Come Down and Pick Up a Delivery

Shunfeng Building, CEO's office.

It was lunchtime.

"I'd planned to offer help in the nick of time, but it ended up being icing on the cake." Looking at the number-one trending topic on the screen, Wang Wei smiled and shook his head, casually liking the post reposted by Renren Daily.

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

Without looking up, Wang Wei said casually, "Come in."

The head of Human Resources entered.

"President Wang, should we keep waiting until the weekend before sending out the offer letter you mentioned?"

Wang Wei thought for a moment. "Send it now. There's no point in waiting any longer."

He had not expected this farce to actually draw the attention of Renren Daily, but once it happened, he was not particularly surprised either.

Political sensitivity was a basic quality every businessman needed to possess.

Ever since that conference two years ago, the message from above had been quite clear.

The internet had never been a lawless place. Freedom of speech did not mean one could act recklessly. Marketing accounts like Zhu Fangcai's, which hyped up social issues, spouted nonsense, and smeared people without cause, were destined to have an increasingly difficult time.

Not to mention the terrible social impact he had caused.

Without any evidence, he had used his social influence to publicly smear a promising college student, stirring up fabricated claims such as "ten papers in one month" and "an academic cancer" to gain so-called traffic for himself.

How was that any different from those buzzing little red guards?

Now Zhu Fangcai was scared. He had stopped hopping around and wanted to handle things quietly. But how could it possibly be that easy?

Once a hand had been raised, it always had to come down. The only question was how hard the slap would land.

If that Zhu Bigmouth had any sense, he would slap himself twice, punish himself with three drinks, and admit his mistake. Perhaps, in recognition of his willingness to reform, the slap might ultimately be lowered lightly.

However, this fellow was clearly not a smart man...

Wang Wei thought for a moment, then suddenly smiled. He tapped the screen, reposted Renren Daily's post, and added a line of text.

[Kid, annual salary of five hundred thousand. Want to come work at Shunfeng? (doge)]

Click.

Sent.

The comments and direct messages predictably exploded.

Less than a week had passed from the start of the public-opinion storm to Hua Nation Youth Daily stepping forward.

Lu Zhou had not expected it to end in such a dramatic fashion.

Reposts from outlets such as Renren Daily completely shifted the tide of public opinion. After seeing the official clarification, the onlookers who had merely been watching the spectacle joined in condemning Zhu Bigmouth.

An undergraduate's mathematics papers had earned recognition from New York University and the Paul Scherrer Institute, while his computer science paper had attracted the attention of a company worth hundreds of billions. Yet such an outstanding student had been smeared as an academic cancer?!

It was utterly surreal!

[Will people still like comments insulting that old dog Zhu?]

[I said it from the start. There was definitely nothing wrong with those papers. That old dog Zhu just habitually screams abuse like a shrew. Just watch him for entertainment.]

[I kneel before the academic genius. I couldn't even write two papers in a year.]

[Everyone sit down. Basic operation! (doge)]

[I feel like I wasted four years in college...]

[As an international student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I can say that this is very common over here. We generally call these people curve-wreckers, meaning they wreck the curve, because their grades always disrupt the normal distribution curve...]

[When the youth are strong, the nation is strong. Like for Renren Daily! (fist) (fist)]

[...]

What left Lu Zhou most torn between laughter and tears was that someone had dug up his Weibo account from the vast sea of users, resulting in him receiving more than two hundred direct messages asking him to ghostwrite papers.

Then, the follower count of that newly registered account jumped from single digits to fifty thousand, which caught him even more off guard.

Meanwhile, bombarded from all sides by the official propaganda apparatus, Zhu Fangcai had completely turned into a turtle hiding in its shell. He neither deleted his Weibo posts nor made any statement.

As for apologizing, that was naturally out of the question.

But would acting like a turtle help?

Even if your shell was made of iron, if the people above wanted to make an example of you and crush you, you would still be crushed.

Zhu Fangcai would never have imagined that his third post, written in that shrewish, foul-mouthed style, would become the final post on his account.

When he turned on his computer and logged in, intending to see how many followers he had lost, he was shocked to discover something.

His account had been suspended by Weibo...

The instant he saw the suspension notice, Zhu Fangcai's vision went black, and he nearly fainted.

He slumped into his chair and stared blankly at the computer screen.

More than three million followers...

Gone in an instant.

What hurt him was not only the followers who had followed him, but also the five hundred thousand yuan in monthly advertising revenue.

In terms of value alone, his account was worth well over ten million!

His heart ached as if it were bleeding, and rage filled him. Zhu Fangcai picked up his phone, called Weibo customer service, and was transferred to a live agent.

The moment the call connected, he started cursing. "Why the hell did you suspend my Weibo? Which rule did I break? I'm telling you, if you don't explain this clearly today, I'll fucking file a complaint against you!"

The live agent calmly listened to his abuse, then said politely, "Hello, sir. May I ask for your Weibo account name?"

Breathing heavily, Zhu Fangcai realized he had not given his name. He slowly calmed down and said, "...Zhu Fangcai. That's the name."

"Please wait..." After a while, the live agent continued, "Dear sir, because your Weibo account posted harmful information, a decision has been made to suspend it in accordance with the Weibo Terms of Service—"

Zhu Fangcai flew into a rage and cut the agent off, speaking heatedly. "Which rule did I violate? I was legally exercising my right to free speech. Why suspend me? I'm warning you, restore my account immediately, or I'll take you to court..."

Yet the Weibo agent seemed not to hear Zhu Fangcai's furious words at all. In the same polite voice, the agent replied with a smile, "Sorry, the determination of violations is made by the public security internet regulatory department. The platform has no authority to restore your account. Please be sure to appeal through legal channels."

The public security internet regulatory department had made the decision...

The platform had no authority to restore it...

Please appeal through legal channels...

Every sentence was like reality's merciless mockery of him.

Zhu Fangcai nearly spat out a mouthful of blood onto the keyboard.

But his misfortune did not seem to end there. Not long after he hung up, another call came through to his phone.

He pressed answer and replied in a lifeless voice, "Hello..."

"EMS Express. Come downstairs and pick up a package."

A delivery?

I haven't bought anything online lately...

Zhu Fangcai froze for a moment, then frowned. "What delivery?"

"It's a document... Let me take a look for you. Seems like some kind of document envelope." Standing beside the van, the courier tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear, picked up the package, and turned it over. "Jinling City... People's Court? This is definitely your phone number. Come down and get it!"

Zhu Fangcai silently hung up and tossed the phone onto the desk.

Leaning back in his chair, he took out a cigarette pack. His trembling fingers reached inside, and he lit a cigarette.

Through the drifting smoke, he looked at his reflection in the phone screen.

All of a sudden, he felt that the person on the screen looked decades older...