Busaya slumped down on the long, soft gray leather sofa, exhausted. She had spent the entire day meticulously reviewing the accuracy of the facial reconstruction and trying to input other variables to see if she could get any different results, but nothing new had emerged. Luckily, there are now programs that speed up and make this work much more accurate. Even though it was only a two-dimensional model, it saved a lot of time.
Phinya, stubborn as ever, insisted that they should create a three-dimensional model manually, which Bua thought was unnecessary at this point. However, the stubborn Phinya kept pushing until she started to get irritated. Bua was one step away from ordering Phinya to do the job herself if she made one more peep.
The daily workload had Bua almost crawling back to her room, but she felt that fate was still on her side by bringing Phinya from somewhere far away. She vaguely remembered hearing her casually comment the day before that the last country she had been to was probably Spain. She was back from carrying crates and transporting corpses from the last field operation, traveling to Madrid, while sprawled on a four-star hotel bed in the capital. A country that had once had a prosperous civilization.
It was during this trip that Phinya received a call from her former advisor, asking her to return to Thailand after having been absent for two years. Furthermore, Professor Nisara surprised everyone by appointing Phinya as the vice-director of the institute, leaving everyone confused.
In any case, the decision was the sole prerogative of the founder of the institute, and Bua never questioned her advisor's decisions. In fact, in the end, this also benefited Bua, as she was able to pass on more than thirty percent of the responsibilities that would previously have been hers to Phinya.
The position of vice-director, which Bua had not wanted from the beginning, included sharing classes with undergraduate and graduate students, as well as having Phinya help supervise research projects and mentor new graduate students who were about to arrive.
Busaya then had more time to breathe. Why should she worry about other matters?
Many at the institute were well aware of the history between her and Phinya, especially her classmates and younger students, who had witnessed the conflict between the two for the position of the advisor’s favorite. At that time, Bua was still ambitious and determined. She was a recognized expert in the theory of human evolution, particularly in the study of primates of the order Homo, which was the heart of the field. In terms of both morphology and social dimensions, it was difficult to find someone with as much knowledge as she did. Although she tried to keep a low profile, it was impossible not to be noticed due to the vastness of her knowledge. But Phinya was no slouch.
She, in turn, was the student of a renowned expert in historical human civilizations, and had had numerous opportunities to participate in field missions abroad even before enrolling in her doctorate, in the same program as Bua. Phinya had previously lived in another country that had experienced a genocide, where she participated in the recovery of human remains to identify the victims. As a result, she had much more practical field experience than Bua.
This situation resulted in Professor Nisara having two brilliant students in the same room.
Perhaps this was why they were always fighting. Although their desks were just a few steps apart, they rarely spoke without ending up arguing. Each was excellent in her field and had a unique perspective... until eventually it became better for both of them not to talk anymore. When the advisor realized that things were not going well, she decided to separate the two, offering Phinya scholarships to do fieldwork abroad frequently, while leaving Bua in charge of research and paperwork at the institute.
This situation led the other students to consider Bua as the advisor's favorite, and many believed that she would become the star of the field in the future. However, Bua secretly felt a certain envy of Phinya.
