Wang Huiyao’s expression was filled with satisfaction as he looked at Zhou Wen.

He said, beaming with delight, “Here, you should get ready, tomorrow… make it the day after tomorrow, then. Sit for the oral examination on the morning of the day after tomorrow. Is that okay?”

Zhou Wen expected this to happen.

An ordinary graduation oral exam was very simple, where a few lecturers would ask a few fixed questions, and the student would only need to elaborate on the answers.

However, his thesis was different. He was 100% certain that his thesis would be published in the few big journals in the country.

Perhaps, it would even be published to CNS, so this would not be an ordinary oral exam anymore. The rest of the lecturers and professors in the university would be invited to convene the oral examination.

It would be possible for him to go through three rounds of debates even!

“Noted, professor.”

“Alright, that’s all for now…”

Zhou Wen’s expression relaxed after he left the office.

If he could pass Wang Huiyao’s, it would not be an issue for him to pass the rest of the lecturers basically.

He was confident as a result of his now rich yet theoretical foundation.

His knowledge of the four main courses consisting of pharmacology, pathology, biochemistry, and immunology had all been upgraded to Level 1.

Those hard to understand jargon and theories that many masters graduates and even doctorate graduates could possibly have already forgotten or only understood superficially, he was capable of memorizing them thoroughly. It was enough for him to use that to his advantage to bluff the ordinary specialist scholars.

As for the top international instructors, he had no fear of them either.

Firstly, those people would not necessarily show up to engage in a debate with him.

Secondly, even if he had to engage in a debate with them, he was not afraid. It was fine for him to be mistaken in his theory because the result was real.

He would politely ask for them to shut up even if they had any objections.

It was precisely due to this reason that he had the courage to boast about what he could do and was fearless in the face of queries from the academic community.

Out of boredom, during his journey back to the hospital using public transportation, Zhou Wen unlocked the wooden loot box.

[Congratulations, you receive 100 RMB]

The prompt sound was just heard in his ears while a text message notification ringtone was heard coming from his phone.

He picked it up and took a glance. He was immediately overjoyed. So it turned out that his salary had been wired into his account.

It was a total of 7420 bucks.

Current available balance: 7421.38 RMB

He had been so busy over the past few days that he made the decision to buy himself something as a reward.

He pondered for a long time before he finally made up his mind to buy himself two sets of clothes later at night.

He discovered that it had already been a very long time since he bought new clothes for himself when he was unpacking his luggage last night. He bought five sets of clothes in total throughout his four years of university life. There were two sets of winter outfits, two sets of autumn wear, and also one set of spring clothes. Moreover, these clothes were all very old.

It was 3:30 in the afternoon when he arrived at the hospital. He thought about how he might possibly be quite busy for the next two days, so Zhou Wen did not procrastinate and went directly to extract over a dozen samples of DNA as a reserve.

He got off work at 5:30 in the evening and headed to the underground shopping mall located 500 meters away from the southwest direction of the hospital.

The underground shopping mall sold cheap clothing, including t-shirts costing 50 bucks each and jeans costing 99 bucks each that could be found everywhere in the mall. These clothes were in rather good quality too.

He chose three sets of clothes that looked exactly the same; they were a combination of white t-shirts and blue jeans.

This would help him to prevent decision fatigue.

He passed by the Hotwind store and noticed that the shoes were pretty good. They came in beautiful designs and at affordable prices. As compared to Adidas and Nike, these were much more cost-effective.

He picked out three pairs at one go, and they cost only 597 bucks in total.

The price was still way cheaper than a pair of Adidas or Nike shoes.

“Hey, Zhou Wen…”

Zhou Wen turned around to find Wei Zhaogong and the rest in a milk tea cafe next door, to his surprise.

The rest of the people were Jiang Hexuan, Xu Jiajia, Dong Wenying, and also Su Qi from the PCR team.

Zhou Wen said smilingly, “Are all of you going on a group trip to the mall?”

Xu Jiajia walked over and slapped him on his arm. “I was looking for you when I got off work earlier. Why are you always slipping away on your own?”

Zhou Wen chuckled and said, “I left with Sun Jing. I had something to discuss with her, coincidentally.”

“Is that so…” Xu Jiajia chuckled and nodded. She took a look at the shopping bags in his hand and said, “You’ve bought quite a lot of things, haven’t you?”

“Mmhmm, I bought some clothes! How about you?” As Zhou Wen was speaking, he looked to their hands and found that they were all empty-handed.

Xu Jiajia said, “We’re here for a stroll.”

As she was speaking, she passed the milk tea taken from the milk tea cafe’s owner to Zhou Wen.

“Thank you…” answered Zhou Wen, politely, then he passed the milk tea to Dong Wenying, who was standing quietly by the side.

The specky doll-faced girl behaved like an invisible person wherever she went. The others could not help but neglect her presence, which made Zhou Wen think of Xu Shuangyu. Xu Shuangyu was completely different from Dong Wenying because she was the focus of everyone’s attention wherever she went.

Dong Wenying thanked him, shyly.

Zhou Wen smiled and said, “You’re welcome. Oh, right, I forgot to return your laptop to you. I shall bring it back to you tomorrow morning at work.”

Dong Wenying replied, “It’s fine; you can keep using it.”

“I’m already done using it…” Upon saying that, Zhou Wen asked, “I’m going to purchase a new laptop, coincidentally. Do you have any recommendations?”

Dong Wenying shook her head. “I don’t know much about laptops.”

Jiang Hexuan asked, “What are you planning to use it for mostly?”

Zhou Wen answered, “I’m mainly using it for scientific research. It must be cost-effective, and the price range should be around 10,000 bucks.”

Jiang Hexuan considered for a short while before he said, “IBM’s T series and X series are suited to your needs. Model T470 and T480 are pretty good, and these models function as mobile workstations. The functions are rather powerful in comparison. Moreover, these laptops are very stable, secure, and work efficiently. The price range is about 10,000 bucks. If you’re facing a problem with a large number of literature reviews and information storage, I suggest you head to JD.com to purchase a 1TB Seagate portable hard drive for your convenience.”

Zhou Wen could see that Jiang Hexuan could talk about digital products professionally. He nodded and said, “Alright, I shall take your advice and head over to get one now.”

Upon hearing that, Jiang Hexuan immediately said, “There’s a specialty store in front; I shall join you to go take a look.”

Generally, men were more interested in digital products. Wei Zhaogong followed them to go take a look as well upon hearing the conversation.

The group split into two soon afterward, with the three men buying laptops while the three women continued to stroll the mall.

They arrived at the specialty and went straight to the point by asking the sales assistant to show them the T480.

The model came with a 14-inch screen with an Intel i7 processor, 8G RAM, and 512GB SSD.

Zhou Wen was extremely satisfied with the specs.

As for the pricing, it was over 11,000 RMB, which was about 200 bucks more expensive than JD.com. However, the sales assistant promised to throw in a laptop bag and laptop screen protector for free, which sounded rather attractive to Zhou Wen.

It felt more acceptable this way.

Zhou Wen paid the money and received the receipt.

The sales assistant had already installed the screen protector for the new laptop on the spot.

Zhou Wen felt at ease as he left the store with the laptop in the backpack on his back.

The act of shopping puts a person in delight, just as expected.

He met up with Xu Jiajia and the rest, and they chatted for a while before everyone parted ways and went home.

…

On Monday morning, Zhou Wen copied the information he stored in Dong Wenying’s laptop to his own laptop, and then he returned the laptop to her.

He presented her with a cute handmade hair clip as a token of appreciation for her kindness. In fact, he had bought it on the way to work yesterday.

Dong Wenqing was so happy that she was smiling like a fool.

Meanwhile, Zhou Wen had to prepare for the professional skills test at nine o’clock.

Zhou Wen was already considered a renowned person in the laboratory department by now. The people from the PCR team, viral test team, and specimen preparation team were all acquainted with him, and they acknowledged the impressive standards of his work too.

Whether it was DNA extraction, PCR experiments, or viral tests, Zhou Wen was capable of performing it well and in a leisurely manner. Moreover, he would also provide guidance to others based on his experience.

Other than being young, there was already no other weakness in him.

By the time Zhou Wen arrived in the viral test team’s area on the fourth floor, he had discovered that the area outside the huge laboratory was filled with a crowd of people with numerous older researchers joining them.

Everyone stood on the walkway and watched the masters conducting experiments inside the room attentively through the transparent glass wall.

“You’re here…”

“Mmhmm.”

“Zhou Wen, we’re just waiting for you.”

“Heh-heh, why are you waiting for me? I’m just a measly character.”

“Little brother, send a few DNA samples for me to use, alright? The ones that you extracted are especially nice to use.”

“Sure, come over and take it later.”

“Little brother, that’s very generous of you. I shall introduce you to my cousin later.”

“Your cousin is only ten years old, though…”

Zhou Wen changed into the proper attire in the changing room, put on a face mask and gloves, and then entered the laboratory.

The assigned task was his trade – DNA extraction.

This was his ace in the hole – the ability of all biology researchers. On the other hand, the only way to test the standard was to see who could extract it quickly and with good results.

The experimental subject was a little white mouse, naturally.

It could be some other animal too, of course. It could have been a plant, a human being’s skin clippings, blood serum, and even a nasal swab sample, as long as it contained a complete DNA strand. However, a demonstration using a white mouse was the most convenient method.

Zhou Wen came to the front of the working bench, stretched his shoulders, and then he pressed the timer to activate it.

He dissected the white mouse, extracted its thigh bone, added a low penetrant solution to wash it, loaded it in the centrifuge, extracted supernatant fluid, added colorant, performed centrifugation, and blow out, and then added a fixing agent before another round of centrifugation.

The final step was to place the sample on the microscope slide and load it to the stage for electron microscope observation.

Zhou Wen did not even bother checking the electron microscope before he turned off the timer. The time recorded was 59 minutes and 56 seconds.

While Zhou Wen was conducting the experiment, the rest of the 30 to 40 laboratory technicians standing inside and outside the laboratory, as well as the team leaders inspecting the event, had a look of bewilderment on their faces from the start to the end.

Even though the vast majority of the people were acquainted with Zhou Wen, it was the first time most of them ever witnessed Zhou Wen performing DNA extraction live.

His entire extraction process could even be described as being ‘crude’. However, there was an odd sense of fluency in his work while being crude at the same time.

Everyone was overcome with emotions in their hearts. It just occurred to them that DNA extraction could even be performed in this manner.

At the very end, they even watched as Zhou Wen behaved so recklessly such that he refused to even waste one minute to perform the observation. The crowd gradually grew restless.

“Damn it! 59 minutes and 56 seconds! Can that be real?”

“That’s too much! Can an extraction at this speed be a success?”

“Hah-hah-hah… Let’s not think about whether it is a success or not; it gets the job done faster.”

“Hey, Old Zhou, go and take a look if it’s a success…”

The people in the laboratory had already put aside their work on hand, in the meantime.

If the extraction that lasted 59 minutes were a success, it would be mind-blowing.

This particular professional skill would rank top if it competed at the national level too. It was a standard that no one else could meet.

A laboratory technician from the blood test team did not manage to suppress his curiosity. He made his way to the electron microscope, adjusted the magnification, and began observing the slide.

The DNA strand was clear and complete under the electron microscope…