Lin Fengzi picked at her ear. "Did I hear that right?"
"What the hell? What does the organizing committee mean?" Mu Xiangrong slammed down the anatomy book he was reading and stood up abruptly.
The venue erupted in excitement. If Ruan Yunhan's group won the gold medal, would the organizing committee mean that Lin Fengzi's group had plagiarized?
But Lin Fengzi's group produced surveillance footage proving that Ruan Yunhan stole Lin Fengzi's group's calculation paper.
That video was clearly not fabricated. With current technology, it would be impossible for a few ordinary students to create such a seamless video.
In other words, if Lin Fengzi's team had the ability to synthesize such a perfect video, they wouldn't even need to research the Acubier engine; the software capable of synthesizing this video would be enough to win the gold medal.
Even Ruan Yunhan's team didn't expect to win the gold medal.
After the farce this morning, Ruan Yunhan disappeared without a trace and has been unresponsive to her phone.
He didn't leave a single explanation for his team members.
Wherever they go today, people point and whisper, saying they are a group that plagiarized. They themselves have their own doubts.
At the very beginning of the design process, Ruan Yunhan provided the basic model. The key data for each subsequent step was also provided by Ruan Yunhan. When they asked Ruan Yunhan about the data source, she said it was from her previous research, which she hadn't used at the time, but could now use.
When they pressed her about the verification process of some data, Ruan Yunhan always hesitated and stammered. Sometimes she said it was a research from a long time ago and she had forgotten the original ideas. Other times she said that the research was done by her and her brother, who was in the United States and it was inconvenient to contact him.
So when Lin Fengzi's group showed the surveillance footage of Ruan Yunhan stealing the calculation paper this morning, they almost implicitly agreed that Ruan Yunhan had plagiarized—her reputation was already bad.
Some people have even started complaining, saying they shouldn't have been in the same group as Ruan Yunhan in the first place, because now they've been screwed over by her.
Just a few hours later, the gold medal was awarded to their group again?
The group looked at each other, but in the end they went up on stage and stood on the podium to receive the award.
Mu Xiangrong pulled Song Cheng toward the stage, intending to ask the judges for clarification. However, after the farce that morning, the organizing committee had arranged a whole line of security personnel offstage, blocking Mu Xiangrong and Song Cheng from entering the audience.
The two were so angry that they tried to rush in, but the security personnel warned them rather rudely, "If you cause any more trouble, you will be expelled from the venue."
Ruan Chen dialed Mu Xiangrong's number, "Come back, I'll handle it."
Her voice was icy cold, yet it seemed to have a soothing quality, suppressing the anger in Mu Xiangrong's heart.
Ruan Chen looked up at the podium. Ruan Yunhan walked out from backstage, changed her makeup and styling. Her dress was understated yet luxurious, and her red lips were bright. She was nowhere to be seen as disheveled in front of everyone this morning.
She clearly knew she had won the gold medal beforehand and had specially styled her look.
As if sensing Ruan Chen's emotionless gaze, she smiled provocatively, looked in Ruan Chen's direction, and mouthed, "You lost."
Ruan Chen wasn't unperturbed; she wasn't an emotionless block of wood. She was simply suppressing the turmoil in her heart.
An overwhelming sense of unease and destructive power.
She has figured out the cause and effect.
The organizing committee wasn't unaware of who was plagiarizing; it's just that Ruan Yunhan completely copied her group's first design. That design had a clear advantage—extremely low cost. Although it also had drawbacks, the cost was only one-fifth of the cost of the design Ruan Chen's group used in the finals.
It can only be described as an overwhelming advantage.
The organizing committee recognized this, and saw the enormous profits behind the low cost, which is why they decided to put Ruan Yunhan on the gold medal throne despite the pressure of plagiarism.
On stage, Ruan Yunhan and her group began to give their acceptance speeches.
Ruan Chen recalled the sleepless days and nights she and Lin Fengzi had spent together.
I thought about the aspirations that my group of people had for this design.
She turned sideways and took her laptop out of her bag, her eyes gleaming with a cynical wildness and roguishness. "Want to play? Then let's play big."
"Sis, what are you doing?"
Lin Fengzi and the others noticed Ruan Chen's actions and looked at her.
The group chattered amongst themselves, but none of them seemed discouraged.
"Ruan Chen, are you preparing your appeal documents?"
"We can only appeal after the match now."
"I never imagined that the organizing committee could be so shameless as to protect plagiarists."
“No,” Ruan Chen looked at the podium and the judges’ area, his expression cold and menacing, and slowly said through gritted teeth, “Since you won’t let me sit at the table, then I’ll flip the table over today.”
The group exchanged glances, their eyes revealing excitement.
Even the most timid Bai Jiaojiao didn't object, and softly whispered, "Ruan Chen, you're so cool."
Mu Xiangrong clenched his fist excitedly, "A one-on-one challenge to the organizing committee? R, as expected of you, that's so cool! How do you plan to do it?!"
Lin Fengzi chimed in, "We have no problem with how big the stakes are. How could we possibly be bullied in the US?"
“Exactly, if we just back down like this, we’ll be laughed at when we go back to school,” Song Cheng raised his hand. “What do you need me to do?”
"Watching the show." Ruan Chen gently tapped the keyboard, and characters poured down onto the screen.
The microphone was passed among the seven members of Ruan Yunhan's group—Su Jin had not yet appeared.
Ruan Yunhan stood at the very end with a smile, waiting for the microphone to be passed to her. In just a few hours, she had experienced the transition from heaven to hell and back to heaven, and her whole mind was so excited that she was in a daze.
After being taken away by security personnel in the morning, she was called backstage by the organizing committee and talked for more than an hour. The rest of the time she was doing her makeup and styling.
The conversation that lasted for over an hour was quite simple. First, they confirmed with Ruan Yunhan exactly how much data Ruan Chen had copied. Second, they discussed buying out the patent with Ruan Yunhan. Third, they discussed how to handle Ruan Chen's post-match appeal and how to manage public relations if the controversy escalated.
Ruan Yunhan insisted that only the basic framework of the first part was based on Ruan Chen's ideas.
After Ruan Yunhan delivered a moving speech, she even shed tears. The award judges raised the trophy to hand it to her, and just as Ruan Yunhan grasped the trophy, the screen behind the podium suddenly lit up.
Lin Fengzi's voice, gentle and refined, came from the microphones all around: "Hello everyone, I apologize for interrupting the awards ceremony in such an abrupt way. First, please allow me to introduce myself. I am Lin Fengzi, the group leader of the other group involved in the plagiarism incident."
"I am now formally informing the organizing committee that our group is withdrawing from the competition and demanding that you issue an apology statement within three days regarding the matter of condoning and protecting plagiarists. Knowing that plagiarism had indeed occurred, you not only failed to punish the plagiarizing group but also awarded them a gold medal."
"I think the organizing committee should give all the original creators an explanation."
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