Super God-Level Top Student

Huaxia, Xilin University of Technology.

Li Jian Gao was just as interested in the commotion.

When two big shots argue, it's not like any two netizens passionately squabbling on the internet, where dozens or hundreds of unique zingers can be created in a minute.

In fact, their conversation was very slow.

More than ten hours had passed since the incident began, and the two had only posted a total of 15 times on Facebook.

On average, each person had more than two hours to think about each post.

Of course, it might not be all about thinking.

This world isn't just for fun.

Privately, many people might be contacting the two big shots, just like Sumant Jair just revealed that Carl, the editor-in-chief of "Pure and Applied Mathematics Communications," had called him.

Such a long brewing time gave people plenty of time to discover and join in on the showdown between the two.

Lu Changzheng did just that, and so did Li Jian Gao.

Just two hours ago, Zhang Chunlei called him about it and directly added him to a group chat, where someone shared a link. Clicking it would take you straight to a live screenshot stream of the two's conversation.

This was set up by a professor from Linhai University, who feared that some colleagues might not conveniently browse Facebook. They used their project's rented server to make a temporary external link and posted the chat content on the server for their small group of colleagues to watch and comment on directly.

This goes to show that when the spirit of gossip is ignited, professors are no different from ordinary people.

Li Jian Gao was pulled into this group because he was currently the nominal supervisor of Qiao Ze...

When Sumant Jair exposed on Facebook that he was speaking up for the unfair treatment of Qiao Ze's paper, Li Jian Gao and Qiao became the focus of many professors following the matter.

So, as soon as Li Jian Gao joined the group, a barrage of questions was thrown at him.

"Professor Li, enlighten us, what kind of significant leverage did Sumant Jair find?"

"Has the Berkeley Branch connected with Qiao Ze? Are they trying to poach him?"

"Did you guys have a beef with Ackerman Konietz before?"

...

People were enthusiastic, but Li Jian Gao was clueless.

The troublesome maneuvers by Dean Xu had tangled up a heap of issues, leaving him frantically busy all day.

Suddenly being pulled into a group, then bombarded with a mess of questions, almost caused Li Jian Gao's brain to crash.

Ignoring the chaotic questions, Li Jian Gao first clicked on the link Zhang Chunlei sent him and read through the Facebook argument from beginning to end.

Then, he felt even more bewildered.

He didn't even know Sumant Jair!

It was even less likely for Qiao Ze to have any connection with the Turing Award winner.

So what on earth had happened?

Why had this big shot suddenly decided to speak out for Qiao Ze?

It was not until Li Jian Gao saw the latest response from Sumant Jair on Facebook, and the comment by Joe Berner below it, that it struck him like a bolt of lightning...

Yesterday, he had sent an email to the editors of "Duke Mathematical Journal" telling them how Qiao Ze's watermark method worked.

Today, Sumant Jair said he had found evidence of plagiarism by Ackerman Konietz...

No way!

Coincidentally, the link also included an analysis by that professor from Linhai, who compared two papers and captured the similar parts.

Li Jian Gao glanced it over and understood what had happened.

Ackerman's team had not made a citation but had directly copied the proof process from Qiao Ze's paper.

Copying it alone would have been bad enough, since they didn't use much of it.

But, to make matters worse, they had also copied the watermarked section.

Li Jian Gao felt like his brain was about to explode... At this moment, he admired the German's way of thinking more than anyone else.

How was this going to end?

The critical issue was no longer how much overlap there was between the two papers.

Even if less than five percent was identical, the watermark left by Qiao Ze read, "This paper was completed in collaboration with Li Jian Gao and Qiao Ze."

In other words, for those unaware, upon seeing this sentence, they would think the entire paper was created by Qiao Ze and Li Jian, not that Ackerman's team had only referenced a small part of it.

After all, who would believe in such a coincidence?

Not to mention, who would choose to plagiarize the part that they could have cited?

By now, Li Jian Gao had nearly figured everything out.

Without a doubt, Ackerman Konietz was one of the reviewers of Qiao Ze's paper and was the one holding back the publication of Qiao Ze's work.

Who knows what mindset this professor had, but while in need of citing Qiao Ze's paper, he insisted on making Qiao revise it. And when they failed to reach an agreement, he just incorporated the needed parts directly into his paper.

It just so happened that due to Xu's shenanigans, Qiao Ze's paper was questioned, and "Duke Mathematical Journal" sent an inquiry. He then informed them of Qiao Ze's watermarking method.

The editorial team then shared this method with Sumant Jair, who then conveniently found the same watermark in Ackerman Konietz's paper.

After realizing all this, Li Jian Gao felt the world was incredibly wondrous.

Everything was just too coincidental!

What he found most astonishing was that he had inadvertently become the instigator of a Facebook duel between two world-class big shots.

After all, if he hadn't impulsively sent the way Qiao Ze watermarked his work to the editors of "Duke Mathematical Journal," chances are none of this would have happened.