The Big Reversal

Two days later, Shen Qiong discovered that the number of people following his Weibo account had climbed to six thousand, tripling from two thousand.

Almost all of those few thousand new followers had followed him just so they could insult him. Shen Qiong was sure plenty of other people were following the story too; there had to be far more than six thousand.

For some people, there were three things to think about every day: what to eat for breakfast, what to eat for lunch, and how to insult Shen Qiong.

"Today is my fourth day following Master Shen. I'm glad to meet everyone here. Maybe we should start an anti-fraud alliance to prevent another tragedy like Teacher Yuan's."

"Agreed. Everyone can post the addresses of fortune-tellers and feng shui masters near where they live. We'll expose them one by one."

"I'm in! Sign me up!"

"By the way, I feel awful if I don't insult Master Shen today. I sneaked off to the bathroom to yell a couple of times. Master Shen, you bastard!"

"I told my mom all about this today. I hope she can see these swindlers for what they are. I'm so grateful to Master Shen. If it weren't for him, we'd never have known how harmful superstition can be."

"I wonder how Teacher Yuan is doing. I hope he recovers soon."

Just as these people were worrying themselves over nothing, Yuan Jiancheng stirred in his hospital bed. His body suddenly twitched.

The woman keeping watch beside him immediately cried out excitedly, "Nurse! Nurse, come take a look! Is he waking up?"

Ren Tianxue had been waiting outside the room. She watched the nurses bustle about, blinking in surprise as she murmured, "Shen Qiong really is incredible. He said Yuan would recover in the next couple of days, and now he's already showing signs of it."

"He should wake up soon," the nurse said happily. "He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage after being overwhelmed by the shock, and his mind couldn't recover right away. Once he comes around, he should be fine, but he'll still need to stay in the hospital for observation."

"Thank you so much!" The woman grasped the nurse's hand gratefully.

The nurse smiled. "It's nothing. It's our job. By the way, you can pay the hospital bill for these past few days now. If he wakes up, you can decide whether to discharge him or move him to another room for observation."

"All right, all right. I'll go now." The woman followed the nurse out of the room.

Here's my chance!!!

Ren Tianxue slipped into the room and whispered in Yuan Jiancheng's ear, "Wake up!"

Yuan Jiancheng's brow twitched slightly. She exclaimed in delight, "He definitely heard me."

About thirty seconds later, Yuan Jiancheng woke up!!!

He opened his eyes and saw Ren Tianxue watching him anxiously. He immediately looked surprised. "You?"

"What happened to me? Why am I in the hospital?" His mind was still hazy.

"You remember me?" Ren Tianxue asked excitedly. If he remembered her, it meant his mind had recovered and he was no longer delirious.

Yuan Jiancheng gave a miserable, rueful smile. "Of course I remember! I'm afraid I'll never forget you—or Master Shen—for the rest of my life."

At the mention of Shen Qiong, she immediately pulled out her phone and showed him the Weibo page she had opened in advance.

"What's this?" Yuan Jiancheng glanced at the profile picture on Master Shen's account and murmured, "Is this Master Shen's Weibo?"

"Wait... Why are so many people insulting Master Shen?" He looked up at Ren Tianxue in surprise.

"Keep reading and you'll see." Ren Tianxue pointed to the phone.

She deliberately brought up several posts with distinctive details, confident that Yuan Jiancheng would quickly realize what was going on.

"Master Shen is a piece of trash. He's done nothing but harm people."

"I finally saw someone for who he really is. He's so ugly it makes me sick."

"Teacher Yuan devoted his whole life to education, only to fall into the hands of a con artist like Master Shen. Everyone should kill him!!!"

"He's a demon. He uses other people's desires to kill them. He must be punished."

"I say we dig up everything we can about this Shen Qiong, the so-called Master Shen. Teacher Yuan's case is just the beginning. I'm sure there are plenty of other victims."

"Exactly! Lots of people who get scammed are too embarrassed to say anything!"

Yuan Jiancheng asked in shock, "They're insulting Master Shen because of me?"

"Exactly. Before you passed out, you were briefly delirious. People online are saying Master Shen drove you insane," Ren Tianxue explained.

"Utter nonsense!" Yuan Jiancheng said angrily. He hadn't expected that Master Shen would be thrust into the spotlight and slandered by countless people because of him.

He kept scrolling through the comments on Weibo. Some people had even gone to Master Shen's shop and beaten him up. At that, Yuan Jiancheng sprang to his feet in a rage. "This is unacceptable. Someone must be using my name to frame Master Shen. I have to come forward and clear things up."

"How is Master Shen now? Is he hurt?" he asked anxiously.

Ren Tianxue remembered how that man had shielded her while he was being beaten, and her heart ached. "He's covered in bruises. Luckily, they're all superficial injuries. He should be fine after a few weeks' rest."

A few weeks to recover? He must have been badly hurt.

"Come on, take me to see Master Shen. I need to apologize to him in person." Yuan Jiancheng spoke with firm resolve.

Watching how serious and anxious Yuan Jiancheng was, Ren Tianxue smiled. "Don't rush. Master Shen had already calculated that you'd regain consciousness today. That's why he specifically asked me to come wait for you."

"Oh? He could calculate that too?" Yuan Jiancheng suddenly remembered how Master Shen had tried so hard to stop him from trading stocks. He let out a deep sigh, his face full of regret.

"Too many people are insulting Master Shen online for us to explain things to them all. It's also been almost a week since anyone came to the shop," Ren Tianxue told him.

"It's all my fault... I dragged Master Shen into this." He lowered his head, full of guilt.

Ren Tianxue's eyes shifted as she said hopefully, "How about making a short video to clear Master Shen's name? We can post it on Weibo. That would stop these netizens who don't know the whole story, and expose anyone who's using your name to cause trouble."

Yuan Jiancheng clenched his teeth. "All right!"

Ren Tianxue quickly set up her phone to record him sitting on the hospital bed, then gave him the OK sign.

"Hello, everyone. I'm Yuan Jiancheng, also known as Teacher Yuan."

"A lot of unbelievable things happened while I was unconscious. I only just found out about them. I want to make one thing clear: Master Shen did not deceive me. I was blinded by my own foolishness and wanted to turn my luck around, so I went to see him."

"But Master Shen didn't try to change my luck. He said stock trading wasn't right for me, and tried to persuade me to sell everything and leave the stock market. I'd lost money and couldn't make a rational decision, so I even argued with him."

When Ren Tianxue heard this, she silently mouthed, "The recording," prompting him to explain it.

"Master Shen strongly opposed my stock trading. He even said that if I made money in the stock market, he'd give me twice whatever I earned. If I made ten thousand, he'd give me twenty thousand. I was so foolish that I even recorded him!"

Yuan Jiancheng gave a self-deprecating laugh. "I really was an idiot. I'd actually guessed what Master Shen was trying to do. He wanted to prove through his actions that he was certain I wasn't suited to stock trading. He was even willing to take that kind of risk and make a bet with me, all to persuade me to leave the market."

"If anyone is attacking Master Shen because of me and what happened, you're wrong! You shouldn't use me as an excuse. Deep down, I respect Master Shen."

Ren Tianxue was secretly delighted. After those words, countless netizens would probably have to eat their words.

"I even heard someone went to Master Shen's shop and beat him up. I'm deeply sorry about that, and furious as well. Maybe you meant well, but you shouldn't act recklessly without knowing the facts. You can be held criminally liable for that."

Just then, the woman who had gone out to pay Yuan Jiancheng's hospital bill returned. She was overjoyed to see him awake, but then looked at Ren Tianxue and the phone she was holding with suspicion. "What are you filming?"

Yuan Jiancheng had no idea that his wife had written an article of more than ten thousand words to slander Shen Qiong—or that she was the reason the whole matter had blown up.

"I'm clearing Master Shen's name..." he began.

His wife froze. Startled, she staggered back a step and stared at her husband in disbelief. "Clearing his name? You're clearing his name?"

Yuan Jiancheng couldn't understand why his wife was reacting that way. He asked in confusion, "Yes. What's wrong?"

Thinking of the article she'd written, then looking at her husband's puzzled expression, the woman suddenly blacked out and collapsed to the floor.

Thud! Yuan Jiancheng lunged forward and caught her. "What happened? Wake up, wake up... Nurse! Nurse, come quickly!!!"

Watching the couple, Ren Tianxue felt conflicted. As for the woman who had passed out, all she could think was that she had brought this on herself.

"Maybe things are more complicated than you think. She did something foolish, but don't blame her. Everyone does foolish things sometimes."

After saying that, Ren Tianxue left the room, leaving Yuan Jiancheng alone to think it over again and again.