Chapter 87

Term started tomorrow, and Li Lan logged into her student page to look at this year's timetable. She was a second-year from this term, and beyond the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences she'd applied for a second degree in chemistry; lectures began tomorrow and she hadn't yet looked at the schedule.

Peking runs on credits, which means you needn't take the full four years — accumulate enough credits and pass your defence and you can apply to graduate. She'd got through about a third of the School's courses in her first year, and could have finished the compulsory ones this term, except that the chemistry degree meant a good many chemistry modules instead.

She'd applied for chemistry because both the plant extraction at the front end and the drug-making at the back need a great deal of it. She'd decided on it long before — though the university requires the application between the end of the first year and the start of the second, along with other conditions: no failed modules in your own subject, and in some departments an average above a set mark, so that students don't take on more than they can chew.

With both sets of modules, this term's credits came to more than the School's limit of thirty, and anything above that needs the registry's agreement. Her tutor had texted days ago to say the registry had approved it; she'd only got to the system today.

The load was visibly heavier than last term's, and with the laboratory still to fit in she screenshotted it to the new teaching assistant on QQ, who sent back a string of full stops to convey his shock.

Assistant: With a term like that, have you time to come to the laboratory at all? Not an exaggeration; he had no idea when to schedule her.

Li Lan: Weekends and evenings.

He looked at the timetable again. Weekends and evenings? The only rest she had?

He clicked his tongue, got confirmation, and wrote it down.

Which is why, when Wang Jing finally survived military training and wanted to go out, and was told there was no time, she spent a day and a night denouncing Li Lan on QQ. A day and a night, because Li Lan could only reply while walking between places and while eating.

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November, and Beijing turning cold. At seven, having eaten, Li Lan reached the lecture room early with her computer.

Lectures beginning at eight, the room was empty. She found her usual seat and put the computer out. Today's lecture didn't need it; she had lectures by day and the laboratory at night, so written work generally got done in the hour she arrived early. Coursework, for instance.

She opened the document for yesterday's discussion questions, and finished two modules' worth in half an hour. The machine still being offline, she connected to the campus network and opened her email, where among the university's messages was one in English — and reading the subject line, her heart missed a beat.

The sender was somebody she didn't know, and the name in brackets after it was very familiar: the journal she'd submitted to two months ago. After the presentation she'd corrected a few formatting errors and submitted on Wang Xin's advice, and after the editor's note saying it had gone to reviewers there'd been nothing. Publication cycles being long — months, often half a year — she hadn't thought much about it, and hadn't expected a reply today.

She opened it. your manuscript, TFS_2011_1658, has been accepted. Accepted?

She smiled, and read down. The body said the same as the subject: beyond the standard courtesies, the editor said both reviewers considered the paper of high quality and that only a minor revision was needed.

She'd made it as complete as she could when submitting, so the reviewers had raised only a few simple points about the conclusions. She read them carefully and checked the time: twenty minutes to the lecture. Revising now would be rushed, and a mistake sending it back would be worse. She screenshotted the email into the group chat instead, which blew several habitual lurkers out of the water.

Meng Wei: It's in?

Xie Nan: Congratulations, Li Lan. A first-authored SCI. Well done.

Xie Nan: What did the reviewers say? Minor or major revisions?

Meng Wei: Li Lan, you're incredible, it actually got in!

Being just before lectures, the two of them saw it quickly; Zhao Qi was presumably busy.

Li Lan: Just saw the email. Minor revisions to the conclusions.

Their pleasure was because beyond Li Lan being first author, the three of them were second, third and fourth. Nothing like first in weight, and for a doctoral candidate and a masters student, another paper is another edge. She'd asked Zhao Qi earlier whether Wang Xin's name should go on it; his view was that at Wang Xin's position a second authorship on an SCI is beneath notice, and Wang Xin had said not to add him.

Xie Nan: Excellent. Revise and send it back, it should be out soon.

Li Lan: Yes, I'll find time today.

Mid-conversation, Zhao Qi saw the log and joined in.

Zhao Qi: Congratulations on the SCI. Have you told the professor?

Li Lan: Not yet. I only saw it today. And repeated what she'd said.

Zhao Qi: Then email him when you get a moment. He'll be very pleased.

She agreed, meaning to write between lectures, and had barely finished typing when the bell went — ten minutes to go. She said so in the group and put the computer away.

Wang Xin replied quickly, pleased, and said she could apply to the department for an award.

Awards didn't much interest her. At the start of term her tutor had asked whether she wanted to apply for the national scholarship, but with the modules piling up she'd looked into it and found it meant a selection process, written materials and a defence, and hadn't bothered.

She'd assumed his remark was in passing; an undergraduate publishing in an SCI journal is uncommon without being rare, particularly at Peking. So when her tutor asked her to come to the office, she wondered what for.

Her tutor was a young woman, reportedly fresh out of a masters and without any of the airs of a teacher, and her eyes lit up as she waved Li Lan into a seat.

She looked at the girl in front of her, who was not a stranger — the opposite. In her first year Li Lan had had her petitioning the registry over extra modules, and she'd worried she'd fail something, and Li Lan had failed nothing and come first in the year. The second year was worse: a chemistry double degree applied for months before term, another trip to the registry — and now Deputy Dean Wang Xin's assistant had rung to say Li Lan had an SCI paper accepted and would she look into a departmental award.

Nobody knew how surprised she'd been by that call. How was she supposed to know? Li Lan didn't talk much, only came to her about module registration, had no presence in her class, left the moment lectures ended and joined in almost nothing. She hadn't even known when Li Lan became a research assistant in Wang Xin's laboratory.

She chose her words. "Li Lan, were you an assistant researcher with Professor Wang last term?"

Li Lan nodded, unclear where this was going.

Being fresh out herself and without the indirection, the tutor came to it. "Dean Wang's assistant rang yesterday to say you'd had a paper accepted by an SCI journal. You didn't mention it." Pleased, and puzzled by how quiet she'd kept about it. Li Lan had come first in the year for professional results last year and could have applied for the national scholarship; she'd raised it and for some reason Li Lan had dropped it.

Now, though, with Dean Wang's assistant having got in touch, the tutor meant to ask the registry. Honestly, the School's position is an awkward one: Peking's School of Pharmaceutical Sciences is famous, and the provinces' best candidates, top scorers especially, almost never consider it, and those who do mostly choose the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering instead. Which makes outstanding results harder to come by than in other schools — and with drug development being what it is, one is forever hearing that a computing student has won something or a chemistry student has been honoured, and very seldom that a pharmacy student has.

And Li Lan was the only provincial top scorer in recent years to choose the School deliberately, so some people in the registry had been quietly watching her and giving her a clear road wherever possible. Otherwise her module applications in her first two years would not have gone through so easily.