Broken Light Collection

In the autumn rain at Jiangcheng University of Technology, graduate student Chen Mo clung to the news of his mentor Lu Chen. The boy's heartbeat under his white coat was disordered along with the experimental data. As a close disciple of rising academic star Lu Chen, he was once intoxicated by the scent of cedar ink corrected by his mentor in the darkroom, fell in love with the smell of whiskey in the office on rainy nights, and even misread the tenderness that transcended teachers and students in the golden glow of maple leaves in the Fragrant Mountains. Starting from the first USB flash drive of data fraud, starting from the platinum ring on the ring finger of the daughter of the school director, starting from the transfer vouchers flying in anonymous emails, Chen Mo gradually saw clearly the shadows under the white coat - invoices for misappropriation of funds, disputes over plagiarized patents, and calculations of exchanging marriage for power, all wrapped in the sugar coating of "for academic ideals." However, the delicate words he hid behind the pen name of "Wan Chan" in the supplement of the school newspaper, those ravings about moonlight and ginkgo, could not illuminate the darkness behind the laboratory blinds after all. When the sound of breaking porcelain in the villa area cut through the rainy night, and when the diamond ring in the velvet box reflected cold light, Chen Mo finally understood the ambition in Lu Chen's eyes: the so-called "scholar's light" is just the neon reflected by the glass fragments. From the ignorant trust of covering up data loopholes for his mentor to the trembling of his fingertips when faced with the report button, the young man completed a cruel rite of passage in the collapse of the academic temple. When the ginkgo leaves fell, the suspension notice on the bulletin board blew away the last trace of illusion. On the empty hangers in the laboratory, the scent of cedar still lingers on the white coats; in the photo album on the mobile phone, the corners of the Xiangshan photos are tinged with the rough edges of old times - it turns out that he has long known that those clenched wrists, the coats draped over the shoulders, and the profiles at academic conferences are just gentle traps carefully designed by those in power. This is a story about broken faith and self-salvation. In the interweaving of data curves and lines of poetry, the boy finally chose to let the truth penetrate the fog of academic fraud. When the reminder sounds for sending reporting materials, those broken lights that were once regarded as beacons will eventually piece together the true academic dignity in the darkness before dawn. Purpose: Through the secret power struggle and collapse of faith between graduate student Chen Mo and tutor Lu Chen, the work reveals the collusion of interests under the alienation of academic authority, plays a song of awakening for individuals to stick to the truth and tear away the halo of hypocrisy in moral dilemmas, and interrogates the pure land of academics and the persistence of the essence of human conscience.