Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After Ma Qiqi sent several replies to the hot topics posted by the internet water army, they were immediately picked up and pushed to the top comments by numerous likes. The smug and proud water army posting manuscripts finally saw someone exposing their boss, so they instantly lost their temper. The head of the water army commanded, “Delete them! Delete them all from the internet!”
But who was Gu Nianzhi, anyway? Of course she had prepared beforehand. As soon as the water army deleted from their end, it immediately triggered Gu Nianzhi’s cloning software. Suddenly, tens of millions of the same replies were cloned from Ma Qiqi’s secondary account and rapidly sent out. The head of the water army was furious. Insulting people from behind keyboards and playing dirty tricks was originally their strength, but now they were being led by the nose like a joke! “Keep deleting them! Block the keywords! Block the accounts!” But their frantic deleting only made things worse because as soon as they did it, the clumsy denial resulted in self-exposure, and this garnered even more attention.
Everyone began reposting the replies Ma Qiqi left from her secondary account, and then some people traced them back to find the original content on Gu Nianzhi’s secondary account. Famous fashion influencers also stamped their approval and reposted to Weibo, adding to the credibility. The entire internet started to repost the post on Gu Nianzhi’s secondary account.
At the same time, a similar topic was being pushed to the top searches by everyone, so Ma Qiqi’s popular replies on her secondary account nearly became a top keyword. Some keen-eyed people saw that the replies contained information about Prime Minister Tan’s campaign financial report, so they actually investigated it. The results were shocking—the speculation was actually true. So although Mrs. Tan’s expensive evening gown was not paid for by the nation’s money, it actually used campaign funds donated by their supporters! This was the same nature of error as misappropriation of public funds, or it could even be considered a criminal act. The nature of the error was even more vile because it directly offended the voters, the ones who voted for Prime Minister Tan, in particular! This was messing with their own support base! So when Prime Minister Tan tearfully swore himself into office, the furious voters had already clogged up the TV networks’ hotlines. They demanded Tan Dongbang explain what was going on!
Cai Songyin’s assistants never even dreamed that things would develop to this extent and were so anxious, they jumped like ants on a hot plate. They paced in the office inside the National Center for the Performing Arts. “No, things are almost getting out of control. I have to go to the office in the Prime Minister’s official residence and personally guide them on how to transfer attention to another hot topic.” After giving rushed directions to the second assistant, the first assistant left the National Center for the Performing Arts and returned to their office in the main building of the Prime Minister’s official residence to immediately make direct commands to commence “crisis public relations solutions.”
Gu Nianzhi, who had been observing the overall state of the internet, keenly noticed that the public opinion had been altered. An expert had chosen to enter the playing field and was discreetly transferring attention to Song Jinning, even going to the extent of exposing how she became mentally ill for 16 years from the experimental accident. Of course, it was described in an inconspicuous way and not many people knew about the incident to begin with, so few people connected Song Jining to the topic in the beginning. However, Gu Nianzhi immediately understood what topic these people were deliberately trying to start. Why did they need to transfer attention to Song Jinning? They had obviously worked very hard to erase all traces of Song Jining from the entire internet today so she wouldn’t even get a tiny bit of attention. So why were they suddenly giving her all this attention? This is fishy!
Focusing her mind, Gu Nianzhi read each post secretly referring to Song Jinning. The posts were getting pushed up to the top, so more and more people were liking them. Very soon, these would become top posts as well. “You wanna mess with me? You guys think you can compare with the Gestapo?” Gu Nianzhi was unperturbed and actually fought in high spirits. She didn’t even turn around as she put her hand out. “Qiqi, let me borrow your phone for a second.”
Ma Qiqi was cradling her phone and arguing furiously with someone online, so she didn’t hear Gu Nianzhi at all. Yin Shixiong sat cross legged by Ma Qiqi and was also holding his phone as he argued alongside her with a smile.
Though Ma Qiqi didn’t respond, Huo Shaoheng sitting behind Gu Nianzhi offered his phone up and put it in her palm. He Zhuchu glanced at him and also took out his phone. “Nianzhi, what do you want to do? I’ll help you.”
Gu Nianzhi suddenly turned around to see He Zhichu and Huo Shaoheng standing like two great sculptures on either side behind her. They smiled at her, but she suddenly felt weird. Looking down at the phone in her hand, she realized it was Huo Shaoheng’s and quickly returned it to him. However, Huo Shaoheng suggested, “Aren’t you going to trace the IPs? Use my phone to do it. It’ll be easier.” His phone had higher security privileges, so it was obviously easier to enter certain systems to trace IP data. This was an irrefutable fact. But how did he know she was tracing IPs next?! She hadn’t even done anything yet! Pursing her lips, Gu Nianzhi hesitated for a second before making up her mind and deciding to use Huo Shaoheng’s phone. It was locked, so she needed Huo Shaoheng to unlock it, but when she passed the phone back, her thumb accidentally rested on the home button. It flashed for a second and unlocked.
It was difficult to say in that moment who was more shocked, Gu Nianzhi, or He Zhichu.
“Your fingerprint is also saved on my phone, so you can unlock it anytime, and it’ll be easy for you to check on me,” Huo Shaoheng said calmly, not shy about it at all.
He Zhichu frowned and looked at Gu Nianzhi to ask, “Check on what? Didn’t you break up?”
Gu Nianzhi nodded furiously and answered blankly, “Right, right. We broke up. What would I check?”
“Can’t I pursue you again, even if we broke up?” Huo Shaoheng leaned back on the couch and replied evenly, “I’m not your professor, so I’m not restricted by the school rules and regulations. I can continue to pursue you.”
Huo Shaoheng’s statement about not being Gu Nianzhi’s professor completely wounded He Zhichu. With a sullen face, He Zhichu looked at Huo Shaoheng and replied coldly, “Nianzhi is still young, so she should focus her energy on studying. If you really are looking out for her, stop harassing her.”
Huo Shaoheng smiled as he stretched his long legs casually. He leaned forward to look at Gu Nianzhi. “Aren’t you going to hurry up and trace the IPs?”
Gu Nianzhi snapped out of her daze and found an IP tracking app on Huo Shaoheng’s phone. She entered all the water army’s secondary accounts in batches to feed into the app. Soon after, she was able to find all the IPs used by these secondary accounts. Just as she expected, although there were hundreds of accounts, they mainly used only three IPs. Gu Nianzhi used her own secondary account to post the exposing results under the topics and pointed out bluntly, “What a joke, all these accounts insulting people from behind keyboards and playing dirty tricks are actually only using three IPs! Let me ask if you’re sharing an office or sharing the same router?!” Her reply was quickly spotted by passersby, and the water army was also exposed and ridiculed by the public.
“Oh? So working as part of a water army is a real job? Please send me a job! I’ll only charge 50 cents per post!”
“The poster above is charging too much. I only want five cents!”
“Get out of here! The poster above is posting pure blasphemy! I’ve never seen any water army! I’m posting this at 9pm.” Since the water army had been exposed, their shady posts naturally began to appear suspicious. Gu Nianzhi used an app to quickly automatically like Ma Qiqi’s replies from her secondary account and bump them up to the top comments. The suspicions towards the Tan’s instantly pushed them to the eye of the storm.
In one moment, even the major TV networks broadcasting the Prime Minister’s inauguration couldn’t sit idle any longer. This was the hottest topic! This was all hot news! After some struggling, the TV networks also played two parallel windows while doing the live broadcast of the Prime Minister’s inauguration. One window displayed Cai Songyin’s beautifully photoshopped photos, while the other window played the content from Gu Nianzhi’s secondary Weibo account, which was actually the replies from Ma Qiqi’s secondary account that lambasted Cai Songyin’s posts! As a result, the entire nation and even the entire world all knew what was happening as they viewed the inauguration ceremony of the Hua Xia Imperial Prime Minister. Prime Minister Tan’s campaign funds had been misappropriated?! Mrs. Tan possessed a high quality replica of a trademarked piece of jewelry?! Miss Tan was wearing jewelry stolen from the British royal family?! The glamorous and famous family of Prime Minister Tan was in a heap of trouble!
