Super Rich: Rebirth of the Top-Tier Rich Second Generation

Four days after submitting the paper, in the capital city, at Wanliu Academy.

On a spring afternoon, sunlight streamed softly through the panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the large desk.

Jiang Yan, dressed in a cashmere sweater, leaned back lazily in a leather chair.

The housekeeper, Xu Qinghe, had just brought in a plate of sliced ​​high-end fruit and a pot of perfectly heated Longjing tea when she quietly slipped out, closing the study door behind her.

The study was very quiet.

Jiang Yan picked up his teacup, took a sip, and casually swiped his other hand across the touchpad of his laptop.

I opened an email that had just popped up with the official letterhead of Nature Energy.

At the very top of the email was a prominent line of the decision.

【Decision：Minor Revision】

Minor repairs.

It took only four days from the time the manuscript officially entered the peer review process until all the reviewers returned their comments.

Eighteen pages of review comments.

An ordinary scholar would probably be sitting up straight by now, even having to be careful with their breathing.

He quickly skimmed through the summary of review comments sent by the editorial department.

His gaze merely swept over the extremely high praise from James, Webber, and Tanaka Hiroshi, his expression remaining largely unchanged, as this was all within his expectations.

Until the last copy, the Korean man named Park Joon-ho made aggressive questions and unreasonable demands to release the original log.

Jiang Yan's lips suddenly curled into a smile, and a hint of undisguised contempt flashed in his eyes.

"Trying to steal research results through the peer review system?" Jiang Yan picked up a grape from the table, threw it into his mouth, chewed it twice, and spat out three words, "You don't deserve it."

He'd seen this kind of tactic far too many times.

Under the guise of academic rigor, they gradually push the requirements beyond what is needed for paper verification, forcing authors to disclose unpublished process details.

To put it bluntly, it's just freeloading under the guise of peer review.

In particular, this controllable macromolecular self-assembly interface has almost completely disrupted the traditional technological route that Japanese and South Korean companies have been betting on for many years.

Jiang Yan knew perfectly well whether Park Joon-ho was doubting the data or trying to find out the key technological window.

He knew all too well the character of these academic cliques in South Korea.

The farce surrounding room-temperature superconductivity back then had already bankrupted these people.

Now, under the guise of peer review, they're trying to steal Yanqiong Technology's core manufacturing logs?

If it were that powerless and miserable graduate student from a previous life, facing such a difficult situation from a top journal reviewer, he might have been so frightened that he would have offered up all his hard work overnight.

But things are different now.

Today, Jiang Yan no longer needs to beg any journal to publish his work.

The paper needs the international influence of Nature Energy.

Nature Energy also needs this paper that could reshape the industry landscape.

This is an equal exchange.

No one should try to use their peer review power to put their hands in his safe.

He picked up his phone from the table, took a screenshot of the email, and sent it to Shen Qinglan, who was at school.

A few sentences were added at the end.

"The feedback has come back."

"Fourth day of formal external review, minor revisions."

"Park Joon-ho's problem is typical; he tried to use allegations of fabrication to obtain a complete technological window."

"Ignore his log requests; we have readily available backup data that's enough to shut him up."

"It will be repaired within two days."

A moment later, Shen Qinglan's message popped up.

"You're back in just four days?"

Even through the screen, Jiang Yan could imagine her slightly bewildered expression.

Immediately afterwards, a second message arrived.

"Let me read the full opinion first."

......

Tsinghua University, Physics Department faculty apartment.

Shen Qinglan sat in front of the computer, looking at the WeChat message Jiang Yan sent, a deep sense of admiration flashing in her eyes.

From the moment the four reviewers formally accepted the invitation to the return of all their comments, it really only took four days.

Four days!

For top-tier journals like Nature Energy, the normal peer review cycle is usually measured in weeks or even months.

Especially for papers that far exceed industry consensus and whose every set of data is enough to cause huge controversy, reviewers often scrutinize them word by word with an almost nitpicking attitude.

Let alone four days.

Even if the first round of review can be completed in fourteen days, it is still considered to be incredibly efficient.

To Shen Qinglan's surprise, the editorial department did not reject the manuscript, nor did it require a major revision involving a large number of core experiments.

It's just a minor repair.

She quickly skimmed through all eighteen pages of comments.

Although the German reviewers listed seventeen questions, most of them focused on the description of boundary conditions, the labeling of figures and tables, the correction of instrument errors, and the supplementation of statistical definitions.

These problems seem numerous, but none of them truly shake the theoretical foundation of the paper.

They were all convinced of the main conclusions.

Aside from Park Joon-ho's overstepping request, the only thing the editorial department really asked for was the repeatability verification for different batches of raw materials.

in other words--

Four experts at the forefront of the global solid-state battery field joined forces to conduct the most rigorous review of this paper.

However, they still failed to find any substantial flaws in the core theory, experimental logic, and data chain.

There are many opinions on the eighteen pages.

But there wasn't a single real problem.

"Minor repair..."

Shen Qinglan stared at the decision on the screen and repeated it softly.

It was only at this moment that she truly realized that the shock this paper had brought to the international academic community was probably even greater than she had previously anticipated.

Why would top professors, whose schedules are usually packed and who rarely pay attention to ordinary manuscripts, be willing to put aside their work and complete the review in just four days?

This can only prove one thing.

They simply couldn't wait any longer.

Every set of data in the paper was forcing these industry authorities to confirm an answer as soon as possible.

Is the old era in the battery industry really coming to an end?

After a brief moment of surprise, Shen Qinglan quickly regained her composure.

Her gaze fell on the cross-batch repeatability experiment that the editorial department had requested to be added, and the surprise in her eyes gradually turned into admiration for Jiang Yan.

The day before submitting the paper, Jiang Yan specifically asked her to use three batches of raw materials from different suppliers with slightly different purities.

Three batches of nanoelectrolyte powder were resynthesized and each batch underwent independent charge-discharge cycle tests.

At the time, Shen Qinglan felt it was unnecessary.

Since the master data in the paper is already perfect enough, there is no need to waste valuable equipment time and expensive materials on it.

But Jiang Yan simply said at the time:

"The scientific community has never been an ivory tower of black and white."

"It's always good to be cautious. Keeping some rough but reproducible edge data is like putting on a bulletproof vest for us."

Now, the Koreans' difficulties have truly begun.

If they don't have the data on hand, it would take them at least half a month to run these three different batches of tests.

This will greatly delay the publication of the paper.

However, if we were to hand over all the original logs as the Koreans demanded, it would not only expose the synthesis secrets of the underlying formula.

It is even more likely that the investigation will lead to the discovery of some "abnormal parameters" in the underground laboratory in Changping that should not be in the public eye.

But now?

Jiang Yan anticipated the opponent's prediction in advance, and even laid out the evidence needed for the counterattack on the chessboard beforehand.

"Always making three moves ahead in chess, this kind of meticulous planning..."

Shen Qinglan rested her chin on her hands, recalling the young man who had been strategizing in the laboratory.

It's not just his scientific talent that's amazing.

Rather, he never regarded academia as an ivory tower isolated from the world.

He respects the truth, but never underestimates human nature.

He can pursue meticulous precision at the lab bench, and he can also prevent any hands from reaching for the results from the lab bench.

This almost flawless mindset is what fascinates Shen Qinglan the most.

She picked up her phone and sent a message to Jiang Yan.

"clear."

"I'm already organizing those three sets of cross-batch data."

"Not a single page of the core process log has been submitted."

......

Two days was more than enough time for the two of them.

For the next two days, Jiang Yan didn't go to the laboratory at all; he took leave and stayed in the mansion at Wanliu Academy.

While enjoying Xu Qinghe's meticulous home care, she also checked the revised draft with Shen Qinglan online through an encrypted network.

Address each problem one by one.

If the boundary conditions are not explained clearly enough, then add a limiting range.

The units in the charts are prone to misunderstanding, so they have been relabeled.

If the equipment drift correction lacks instructions, please attach a complete calibration record.

As for the core synthesis log requested by Park Joon-ho—

Not a single word was given.

Instead, three sets of independent, repeated experiments were conducted from different batches of raw materials and different suppliers.

Fig S8.

Fig S9.

Fig S10.

The three sets of data do not completely overlap.

Instead, it retains the slight fluctuations that are inevitable in real experiments.

However, the relative deviations between batches of all key performance indicators were firmly controlled within 1.3%.

This is the truly damaging evidence.

The data is too perfect, so one can question whether it was selected artificially.

However, three sets of experiments using different raw materials, different batches, and different serial numbers still consistently pointed to the same conclusion.

That leaves only one explanation.

The technical approach is genuine.

When responding to Park Joon-ho's comments point by point, Jiang Yan did not use a single swear word.

Every word conforms to academic standards.

It can be translated into Chinese, but the meaning couldn't be more direct.

"Thank you, Professor Park, for your rigorous concern regarding the integrity and reproducibility of the data in this study."

"For experimental results that significantly exceed industry norms, it is reasonable and necessary for reviewers to raise issues of sample selection bias and repeatability."

"However, the complete synthesis temperature, pressure, and time window have already been included in the scope of patent and trade secret protection pending."

"The parameters mentioned above are not necessary to verify the scientific conclusions of this paper, therefore we cannot provide them."

Immediately afterwards, Jiang Yan took over the three supplementary experiments.

"In response to Professor Park's concerns about 'data silos,' we have added three sets of independent blind code replication experiments from different suppliers and different batches of raw materials."

"As shown in Figs S8-S10, the samples in each group are highly consistent in terms of energy density, cycle life, rate performance and wide temperature range stability."

"The relative deviation of key performance indicators between batches shall not exceed 1.3%."

The final section is the real game-winner.

"We believe that repeatability should be verified through cross-batch sampling, complete statistical data, and auditable test records, rather than by disclosing all commercially sensitive process windows."

"After the paper is published, we welcome any laboratory to independently reproduce the method based on the methods disclosed in this paper."

"The premise is that the reproduction experiment has sufficient equipment precision and process control capabilities."

Jiang Yan checked the English grammar and read it again.

The entire reply letter contained not a single impolite word.

But the meaning is clear.

You want to verify? I'll verify it for you.

You want the recipe? No way!

Shen Qinglan read the CC message and waited more than ten seconds before sending a message.

"For your last sentence, are you sure you can't be a little more tactful?"

Jiang Yan replied by typing.

"I've already been very tactful."

Shen Qinglan remained silent for a while.

In the end, he only replied with two words.

"That's ruthless."

"That's ruthless." Shen Qinglan looked at the CC copy of this reply and couldn't help but send two words to Jiang Yan on WeChat.

Jiang Yan smiled and clicked send.

The revised manuscript and response letter were uploaded to the Nature Energy backend via an encrypted node.

The progress bar has reached 100%.

Page redirection.

【Revised Manuscript Successfully Submitted】

Repair successful.

Jiang Yan leaned back in his chair, picked up his phone, and sent a voice message to Shen Qinglan.

In the background, you can hear the living room TV broadcasting the midday news.

His tone was relaxed.

"This is already the civilized version."

"To those who speak reasonably, we speak with evidence."

"The only way to deal with this kind of old fox who uses the guise of peer review to expose others is to shut him up with solid data."

"A thesis is meant to prove the truth, not to reveal the combination to a safe in public."

Nobody knows.

What was just sent to London was not just an ordinary revised manuscript of a paper.

Rather, it is a declaration of war that will reassess the global new energy industry and rewrite the fate of countless companies.

Next, only the final judgment remains.

Jiang Yan had no doubt whatsoever.

He was determined to seize this immense wealth and power.

No one can stop them.

That's what Jiang Yan said.