The news of Hunter Huo's successful proposal swept through the entire Beijing University campus like a hurricane within a single day, carrying an almost farcical and unbelievable velocity.
That frosted glass door of the Life Sciences Department ultimately failed to corral the dense, sweet aroma of blazing oranges saturating the room. If one were to summarize the transmission matrix of this cataclysmic "information explosion" using the department's professional terminology, it could be systematically mapped across four highly precise phases:
Phase I: The First Contact
This initial milestone belonged entirely to Assistant Lin, who had been pressed against the doorframe eavesdropping. The exact millisecond he captured their perennially frosty, fiercely aloof Professor Shen not only lowering his head to accept the ring but also emitting that exceptionally rare low chuckle that was tender to the bone, Lin's frame twitched so violently he nearly sheared the pipettor in his hand clean in half. Clutching his frantically hammering heart, he didn't dare linger for another second. He practically scrambled out of the corridor, charging headlong into Noah Zhou, a first-year master's student who was cradling an incubator to deliver a fresh batch of clinical serum samples.
"It's public... it's genuinely public..." Lin's face was flushed crimson as he yanked Noah's sleeve, speaking so incoherently he looked exactly like someone who had just discovered a new theorem capable of overturning the theory of relativity.
Phase II: The Digital Cascade
Consequent to that, the transmission naturally entered its second phase. After absorbing Lin's fractured yet immensely high-impact description, Noah stood frozen in the corridor for a full three seconds. Subsequently, his hands trembling, he fished out his phone. Without taking the time to type a single character of prose, he dropped the raw intel straight into the "Life Sciences First-Year Graduate Group"—a digital channel historically reserved exclusively for cold academic announcements—and frantically appended a dynamic exploding bomb emoji at the tail end.
The dormant academic channel was instantaneously submerged beneath a grey notification wave of 99+, and within a brief half-hour, it completed a comprehensive encirclement of undergraduate, master's, and doctoral group chats across the entire university via countless overlapping social circles.
Phase III: The Visual Evidence
However, the strike that truly propelled this storm to its absolute zenith was the third phase, courtesy of a fatal blow dispatched from the male dormitories.
Early Monday morning, Hunter's roommate dropped a high-definition, un-blurred snapshot into his WeChat Moments right on the dot. The backdrop of the photograph was that slightly dim corridor of the Life Sciences building, capturing Hunter the exact millisecond he stepped out of Silas Shen's private laboratory. The youth's bangs were slightly disheveled, his suit jacket draped loosely over a single shoulder, and the rims of his eyes and the tip of his nose still bore distinct, crimson traces from his weeping fit. Yet across that handsome face blossomed a smile so thoroughly foolish yet blindingly radiant that his entire person looked exactly as if he had hit a multi-million-dollar grand lottery overnight.
The roommate appended a highly arrogant line of text packed with insinuation beneath the image:
[Huge congratulations to Brother Ran for officially securing tenure!!! Those who get it, get it!!!]
The moment this post materialized, countless seasoned "shippers" across Beijing University who had been waiting on the fence celebrated as if it were New Year's Day, completely losing the capacity to focus on their early morning lectures.
Phase IV: The Official Seal
Yet no one anticipated that this digital riot engineered by the student body would ultimately rouse the university's official hierarchy.
The fourth phase—the ultimate "official seal"—occurred near midday when the official Beijing University Weibo account broke all protocol by broadcasting a succinct yet immensely weighty congratulatory post:
[Our warmest congratulations to Professor Silas Shen of our university's Life Sciences Department and his assistant, Mr. Hunter Huo. On the road of scientific research, may love walk alongside you.]
The official account customarily broadcasted nothing but cold academic milestones or administrative conference notifications; this marked the absolute first time it broke protocol to voice support for a professor's private affection. Within less than ten minutes of its transmission, the commentary sector beneath fell into complete collapse, with the top three high-upvote comments pinned at the absolute summit by the mass of onlookers:
Top Upvoted Comment (Left by a direct-track Ph.D. student supervised by Silas):
"So that special acknowledgements moniker 'H'—the one that never utilized a full name and remained completely unmovable at the bedrock of those hall-of-fame papers Professor Shen published in Nature and Cell in the past—actually possessed this exact implication! I am crying, I am screaming, this is the absolute romance of top-tier scholars! [Wailing] [Wailing]"
Second High-Upvote Comment (An added leak from Hunter's roommate):
"When Brother Ran was acting all covert a few days ago forcing us to offer references for ring styles and knuckle dimensions, we thought he was joking around. As it turns out, he genuinely managed to pluck the most difficult-to-court, most perennially frosty mountain flower of Beijing University. Brother Ran, you are my eternal brother, please accept this follower's deep bow!"
Third High-Upvote Comment (Seventeen un-synchronized exclamation points):
"IT'S PUBLIC!!!!"
(The poster appended exactly seventeen punctuation marks signaling an incoherent state of mind, the frantic exhilaration screaming off the screen; anyone with clear sight could identify it was Lin, who had near-burst from holding the secret back.)
Inside the afternoon laboratory, the sunshine remained as pristine as always.
Silas sat before his office desk holding a freshly steeped cup of hot tea, the phoenix eyes behind his lenses scanning those thoroughly out-of-control social media feeds across his phone screen with a flat countenance. His facial muscles appeared slightly tight. Upon reading the final exclamation from Lin, he executed a clack, placing the phone face-down with an expressionless demeanor, pinning it dead-center against the slightly cool surface of the workstation.
"Professor, are you perhaps shy?"
A low, teasing youth's cadence resounded from the opposite side.
Hunter was currently resting his entire frame un-defensively across the workstation, his long arms interlaced beneath his chin, his brilliant golden hair flashing under the sun. He tilted his head slightly, his sparkling puppy eyes brimming with a laughter that was on the verge of drowning a person, staring at his professor without a single blink.
"No."
Silas's long fingertips squeezed the rim of the warming teacup, his cool voice devoid of any structural fluctuation, his posture still maintaining the upright rigidity belonging to a scholar.
"Genuinely no?"
Hunter shifted forward with clear mischief, his upper torso near-traversing beyond that line of transparent reagent vials. He lifted his head slightly, deliberately slanting his line of sight toward Silas's profile, his voice carrying a sticky sweetness he couldn't mask:
"Then why have the tips of your ears behind those gold-rimmed glasses been turning so crimson they look ready to bleed since moments ago?"
"...The laboratory's air conditioning is set excessively high; it is merely heat."
Silas pushed his glasses up without altering a single millimeter of his countenance, a cool reflection flashing across the lenses as he attempted to mask that flush creeping from his ear roots straight down into his high-collared shirt.
"Is that so?"
Hunter elongated his cadence, his canine teeth faintly visible through his smirk, laughing exactly like a fox who had successfully swiped a treat. He lifted a finger to point toward the electronic display screen mounted on the brickwork:
"But Professor, it is already November, and the French plane tree leaves outside have fallen clean off. As for our laboratory's central air conditioning, I personally calibrated it this morning; it is distinctly pumping a seventeen-degree cold-air ventilation exhaust."
The falsehood was dismantled ruthlessly within a single fraction of a second.
A trace of an emotion resembling sheer shame and annoyance finally flashed across Silas's clear phoenix eyes. Pressing his thin lips together, with zero hesitation, he extended those long, pale hands to seize the copy of the original Molecular Biology textbook—which was as thick as a construction brick—and ruthlessly slammed it straight toward that handsome face opposite him.
A light thud resounded.
Hunter possessed the capacity to intercept it single-handedly, yet he didn't shift a single muscle. He remained resting across the workstation with perfect docility, permitting that heavy textbook to strike his forehead squarely.
The top-tier Alpha, having sustained a direct hit, did not manifest a shred of anger; instead, utilizing the momentum to press his forehead against the paper sheets, a string of low, thoroughly intoxicated laughter spilled from his throat through the thick layers of paper. Lifting his head back up, those blood-red yet blindingly bright eyes locked onto Silas without a single instance of drifting, his mouth operating with immense agility to deliver poor banter:
"Professor, your force is far too minute. As long as you permit me to secure my official enrollment, you can strike me with Molecular Biology day in and day out. How about another hit? Matching the current coloration of your ears, I feel my current exhilaration could launch me straight up the chimney of Beijing University and into the atmosphere."
The fingers Silas was using to clutch the spine of the book tightened marginally. Staring at this large, sticky dog who was dead-set on acting shameless and refusing to loosen his grip, he ultimately failed to steel his heart to deliver a second strike.