Chapter 61: When Academic Misconduct Meets Last Year's Champion
When David led Milo back to Apartment 4A, he found Howard, Raj, and Sheldon in the living room. Even Leonard had been pulled out of his room and was sitting at the dining table with a confused expression.
"What's going on?" David unclipped the leash, and Milo immediately trotted toward his water bowl. "Sheldon, what did you mean by 'highest-level strategic emergency' on the phone? I was in the middle of walking the dog."
"He's got me completely confused too," Leonard echoed. "Sheldon dragged me away from my paper, saying it was urgent."
Raj and Howard also stated that Sheldon had summoned them from their homes.
Sheldon stood in the center of the living room, hands clasped behind his back, looking as serious as if he were about to announce a major breakthrough in theoretical physics. He surveyed the group and said, "Excellent, everyone's here. I have two critical pieces of strategic intelligence to share."
He clicked the mouse, and the league's official website appeared on the screen—information about a team called Quantum Ghosts was highlighted.
"First piece of intel," Sheldon's voice was grave, "according to the newly announced bracket, we will face last year's overall champions—the Quantum Ghosts team—in the first round. This is the same team that demolished us in twenty minutes during last year's group stage, ending our tournament run immediately."
"What?!" Howard jumped up from the couch. "Them? Them again?!"
Raj's face instantly went pale: "No way... we can't be that unlucky..."
David could feel the atmosphere in the room suddenly grow heavy. Leonard clearly remembered something too, frowning: "Is that... the team that was particularly brutal in the post-match interview?"
"Exactly." Howard clenched his fists. "David, you didn't see that game. We lost... with absolutely no dignity. Their captain—Alex Chen—used tactics like a scalpel, dissecting us layer by layer."
Raj added, "That's not even the worst part. In the post-match interview, he said our strategy was 'a pathetic attempt at mimicking basic game theory from a freshman textbook,' and he specifically 'analyzed' Howard's micro, saying, 'Those meaningless flashy maneuvers are like a circus monkey in a sparkly vest juggling three balls—they serve no strategic purpose beyond attracting the attention of easily amused children.'"
Leonard chimed in, "He also said Sheldon's shot-calling was 'textbook armchair theorizing with zero practical application,' and suggested he first learn what 'real-time' decision-making means by playing tutorial missions designed for six-year-olds."
Sheldon's face grew even darker: "That was the most public, most targeted personal humiliation I have ever suffered in my entire academic career—no, in my entire life. I remember every word."
"This brings me to the second piece of intelligence I must share." Sheldon clicked the remote again, and the screen switched to display a photo and profile of an Asian male: Alex Chen, Ph.D. candidate in Applied Physics at Stanford University.
"Upon learning of the bracket," Sheldon's voice carried the dramatic flair of a detective unveiling a conspiracy, "I conducted a comprehensive background investigation on all members of the Quantum Ghosts team. I reviewed all publicly available academic records, research publications, social media profiles, and even traced some historical data."
He clicked again, and a blurry old photograph appeared on the screen. "For instance, this Alex Chen's great-great-grandfather immigrated to California during the Gold Rush, later became a successful merchant in San Francisco's Chinatown, and eventually founded one of the first Chinese-American banks on the West Coast. Of course—"
"Sheldon!" Howard interrupted him. "What does any of this have to do with our match? Are you planning to give him a family history lesson before the game and bore him into forfeiting?"
"Patience." Sheldon calmly switched the screen, this time showing screenshots of several academic papers. "As I dug deeper, I discovered something far more interesting."
He enlarged one page and pointed to a chart with a laser pointer: "This is a paper co-authored by Alex Chen as first author, published last year in Reviews of Applied Physics. Look here, Figures 3a and 3b—these two datasets should theoretically be highly correlated, but there's a systematic deviation that can't be explained by any known physical model."
The laser pointer moved to another spot: "Now observe Figure 4, the R² value of this fitted curve is 0.9997. In real experimental physics, this kind of 'perfection' almost exclusively exists in fabricated or heavily manipulated data."
He pulled up another document: "More tellingly, I compared this paper with a conference abstract he presented six months earlier. The experimental conditions reported in the abstract differ significantly from those in the final paper, yet the 'key results' obtained are remarkably similar. This strongly suggests he either recycled old data, or worse—directly fabricated the data to match expected results."
The living room was silent.
Leonard was the first to react: "If this is true... this is serious academic misconduct. At any reputable institution, this would be grounds for immediate expulsion."
"I'm aware." Sheldon's expression was disturbingly calm. "Therefore, I propose—"
He looked at everyone, enunciating each word: "To report Alex Chen's academic misconduct to the Stanford Physics Department Academic Ethics Committee and the editorial board of Reviews of Applied Physics."
Howard's eyes widened: "You want to psychologically destroy him before the match?!"
"Precisely." Sheldon admitted without hesitation. "Imagine this scenario. Hours before the most important tournament day, the team captain learns that his flagship paper has been officially reported for academic fraud, and his Ph.D. and entire academic career could collapse instantly. Anxiety and terror will completely devastate his mental state. The Quantum Ghosts will implode without us firing a single shot."
"I'm in!" Howard responded almost immediately, his eyes gleaming with vindication. "Fight fire with fire! They humiliated us like that last year, now it's payback time! This is poetic justice!"
"I object." Raj said. "Come on, even if we win this way, everyone will say we won by playing dirty."
"But who would know? Are you going to announce to the world that we reported Alex's academic misconduct and that's why he choked?"
Raj didn't back down: "Maybe nobody else would know, but we would!"
Leonard also shook his head: "I object too. Reporting academic misconduct is the right thing to do in principle, but if the timing is specifically chosen to win a game, the motivation is corrupt. Besides, it might not even work—what if he has nerves of steel? What if it just makes him angry and he plays even better? There's no guaranteed causal link between the report and destroying his performance; it entirely depends on his psychological resilience."
"Sheldon," David began, "are you proposing this plan because you lack confidence in our training results? Do you think we can't win a straight-up fight, which is why you need this off-the-board tactic?"
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