Chapter 299 - The Scandal about Jiang WenYu Thesis being Plagiarized Spread within a Day (1)

Zhang Bi was stunned. How could that be possible? Jiang WenYu had fallen ill and put a halt on his research when he sent his thesis out. It would still be a while before Jiang WenYu could complete his thesis.

So when did he mail that out?

He was overcome with panic and his hands, holding onto the magazine, were trembling. The magazine fell into the floor. He felt not a than when the magazine hit him on his foot. Staring into the hair, his eyes were unfocused and his brain refused to work.

It was all over. He had no idea what had happened but, with Jiang WenYu's thesis being published, it was all over.

"Bi, what happened?"

Zhang Bi's mother's voice brought him back to reality. Recollecting himself, all he could see was his mother Su QinMei's worried look.

Su QinMei was panicking right now. She had gone to play mahjong with a few of her girlfriends and were congratulated that her son had another article being published. Anyone else would be lucky to have someone published once every few years. Her son, on the other hand, having his article published in a top magazine was as simple as drinking water. Su QinMei thought they were praising her precious son Zhang Bi at first and was cheerful about it. She knew exactly what Zhang Bi had been doing lately and even pulled strings herself to help him out. Things would not have otherwise gone so smoothly without Zhang Bi leaving any trails behind.

That b*stard Jiang WenYu had some used after all. He could at least contribute to her son's halo.

As the conversation went on, she noticed that something wasn't right. Why did it sound like they were talking about Jiang WenYu? As she prodded some more, she learned that they were talking about Jiang WenYu. Su QinMei had no mood for mahjong anymore. She left for home quickly and wanted to find out what was going on. Whatever happened to Jiang WenYu only being half way through his thesis?

He was still down with the flu every time when her father-in-law called him up.

"Why was it that it was his thesis that was published? Did he write something else in the past?"

Her series of questions only annoyed Zhang Bi even more. He pushed Su QinMei aside and said angrily, "All you know is to ask question. How would I know what is going on?!"

His look was a mixture of anger, embarrassment, and confusion. His voice filled with hatred. "The thesis that was published was the same one that I had submitted."

Su QinMei was stunned. Stuttering, she asked, "What are you going to do then?"

If the magazine had already published Jiang WenYu's article, then her son would no longer stand a chance.

All sorts of thoughts were crossing Zhang Bi's mind and he was finally able to sort some sense out of them. Adding all the facts together, he came to a sad conclusion. "We had all been fooled by Zhang WenYu! He had completed his thesis and submitted it a long time ago!"

There was no other reason why it would be published so quickly.

He pulled out his own thesis and forced himself to compare it to the one in the magazine. The first half were identical but it started deviated from the middle portion and the data toward the end were entirely different as was their conclusions.

It was the middle of summer but he felt like he had fallen into an iced pond. Chilliness continued to radiate out from him. He finally came to the realization that this was a trap set just for him from the very beginning. And him, his head clouded by his own gains and entirely underestimated Zhang WenYu, had fallen hard into this trap and ended up bloody all overall. It was a complicated trap at that just pegged on his greediness.

Zhang WenYu was vicious. He wanted to completely kill off Zhang Bi's future!

Zhang Bi, having it all figured out, gasped deeply and he could hear his own teeth grinding together. "He wanted me ruined."

Chapter 300 - The Scandal about Jiang WenYu Thesis being Plagiarized Spread within a Day (2)

Su QinMei was not a technical person but, judging from the look on her son alone, she could tell how serious the problem was. She was both worried and angry. "I knew we should never had allowed him to return. I should have him killed sooner. He was a white-eyed wolf after all! What should we do now?"

When she said that, it did not occur to her that she did not posses the ability to stop Zhang WenYu from returning to the Zhang family. He was the true heir.

She has had what did not belong to her for too long and now she thought they were rightfully hers to begin with. She was enraged when the original owner what was his back. She couldn't accept that fact and even hated his existence.

Zhang Bi took a deep breath. He walked around the house a few times before he finally sat down in front of his computer. He first sent another email to the magazine that he had submitted his article to and expressed how he had made a mistake and submitted a wrong article. The reason made no sense but he didn't have a lot of choices right now. Had it been a domestic magazine, the Zhang family could probably pull some strings and make the whole incident go away.

Zhang Bi, who had wanted to become renowned, had picked only international magazines. He didn't even have the numbers to the editors, let alone pressuring them to do anything.

After he had done that, he looked up at his mother from the chair and said to her, "Mom, when push comes to shove, why don't you go and talk to him? Just tell him that I wasn't thinking straight and made a big mistake and had him said that the two of us worked on it together during the early stages."

"He still believes that you are his real mother. He won't turn you down."

Su QinMei did not look good. Had her go smooth talk something whom she hated? She couldn't bring herself to do such a thing.

Nevertheless, looking at the rare panic and helpless look on her son, she agreed to it begrudgingly. She would just think of it as doing it for her son.

Zhang Bi felt better after he had convinced his mother. When he decided to carry out the plan, he figured that with his mother and grandfather around, unless Zhang WenYu was willing to sever all ties with the Zhang family, otherwise, he would be pressured into compromising. The Zhang family would not allow a scandal like this and he was certain that his grandfather would be on his side.

Even though his grandfather finding out about this meant that he would have absolutely no chance of becoming the heir but he had no other options. His grandfather would find this out sooner or later. He might as well come clean now.

After he had mentally prepared himself, he went over to look for Zhang Kaiyu, the clan leader of the Zhang family, and told him everything.

Zhang Kaiyu was so angry that his stomach hurt. He never would imagine that someone from their family would commit plagiarism.

He couldn't help but raised his cane and struck Zhang Bi with it.

"You couldn't even have stolen it from someone else? You had to steal from one of our own? That's just great!"

Zhang Kaiyu was no spring chick but, perhaps because he had maintained his health well, he was still very strong at his age and was every bit as strong as a middle-aged man when he was beating someone.

Zhang Kaiyu was truly angry. Had Zhang Bi tried to plagiarized from some outside and succeeded, perhaps he could still say that it was a job well done. But he was plagiarizing Zhang WenYu! Another member of the Zhang family!

Zhang Bi hadn't expected his grandfather would start beating him right away and was struck by him firmly for the first few times. They hurt so much that his look was twisted. Of course solid wood landing on one's body would hurt. He reflexively tried to avoid them but that infuriated Zhang Kaiyu even more. He dared to try to avoid him?! So he struck him even harder.

"Stop! Stop!"

Zhang Bi had tried to refrain himself from shouting out at the beginning but started howling toward the end.

Chapter 301 - The Scandal about Jiang WenYu Thesis being Plagiarized Spread within a Day (3)

All the ruckuses coming from the room caught the attention of the others inside the house. By the time they got there, they all witnessed how Zhang Bi was beaten to a pulp. When the cane landed on Zhang Bi, many who had been beaten by it in the past shuddered reflexively.

The beating left Zhang Bi black and blue all over and he was in great pain every time he moved.

Albeit being beaten up, Zhang Bi felt relieved. With the beating, that meant that his grandfather truly hadn't given up on him yet and that he would clean up his mess for him.

His lips curved a little in an attempt to smile but, man, oh, man, that affected the injuries all over him and he bared his teeth – that hurt so much!

This incident brought him not just physical pain, but also psychological torture. He knew now that he could never become the heir. One mistake and it had cost him the entire game.

***

After Zhang Kaiyu had given Zhang Bi a beating, he went to the family's storage room to look for some precious herbs. Those were gifts for Zhang WenYu. He would offer him a lot in return and had Zhang Bi apologize to him profusely. That ought to pacify Zhang WenYu. They were a family. Surely he would not want to make a big deal out of it and wave their dirty laundry in front of the whole world. He could always give hand over Bi's resources for WenYu. As the clan leader of the Zhang family, he didn't want the internal conflicts within the family turned into gossip materials.

He thought about it some and feeling that his plan was fine, felt more confident about it.

By the time he was done picking out the gifts, it was already midnight. Naturally, Zhang Kaiyu would not be leaving the house at this hour but he would rest for the night and go the next head.

Nevertheless, night time in China means broad daylight on the other side of the world and it was office hours.

Bruce, one of the editors of Nature, went off.

[A blatant effort in plagiarism. What a shame for the academia!]

Bruce took screen shots of the time that he had received the theses from both Jiang WenYu and Zhang Bi and posted them with comparison. The first half of the two articles were almost identical, short of a few minor edits.

It was obviously that not only did Jiang WenYu submitted his over a month before Zhang Bi, his data was consistently and proven by other researchers in clinical studies. Zhang Bi's data was a mess and the final conclusion was forced and illogical. There was a big difference in quality between the first and second halves of his paper. As though a top student's essay was finished by a mediocre student.

It was only too obvious that Zhang Bi had plagiarized the first half of Jiang WenYu's thesis. Then there was the question of him muddling the data. In either case, he had committed the two worst sins in the academia.

After Bruce had posted that on a foreign website, tall of the other editors liked or commented on it.

When the news got to China and was released by the medias, it had created an uproar. All of the official channels had been happily praising how accomplishing Jiang WenYu was at his young age and that he was a genius that one would only see every 10 years. Everybody had expected great achievements from him. And, just a day later, scandals about someone trying to plagiarize his work broke.

And everybody was all over it.

Chinese cared a lot about their image internationally. For those who brought pride to the country, they feel proud of them and will idolize them. They could praise them for an entire day with all different words. As for those who brought shame to the country, they would all turn into their anti-fan and would bash them so much that their ancestors would want to leap out from their graves.

[Get out of here and take the beating, Zhang Bi!]

Plagiarizing someone else's work was a low and disgusting act regardless of which country one was in. The netizens were enraged. As the Zhang family had bragged about the fact that Jiang WenYu was a long-lost child of the Zhang's, the netizens were able to figure out that Jiang WenYu and Zhang Bi were twin brothers. They were shocked. They could smell the melon of two infighting between two brothers within a prominent family.