She Was the Treasure All Along novel Chapter 330

"Collusion," "improper means," "academic misconduct"… The heavy words fell like lead blocks, crushing Giselle.

She snapped her head up, the blood draining from her face. Her lips trembled as she tried to argue, but the overwhelming panic and injustice choked the words in her throat. All she could do was look helplessly at Loyce again.

The look of detached amusement on Loyce's face finally vanished. She slowly set down the twirling pen, sat up straight, and her calm, steady eyes now clearly reflected Hallie's triumphant, arrogant expression. Loyce's gaze transformed, shedding its earlier calm for a cold, sharp brilliance, like the depths of a frozen sea, capable of piercing through any facade.

Just as Hallie thought she had won and the crowd was ready to condemn them, Loyce moved.

She didn't look at the devastated Giselle, nor did she acknowledge the torrent of doubt from below. She simply reached out and picked up the spare microphone on the edge of the table.

"SCREEE—" A piercing shriek of feedback exploded without warning, instantly silencing the uproar.

The sudden noise was like a physical blow, brutally slicing through the din of the auditorium. Everyone, including the self-satisfied Hallie who was about to continue her tirade, flinched, instinctively covering their ears as they stared in shock at the source of the noise.

Loyce stood there, one hand holding the screeching microphone, the other with her index finger resting firmly on the power switch. She showed no reaction to the ear-splitting sound, as if it were merely irrelevant background noise. Her gaze swept calmly over the now silent crowd, carrying an unseen, heart-stopping pressure.

When her eyes landed on Hallie, Hallie's heart skipped a beat. A deeply unsettling premonition, cold as a snake, began to coil around her.

"Quiet."

Loyce's voice, though not loud, was unnaturally clear and steady as it carried through the microphone, filled with an unchallengeable authority that echoed across the silent hall. The moment she spoke, the piercing feedback ceased, as if snuffed out by the force of her will. The entire space fell into an eerie, breathless hush.

Loyce didn't look at anyone. Her gaze returned to the physics paper on her desk, her fingertip landing precisely on the final, high-value question. Her voice rang out, every word crystal clear.

"Hallie, when you wrote this question, did you even consider if it was physically possible?"

The ominous feeling in Hallie's gut intensified. She had created the question herself, verifying it against textbook theory and data. There couldn't be a problem. Loyce was just making a desperate, last-ditch effort.

She remained composed, her chin held high. "And what if I did? Are you questioning the validity of the question itself, Loyce? It was designed according to the advanced difficulty standards of the Ace Class! Just because your student can't solve it, does that mean the question is flawed?" she retorted sarcastically, trying to frame Loyce's challenge as a baseless complaint.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!" cried a top physics student from the Ace Class in the front row.

"Right! An electron can't exceed the speed of light! Relativistic effects! You have to consider relativistic effects!" another Ace Class student added excitedly.

The auditorium exploded into shocked murmurs. Once again, it was in an uproar, but this time, it wasn't about Giselle. It was about the shocking flaw in the fundamental physics of the question itself!

Loyce's voice was like a cold steel hammer, shattering Hallie's last shred of hope. "1.875×10⁹ divided by 3×10⁸ is approximately 6.25! This electron's speed is six and a quarter times the speed of light! Dr. Hallie—"

Loyce deliberately emphasized the word "Doctor," each syllable a sharp blade.

"Under the conditions you set in your question, this electron flagrantly violates the fundamental principles of special relativity! No object with mass can reach or exceed the speed of light! At this energy, the electron's relativistic mass 'm' is far greater than its rest mass 'm₀'! The classical mechanics formulas are completely useless! You must use the relativistic correction formulas!"

Loyce turned back to the board, her marker flying as she wrote out the more complex derivations...