Netizens were abruptly divided into two factions.

One group believes that scientific research work is objective and does not depend on people's subjective will. As long as it can produce results, there is no need to worry too much about private life issues.

The other group believes that private morality is deficient and public morality must not be perfect. To recruit these people into the team is to plant a time bomb.

Arguments are constant, and even the most sensible netizens are involuntarily involved in this debate.

"If you guys think it's okay, then I hope that all your friends, colleagues, and family around you will be like that Zhang who cheated on other people's wives."

"Oh, no, the one who cheated might not be someone else's wife, but your own wife."

"What you said upstairs is good, and that teacher-student one is really disgusting. Such a person can actually return to the country and be accepted into our own team. Do you still have any conscience?"

"Aren't you afraid, aren't those young girls in the institute afraid? That's disgusting!"

"Isn't it too much? He fell in love with his doctoral student while he was a doctoral supervisor. It is not prohibited by law. Does this have to be on the line?"

"This cannot be put online, so when can it be put online?"

"You have an open culture in the United States, so stay true to the United States and don't come to us to corrupt the culture!"

Comments are posted one by one. If you bother to check, you may easily find that those netizens who use the banner of "good for the country" never seem to participate in actual discussions.

They just grasped the breaking point in the news and continued to vent their emotions.

What’s even more frightening is that this kind of pure emotional catharsis can gain the greatest say in the entire Internet environment, eventually forcing those who think rationally to drop to the same level as them.

As a result, in a very short period of time, the incident was replaced by emotion, and a wave of unusual public opinion frenzy gradually began to brew.

In this frenzy, everyone seems to have forgotten one thing:

Are those reports true?

This is the consequence of forced choice.

If you ask a child if he wants to drink milk, he will most likely refuse.

But if you ask whether you want to drink from a blue or red cup, then he will definitely choose a color.

And today's netizens are children who are forced to choose cups.

However, what they drank was not necessarily milk, but something dirtier.

Under such circumstances, Li Xiang was almost going crazy in XPU.

On the one hand, he had to deal with the pressure of public opinion brought by gossipy news, on the other hand, he even had to find ways to cover up the research and development projects of the 611 Institute!

Because, at the same time as these news broke, external media also released speculations about the new project of 611 Institute.

Those news did not seem to attempt to conceal their intelligence sources at all, but directly pointed out that the new fighter development project of the 611 Institute was related to carrier-based aircraft.

And, in addition, they also analyzed that this carrier-based aircraft may adopt STOVL mode.

As soon as the news came out, the already chaotic public opinion turned into chaos.

In every forum, there are different people discussing these two topics.

Some people even connected "experts returning to China" with "611 Institute's new projects" and guessed the research and development direction of J-20B.

This made Li Xiang extremely dizzy.

Do you really have to show off important secrets just to show off your little knowledge?

He really wanted to delete these posts, but unfortunately he couldn't.

Because if you do that, it will appear to be covering up.

Therefore, he had to spend a lot of time every day to communicate with those netizens, and it was still a kind of cross-dressing.

"What's STOVL? This is too ridiculous. I can't believe it when you say carrier-based aircraft, STOVL? Are you kidding? With China's aviation industry level, do you still want to engage in STOVL?"

"Don't study hard and finally come up with a Harrier. What's the use of that thing?"

After posting one post, he immediately switched to a new account and continued to reply under his own account:

"Yes, these foreign media really take the 611 Institute too seriously. Do they think the 611 Institute is Chengdu Lockheed Martin? It says it can build airplanes?"

"Even Lockheed Martin, there's no news about building a STOVL fighter, right?"

"How dare your great country do something that even the United States dare not do casually?"

"What you said above is right. Nowadays, some people like to deceive themselves and others. If you listen to the wind, it will be rain. Don't you think about whether you are worthy? With the fourth-generation mobile phone, you really think that everything will be fine, right?"

"With no technology accumulation and no infrastructure, how can you do STOVL? How can you do it? By touching your upper and lower lips at a press conference? Go to bed early, you can have everything in your dreams."

"That's not necessarily true. Didn't they bring back a group of experts from the United States? Maybe they can rely on foreign aid to save lives."

Seeing more and more replies, Li Xiang finally breathed a sigh of relief.

This trend has turned around.

Otherwise, if "guesses" are turned into "facts" by external networks through public opinion, many tasks will face unnecessary obstacles.

In this way, I can be considered as making a contribution to the project.

——

But pretending to be a traitor, someone who is right in your mind, and someone who is known to the public is really not a good job.

It does too much harm to your soul.

Li Xiang shook his head. He clicked on a news website and found that the TV program that had been discussed in his department was already online.

A certain Mr. Zhang was sitting in a spacious and bright studio, talking to everyone:

"We have no plans for a new fourth-generation aircraft for the time being, and we don't know how this news came out."

"Don't talk about STOVL. We haven't even figured out how to play J-22 yet. What are we going to do with STOVL?"

"No, really not. There is indeed a project at the 611 Institute, but it is just some modifications to the J-10 and J-8. They are not the same thing at all."

In this era, Mr. Zhang's reputation and credibility are still very high. Seeing that he even denied it, most people accepted the statement that "the 611 Institute has no new projects."

As a result, another group of "I knew it early" appeared on the Internet.

"I knew a long time ago that there was no chance because we didn't have the strength."

This is their typical statement.

However, just as this set of thinking was gradually established in everyone's minds, the United States added fuel to the fire again.

"On October X, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it would abandon the JAST program, the Joint Advanced Strike Technology Program."

"It is understood that the main content of the plan includes the development project of a short-range, vertical take-off and landing fighter aircraft code-named F-35."
Chapter completed!