Chapter 95

"Li Lan is defending today?" Professor Lin raised an eyebrow at the list. He was the School's principal examiner this year and hadn't been surprised to learn she'd applied to graduate; she'd spent a period in his laboratory before formally enrolling and he considered himself to know something of her. And the School had commended her last year for establishing the Trollius candidate, so seeing her on the list he was rather looking forward to her dissertation.

Her supervisor beside him wore a mysterious expression. In fact he hadn't much liked her topic from the proposal onwards. Her title was Extraction of the Active Component Resveratrol from Grape Plants Using Supercritical CO2 as Solvent, and there was nothing wrong with the content — background, discussion, all complete, entirely up to the standard of an undergraduate dissertation.

What disappointed him was that the topic wasn't what he'd expected. He'd assumed she'd continue with Trollius chinensis; her series of papers on it were of high quality and there was real scope for going deeper, and instead she'd chosen grapes and resveratrol.

He'd been disappointed by the proposal and had said so, but she'd held to it, and he hadn't pressed. A supervisor can guide the broad direction; if a student insists on her own topic there is nothing to be done.

As her work went deeper, though, he'd changed his mind, and seeing the final dissertation in April had been an unexpected pleasure. He was the only person on today's panel who had read it, and he could hardly wait to see the others' faces.

Her turn came soon enough.

She was fairly late in the order, and a morning of dissertations had left the examiners somewhat jaded; a handful of students aside, most were meeting research for the first time and were limited, and undergraduate dissertations do not greatly compel an examiner.

She was one of the few the examiners, Professor Lin among them, were looking forward to.

Called up, she couldn't help some nerves. She'd been to a good many meetings and presentations over the past year, but this was different. Pass, and she graduated.

She breathed in and went to the lectern, and had expected to be nervous and wasn't once it began; it felt like an entirely ordinary presentation. Time being short, the statement was five minutes, which sounds tight, but at her unhurried pace the five minutes went quickly.

Her supervisor, knowing the content, listened with attention to spare for the other examiners' faces — and sure enough, at her results they showed surprise and began turning pages briskly.

When she finished the last word of her conclusions, the panel was reading the submitted dissertation closely, and the room was silent.

Professor Lin spoke first. "Li Lan, go back to slide fifteen."

She recognised the beginning of the questions and went back to fifteen: the data analysis.

Hearing him start, the others caught up and began questioning in turn — except that unlike with other students, the angles were awkward and unsparing. Five minutes of statement and twenty solid minutes of questions, and if time had allowed, Li Lan suspected they wouldn't have stopped.

The students waiting behind her broke into a sweat. Weren't dissertation questions supposed to be the standard ones — why this topic, what is its significance and purpose, where is the originality? Why was this one down to the boiling point and molecular weight of supercritical carbon dioxide? The longer they listened the more nervous they got, and they turned hurriedly to their own dissertations, trying to recall details of their experiments in case the same happened to them.

Professor Lin checked his watch and looked regretful. "Time is too short today. Extracting resveratrol from grapes at one part in five thousand is a considerable breakthrough, though — it should attract a good deal of attention academically. You've made a real contribution, Li Lan. Don't forget to file the patents."

She nodded, and didn't mention that one in five thousand was April's figure, and that two days ago the extraction had reached one in a thousand.

He nodded, satisfied. She hadn't taken Trollius chinensis further, but to his mind the willingness to choose a new direction is itself a kind of courage. "That concludes our questions. Your supervisor will inform you of the result."

She relaxed, thanked them and left the lectern. Over at last; twenty minutes of questions at full concentration takes a good deal out of you.

That afternoon she heard she'd passed — and, unexpectedly, that the dissertation had been selected as one of the year's outstanding ones.

Two days later her chemistry dissertation passed as well, also on resveratrol, weighted towards its chemical reactions. That defence was far less severe than the pharmacy one, and she got through easily.

After which there was nothing left. Having passed first time with no revisions, she moved out of the dormitory — to the other three's regret — rented a flat near the medical park, and threw herself entirely into Rejuvenate.

---

Mid-July.

"Li Lan, here, here — one at the gate."

In front of Peking University's main gate, Li Cheng waved excitedly under a fierce sun with an SLR in her hand.

"Come on, there's nobody there, quickly."

Wang Jing towed a Li Lan with nothing left to live for towards it. The gate is one of the best places for graduation photographs and they'd queued a long time.

Li Lan fanned herself. She sweated easily to begin with, and it was thirty-six degrees. She had nothing against photographs — a memento of a graduation is a good thing — and her one regret was having let these two learn the date, because they were more excited than she was, and after the ceremony had dragged her round photographing the dormitory, then the library, then the teaching building, and now the gate. Thirty-six degrees did nothing to dampen them.

In academic dress she felt nothing but heat, and after two at the gate wanted it off. "Enough, surely. It's thirty-six degrees. Easy to keep shooting when it isn't you in the gown."

Both were hot too, but the urge to photograph was stronger. Wang Jing held her hand down and coaxed her. "Bear it a bit longer. We'll stop after these."

Having taken hers, Wang Jing swapped places with Li Cheng. "Your turn. We'll find somebody to take one of all of us in a minute."

Li Cheng nodded happily and took over.

That evening, photographs and dinner done and Wang Jing seen off, Li Cheng went back with her to the rented flat.

About to take her make-up off, she saw the skincare in the bathroom and called through. "You use Cerulean?

"The Red Jade things are good. I use them too. The company sends me boxes of it — do you want some?" She put her head out.

Li Lan: "…"

"Keep it for yourself."

Washed, Li Cheng came out with several sheet masks. "Li Lan, why have you got these? The Cerulean people said this mask hasn't launched yet. Have you bought a fake?"

She was half a beauty creator by now. Cerulean was a brand of the last few years, and short as its history was it was already in all the major domestic department stores and moving fast. She'd first heard of it through the sunscreen Li Lan sent, and as her following grew Cerulean had sent her a good many press packages, and she'd liked them and was now a committed user.

Being on good terms with their staff through work, she'd had the same masks recently and knew they were an unlaunched product. Li Lan wasn't a beauty creator. How did she have a Cerulean mask that wasn't on sale?

Li Lan looked up. It was the first mask product Cerulean meant to launch, currently being teased and not yet out.

"It doesn't look like a fake, though." Li Cheng turned it over and over. It matched hers — and counterfeiters copy what sells; Cerulean's sunscreen was faked so widely that outside the official site and the shops ninety per cent of it was fake. Who fakes an unlaunched mask?

Li Lan went back to the day's reports. "It isn't fake. Put it on and stop worrying."

Li Cheng, however, began to feel something was wrong, and thinking back over what Li Lan had given her — the first set of make-up aside, everything from the Clearhead spray to the sunscreen and skincare had been Cerulean. Setting that against the research she'd done on the company, she checked the dates in her head and discovered with some alarm that every product Li Lan had sent her had been newly launched at the time. So Li Lan was a loyal customer? It didn't feel that simple.

She came over with the mask. "Li Lan, everything you've given me is Cerulean, and half of it arrived just after launch. Are you a loyal customer?"

Li Lan considered. Being one of Cerulean's investors was nothing to hide, and she said so. "Not exactly. I'm one of Cerulean's investors. No sense letting the water run to other people's fields — when there's something new I send you samples."

Li Cheng doubted her own ears at this offhand reply, and produced a question from the soul. "What?"

Li Lan explained briefly and, disregarding the expression cracking across her sister's face, was about to return to the screen when Li Cheng reached over, pulled the computer out of her hands and shut it in one movement.

"You are not sleeping until you explain properly." She held it up, indignant. "Something this big and you didn't tell me? Do Mum and Dad know?"

"No. And don't tell them yet. In a few years."

She'd kept quiet precisely because of everything that would follow. Running a company isn't the same as tinkering, and if her parents knew they'd worry about nothing; she meant to tell them around the time she finished her doctorate, when they'd take it better.

Knowing she was the first to be told took the sting out of it, and thinking of her own Weibo — also kept from their parents — she understood the choice, and put the computer down and sat beside her. "You can keep a thing in. Nobody's known all this time."

Then, wickedly, "Why keep it from them, though? Running a company isn't a bad thing. Shall I tell them? They'd be thrilled."

Li Lan gave her a sideways look. "Go on. Though do you suppose they'd also be thrilled to learn you're an internet personality with several hundred thousand followers? Two joys at once. How's that?"

It did not appeal.

Li Cheng laughed sheepishly, realising she had a secret in Li Lan's hands too. Internet personality was not a flattering term at present; what her parents would make of Li Lan's news she wouldn't guess, but being one while still at university would certainly go down badly.

"Joking. Don't worry, I'll keep your secret." And made a zipping gesture across her mouth.