Munich, Germany.

  Thanks to improved working conditions and increased social welfare, Asif sleeps soundly until 10 a.m. He then takes his time spending another half an hour on his morning routine and breakfast before finally getting ready for work.

  Nevertheless, he has no need to go to places such as office buildings or factories. In fact, he doesn't even need to leave the house for his line of work. He's not a lone exception, either: his entire department operates without a single physical office. Thanks to the internet, this kind of work-from-home profession has become commonplace.

  He opens his email inbox, launches Skype and greets his supervisor in the chat window to show that he has started working. By the time his supervisor replies, Steam happens to have just finished updating — what perfect time management, he thinks.

  Asif is a reviewer for the Einstein Cross Journal and one of those responsible for proposing revisions. The influence factor of Einstein Cross is astonishing, especially given that the journal has only been around for a year or so. This rapid growth can be attributed to many factors, but the primary reason lies in the wealth of talent within the organization. Thanks to several diligent multilingual experts (and the publisher's academic connections), incoming manuscripts are accepted even if not written in German, and each issue of their journal is available in multiple languages. More importantly, they also have many hardworking and knowledgeable writers. In today's Germany, where the pace of life is slowing down, it's increasingly rare to find individuals as industrious as they are.

  His eyes widen slightly as he glances at his inbox — there are two submissions! This is a rare occurrence indeed. According to their statistics, the average daily submissions hover around 0.89. While this is good news for the journal as a whole, unfortunately it means his workload for the day is about to increase. After calming down a little, he clicks on the first email.

  On the Development Prospects of Adaptive Optics

  Asif can't help but smile faintly at the title alone. Papers like this typically contain substantial authorial perspectives — exactly what they are looking for. Provided the quality isn't too poor, that is.

  ***

  The quality is indeed solid. While it feels conventional, there are no glaring issues. However, the author seems to have overlooked a crucial point: the core concept of this paper is that 'the future lies in the widespread adoption of visible-light adaptive optics on ground-based telescopes'. Yet even a high school student should know: the future of astronomy lies in space telescopes.

  Regardless, he still marks it as having passed the initial review. Even if one disagrees with his perspective, that merely represents a clash of personal views. The idea of scaling up ground-based telescopes isn't considered absurd by the scientific community. Those in the journal business should know how to minimise the influence of such personal disagreements.

  Honestly, very few manuscripts fail the initial review unless there are obvious issues. Aside from malicious troublemakers, few would submit such papers to this journal anyway. They experienced this in its early days, but this issue disappeared once the journal became renowned.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Wait... what is this?

  After scrutinizing the title of the other manuscript, he finally confirms he genuinely can't comprehend it. It's not because of obscure terminology, but a language barrier.

  "Someone actually submitted an English manuscript to our German journal." He thought, speechless. Although they have always stated that they accept submissions in other languages, this is the first time that they have actually received one. This complicates matters, as he will now have to send the manuscript to an expert for translation, and then help the expert to understand the terminology during the process...

  ***

  The sudden chime of Skype prompts Asif to quickly save his progress and exit the game. The multilingual expert has finally logged on and sent over the translated title. It seems that guy really did get up late......

  On the Possible Planetary Systems of Barnard's Star and Wolf 359 and Their Simulations

  That's a bold title.

  Yes, that's the first thing that comes to his mind. Although estimating a planetary system around a star isn't inherently a highly difficult or specialised task, this title tells a different story. Take Barnard's Star, for example: as early as around 1963, Van de Kamp had already conducted in-depth research on its planetary system. Later, Uluf H?yngertz engaged in a heated debate with Van de Kamp regarding its planetary configuration. While neither of them are household names in science and the current state of the Barnard Star planetary system remains inconclusive, challenging their well-established arguments and proposing alternative views is no simple feat.

  As for Wolf 359, can this star even host planets? Given its mass and orbital perturbations... even if it does, they'd likely be dwarf planets. And dwarf planets are not planets!

  Well, perhaps the title was too long to accommodate that distinction.

  As he calms down slightly, another possibility occurs to him. Perhaps the author of this manuscript is not actually proposing a new planetary system. Even if the title merely summarises previous conclusions, a thorough analysis could still be worthwhile if interpret it from a different angle. After all, one conclusion dates back over 40 years and the other is from 16 years ago. From today's perspective, it could genuinely yield some new insights.

  The translation expert is still diligently working, translating the bulk of the writing. Meanwhile, Asif is continuing to read "On the Development Prospects of Adaptive Optics". As he briefly noted during the initial review, the paper strongly advocates massive ground-based telescopes equipped with more powerful laser guide stars and additional deformable mirrors — a rather crude approach in his opinion.

  "If it weren't for the James Webb Space Telescope's launch being delayed time and again, who would have thought researching ground-based optical telescopes was a good idea?" he muses.

  ***

  What troubles him is, that while the concept of larger ground optics is crude and inefficient, the content of the paper seems flawless. Even if he is nitpicking in an exceedingly serious manner, after two hours — an entire morning — of review, he still can't find any errors. Though he has told himself not to let his personal theories cloud his judgment, he can't shake the uneasy feeling.

  Skype pings again. His irritation vanishes the moment he opens it: this time, the translator hasn't asked about technical terms; they've sent the first quick translation of the manuscript! He eagerly scrolls to the top, skips the initial quick review, and begins scrutinising it meticulously according to his standards.

  After just the opening sentences, astonishment joins his initial mood. Contrary to his expectations, this isn't a summary analysis or an improvement on previous work, but rather, a piece presenting its own distinct viewpoint. His curiosity is piqued, and he begins reading it sentence by sentence.

  "...A star's rotation can also directly influence a planet's environment, rather than merely having an indirect effect on the star's electromagnetic radiation..."

  "...Early findings suggest Planet B1 can be characterized by an average surface temperature..."

  By the time he reaches the conclusion, his jaw drops. He could not have expected that this relatively short manuscript would present so many groundbreaking theories about exoplanetary data — nothing short of astonishing...