Zhou Tian lay in a pool of blood.
His assistant got out of the car and stood silently watching.
There was no panic, no remorse for hitting someone, only indifference.
The crowd surrounded the scene of the car accident.
Someone rushed forward to help and recognized the victim as Zhou Tian, who is, after all, a celebrity.
Passersby, seeing his pitiful state, kept sighing, "It's too tragic."
Su Mian frowned as she looked at the blood on the ground.
Duan Xuanyu's cool hand suddenly reached out and covered her eyes, whispering in her ear, "If you're scared, don't look."
Su Mian removed his hand. "I'm not scared."
Before they traveled through time, they had both been to battlefields.
It's normal to feel physically uncomfortable when you see blood, but there's no need to be afraid.
The two remained silent for a few breaths.
Duan Xuanyu suddenly took her hand, raised it, and held it in front of his face. "I'm scared. Protect me."
Su Mian: "..."
The assistant, who had been surrounded by onlookers for a long time, suddenly pointed at Zhou Tian and spoke up.
"Please take a picture quickly and post it online! I beg you, please help me spread this message!"
"I committed murder intentionally. I infiltrated his side as his assistant solely for revenge!"
"Of course, killing someone takes a lot of courage, so for the past few months I've been thinking that if he has even the slightest remorse for what he did, I'll let him go."
"But he didn't! He went even further!"
"If you were in my situation, you might have done even worse!"
The curiosity of passersby was certainly piqued.
"What happened? Is it some kind of workplace harassment? Did he assault you?"
"Did they withhold your salary?"
"But no matter what, you can't fight violence with violence! You should call the police; you should let the law punish him!"
But before the assistant could explain the specifics of the grudge, the police and ambulance arrived.
Investigative journalists from the media also arrived one after another.
Yu Liqi also rushed over immediately with her camera.
She was wearing loose loungewear, her long hair casually tied up, looking like a bird's nest.
They probably received the message at the last minute and came over without even having time to pack.
She steadily carried a heavy camera on her shoulder, meticulously recording every detail.
Seeing this, Su Mian suddenly felt a surge of pleasure...
Back when Zhou Tian thought Yu Liqi was doomed in the workplace because she didn't know how to toast properly, he probably never imagined that Yu Liqi would be the one reporting on his car accident.
Su Mian didn't want to disturb Yu Liqi's work, so she turned to leave.
However, Yu Liqi also noticed her.
She took the initiative to come over and say hello, and even gave her the account number of the media outlet she worked for.
" Mianmian, please follow our account. The truth behind this matter is related to a series of reports we recently did, which I think is particularly meaningful... This is not an ordinary revenge, but a revenge of great significance."
Su Mian nodded and replied, "Okay."
The two then went their separate ways.
-
Sitting in the taxi, Su Mian searched for the official account of the news agency where Yu Liqi.
I saw a series of reports.
The series is called, "Lyrics".
Su Mian flipped through the pages and finally figured out the cause and effect.
This Zhou Tian, he was particularly careful with his wording in his interviews and reports.
He interviewed a famous animation director whose breakthrough work was drawing his own kitten.
That kitten was loved by many people.
But when fans asked how the cat was doing...
The painter casually remarked that the cat couldn't be tamed, so he released it into the wild.
The tone was very casual, as if he were throwing away some inanimate object.
Even though he turned the cat into a stray, he still wrote the movie theme song as " No Longer Wandering ".
This is an utterly ironic and hellish joke.
Fans can't accept it... They raised it and then didn't take responsibility, yet they still profited from its success!
However, Zhou Tian's subsequent report changed the painter's words to, "He let the cat [return to nature] because he couldn't bear to confine it to a small doorway and wanted to give it a wide open space."
Scholars really know how to talk; they can even justify abandonment like that.
There are also many news items from Zhou Tian's hands:
"... A couple was forced to release their daughter back then, and eighteen years later, the parents wanted to reunite with her... Child, please come back, we really miss you."
Isn't this just abandoning a baby girl, waiting for her to grow up and be brought back to raise money for the family's son's dowry and to support the elderly couple in their old age?
Abandoning a cat is called "releasing it back into the wild."
Abandoning a female infant is also called "releasing life".
"... During an argument between husband and wife, the man picked up his daughter and, while turning around, accidentally let her slip out of the window, causing her to fall to her death."
It's truly unimaginable for a normal person to think that if you're holding a child indoors, how could the child accidentally "slip" out of the window?
"... A doctor administered an overdose of anesthetic to his girlfriend who was suffering from insomnia, leading to her death."
Isn't this murder?
Taking anesthesia outside the hospital is illegal in itself.
And it even claims to "help you sleep"... Does it really think it's some kind of sweet and doting relationship?
"... A female master's student went missing and was taken in by an honest and kind villager."
"Take them in"?
So this is how highly educated people talk about human trafficking, imprisonment, and rape?
"... After suddenly developing a high fever and being diagnosed with HIV, the man broke down in tears, struggling in agony, and worried about infecting his family."
The image of a family-oriented man leaps off the page in Zhou Tian's writing.
It was clearly this man who contracted AIDS from promiscuity, yet Zhou Tian obscured the key point.
They are still "struggling desperately".
Anyone who didn't know better would think his AIDS was caused by a high fever.
Su Mian can be turned to the next page.
I came across a news article that was just published.
It tells the story of the feud between this junior assistant and Zhou Tian.
The camera was shaking terribly.
The police had to take the assistant away halfway through the interview.
Yu Liqi carried her camera and ran while chasing after the person involved to conduct interviews.
The assistant confessed that her revenge wasn't actually because of the harm she suffered at work.
It was to avenge her sister.
Her sister had an argument with her fiancé and was brutally murdered by him, who had a violent temper, by stabbing her more than a dozen times.
They brought up the bride price during their argument.
The bride price was clearly not the point of the argument; it was just a word that flashed by in the conversation.
But Zhou Tian caught it.
He immediately wrote a report.
"Because Ms. Wang demanded an exorbitant bride price, the man was forced to take his own life."
This misleading report led to the entire internet condemning the sister as a gold digger, accusing her family of selling their daughter, and even sympathizing with the murderer.
Those who truly went down a dead end were the victim's family.
In the end, although the older sister's fiancé went to jail for murder, Zhou Tian, the hidden killer, gained both fame and fortune, and even a large number of supporters.
Although he is an unethical journalist, he has not broken the law, so calling the police won't get him arrested.
Therefore, the assistant chose to fight violence with violence.
"I will plead guilty, I will take responsibility for what I did, I just hope this gets out and my family's reputation is restored."
-
Su Mian felt a pang of sadness after reading these messages and decided to share them on her homepage to help spread the word.
The media outlet that Yu Liqi works for has very little influence.
Despite so much effort put into this series of reports, only a dozen or so people liked it, and the comments were just a handful.
But before Su Mian could even click "forward," Sister Li's phone suddenly rang.
"Mian, I told you not to offend Zhou Tian so recklessly!"
"He's now using his connections to get a lot of well-known media outlets to say you're acting like a diva!"
"But don't worry, just cooperate with us to film a video, and we'll wash you up!"
"Ah, it's good to be famous. If something goes wrong, the company will cover for you. If it were before, the company would have abandoned you long ago..."
Su Mian was taken aback. "No, didn't he already die?"
Sister Li: "Who said he's dead? He's perfectly fine."
Su Mian: "... What!"