You've Gone Viral
Space folds, passing through crystal walls.
Kang De returns to Earth.
She wore eight rings on both hands.
If my friends and family on Earth ask about me, just say I am the Lord of the Rings.
He opened his eyes to the familiar ceiling and the occasional sound of a car horn outside the window—a quiet and peaceful scene.
It wasn't Danfeng Lucerne, a city rife with undercurrents after the great war, nor Moyani, a country ravaged by war and on the verge of collapse, but China, his hometown, the place where he grew up.
Calculating the time, it was late at night for Comora, so he decided to use the spatial anchor point within the community to return directly to China. He wanted to ask Uncle Wang's factory to help him process and produce some parts.
If they can't produce it themselves, they'll have to rely on Uncle Wang's connections and skills to buy it elsewhere.
These things can only be discussed face-to-face.
He sat up, activated his Phoenix Eyes, and as Flame soared, he could see through the walls every single sign of life in the entire apartment building. There was no one home, and no suspicious people were lurking around. He looked next door and saw a body walking around aimlessly, its posture graceful and slender.
It's Xiaoman).
Phoenix Vision doesn't have the ability to see through walls... or maybe Dairila just didn't teach it.
The ability Kang De is currently using is somewhat similar to infrared imaging. The phoenix is a divine beast that Fire Warding, so it's not surprising that its eyes can see changes in energy. Furthermore, it's well known that different parts of the human body have varying temperatures; within the Phoenix Eye's field of vision, layers and outlines can be distinguished, meaning...
The light in Kang De's eyes dimmed, and he shook his head.
Poor thing.
The nutrition in this other world is definitely better than on Earth.
He stood up, took a deep breath, and checked himself in the mirror.
Both hands were fine; not only were they adorned with eight rings, but they also wore half-finger combat gloves, completely and clearly covering all areas that shouldn't be exposed.
The rings came from the generous gifts Kang De received from Goth and various circles; here are a few of the coolest and most stylish ones.
The fingerless gloves were obtained from Goth Ministry of Justice. They are made of top-grade fox fur, and the palm material is celestial gauze, which combines anti-slip function with super-magical affinity. They are beautifully designed, flexible and comfortable.
There is also a demand for tactical gloves in other worlds, especially among mages. They would love to be covered in amplification equipment, and gloves are of course of paramount importance. However, gloves must expose the fingers to meet the needs of precise spellcasting, and also provide amplification for Magic Power transmission. Ideally, they should also be able to store a few emergency spells. The wrist of the glove should also have a lanyard connection to secure the staff.
In this way, even if you are accidentally hit by a disarming spell such as "Expelliarmus," the staff will be firmly held in place by the connecting rope at the wrist of the glove and will not fly away.
--If even Nintendo could come up with such a design, what were the wizards at Hogwarts doing all day?
Kang De stretched his hands, nodded in satisfaction, then raised his arm, brought his nose close, and took a deep breath, the scent of Safeguard shower gel filling his nostrils.
Perfect.
... Damn it, what am I doing?
It's all Horus's fault, nagging and fussing, making even Horus himself feel a little guilty.
Thinking of this, he pictured Tina's affectionate face and the days he had spent with Xiaoman since childhood. He shook his head, not wanting to think about it anymore.
He reached out and knocked on the wall.
Knock knock knock.
The two families were next-door neighbors, and Kang De and Xiaoman's bedrooms were also separated by a wall.
When they were little, Xiaoman and Kang De always played together because Uncle Wang was away from home all year round. They even did their homework together or divided the work during their school days. Every night, it was late and Xiaoman had to go home to sleep, but the two of them were reluctant to leave. Sometimes, when they were lying in bed, they would reach out and knock on the wall. After a while, the other side would knock back... It was very boring, but also very interesting.
This habit has continued to this day. Even though we have mobile phones and more convenient communication software, technology may advance, but the urge to use our hands is eternal.
About a minute later, a knocking sound came from next door.
You can faintly hear hurried footsteps running outside.
A moment later, the door opened. Xiaoman had a key to Kang De's house, just as Kang De had a key to Xiaoman's house. He turned around, and Xiaoman, dressed in her pajamas and wearing pink bunny slippers, stepped out.
Kang De smiled, wondering whether he should deliver a few cool lines or give a long-awaited hug.
Before he could react, Xiaoman had already rushed over in three strides, punching him in the chest. "You heartless bastard, you still know how to come back!"
"..."
Although this was a habitual, flirtatious exchange between the two, with an ancient and long history, and it was a very normal way of communicating—that was in the past.
With the passage of time, this scene made Kang De's heart skip a beat.
Xiaoman immediately noticed the change in his expression and asked in alarm, "Are you injured? Or..."
"No, I'm just a little tired."
Kang De immediately offered an explanation, and then, an instinct he had cultivated for over a decade resurfaced. He reached out and lifted Xiaoman's chin, grinning wickedly, "I'm tired. Give me a smile and a leg massage."
Xiaoman's next response depended on her mood: either she would slap his hand aside and tell him to get lost, or she would continue acting and use her "Five Ding Opening the Mountain" skill to give Kang De a leg massage.
But this time none of those were true.
Xiaoman put on a sorrowful expression, feigning to wipe away tears, and sobbed, "I'm afraid from now on, sir, you won't find my plain looks appealing anymore, and more and more women will want to seduce you..."
--Holy crap!
A bolt from the blue.
Kang De's warning bells continue to ring, and the ancestral CPU 0 of emotional intelligence is running at full throttle—where exactly did she slip up? How did she find out? How did she know? It doesn't make sense! It doesn't make sense!
Fortunately, the lying training that had been in place throughout his childhood and even adolescence paid off! Thank you, Mom! The life of outwitting and outmaneuvering the teachers honed his formidable lying skills. From readily admitting to lying to denying everything, Kang De was extremely adept at it. He immediately showed a blank expression, looking as innocent as could be.
"--What?"
Her eyes were as clear as spring water, and her expression as innocent as a white lotus.
Xiaoman asked in surprise, "You don't know?"
Seeing this, Kang De secretly breathed a sigh of relief; judging from their expressions, it wasn't the same thing.
He asked, "What?"
Wang Xiaoman looked him up and down a few times. "Didn't you check your phone?"
Kang De pulled his phone out of his pocket and casually said, "I called you as soon as I got back, I didn't have time to check."
Xiaoman was taken aback upon hearing this, then smiled slightly.
Kang De turned on his phone.
"--Holy crap!"
Unread message notifications on WeChat, unread SMS notifications, missed call notifications, Weibo @mentions—the sheer volume and number of notifications are alarming. They're all lined up in the background, it's quite frightening.
Kang De exclaimed in surprise, "What's going on?"
Xiaoman sighed, "Congratulations, you're famous now. The whole world knows you went to Africa alone to save your dad, and there's even a group of people flooding Wu Jing's Weibo with apologies."
--What does this have to do with Wu Jing!?
Kang De showed the same astonishment as Nick Young.
He rubbed his temples, trying to organize his thoughts. For Xiaoman, his trip to Africa to rescue his father was something that had happened in the last few days, but for Kang De, it was a long time ago.
It's not just about the length of time, but about the length of time that has passed.
The Goth-Moon War, the Bloodbath of Danfeng Lucerne, Goth, the Dragon Clan, the extraterrestrial enemy... these memories have temporarily sunk into the sea of the spirit, while the memories of the Battle of Comora have surfaced.
After rescuing his father from the palace, during a street chase, Kang De was filmed by two United Kingdom journalists. The deceased photographer had uploaded a large amount of video footage to his personal cloud storage and posted it on Twitter before his death... Thus, his action-packed performance was seen by many people.
But how did it ferment so quickly?
Kang De frowned and asked, "Which videos?"
Xiaoman nodded and said, "Yes, a couple of days ago someone uploaded a video from an overseas website to Weibo, saying that someone went to rescue their fellow countrymen who had been kidnapped. At the time, no one believed it and thought it was some kind of marketing hype for a movie, so they were all criticized. But around midnight this morning, information about you started to spread in large quantities."
"I checked using a VPN. It first spread widely on foreign media platforms Twitter, not just these videos, but also your identity, and then it spread incredibly fast here in China..."
Kang De was deep in thought.
Xiaoman asked worriedly, "Won't there be any problems? I've received quite a few calls, mostly from teachers and classmates, all asking about you."
Kang De comforted him, "It's alright, it's alright."
He said this, but a cold glint flashed in his eyes.
Information dissemination takes time. It's abnormal for news to explode on foreign websites in just one or two days. If you say that companies like Twitter Facebook are principled, do not serve politics, and are only dedicated to creating a better life for the masses and are objective and neutral, even an old Sow would laugh.
Those damned foreign devils.
However, this involves the power struggle among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the hostility of the Western world, the chaos in Comora... all these things are messy and complicated, and Xiaoman doesn't need to know about them.
He opened the trending topics list and glanced at it. Among the top twenty, at least seven or eight were related to him in some way. Kang De also saw the one Xiaoman mentioned—the fourth place was "Wu Jing is sorry," followed by a long string of trending topics and a soybean-shaped person covering their face and laughing and crying.
Upon clicking, the first post was from a prominent influencer saying, "I originally thought 'Wolf Warrior 2' was a patriotic film, but it turns out to be a documentary." The entire trending topic was filled with celebration.
The most frequently featured line was Wu Jing's probing question, " In United States, one person can take down an entire division in a movie, but when I make a movie, I can only fight a dozen mercenaries by myself, and you say it's not okay? Aren't you guys shameless?" It was accompanied by a GIF of Kang De rampaging through the streets of Moyani, shooting everything in sight. It went viral, and memes of it were everywhere.
There are even photoshopped images.
On one side is a poster for Wolf Warrior 2, and on the other is a screenshot of Kang De shooting someone in the Comora.
It was accompanied by text.
"A fake Wolf Warrior, with a lewd smile, speaking fluent Beijing dialect, terrible English, a part-time astronaut, occasionally goes hiking, gets beaten up by Crossbones, and is Hirohiko Araki's Stand user."
"The real Wolf Warrior: street racing, ruthless and taciturn, blowing up palaces, wielding a sniper rifle with one hand, single-handedly defeating invading forces, never looking back at the explosion, and for work abroad, look for the real Wolf Warrior."
As they watched, Xiaoman leaned on Kang De's shoulder and laughed.
The twelfth trending topic is "Filial Son of the Year," and you can tell at a glance who it's talking about.
Kang De shook his head and smiled, "I never imagined I'd be trending so much in my life."
Besides these entertainment-related trending topics, there are also things about him personally. In the information age, there are no secrets. His personal information will be exposed if his teachers and classmates, or his friends and acquaintances in real life, leave no opening. Although many people are calling for the protection of personal privacy online, it's to no avail.
This is human nature.
Besides these, there are some more hardcore versions, such as one where someone combined information from foreign websites to explain Kang De's journey to save his father, first flying to Eastern Europe, then to a neighboring country of Comora, driving directly into Comora territory, and bombing the Moyani Palace... In short, the central idea of the article is to marvel at Kang De's terrifying execution and action, and to express how difficult such a journey was, praising him to the skies.
Unsurprisingly, the comments section went off-topic.
The most upvoted comment was, "That's what you call someone else's kid."
Kang De squinted as he read through the articles one by one.
Xiaoman nudged him. "Do you get that excited watching others brag?"
Kang De casually remarked, "Why don't you give it a try?"
Xiaoman slapped him on the back of the head. "Shameless!"
... That's not what I meant at all.
Kang De wasn't looking at these things to enjoy the online cacophony of praise—well, at least not solely—he was looking for relevant details and clues.
No.
His journey to save his father was carried out simultaneously with his mission to aid Danfeng Lucerne, which made him extremely agitated. He used many methods, including borrowing Xie Liqian's plane to fly to Eastern Europe, taking action after landing in Africa, and going on a killing spree in Comora.
Almost all enemies connected to his father's kidnapping, whether they were the Gambia Invaders or Bob's men, were killed without exception; they were killed on sight.
The emptied military camp, the blown-up corpses—these necessary evils and dark aspects of the journey to save his father were not mentioned in any of the articles; they were all avoided by the bloggers.
It's definitely not a coincidence.
Behind this nationwide frenzy, there is an unspeakable force controlling everything.
Kang De seemed lost in thought.
He looked at the top trending topic.
Four words -- China hero.
This is a bit cheesy, even for someone as thick-skinned as Kang De, it would feel a little embarrassing, but after clicking on it, it's clearly a completely different story.
The post, published by an official Weibo account, was formal news. The accompanying photos showed the devastated city of Moyani, with ragged Comora People, tear stains on their faces, and dust covering their bodies. There was also a photo of candlelight in Moyani that night.
He even saw Chakat II's Weibo account, which had just been registered yesterday. In a serious tone and with somewhat broken Chinese grammar, the King expressed his deepest gratitude to his best friend, the China man Kang De, for everything he had done for the country of Comora and for standing up for them during that hellish day to save countless innocent but suffering Comora People.
The king's gratitude, media reports, numerous photos and texts, annotations, and interviews from various sources have reconstructed the humiliating day that Moyani, as the capital of a sovereign nation, suffered.
White phosphorus and incendiary bombs attacked civilians, shameless mercenaries went on a killing spree, the cold-blooded invaders of Gambia, the victims who fought bravely for freedom, the Western embassies who stood by indifferently, and on such days, the local Chinese, the staff of the China embassy and the armed police officers, the China companies, and the China man Kang De who extended a helping hand.
Such news, such a legend, such a story—it's simply explosive.
The right time, the right place, and the right people.
In times of peace and prosperity, human life is of paramount importance. The kidnapping of Comora's China employees has generated immense buzz and attention online. Netizens are concerned about how this matter will be resolved and whether their compatriots will be safe. Then, this dramatic turn of events occurred—the kind of thing only Hollywood would dare to film.
An ordinary student, whose father was kidnapped while working in Africa, demonstrates extraordinary initiative, rushing all the way to Comora to rescue his father and extend a helping hand to the local people suffering hardship—anti-imperialism, fighting evil, resisting aggression, heroic sentiments, the great unity of brothers in Asia, Africa and Latin America, a dramatic unfolding, with so many Element that it's impossible for such a big news story not to go viral.
Xiaoman said quietly, "The internet is buzzing about it too. The leftists are practically worshipping you. You're now a freedom fighter, a beacon of humanity. Even Thanos retweeted it..."
Damn, his vanity is inflated to an unbearable degree.
Although they also accomplished earth-shattering things in the other world, the Goth People were certainly more fervent and grateful than the Earthlings—but communication in the other world was underdeveloped! There was no internet, where countless people would follow and praise them, reflecting it directly, which was much more exciting than in the other world.
Seeing his uncontrollable smile, Xiaoman teased, "That's enough! Don't get so excited you faint. If the world knew that this great hero didn't die from imperialist bullets, but rather from excessive excitement after becoming famous, they'd explode again..."
Kang De's smile hadn't faded when his expression suddenly changed, and he looked up.
Xiaoman was startled. "What?"
--Hold!
Thanks to Xiaoman's unintentional remark, Kang De realized in a flash why the news had spread so quickly—the state must have been involved in promoting it!
Why do this?
According to those in the know, Kang De was "bombed to death" by a joint air force of the American Empire and France.
The hype was ablaze, the hero's achievements were touted, he was elevated to a godlike status, the drama was emphasized, and a heated public debate ensued. But just as the public's enthusiasm reached its peak, devastating news arrived: the legendary story did not have a happy ending. The hero who saved his father died in a joint air raid by the United States and France while working for a foreign country and its people. The fervor of the people of all nations before was matched by the fury they felt now!
How insidious my country is...
However, Kang De liked it.
If he were really killed in the bombing, this operation would leave France and the United States completely bewildered, and those responsible would certainly not fare well. France would be in even worse shape because they are more deeply implicated. As for Kang De, his parents and family would certainly receive extremely proper arrangements and care. Even in death, he could become a sharp sword, delivering a severe blow to those damned foreign devils—quite satisfactory.
But I'm not dead yet!
Once this news got out, it became difficult to explain how he managed to escape the joint air raid when he reappeared.
After all, from beginning to end, there was no trace of supernatural forces involved in anything concerning him or the Comora...
"Quick! Where's Uncle Wang?"
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PS1: 5000-word update... Goodnight.