Trouble Beyond the Walls

A few days later, on a seemingly ordinary afternoon, an account located at a university posted a video on Quick Sound, the country's largest short-video platform.

The video's cover was a selfie of a pitiful-looking young woman with red, swollen eyes. Its title stood out in bold lettering: "My nightmare: groped in a hall of learning. Why is it so hard to fight for justice?"

Posted by: Tingting Is Silent (Quick Sound ID: Tingting_XXXX)

When the video played, Sun Tingting was sitting alone at a desk against what looked like a dormitory backdrop. She appeared barefaced (though she was actually wearing carefully applied no-makeup makeup), dressed in a plain white T-shirt, with slightly disheveled hair and red, swollen eyes. Tears began to flow before she spoke.

Facing the camera, her voice choking with tears, she began her performance:

"Hi, everyone, I'm Tingting... I didn't want to reopen these scars for everyone to see... but I'm really suffering so much... I have nightmares every night. I'm afraid to go to the library. I'm even afraid to see that person's name..."

She sniffled, and tears rolled down her cheeks at just the right moment, like rain on pear blossoms, a sight to melt any heart.

"It happened last month, on the third floor of the Municipal Normal University library... I was studying for the postgraduate entrance exam, minding my own business... when suddenly I felt... felt someone behind me... touch me..." At this point, she seemed unable to bring herself to say more. She covered her face with both hands, her shoulders trembling slightly, and her sobs came through her fingers, deeply affecting.

After a pause of a few seconds, she seemed to force back her grief. She lowered her hands and looked at the camera through tear-filled eyes. "I was terrified. I turned around and saw a boy from our school named Lin Feng... he... he just walked away as if nothing had happened! My mind went completely blank. I was so ashamed and angry..."

She began describing the "incident" in detail, adding oil and vinegar as she went, piling on details and doing everything she could to emphasize her helplessness and the other party's "perversion."

"Afterward, I went to my counselor and reported it to the police... but... but just because that person flat-out refused to admit it and there might not have been quite enough evidence... the matter kept dragging on... his family seems to have some connections too... they hired a really powerful lawyer... when ordinary girls like us get bullied, do we just have to accept our bad luck? Is there any justice left in this world?!"

Tears streamed down her face as she spoke, her emotions running high. By the end, she was almost crying out at the camera: "I just want an apology! I want justice! Why is it so hard?! Municipal Normal University! Lin Feng! You dared to do it, but don't dare own up to it?!"

The video ended with a shot of her from behind, collapsed over the desk and weeping bitterly, accompanied by sad music and a line of text: "Please share and help bring attention to this. Don't let more girls get hurt!"

Once posted, the video was like a stone thrown into a lake, quickly sending ripples across the surface.

At first, users from the same school or city saw it and left comments one after another:

"Holy shit? At the normal university? Is this real? That's disgusting!"

"Hugs, sis! A creep like that deserves to die a horrible death!"

"Support our senior in fighting for justice! Dox this Lin Feng!"

"@Municipal Normal University Get out here and do something!"

"Call the police and have him arrested! Trash like that should be chemically castrated!"

Sympathy, comfort, and furious denunciations quickly filled the top spots in the comments. People began sharing the video, and hashtags like #NormalUniversityLibraryMolestationCase# started appearing.

Of course, there were a few dissenting voices mixed in:

"Uh... isn't this just one side of the story? Is there any surveillance footage or third-party evidence?"

"Let the bullets fly for a while. There have been too many melons with reversals lately."

"Isn't it a bit much to expose his name and school directly? Let's wait for the police announcement."

"Why does this girl look familiar to me... wasn't she in the campus singing contest last time?"

But these relatively rational comments were soon drowned out by an even more overwhelming wave of "justice." Some people even hounded the commenters, calling them "man sympathizers" and telling them to "get out, fake centrists."

Soon, the flames of war spread from condemning Lin Feng himself to baseless speculation and vicious curses aimed at his family.

"What kind of family raises a son like that? His parents can't be any good either!"

"They should investigate his parents. If the upper beam is crooked, the lower beams will be crooked too!"

"His whole family should die out. Rid society of a scourge!"

"Anyone got his address? Let's send some funeral wreaths to his house!"

Sun Tingting lay in bed, refreshing the video's view count, comments, and likes over and over. As she watched the numbers climb and the comments supporting her pour in, almost entirely one-sided, she couldn't stop the corners of her mouth from turning up. The immense vanity of controlling public opinion and being the focus of countless eyes drowned out the tiny bit of unease she had felt at first.

She had never imagined that Sister Zhang Qian's idea would work so well!

Sun Tingting's video was like a blockbuster bomb dropped into the pond of the internet, its shock waves continuing to spread. Just as its popularity was beginning to show signs of slipping down the platform's trending charts, another, more powerful force suddenly thrust it to the very top of the storm!

The next morning, the Safe City Bureau Quick Sound account, officially operated by the municipal public security bureau, posted a routine legal education video. The video was about "how to guard against sexual harassment in public places and properly defend your rights."

The first part consisted of standard explanations of legal provisions and advice on prevention. In the latter half, however, a policewoman giving the presentation (though her face was pixelated and her voice altered, people familiar with her could recognize the uniform and her outline) spoke in a serious tone when she mentioned a "recent case":

"...Just like a case we've been handling recently, in which a female university student suffered an unlawful violation while studying in the library. The victim bravely came forward and reported it to the police. We in the police are also treating the matter with great importance and are doing everything we can to investigate it in accordance with the law. Taking this case as an example, we would also like to remind women everywhere to be more aware of how to protect themselves..."

Although she did not name "Municipal Normal University" or "Lin Feng" directly, the time, location, and characteristics of the incident closely matched Sun Tingting's video! Coming from an official account, phrases like "the police are treating the matter with great importance" and "doing everything we can to investigate it in accordance with the law" were, in the eyes of countless netizens, practically indirect confirmation and official endorsement of Sun Tingting's accusations!

Countless people instantly took screenshots and screen recordings of the video and frantically shared them.

"Smoking-gun proof! Even the authorities have made an announcement!"

"Let's see how those fake centrists try to whitewash this now! The police said they're treating it with great importance!"

"Thank you, police! Kudos to the policewoman! Make sure that scumbag is severely punished!"

"@Tingting Is Silent Sis, look! The police have your back!"

The last voices of reason and doubt were utterly crushed before this "official video." Countless people who had previously remained neutral and waited to see what happened now joined the army of denunciation. Public outrage was completely ignited!

The hashtag #NormalUniversityMolesterLinFeng# shot like a rocket to the top ranks of trending searches on Quick Sound, Weibo, and several other platforms!

The view count on Sun Tingting's original video skyrocketed exponentially, and the number of comments soon passed one hundred thousand, uniformly filled with support and furious denunciations.

Countless independent media accounts and big influencers, like sharks catching the scent of blood, jumped in and raced to share and comment from every angle: "analyzing the psychology of molestation," "calling on women to be brave," "condemning the school's inaction," "questioning judicial fairness"... they gorged themselves on traffic until their mouths dripped with grease.

On a certain Red Sweet Potato platform, posts titled "Find Lin Feng" and "Dox Lin Feng" began to appear. Some people even put out so-called "bounties," demanding detailed information and photos of Lin Feng and his family.

A few hours later, this online "trial in the name of justice" reached yet another peak.

"Tech experts" or "helpful netizens" used illegal means to finish "unboxing" Lin Feng-doxing him!

Lin Feng's name, ID number, school, and major, even his parents' workplaces (factories in an ordinary small northern city) and home address (with the exact unit in the residential complex obscured), along with other personal information, were spread across social media platforms, WeChat groups, and forums, sometimes redacted and sometimes not!

A new, even more frenzied and shameless carnival began.

The netizens were no longer satisfied with condemning Lin Feng himself. They poured all their malice and contempt onto his entire family.

"Sure enough, he's from some backwater. That's how low their standards are!"

"His parents are factory workers? No wonder they raised a son like that. It's the ingrained rottenness of lower-class males!"

"You can tell the perversion is in his genes. His whole family are potential criminals!"

"We've got the address. Any brothers want to go splash paint on their front door together?"

"His parents still have the nerve to go out? If I were them, I'd have jumped off a building to atone by now!"

All manner of vicious curses, filthy speculation, and baseless insults, like a filthy mudslide, utterly swallowed Lin Feng and his family. They seemed no longer to be living, breathing people, but a symbol the internet could trample at will, an outlet for emotions.