Chapter 82: The Scientist's Public Declaration
Silas Shen had initially harbored zero intentions of broadcasting anything across a public forum.
Within his structural worldview, all scientific pursuits demanded absolute objectivity and rigorous precision. Personal emotional discharges—and by extension, the external world's constant surveillance into the private life of the Father of Blocker Patches—constituted nothing more than redundant background noise that had deviated from a normal experimental trajectory. Late Monday night, while the digital universe outside engineered a cataclysmic tidal wave over Julian Huo's private WeChat post, Silas merely finished his bath quietly. Changing into a comfortable, milk-white cotton pajama set, he sank into a corner of his apartment sofa entirely alone.
He removed the gold-rimmed glasses that had been propped across the bridge of his nose all day, massaged his slightly exhausted brow bone, and—prior to executing a comprehensive shutdown of all social software—logically logged into his personal academic homepage. It was a portal that had remained un-updated for a vast duration, traditionally reserved exclusively for broadcasting core biochemical datasets and peer-reviewed SCI publication milestones.
He had originally intended to simply clear out the backend private correspondence that had exploded exponentially today due to the proposal, yet the exact millisecond his line of sight swept across the absolute bedrock of the comment sector, his gaze was held for a long duration by an exceptionally eye-catching, paragraph-length message.
The commenter utilized a newly registered account, identifying themselves as an Omega graduate student who had just cleared the direct-track admission interview for Beijing University:
"Professor Shen, I am an Omega who only underwent differentiation this year. Prior to today, I harbored immense terror. I was terrified that I would ultimately become exactly like what my senior school sisters described during their midnight weeping fits—that I would one day be clean-kidnapped by a surge of uncontrollable pheromones... But today... I witnessed the intelligence concerning your person. Professor Shen, you let me realize that an Omega can preeminently stand at the absolute summit of the scientific pantheon, can be loved deeply by a top-tier Alpha deploying the most clumsy, least aggressive fashion across this earth, and can be publicly acknowledged and loved without a single reservation... Thank you for becoming my ray of light across this chaotic, warring autumn. Furthermore, my heartfelt congratulations to you."
Inside the quiet living space, the aroma diffuser continued its tireless discharge of faint white mist, a crisp scent of oranges and fir weaving together to scatter longitudinally through the atmosphere.
Silas remained fixed, staring at every single character flashing across the display screen. Within that exact fraction of a second, it appeared as if he were traversing through this youthful, currently disoriented student to witness himself from many years ago—the same youth who had clamped his jaw tight amidst a complete chaos of pheromones, desperately attempting to deploy absolute rationality and a cool workstation to seal away base instinct.
He stared at this comment, watching it for a very, very long duration.
So long, in fact, that the door of the secondary bedroom clicked open with a padah. Hunter Huo finally brought that agonizing transnational video conference to a close, carrying a trace of an open vitality that had been thoroughly battered by corporate tasks as he dragged his long frame sluggishly toward the sofa. The exact millisecond the youth drew near, Silas's long fingers twitched slightly, tapping open the "Latest Updates" tab on his homepage—a sector that had remained rigid without a single modification for a vast duration.
He deployed zero ornate prose, nor did he engineer any form of affectation to cater to the masses. Professor Shen's elegant fingertips struck a single line of official declaration across the cool display screen with absolute certainty, phrased in a fashion uniquely characteristic of his personal style, even carrying a sliver of clinical coldness:
[Regarding recent private matters: It is verified that I have consented. Regarding the "H" annotated within past paper acknowledgments: It is verified that it constitutes his person. Regarding the future: We shall continue to jointly operate scientific research relating to pheromone autonomy. Private inquiries shall no longer receive correspondence; academic collaborations are welcome to establish contact.]
Right at the exact millisecond his finger was positioned to strike the broadcast command, Silas's motion abruptly paused.
He tilted his head slightly, casting a brief glance toward the youth who was currently resting his chin heavily across the armrest of the sofa with a sliver of grievance, staring up at him with wide, expectant puppy eyes exactly like a large golden retriever. A shallow layer of ripples broke across the bedrock of Silas's eyes.
Subsequently, at the absolute tail end of the entire declaration, he broke all protocol by appending a single, exceptionally tender sentence:
[Thank you all for the blessings. He is exceptionally happy, and I am as well.]
A mere three minutes following its transmission, that personal homepage—historically renowned across academic circles for being perennially rigid and dead-pan—was instantaneously and comprehensively rammed to maximum capacity. The backend server near-collapsed into total paralysis under a simultaneous influx of thousands of incoming interactions.
Those "shippers" and Beijing University scholars who had successfully tracked the digital breadcrumbs to this location were thoroughly struck clean through the crown of their skulls by those four final characters anchored inside Professor Shen's signature cold announcement.
The top-upvoted comment was pinned at the absolute summit:
"The phrasing 'and I am as well' constitutes the single sweetest, most lethal romantic declaration I have ever witnessed Professor Shen utter across my entire existence! Bar none!"
The second high-upvote interaction trailed immediately behind:
"As it turns out, the glacial professor genuinely possesses the capacity to utter romantic declarations. Even though it is merely four hardcore characters, why does it feel infinitely more capable of causing a person to scream in original position than those love letters spanning thousands of words?!"
As for the third high-upvote interaction, it was a high-profile, chaotic chant dispatched by an onlooker who feared nothing more than a lack of commotion, frantically tagging the target:
"Hunter Huo, have you witnessed this!! Glance at your mobile device right this second!! Professor Shen publicly broadcasted 'He is exceptionally happy, and I am as well' across the entire web!!! You have officially secured your tenure and assumed your post!!!"
Hunter Huo had, of course, witnessed it.
In factual reality, by the second millisecond following Silas pressing the broadcast key, the youth—who had established a specialized "Close Friend" notification system—had already captured the digital push.
"Professor—!!"
Accompanied by a sticky wail that resonated clean through the living space, the large golden retriever who had been languishing a second ago instantly snapped back to absolute life. Hunter's entire physical frame practically launched itself directly from the edge of the sofa armrest to land square against Silas's flank. Across that handsome face swirled an un-hidable, defiant flush born of extreme exhilaration. He slammed his mobile display screen flush against Silas's elegant face with zero physical interval, his massive palms clamping Silas's shoulders, his voice trembling violently from raw ecstasy:
"Professor! Glance at this! Those characters 'and I am as well' hand-penned by your own person! You actually, genuinely wrote 'and I am as well'! If one were to execute a rounding-off calculation on this, it constitutes you actively declaring your love to me before the entire world, before the entire university, before every single living existence, correct?!"
Silas was compressed by his excessively massive physical frame until he sank a fraction deeper into the cushions of the sofa, his nasal cavity entirely saturated by that sweet aroma of blazing oranges which had gone thoroughly wild and out of control due to its master's extreme exhilaration.
He slanted his face slightly, utilizing a single finger to press against Hunter's handsome face—which was on the verge of pasting itself entirely against his skin—with a touch of aversion yet a touch of total indulgence. His voice carried its perennial coolness, yet that crimson flush across his ear roots which had just managed to recede manifested distinct signs of roaring back to life from the ashes:
"...Hunter Huo, step backward. I am merely acting in my capacity as a rigorous scientific researcher, stating an objective fact that has already materialized."
"I am blockaded, I cannot hear it! The objective fact is that you are declaring your love to me! You simply feel that marrying me makes you exceptionally happy!"
Hunter thoroughly mobilized his prowess for relentless clinging. Far from stepping backward, he utilized the leverage to rub his face against Silas's slightly cool palm, those blood-red puppy eyes entirely filled with a triumphant pride after successfully executing a scheme.
Silas exhaled a low sigh of complete helplessness, thoroughly abandoning all intent to reason with this Alpha who chose to lose the capacity to comprehend human speech at critical nexuses, his cognitive prowess suffering a forced regression to that of a primary school student. Retracting his hand, he grasped the television remote resting across the coffee table, depressing the power switch with an expressionless demeanor, feigning absolute focus across the dry financial indexes flashing through the business news broadcast.
Yet Hunter's sharp, night-vision-capable eyes spent the entirety of the subsequent half-hour locked unblinkingly against the profile of the person at his flank.
He noted that amidst the chaotic background resonance of the television audio, regardless of how tedious the financial metrics being broadcasted by the anchor were, Silas's thin lips—which were customarily pressed into a tight line to project an excessively frosty, rational demeanor—maintained a remarkably minute, remarkably soft upward curvature at this exact milestone.
That trace of a smile thoroughly soaked through by the scent of oranges was so faint under the illumination it appeared near-transparent, yet across that entire thirty-minute stretch of silent time...
No matter how hard he tried to press it down, it simply could not be pressed down.