Chapter 369 - 249: Killing Blow

The entire audience: "..."

This attempt to shift the blame was shameless to the extreme.

But his logic was just self-consistent enough that no one could find a flaw in it.

The crowd began to whisper amongst themselves, and the tide of public opinion unbelievably turned back in Miller's favor.

"So it was a Chinese person who did it. No wonder."

"I knew Professor Miller would never plagiarize. Mr. Jiang was too impulsive, making a public accusation without getting his facts straight."

"Professor Miller is upholding justice even against his own subordinate. He's clearly the victim here, yet he's the one being slandered. This young man's behavior is so ill-mannered!"

The whispers cut through the conference hall like razors.

The reporters were like hounds that had scented blood, their camera shutters replacing teeth as they tore into Jiang He, wishing they could rip him to shreds.

"He's lying!" Wen Xuyang's eyes were bloodshot as he tried to stand, but Fu Yunshu held him firmly in his seat.

Shen Yu's hands clenched unconsciously.

But on the stage, Jiang He simply smiled again.

'Once upon a time, in his past life, he too had held sacred illusions about these top-tier international temples of academia.'

'He thought medicine knew no borders, that this was a place of pure, unadulterated pursuit of truth.'

'But having weathered the storms of time, he now knew that in the face of barriers built from pride and prejudice, truth often needed cannons to clear the way.'

'Especially at this point in time, in 2008, the West's collective fear of the great Eastern nation's rise made them instinctively reject any high-level achievements from China.'

Jiang He said, "Professor Miller, I'm truly moved by your academic spirit, being willing to uphold justice even against your own people."

Miller adopted the look of a magnanimous elder. "Mr. Jiang, I know you're furious that your hard work was stolen by a fellow countryman, but that doesn't change the fact that Wang Qian is the true culprit. It is irrational to vent your anger on Johns Hopkins University."

"Irrational?" Jiang He repeated the word softly, his gaze shifting to Su Zhi. "Su Zhi, let's unwrap the Christmas present we prepared."

Su Zhi nodded and opened a folder on the computer's desktop.

Inside were only two files: a PDF and an audio clip.

"Let's look at the PDF first."

As the screen changed, Jiang He's tone became indifferent:

"This paper, 'Targeted Evaluation of Early Intervention to Block Inflammatory Factors in Acute Severe Pancreatitis,' lists its first author as Miller, of Johns Hopkins University. It was published recently. Now, since Professor Miller has shifted all the blame to Wang Qian, why don't we examine a study that Professor Miller conducted himself—one with no Asian students involved?"

Jiang He clicked to the next page, and a set of scatter plots and a Western Blot gel appeared on the screen.

"Everyone here is a top expert in the field. Please look at the expression level of macrophage migration inhibitory factor, or MIF, in Figure 4."

"In the paper, Professor Miller claims that with the early intervention method they developed, MIF expression decreased by 70% within 12 hours. The data chart looks absolutely perfect—a perfect p-value, a perfect confidence interval."

Jiang He clicked the presentation remote again.

Another set of images appeared on the right side of the screen.

"This is from a replication study conducted by Dr. Cai Zhuoqun, one of my senior colleagues. The results show that the decrease in MIF was a negligible 15% over 12 hours, with an astonishingly large standard deviation."

"What's more interesting are the bands on this Western Blot. If we perform a simple contrast enhancement and color inversion on the gel image from the published paper..."

"Unfortunately, the bands for Group B in Figure 4 were, in fact, copied directly from the control group's bands, then flipped horizontally and stretched by 15%. Professor Miller, was this also something Wang Qian did behind your back?"

The entire audience: "!!!"

The European scholars in the front rows leaned forward in shock.

Everyone present was a top-tier expert who had spent years toiling in labs. This level of malicious image manipulation, once exposed, was impossible to hide!

Hayes shot to his feet, trying to argue forcefully, "Absurd! This is slander! A few images you've manipulated yourself prove nothing!"

"Prove nothing?" Jiang He's gaze was icy. "Then how about after today's conference, we have every colleague here return to their lab and run this replication experiment? Let's see who can reproduce your perfect data."

Hayes opened his mouth to retort, but Carter abruptly pulled him back down into his seat.

Carter's scalp tingled with fear. He knew his advisor all too well. What Jiang He had just presented was undeniable proof!

"It seems that when it comes to academic ethics, Professor Miller himself doesn't stand up to scrutiny."

Jiang He didn't give them a moment to breathe. "Su Zhi, open the second file."

A recording of a phone call in Chinese, slightly distorted with static, echoed through the auditorium.

"...That Asian student of mine, Zou Ji, reported me for academic fraud under his real name. He handed over all the original lab records. The ethics committee at Johns Hopkins University has gotten involved. That old fox Miller, to save his own skin, has cut all ties with me. My lab has been shut down, I'm facing the risk of having my license revoked, and in the academic circle here, I'm completely and utterly ruined..."

The vast majority of the foreign scholars couldn't understand Chinese and looked on in confusion.

"It's alright if you don't understand. I'll translate for everyone."

Jiang He first translated the recording into English.

Then he said, "The speaker in this recording is none other than the 'morally corrupt' Wang Qian that Professor Miller just mentioned. This was recorded when he was in a desperate situation, calling back to China for help."

'He had Vice Dean Zhang Sui's cunning foresight to thank for this.'

'The recording of that overseas call had now become the final dagger to strip away Miller's hypocritical mask.'

'That academic scoundrel, Wang Qian, had finally made the greatest contribution of his life right before his downfall.'