“I wouldn’t joke about this kind of thing.” Huo Shaoheng’s expression was calm as usual. “From the first time Cai Songyin proactively uploaded the short video of Tan Dongbang and Gu Yanran online, I already stopped regarding him as the leader of the nation.”
Although Cai Songyin had blurred out the man and surrounding background in the short video, Huo Shaoheng and his men possessed the original copy. As soon as that kind of thing was uploaded online, the consequences were not something people could handle. Even without Gu Nianzhi, there would be someone else recovering the footage.
Tan Dongbang’s personal image had fallen apart long ago, so it was even more impossible for him to represent the national image. Consequently, before Huo Shaoheng even knew about Gu Nianzhi’s connection to the incident last night, he had already refused to help Tan Dongbang clean up the mess.
He wasn’t a saint. Tan Dongbang and Cai Songyin had already tripped him up once and almost caused him to lose the most important person in his life. He would remember that for the rest of his life.
However, for the sake of respecting the military and the nation, he hadn’t proactively gone after them. Now that Gu Nianzhi helped him vent this frustration, he was more happy than anything. Who cared if Tan Dongbang would bleed from this beating? Even so, Gu Nianzhi didn’t have to know about these situations.
Huo Shaoheng was still a bit worried that Gu Nianzhi hadn’t intervened appropriately, and it would be bad if she harmed herself in the process. His expression was very solemn, and his gaze was like lighting. His stare made Gu Nianzhi unable to lift her head up again, so she was in a “position of repentance” before him.
Huo Shaoheng looked at her silently for a while before hearing Gu Nianzhi say very quietly, “I was already very careful. It’s not even as serious as you’re making it sound, is it?”
“No.” Huo Shaoheng stood up, folding his hands behind his back and standing before Gu Nianzhi’s bed. His strapping figure opposed the light, and his authority could not be ignored. “You really think that you were completely flawless?”
“For example?” Gu Nianzhi answered smoothly. “I’ve never said that I’m number one in the world.”
Huo Shaoheng stuck out his right forefinger. “Firstly, it was pretty good that you knew to use a proxy to go online. But don’t forget that any proxy will still leave a trace behind, as long as you logged in from my place. So you need to learn how to bypass the local surveillance.”
She had truly neglected that point, and that’s why she was exposed by Huo Shaoheng’s investigation. Gu Nianzhi nodded humbly. “I haven’t had many chances to be a hacker, so I’ll be sure to be more careful in the future.”
“You’re going to do it again?” Huo Shaoheng’s expression finally darkened as he berated her sternly. “Do you know how lucky you were this time? When you were in Germany last time, they underestimated your ability and allowed you to enter their intranet and take advantage of it. This time, I was here to help you clean up. But things can’t happen more than three times, so don’t even think of a third time. You won’t be this lucky again!”
Gu Nianzhi’s little mouth gaped in a circle as she was instantly floored by Huo Shaoheng’s lecture. Huo Shaoheng’s expression changed too quickly, so Gu Nianzhi experienced the difference between a professional’s work and amateur’s work for the very first time.
“I’m not yelling at you because you shouldn’t have done that. I’m yelling at you because you weren’t being careful or secure enough.” Huo Shaoheng inclined his body forward. “Also, it’s one thing to not do it, but if you’re going to do it, you must not leave the enemy any room to escape. Don’t assume that Cai Songyin will make the original blogger stay quiet. On the contrary, she will make him spill it and reveal their original plan.”
Gu Nianzhi’s eyes instantly narrowed. “No way! She’s that sick-minded?!”
“Tan Dongbang’s cabinet has already been dissolved, and the interim general election is being held next week. As soon as Tan Dongbang loses, Cai Songyin will go berserk. She wouldn’t be Cai Songyin if she doesn’t drag us into this mess.” Huo Shaoheng stepped forward coldly. “So think about it. How do we stop the original blogger from opening his mouth?”
Gu Nianzhi was so terrified, she stopped being herself. She quickly lunged forward, sprawling on the bed and hugging Huo Shaoheng’s thigh to plead, “Huo Shao! Don’t! I’m begging you! Even though that person is horrible, he doesn’t deserve to die! Don’t make a mistake! I can go turn myself in!”
Huo Shaoheng was so angry at her, he began to laugh. Looking down at Gu Nianzhi sprawled on the bed and hugging his thigh, she had already forgotten that she was “exposing herself.”
“What did you think I was going to do?”
“…You …You were going to make him shut up, right…” Gu Nianzhi mumbled. What kind of person would shut up? Only a dead person… Didn’t they show that on TV all the time?
Huo Shaoheng looked up at the ceiling and suddenly remarked, “Stop watching those silly TV shows all the time…”
Gu Nianzhi was speechless.
Huo Shaoheng picked up a white wool throw and wrapped Gu Nianzhi in it. He replied calmly, “Am I that kind of person to you?”
Gu Nianzhi obediently allowed him to wrap her up as she continued to shake her head furiously. “Of course not.”
“So what did you mean just now?”
“Water got in my brain just now.” Gu Nianzhi confessed honestly and reached her hand out from under the wool throw. She gently tugged at the corner of Huo Shaoheng’s hem. “Huo Shao, please teach me… How can I make that original blogger shut up?” Of course she didn’t want to destroy his body.
“Think about it yourself.” Huo Shaoheng pried her hand off. “What do you need to do, if you don’t want an even heavier punishment?”
Gu Nianzhi got an idea and suddenly understood. She looked up at Huo Shaoheng. “I get it now! Huo Shao is truly amazing!” Her beautiful curvy lips revealed an angle appropriate for a kiss. However, Huo Shaoheng stopped himself from lowering his head to kiss her. Instead, he turned to walk away and didn’t even say anything else.
Gu Nianzhi laid on the bed to contemplate for a while before finally putting on some clothes and sitting in front of her computer. As soon as she opened Weibo, she was shocked to see an ocean of information about “restarting elections.”
The secondary account she used to initiate the petition had also amassed tens of thousands of fans. Gu Nianzhi’s face flushed red. Pursing her lips, she quietly logged into another secondary account. Hackers loved nothing more but endless sock puppet accounts.
When she logged into Weibo this time, she continued using a proxy. With Huo Shaoheng’s reminder, she was very careful about bypassing the local surveillance. It went without saying that the Special Operations Forces’ surveillance, and especially the online surveillance in Huo Shaoheng’s official residence, was basically like a spider monster’s cave—it was unbelievably complex.
Gu Nianzhi studied it for what seemed like half a day but still couldn’t even focus her eyes. In the end, she chose to go to the source and used the method Zhao Liangze taught her to bypass the local surveillance logged onto the proxy. Then she looped back onto Weibo.
When she was finished, she had spent nearly 20 minutes on the project. Glancing at her watch, she used every second to arrive at the original blogger’s Weibo account and studied his two “real fans.” But once she was in, she instantly gave up. Those two fans were none other than the original blogger’s own sock puppet accounts, so they didn’t have to pretend to be “true fans.”
When she took a closer look, she saw the original blogger was online. Gu Nianzhi used a bypasser’s identity to send a private message to the original blogger. “Blogger, I remember reading a very shocking text post that you posted the other day. Why is it gone now?”
The original blogger was currently feeling aggrieved, so he immediately replied, “How would I know?! I was originally posting a short essay, but then I got hacked, and it turned into a video!”
Gu Nianzhi replied immediately. “Oh? How could that be?! I was thinking about how I didn’t have time and couldn’t finish reading it that day. By the time I wanted to read it, it was already gone.”
The original blogger replied, “…”
Gu Nianzhi sent another private message. “So did you save a draft? Show it to me. I promise I won’t leak it!”
The original blogger replied immediately, “My computer was already reformatted by someone. How could I remember what I wrote?”
Gu Nianzhi was both reassured and worried by what the blogger said. She was reassured, since no one else in this world would remember that disgusting essay, but she was worried that the blogger no longer had any evidence. What if he was tripped up by Cai Songyin and her people?
Gu Nianzhi was still contemplating how to lead the subject to this topic when the blogger somehow already initiated the conversation with her. Perhaps he was facing too much mental pressure and didn’t dare say any of this to the people in his life, so he vented honestly to strangers online.
Original Blogger: Do you know? I was the one who was contacted by someone, but now there’s trouble, and my account was hacked. They are actually suing me!
Gu Nianzhi’s professional habits started up as soon as she read this.
Gu Nianzhi’s Sockpuppet Account X: Oh?! You’re getting sued by the Prime Minister and his wife?! So what do you plan to do? Do you need to hire a lawyer?
Original Blogger: I don’t have money. I can’t afford a lawyer.
Gu Nianzhi’s Sockpuppet Account X: No way? You’ll go to jail if they really sue you and you don’t hire a lawyer. Didn’t you say someone paid you money to write that essay? They didn’t give you enough money to afford a lawyer?
Original Blogger: Sneering.jpg, they only paid the initial amount, but didn’t pay the final amount. I’ve already thought things through. We can all go down together in the worst case scenario. No one should think about taking advantage of the other person. They treat me like a fool, and I know that the person who commissioned me to write the text was an employee of the First Lady. They are robbers acting like cops, but I’m not easily bullied!
Although he didn’t remember what he wrote, he still remembered the summary and instructions that person had given him. From the way Gu Nianzhi saw it, she was secretly impressed with how far-sighted Huo Shaoheng was.
As expected, Cai Songyin was actually planning to sue the original blogger as a cover and actually attempt to make the situation even muddier. She was still relentless about going after Gu Nianzhi and Huo Shaoheng!
Gu Nianzhi’s Sockpuppet Account X: I pity you, Blogger. But if you expose this incident, won’t you cross the Prime Minister and his wife, as well as people from the military? Is that worth it?
The original blogger was silent for a while before replying, “I know, but I’m at the end of the road.”
He was going to die anyway, so the original blogger was going to take a gamble no matter what, even if it meant the possibility of slandering two innocent people. After all, he was willing to accept money to write such an essay, so that meant there was no notion of “fairness and justice” in his mind.
Such people were extremely selfish, and the fact that Cai Songyin and her people were able to find such a person meant that like-minded people gravitated towards each other.
