The Backlash of Public Opinion

Moonlight, cold as ice, streamed through the detention center's narrow barred window, casting a frigid patch of light on the floor before Lin Feng. He sat quietly on the edge of his bed, his figure looking especially solitary and stark in the dim light.

Zhou Wenyuan had just finished reporting the latest developments outside through their consciousness link. The appearance of the anonymous audio clip was like a pebble tossed into stagnant water: though the initial ripples were small, they foretold the eruption of deeper undercurrents.

After listening, Lin Feng showed neither joy nor sorrow. He merely raised his head slightly and looked at the moon outside, shattered into fragments by the iron bars.

While Sun Tingting reveled in her "victory" and basked in praise from across the internet, where people called her a "warrior" and cheered, "You're amazing, sister," an anonymous account quietly uploaded a file late one night to an audio-sharing platform with a massive user base. The account had no profile picture, and its username was nothing but a string of random numbers.

The file had a thoroughly nondescript title, as if it were deliberately steering clear of the current controversy: "Normal University Girls' Dorm Chat Recording Excerpt." In the vast online ocean of information, such an inconspicuous title, combined with an anonymous upload, sank almost without a trace for the first few hours. It received only a few dozen plays, mostly from the platform's random recommendations based on interest tags.

The contents of the audio, however, were the complete opposite of its bland title.

The recording began with faint background noise and the laughter of girls, with the sounds of a popular variety show mixed in. Then a clear female voice rang out, carrying a hint of boastfulness. It was Sun Tingting:

"...Oh, you should've seen the stupid look on his face! He was standing by the bookshelves with a book in his hand. I walked right up behind him, and he didn't even notice!"

Another voice, apparently her roommate's, asked curiously, "And then? And then? Did you really throw yourself at him?"

"Bullshit! Am I crazy?" Sun Tingting scoffed, her tone full of calculation. "I just pretended to lose my balance, went 'oh!' and fell toward him a little. My elbow 'accidentally' brushed against his back... then I jumped away immediately, pointed at him and screamed, 'Pervert!'"

"Oh my god... your acting... and then?"

"And then? A crowd gathered around, of course! That Lin Feng was completely dumbfounded. His face turned bright red, and he could barely get a sentence out. All he could say was 'I didn't' and 'you're lying'... haha, it was hilarious!" Sun Tingting's voice was full of the delight of having pulled off a prank.

"But... Tingting, wasn't that a bit too much? What if he actually gets punished?" Her roommate sounded a little worried.

"Punished? That's exactly what I want!" Sun Tingting's tone turned sharp in an instant. "He and I are the only ones left competing for that graduate recommendation spot! His grades are a little better than mine. If I don't ruin his reputation, how am I supposed to get it? Besides, that old woman Li Jing, our counselor, is terrified of trouble. If I shed a few tears, she'll definitely persuade Lin Feng to write a letter of repentance to smooth things over... see? Didn't it work?"

In the recording, Sun Tingting smugly analyzed her "perfect plan." She even mentioned how to exploit people's sympathy for "vulnerable women" and how to handle any doubts that might arise. The entire conversation was clear and natural, filled with the intimacy and authenticity unique to late-night dorm chats. It completely exposed the "victim" who had wept like a pear blossom in the rain before the cameras as a schemer who had carefully planned a false accusation and took pride in it.

Most importantly, neither Sun Tingting nor her roommate mentioned Officer Zhang Qian's involvement at any point in the conversation. That only made the recording sound more authentic and credible, like an accidental "leak of the truth."

The turning point came when a well-known legal-education blogger with millions of followers stumbled upon it. Perhaps the algorithm had finally pushed the recording onto his timeline, or perhaps someone had tipped him off by private message. The blogger, known for his rigor and rationality, opened the audio and fell into a long silence after listening to it.

He then posted a brief update: "Just heard a very interesting audio clip. The source is anonymous, and it's hard to tell whether it's real or fake, but the contents... judge for yourselves. Link: ..."

He drew no conclusions and even stressed that it was "hard to tell whether it's real or fake," but those suggestive words, combined with the credibility he had built over the years, instantly lit the fuse.

It was like a tiny crack appearing in a dam, followed by a flood bursting through.

The audio's plays, shares and comments began to soar exponentially! People shared and commented on it like mad, and the comments section exploded:

"Fuck! What did I just hear?! Is this a reversal??"

"That voice... it's definitely Sun Tingting! That tone, the things she said... it's so fucking real!"

"So... all of us were used as guns for someone else??"

"The more you think about it, the scarier it gets! She could ruin someone like that just for a graduate recommendation spot?"

"Where are all the people who cursed Lin Feng's whole family and cheered on the doxxing? Come out and show yourselves!"

"@Safe City Bureau @Municipal Normal University Get to work! Does this count as a false accusation?!"

The anger of having been thoroughly fooled and played for clowns spread rapidly across the internet like a plague. As fierce as the earlier outpouring had been, the backlash was now just as savage. People were desperate to find an outlet to prove they were not "stupid," and the best way was to pour twice their fury onto the person who had deceived them.

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

"Wait, the audio's source is unknown. Couldn't it be fake? AI voice-changing technology is really advanced now."

"Can you convict someone based on one recording alone? Isn't that too hasty?"

"Let the bullets fly a little longer and wait for the official investigation."

But these attempts to remain rational were instantly swallowed whole and crushed beneath the surging tide of public opinion. The angry public did not need reason; they needed a vengeful outlet.

Under immense public pressure, roughly an hour after the audio was uploaded, the audio-sharing platform released an official announcement: "We received related complaints and, after review, found that this audio's contents are suspected of infringing upon another person's privacy and violating the platform's community guidelines. It has therefore been removed."

Yet this attempt to "keep a lid on it" was no different from pouring oil on a fire!

"It's been taken down?! Feeling guilty?!"

"They can really cover the sky with one hand! They're only afraid of people hearing it because the recording is real!"

"Guys, let's raid Sun Tingting's account! Let's see her keep pretending!"

Countless enraged netizens flooded Sun Tingting's accounts on Quick Sound, Little Red Sweet Potato and other social platforms like a tide. Beneath her latest celebratory video, the comments section took a sudden plunge from the adoration showered on her days before and became a battlefield of carnage. Filthy abuse, vicious curses, personal attacks... they were every bit as bad as, if not worse than, what had previously been inflicted on Lin Feng and his family.

Her personal photos were edited into all manner of insulting images and widely circulated. The hundreds of thousands of followers she had just accumulated vanished in an instant, replaced by millions of abusive private messages and @ mentions. It was as though she had been kicked straight from the clouds into a bottomless abyss, becoming the enemy of the entire internet.

Inside the detention center, Lin Feng "watched" the online storm through the information Zhou Wenyuan relayed. He had secretly set it in motion-the hacker death warrior K had posted the recording through the anonymous account-but it had quickly spiraled out of control.

He saw the audio posted, saw the initial silence, saw its explosive spread and the platform's hasty removal. Above all, he saw how the netizens turned their guns around and drowned Sun Tingting in an ocean of fury.

Zhou Wenyuan reported through their consciousness link, a hint of complicated emotion in his tone. "Master, public opinion has completely reversed. Sun Tingting... she's finished. Even if the law can't punish her for now, she's already socially dead in the real world."

Lin Feng slowly rose and walked to the window again. The cool moonlight fell on his calm, untroubled face.

He suddenly chuckled. The sound was soft, tinged with the mockery of someone who understood the ways of the world and a faint sadness, and it echoed gently through the silent cell.

"Just as I thought," he said, as if speaking to Zhou Wenyuan and yet also to himself. "People still like a reversal."

His gaze seemed to penetrate the high walls, seeing those indistinct faces before their screens, burning with righteous indignation and constantly switching sides.

"A villain lays down his butcher's knife and becomes a Buddha on the spot, and that's worthy of praise; a good person, driven to desperation, makes a last-ditch gamble, and that's deeply satisfying; a respectable woman, forced by hardship, enters the flesh trade to make a living, and that draws sighs of sympathy; a woman of the red-light district comes to her senses, turns over a new leaf and marries, and everyone is happy..."

He paused, the sarcasm in his voice growing sharper.

"The dramas of this world play out over and over, and they're all much the same. They don't care what the truth is. They only care whether the plot has enough twists and turns, whether it gives them an excuse to vent their emotions over after-dinner conversation."

Today they could lift you onto a pedestal; tomorrow they could trample you into hell. So-called justice and evil were, at times, nothing but puppets manipulated by traffic and emotion.

He said nothing more, merely standing quietly and letting the moonlight soak through him. Beyond the wall, the world was in the throes of a towering wave he had set in motion, while he stood inside like a calm spectator, seeing through the emptiness and absurdity behind the frenzy.

The curtain had only just risen. Sun Tingting was merely the first sacrifice.