When fate plays its hand
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Chapter 0204

Chapter 0204

+25 BONUS

“Miranda Sutton! Do you even know how many times I called you? You didn’t pick up a single one of them!

“It’s been so long–if I hadn’t called, were you planning to never reach out to me again in your life?*

Winter was genuinely angry. Her words were coming out in a rapid–fire burst.

Miranda scrolled through her call log and saw a string of missed calls–all from Winter. There had been times when she intended to call Winter back, but she kept getting sidetracked by work and eventually forgot.

Feeling guilty, she quickly apologized, “I’m so sorry, Winter. I’ve been incredibly busy these past few days, and then I just.. Well, I got so caught up that I forgot.

“I promise I’ll try to reduce this from happening in the future… No, actually, I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again!”

In fact, Winter knew about Miranda joining the lab by the second day.

She didn’t have the best relationship with Paul; they were close when they were kids, but then he went abroad for his studies and didn’t come back for years.

By the time he’s back, he had turned into the “genius physicist” everyone admired from afar.

The gap between them grew wider and wider. As adults, the number of times they’d seen each other. could be counted on one hand.

Winter only knew he was always holed up in the lab, working to the point of exhaustion, but she never fully understood the extent of his busyness.

Seeing Miranda now, she finally got it–Paul was like a corporate drone, but worse. It wasn’t unusual for him to disappear for a week or go without responding to messages for a month.

“Fine, just don’t let it happen again,” Winter’s tone softened. “But next month’s dinner–you absolutely cannot bail on me, got it?”

She had called specifically to remind Miranda about this.

Miranda smiled, her lips curling slightly. “Of course, I know it’s my darling Winter’s birthday. How could L possibly forget? I’ve already picked out your gift, so get ready for a surprise!”

“That’s more like it,” Winter said. She was satisfied and already looking forward to it.

After hanging up, Miranda gathered her things and headed back to the lab. As soon as she reached the work area, she heard a loud groan.

“Ugh–where did it go wrong? I’ve recalculated this value eight times, and I still can’t see the issue”

Bryan stared in frustration at the data on his screen. He had put in days of effort, only to end up with this?

Typically, the resulting data values would have some deviations, but they were usually minor. However, Bryan’s eight calculated values were all over the place, completely inconsistent with one another.

He was genuinely stumped.

+25 BONUS

Chapter 0204

Scratching his head, he turned to Silas for help. “Dr. Quinton, you’re better at quick calculations than I am. Can you check where I might’ve gone wrong with these values?”

Silas adjusted his glasses and glanced over the data, then carefully cross–checked the original samples. Could the problem be at the third node? This segment of data is messy and prone to errors.

“I noticed here, and also here, your steps aren’t very clear. Maybe… you should try calculating it once more?”

Bryan groaned even louder. “I’ve already calculated it eight times! What if I get a ninth different answer?”

Sandy reviewed the data and offered a different perspective. “I don’t think the third node is the issue. Bryan just skipped a few steps. Given how complex the formula is, simplifying it was definitely necessary. What do you think, Lizzy?”

Bryan’s data required highly complex formulas for the calculations, and Elizabeth’s undergraduate major had been data computation.

She selected a set of the raw data and took a closer look. After a moment, she circled common points among Bryan’s results.

Then, after recalculating, she arrived at a new