Chapter 97

Three in the afternoon on the twenty-fifth of September, the eve of her departure.

"Done."

A cheer went up in the laboratory. Li Lan and the others looked at the Rejuvenate sample made to the new formulation with considerable feeling — a sample only, and nobody knew yet what it actually did. Li Lan tested it against the shop.

[L3 resveratrol anti-ageing serum. Completion: 70%] [Value: 70 L3 points. Sell back?] [Yes] [No]

Seventy per cent. No question about it.

Zhang Lin was excited too, and squeaked. "Lanlan, you're extraordinary. Six months, and it's done."

On her professional experience, anybody claiming to develop a new product in six months would once have got a snort from her — a new product not being a matter of adding or removing an ingredient or two from an existing formulation, but developed from nothing, which is harder by considerably more than a little.

Since Li Lan took Rejuvenate on, Zhang Lin had seen how she worked. Never mind anything else: her flight was tomorrow and she was in the laboratory, patiently running experiments.

Six months producing a result, Li Lan couldn't not be excited, and coughed. "Let's not celebrate too early. There's preservation, human efficacy and safety assessment, and a pile of other things."

Somebody came in with a sheaf of paper. "Engineer Li, Director Zhang — the physicochemical samples have gone out. Our own checks show nothing anomalous, so we should be able to move to the skin-feel trials."

Zhang Lin took the results. "Excellent. Lanlan, leave the rest to us; our great benefactor needn't worry about it. Your flight's tomorrow afternoon, isn't it? Shall we give you a send-off?"

Li Lan waved it away. "No, no. Give everybody a bonus instead — they've all worked a great deal of overtime because of me."

She meant it. Time being short, she'd wanted the formulation settled before England and had stayed late every day, which had inevitably kept the whole team late too, National Day included.

Zhang Lin waved a hand grandly. "Naturally. Everybody on Rejuvenate has a fortnight off from tomorrow to make up for National Day, and double the annual bonus."

The room produced a second cheer.

Rejuvenate essentially done, Li Lan's part was formally over. She said goodbye to colleagues she'd fought alongside for six months, handed over her work, and walked through the park talking to Zhang Lin. "If you need anything in England, go to Feng Jiang. He knows a lot of people in Europe — he's in France at the moment, if I remember."

While the two of them had been on Rejuvenate, Feng Jiang had been busier still. To open the European and American markets he'd become a permanent air passenger, Europe being Cerulean's focus — and since the resveratrol comes from wine grapes, and to guarantee quality, Cerulean had leased a vineyard in France specifically to supply it.

Li Lan knew, and meant to go and see the planting herself once she was in Europe, having supplied a set of recommendations from the system on growing wine grapes.

"If Rejuvenate works, we may genuinely get into the international market."

Zhang Lin knew who Cerulean's central figure was. Eighty per cent of its products were Li Lan's. Clearhead needs no comment; Botanic's calendula and rose ranges sold consistently well; and the sunscreen was more extreme still — the sea buckthorn sunscreen was the first single product to go abroad, and this year, exported to Japan and Korea, it went straight into the top ten, with respectable European and American sales besides. Their trump card.

The products developed by the researchers — Red Jade and so on — sold decently without being dazzling, which was part of why Zhang Lin had such hopes of Rejuvenate. She didn't know what it did yet, and from the figures it was another exceptional product, and if it performed as they indicated she thought some of the luxury brands on her own dressing table could go.

Home at the flat, Li Lan opened the door to find her parents with a suitcase between them, one sitting on it while the other tried to shut it.

They'd arrived yesterday and were packing for her. Looking at the effort, and at the other case bulging beside it, she wondered whether both would explode en route.

"What have you put in these?"

"Don't—"

Bang.

Before either could finish the word, she opened the second case, which sprang open under the strain, and a corner of a quilt came out through the gap.

"…"

"Mum, why have you packed a quilt?"

She lifted the lid onto a thick quilt and didn't know whether to laugh.

Chen Ying looked at it in dismay. "Why did you open it? Your father and I only just got it shut."

"Mum, I said not to bring much. Why the quilt? And what's this — a pillow?" She dug and found a vacuum-packed pillow underneath.

Chen Ying got up and pushed it back in as she talked. "I was afraid they don't sell quilts in England and you'd be cold. The forecast says it rains all the time there. It's cold."

Li Lan's head ached. Between coaxing and repacking they got it down to one case, and the quilt and pillow were absolutely not coming; ten kilos of quilt plus a pillow plus clothes had made two cases of nearly fifty kilos, which would have killed somebody.

Midday on the twenty-sixth, Beijing Capital Airport.

Bags checked, Li Lan turned to find her mother deep in conversation with Zhang Lin, and whatever she'd said had both parents beaming.

Approaching, she heard that the subject was herself.

Chen Ying looked astonished. "Really? So Lanlan's a bit of a manager there? I'd assumed a student would only be helping out."

Zhang Lin shook her head. "Hardly. Several of our products are Lanlan's work. I don't know how you and her father brought her up."

Zhang Lin knew how to conduct a conversation, kept it on Li Lan throughout, and there was never a silence. And she genuinely learned a good deal she hadn't known; her impression of Li Lan began in Beijing, and Li Lan had never volunteered anything about before that, and hearing Chen Ying she discovered a distinguished record going back to high school.

Chen Ying waved it off, modest and proud at once. "Brought her up? Her father didn't finish primary school and I didn't finish middle school. It's all Lanlan's own cleverness. She was good at school from the start — I'll tell you, the first name she gave herself on QQ was Genius, and I thought at the time how right that was."

Detecting a tendency towards exposing her history, Li Lan cut in quickly. "Mum, the bags are checked. Let's go to the gate."

Chen Ying was in a fine mood, having learned a great deal. "Right you are."

They waited a while, and near boarding Li Lan checked her watch. "Mum, Dad, Sister Lin — it's about time. I'll go in."

Her parents nodded, and Chen Ying's reluctance had lessened considerably, particularly having learned the company had a European branch. "Study hard over there. Buy what you want to eat, and if you run short have your father send you money."

Li Quan nodded too. "Keep your own money. Tell your mother if it isn't enough."

She nodded without refusing, and under their eyes turned into the security queue.

---

London.

Coming out, she found the driver Feng Jiang had arranged.

She went to the man holding her name up. "Hello — Zhao Yiming?"

Given it was her first time in England, Feng Jiang had deliberately found a Chinese student at Cambridge.

"That's me. Li Lan?" He checked her against the photograph.

"Yes."

Having found her, he put the sign away and took her trolley cheerfully. "At last. Come on, the driver's outside."

He put her case in the boot, said a few words to the driver and got in — and rather than leave her alone in the back, sat there with her, and opened conversation immediately. "Li Lan, isn't it? We haven't introduced ourselves properly. I'm Zhao Yiming, from the north-east. Mr Feng says you're here for a chemistry doctorate — what a coincidence, we're in the same department. I'm chemistry too, just started my second year."

Li Lan looked at him and recognised, from the first sentence, the kind of person who is entirely without social fear. "Hello. Li Lan, from Henan. I've just graduated."

He took it up smoothly. "Henan's good. One of my university roommates was from there. Very nice bloke."

Li Lan wasn't quite equal to the enthusiasm, and laughed. "Was he."

"Oh — Li Lan, which professor is your supervisor? I've met a fair few this year, I can tell you what he's like in advance."

That she could do. "Professor Auren."

He looked at her, startled. "Professor Auren? So you're organic chemistry. He hardly takes students, and his standards are extremely high — he turned me down politely when I approached him. Getting in isn't a small thing."

She'd chosen organic chemistry. Cambridge's chemistry department was third in the world this year, and Professor Auren was one of the authorities in organic chemistry; between his standards and his age he recruited every year at an extremely low rate, and it wasn't unusual for nobody to qualify. Even so every round was a bloodbath, the applicants being the best from everywhere.

She knew. She'd got through a fierce competition, and fierce as it was, her record hadn't looked embarrassing among them; the resveratrol extraction alone had interested him greatly.

The airport isn't far from central London — an hour, by Zhao Yiming's account.

He was enthusiastic without being uncomfortable, and what he said was useful, so the journey passed pleasantly. Thanks to him she arrived with a much clearer picture of Cambridge, down to which dishes in the college canteens are worth eating — which also has to do with there not being many worth recommending. The reputation of the place as a culinary desert is not idle talk.

The taxi reached the flat she'd rented, and having left his number, Zhao Yiming's task was done.

She'd taken a studio near the university, and opening the window and looking round, she was satisfied: good transport, close to the chemistry department. She sent her mother some photographs to say she'd arrived safely, rolled up her sleeves and started cleaning.

Cambridge's term began on the fourth of October. A week away.

Two days getting to know the area brought her to the meeting with Professor Auren. Term hadn't started, and a British doctorate being primarily research, you choose the courses you want; doctoral students aren't required to attend, so start dates are flexible.

The meeting had been arranged from China, mainly to discuss her direction and outline. She'd read a good many of his papers and knew his field: through combinatorial synthesis of natural products and their analogues, finding new reactions in organic chemistry and using them to advance innovative drug research.

One of the authorities in that field, he had a number of major achievements, the most important being work on complex organic molecules in synthesis that won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the turn of the century, and has been widely applied in pharmaceuticals. Faced with a man of that standing, Li Lan was duly respectful and arrived early to wait outside.

Waiting with her was the year's other entrant. The assistant had said Professor Auren had taken two students this year: herself, and presumably the fair-haired foreigner in front of her. A brief exchange established that he was Alexander, from America, also straight from a bachelor's.

To her surprise he had none of the warmth she'd associated with Americans; they exchanged greetings and then stood looking at each other. Fortunately a tall figure appeared at the end of the corridor before long, and her eyesight being good, she recognised Professor Auren from her interview at a distance.

Nearly seventy and at retirement age, he retained an intense love of chemistry — or he wouldn't still be doing research.

Seeing both students waiting, Auren James opened his door and invited them in.

Seated, and after brief courtesies, he came to it. "Ladies first, perhaps. Let us hear Lan's direction."

She was prepared, and the office being unsuitable for slides, took printed copies from her bag and handed them round.

Alexander took his and was interested at a glance. Her research plan was headed simply: Synthesis and Study of Insulin Analogues — Hydroxychalcone Compounds.

He hadn't expected insulin. Insulin's principal use, as everybody knows, is controlling diabetes, and diabetes being one of the world's most intractable chronic diseases, the difficulty is not slight.

Seeing them both settle on the paper, Li Lan cleared her throat and began.

As she talked and he read, Alexander found she wasn't fantasising, because what he held was a document with complete experimental methods and expected results. Reading on, he came to the methods she'd described, and studying them a while, was surprised to find he'd never seen anything similar in the literature. An entirely new methodology?

Setting the question aside, he read on as she talked.

The conclusions came soon enough. Being a plan, the conclusions were projections. And a research plan being what it is, its rigour means a projected conclusion generally doesn't differ greatly from the real one, barring accidents.

Reading them, Auren James — who had been nodding steadily — frowned, and Alexander looked equally unconvinced. Because her plan projected that an insulin analogue synthesised via hydroxychalcones could reduce injections to twice a month, and that after a period there was even the possibility of a cure. Which is an extremely bold thing to say.

Up to the methods, Alexander had thought it an outstanding plan. At the conclusions he thought she was simply exaggerating. Diabetes is universally acknowledged to be intractable; a great many scientists are working at it and there is still no good result.

And who was Li Lan? An unknown doctoral student who hadn't yet begun her doctorate, saying in her research plan that she could cure diabetes. Even had the plan been Auren James's own, Alexander would have put that outcome at forty per cent. Never mind hers.

Auren James had read the plan already, and at the time it had described the methods and the subject in great detail, with the results omitted for length. Seeing the conclusions for the first time, he too was surprised by her boldness — research calls for bold hypotheses and careful verification, and this went as far as talking through one's hat.

He was displeased, and a reserved and courteous nature prevented him criticising outright. He put the paper down. "Lan, can you tell me why the conclusions are written as they are? As a researcher, I think you should have the most basic scholarly discipline."

Alexander was a good deal less polite. "Forgive me, but I think the first part of this plan is excellent research and the conclusions are a complete failure. Possibly you are simply advertising your own work." Against his silence in the corridor he was now markedly serious; being somebody who loves research, he was rigorous about it.

Both reactions were what she'd expected — anybody with no objection to that outcome would be the strange one. In fact this conclusion was already weakened, the shop's being one injection every three months, three courses of which produce a cure: intractable diabetes resolved inside a year.

"Professor Auren, Alexander — hydroxychalcone already has insulin-like action, and modifying it genetically by the method in this plan can extend insulin's half-life, which achieves stable blood glucose over long periods."

He considered, then questioned her closely on the details of the methods; her method coming from the shop, the existing literature was no use as reference, so he had a great many questions.

Half an hour of it, and at the last question he nodded, the frown easing slightly. "Your method is genuinely original — and it is precisely that originality which makes the eventual outcome hard to determine. If it is as your conclusions say, Lan, you may have accomplished a remarkable thing."

Alexander still didn't believe she could overcome diabetes, and it was certainly an excellent plan, and even unsuccessful might produce something worth having.

The conclusions dealt with, Li Lan relaxed, knowing the substance came next. Choosing insulin analogues had taken some resolve: they sit in the shop's L4 range, second only to the L5 cancer drugs. Rejuvenate had taken her through an L3 experiment, and picking L5 cancer for a doctorate would be pure fantasy — and among L4's intractable conditions, insulin analogues sit towards the harder end. She'd chosen it to challenge herself.

And she was at Cambridge now, with the world's best supervisor and equipment. Difficulties existed, and she was reasonably confident.

Then it was Alexander's turn, and he too had printed copies, and reading his, Li Lan reflected that he was ruthless in his own right: she was doing insulin analogues, and his topic was non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors — one of the key agents used to treat AIDS.