the cufflink easily snagged the end of the black thread. Feng Zhixi felt the cufflink in his hand grow heavy—an interesting development.
Watching the weightless black thread wind around the cufflink, Feng Zhixi began his "yarn-winding" operation with great interest.
"I want to appeal!" In the conference room, Hill grew even more emboldened with Ji Wei backing him up. Meanwhile, having found a fun new toy, Feng Zhixi was enthusiastically winding his ball of yarn.
His slender fingers twirled the exquisite cufflink with an air of boredom. Loop after loop of fine black thread wound around the metal, seemingly without end.
Logically, with so much thread being wound, a black ball of yarn should have formed quickly. Strangely, however, no matter how much he wound, the thread showed no sign of accumulating. It was as if every layer of thread wound onto the cufflink simply overlapped perfectly. Aside from a single thin loop of black thread, the cufflink looked no different than it had at the start.
While Feng Zhixi wondered at this, he wound the thread even more vigorously. On the other side of the room, Hill seemed not to have noticed anything amiss.
For a moment, the conference room was split into two distinct dimensions. On one side, Feng Zhixi was happily and leisurely winding his yarn; on the other, chaos reigned due to the intrusion of Hill and Ji Wei.
As soon as he entered, Hill opened his personal terminal in front of everyone and logged into a specific account on the StarNet. It was a famous scientific research forum frequented by countless anonymous tech giants, including a recently emerged rising star—"X."
This sudden "X" had published many research hypotheses on the forum. Many of the ideas were incredibly novel and possessed great potential for widespread application. Furthermore, this anonymous newcomer had generously shared these hypotheses and conjectures, earning a stellar reputation among the forum’s elite.
Now, Hill logged into the forum before everyone’s eyes, allowing the high-level officials of the Lanli Research Institute to see his username: "X."
He was "X"—the very genius the Lanli Research Institute had been desperate to recruit. The three invitation letters from the institute sitting in "X’s" private inbox were proof enough.
When they realized Hill was "X," the officials were momentarily stunned. This was especially true for the Vice Dean representing the external factions; one of those three invitations had been sent by him. So, the little intern at their own institute was actually "X"?
While the crowd was still reeling from the shock, Hill produced a second piece of evidence.
He displayed the derivation processes for all the research conjectures "X" had published on his terminal. Among them was the derivation formula for the "Mecha Energy Curvature Rotation" that had been announced internally at the institute.
There was a commonality among these derivation formulas: they all contained an identical piece of nested code, serving as a unique signature. This signature was entirely different from Feng Zhixi’s own.
This proved one thing: Hill and Feng Zhixi had simply happened to produce similar results by coincidence. Hill had not committed any academic fraud; in fact, one could even say Hill’s research results were more mature.
Having laid out all his evidence, Hill looked at the people of the Lanli Research Institute. The golden-haired, green-eyed Omega’s eyes burned with unyielding fury, as if he were deeply insulted by the accusations against him.
At this moment, no one looked at him with disdain anymore. Bathed in the astonished gazes of the crowd, Hill looked confidently toward Feng Zhixi. He had stormed in to prove one thing—or rather, to declare one thing: he was a true genius, a genius no less brilliant than Feng Zhixi!
Believing victory was within his grasp, Hill had no intention of letting Feng Zhixi remain a bystander. He looked at Feng Zhixi and asked, "Chief, do you think 'X' needs to plagiarize someone else’s research?"
Hill’s words pulled everyone’s attention to Feng Zhixi. It was only then that the high-ranking officials realized their Chief was busy twirling a cufflink with great relish.
"..." The Old Dean felt a headache coming on. He realized that after this troublesome Chief had gone out for a trip, he had become even harder to manage.
Feng Zhixi, who was focused on winding his ball of yarn, looked up slightly and glanced at Hill, as if only just noticing the intruder.
After studying Hill seriously, Feng Zhixi suddenly smiled. He realized that sometimes, he didn't know whether to call this person clever or stupid. Regardless, this was exactly what he had hoped Hill would do.
"There is something you might not know," Feng Zhixi said slowly, looking at Hill. "Ancient humans invented many fun cryptographic symbols. I’ve studied quite a few of them. Among them is a type of cipher where a single character can be compiled in two different ways. Out of curiosity, I used that method to translate my own name."
As Hill listened to Feng Zhixi’s leisurely words, a sense of foreboding suddenly rose in his heart. However, before he could stop him, he heard the other man continue.
"I generally like to use the 'Sun Code' as a marker in my derivation formulas."
As Feng Zhixi spoke, he looked at Hill, whose face was turning pale. "But my memory isn't so poor that I would forget the other set of codes. Could you explain to me why my name is hidden inside the derivation formulas you supposedly completed independently?"
"Or, perhaps you’d like to input all this research data into the institute’s patent library and let the central computer decide?" Feng Zhixi suggested with a smile, his tone as gentle as a spring breeze. "I was worried that while I was out playing, I might have left the door unlocked and things might go missing from the lab. So, I backed up a few little things in the patent library in advance. Would you like to run a comparison?"
At that moment, Hill’s mind went completely blank.
***
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Starry Rebirth: The Warden and the Outlaw’s Interstellar Revenge | Chapter 90 | The Hidden Signature | Novela.app | Novela.app
