That afternoon, following Sun Yiyuan’s “friendly” advice, Headmaster Chen swiftly put the name list together, and it was put up on No. 60 High’s bulletin board.
There were five people in the starting lineup: Fang Xing, Hero Guo, Lotus Sun, Super Chen and Wang Ling.
And five reserve players: Gu Shunzhi, Liu Qingyi, Zhen Yuan, Li Youyue, and Xia Ming.
Wang Ling knew most of them since they were basically all on his side. The only person he wasn’t familiar with was Li Youyue, who was in the same class as Fang Xing. She was the class monitor of Elite Class Two, and her grades were pretty good. As for Xia Ming… they could be considered acquaintances now after that fight.
If the list had been posted before the duel, a lot of people might have questioned it: With his outstanding grades, why did Xia Ming have to be Wang Ling’s substitute?
But after the duel last night, no one made a sound.
Even if there were any who wanted to defend Xia Ming against injustice, they could only swallow their words.
His skills weren’t up to scratch! Who could be blamed for that?
In short, there was no easy end to this matter…
When Xia Ming saw the news in the class chat group in the hospital that afternoon, he was so angry that he almost broke his bones which had just recovered!
He had been robbed of his place in the starting lineup; gloomy thoughts started to brew in his mind. “Wang Ling… I’ll remember you!”
…
Being forced to become a member of the starting lineup wasn’t good news for Wang Ling, since it went against the Wang family’s principle of keeping a low profile. He had thought that after nearly half a year of torment, life in the later half of Senior Grade One might be slightly easier – he had never thought that so many huge incidents would happen one after another as soon as school started, causing him to attract the attention of countless people…
Life was so unpredictable!
Thankfully, Father Wang had recently been concerned about the second pregnancy, so he didn’t have much energy to spare to pay attention to Wang Ling. Otherwise, he would find an excuse to dock Wang Ling’s allowance again.
That evening, Wang Ming’s remote projection showed up again in Wang Ling’s room: using spirit power, the Heavenly E-Satellite was able to materialize part of the virtual image it projected so that it had substance.
Wang Ming was already very proficient with this method. Previously, he had only been able to materialize his hands. Now, he was able to materialize most of his body, and he could come to Wang Ling’s room almost like a real person.
“I’ve helped you block all the news that can be blocked. So, shouldn’t you thank me?” After finding out about Wang Ling and Xia Ming’s “duel,” Wang Ming had promptly reacted by using his technological skills to block the numerous videos and comments posted online: as long as a keyword was mentioned, the post was rejected with the reason that there was “no Internet connection.” A lot of people were also only doing it for fun, so when they repeatedly couldn’t post, they naturally gave up.
Reality proved Wang Ming’s guess right.
He had already patented this technological trick, as he felt that it could be used to handle some online issues.
While the Internet was already making use of an established real-name identification system, there would always be people who looked for meaning in their existence by venting their emotions online. They thought that no one could see them through the screen, so they recklessly commented and spouted rubbish.
A lot of violent online behavior happened like this.
Some people might think an insult or two wasn’t a big deal, but if millions of people thought the same thing, it was enough to form an army and deeply hurt the hearts of many.
Man was born virtuous, but there were times it had to be said that evil intentions were sometimes hard to predict.
Someone once said, “The instance an avalanche happens, no snowflake is innocent.”
The minds of those who had endured years of online abuse were very fragile, and the next cruel word they received at any moment could be the final straw to break the camel’s back.
This explained why some celebrities suffered from depression and gave up on themselves when they were young and in the prime of their lives.
Prolonged online abuse caused the myriad of colors which they saw in the world to gradually turn to gray and black, until this ultimately became the final, frozen image that they had of the world…
…
Of course, Wang Ling didn’t think that his own mind was that fragile. He was still young, but Father and Mother Wang had taught him the ways of Buddha as a very small child, and he had long seen through the vanities of life as he stood above them all. He didn’t care if other people cursed him or about their opinions of him, but he didn’t want his affairs to become the subject of public discussion.
After all, he was just an ordinary kid who was still in school, and he wasn’t a public figure – it thus seemed a little unfair that he was exposed to the public gaze like this.
So it had to be said that Wang Ming’s handling of the matter was quite timely.
Wang Ling saw Wang Ming lie down very naturally on his bed. He even took off his socks and stretched like a cat in a cozy cat’s nest. Wang Ling kept quiet and didn’t say anything.
He could make an exception today…
Dealing with online public opinion was a piece of cake for Wang Ming. Wang Ling knew that Wang Ming hadn’t deliberately come today just to claim credit.
“Looks like there’s been a development with Bai Youquan,” Wang Ling said telepathically as he stared at Wang Ming.
“You guessed it.” Wang Ming laughed and said, “You told me before that this guy has Fate Dao and holds memories from various worlds; when we searched his memories, we realised that they were especially jumbled up, so Odd Zhuo entrusted our research institute with the task of doing a thorough screening of this guy’s memories. And the result… To be honest, it was unexpected…”
Wang Ling: “???”
“We found another you in his memories,” Wang Ming sat up and said with a solemn expression.
Wang Ming had already had a premonition at the very beginning. He still remembered the white-haired Wang Ling he had seen in his dream; he looked exactly like Wang Ling, even down to the dead fish eyes. It was this person who resurrected Devil Gut Fungus Lord as well as the current president of the foreign underground criminal force Night Chief, Bai Zhe.
Devil Gut Fungus Lord was now missing, but President Bai had done a series of things after resurrection. Bai Youquan, for example, had been sent out after President Bai’s resurrection.
Although Bai Youquan was nominally President Bai’s son, in Wang Ming’s opinion, Bai Youquan was not so much his son as his pawn.
Because from beginning to end, President Bai and Devil Gut Fungus Lord had never appeared.
While President Bai had already made a move, it was actually Bai Youquan who showed his face.
After their resurrection, these two individuals whom Wang Ling had personally sent packing before seemed to have become different people, switching out their usual aggressiveness for a behind-the-scenes approach.
And now, it could be said that the root of everything had been found.
This root was one hundred percent that white-haired Wang Ling.
But while this White Hair looked a lot like Wang Ling, Wang Ming had yet to clearly figure out how he was connected to Wang Ling.
