What do netizens like to do?

Other than checking out gossips, isn't it just enjoying all kinds of "melons"?

And among these melons, the political and scandalous ones are the most captivating ones.

So, when these elements come together in one issue, the netizens instantly get all hyped up.

Especially because the incident involving Zhao Xuan had led to a very high level of attention on Zhao Group lately, a confluence of the two issues was like adding fuel to the fire.

The whole internet was abuzz!

Many, many netizens were all discussing and enjoying the drama.

...

As the heat around these topics rose higher, at the same time, in the chairman's office of Zhao Group, someone finally could not sit still.

Zhao Qingtian sat behind the desk, his face grim as he looked at the content on the screen.

Standing in front of him, his female assistant, trembled, not daring to speak.

Zhao Qingtian said, "This must be Chen Yan's doing, right?"

"Why does he always like to go against me?"

"Does he really want to stand up for Zhao Xuan that much?"

"And he even prepared so thoroughly."

Saying this, Zhao Qingtian laughed with fury, "And doesn't he know anything else?"

"Can't he change to something else?"

"I've suppressed it once, and he dares bring it up again! Does he not realize how serious this matter is?"

As he spoke, the telephone on his desk rang.

Zhao Qingtian picked up the cell phone, glanced at it, and then took the call.

He was obviously familiar with the person on the other end, as he said, "I know, I know. This matter should not be blown up. I'm handling it now."

"Also, press down on the platforms a bit, have them pull the articles and the trending searches."

"Should Zhao Xuan's matter be pulled..."

As he discussed this topic, Zhao Qingtian visibly hesitated for a moment.

After a pause, he said gravely, "Just pull it all. Leaving it there would lead people to think of us."

After saying this, he hung up the call.

After hanging up the phone, Zhao Qingtian looked at his female assistant in front of him and then said, "You know what to do, right?"

The female assistant hurriedly nodded her head.

Zhao Qingtian waved his hand, signaling her to go.

Seeing his gesture, the female assistant hesitated for a moment, didn't move, but instead asked, "Mr. Zhao, are we just giving up like this?"

Zhao Qingtian glanced at her, chuckled coldly.

He always had a menacing look, and with that chuckle, the temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees, "Give up? How could we possibly give up?"

"If we can't suppress by public opinion, can't we suppress by power?"

As he said this, a meaningful expression surfaced on his face, "Actually, I had anticipated that Chen Yan and his group would counterattack like this."

"I even had a contingency plan ready."

"It's just that I thought they wouldn't be so foolish."

"This matter indeed hits me, but it also makes those others furious."

"Those people aren't as 'soft-hearted' as me; facing a threat that impacts them, they always crush it with all their might."

After a brief pause, he added, "However, this also serves as a good lesson for that ignorant young fellow, to understand who truly rules this country..."

Hearing Zhao Qingtian's words, the female secretary's face revealed a realization, and then she quickly said, "Understood, Mr. Zhao, I'll go arrange it now."

Zhao Qingtian waved his hand, no longer speaking.

This time, the female secretary obediently walked out.

As the female secretary left and the office door shut, the room fell silent, and Zhao Qingtian raised his head, his eyebrows slightly furrowing.

He hadn't lied.

Though he severely hoped that Chen Yan would not uncover this matter, he was a person who planned thoroughly before acting, so the possibility of Chen Yan using this issue to strike back at him was already part of his prepared scenarios.

In fact, it was even the simplest scenario he had planned for among several others.

But for some reason, although everything was progressing as he had calculated, he felt a vague unease deep inside.

This sixth sense, honed over decades of business, made Zhao Xuan feel something was amiss.

Although he reviewed his response plan over and over in his mind, finding no faults, it was precisely this inexplicable unease that made him very uncomfortable.

He disliked this uncertainty, preferring to bide his time, endure over the years, and then strike like thunder, watching his enemies die in despair.

With that thought, Zhao Qingtian sighed deeply, then stood up, picked up his tea, and walked over to the glass curtain wall of his office.

Looking down at the vast city beneath his feet, Zhao Xuan felt as if his heart had settled somewhat.

He took a sip of his tea, then a scheming smile crept over his face again...

...

Ever since Zhao Group's matter blew up, the phone at the Weibo Public Opinion Management Department had hardly stopped ringing.

Whether it was Zhao Group's Public Relations department, the external affairs departments of several higher educational institutions, or various local internet information departments, all were calling Weibo to warn them that this issue involved many high-profile figures and urged them to quickly handle the related information and not to escalate the impact further.

Given the gravity of the situation, Cao Weiguo was personally overseeing things there.

Every time he heard the content of the calls, Cao Weiguo marvelled at Chen Yan's clever planning.

Thus, while he ordered his subordinates to record the calls, he also encouraged them to earnestly persuade the other parties, saying the current trending level was too high, and directly pulling it might lead to unimaginable consequences.

But the callers, well acquainted with how Weibo handled public sentiments for not just a day or two, did not hesitate to refuse Cao Weiguo's "kindness," adamantly instructing the Weibo Public Sentiment Department to urgently handle it.

Seeing all these people walk into the trap, Cao Weiguo finally left the department, satisfied.

Stepping out, he thought for a moment before taking an unregistered SIM card from his pocket, putting it into his phone, and then secretly sending a text message...

...

In Modern Society, thanks to the advancement of technology, the distance for information dissemination has been significantly reduced.

A command from its inception to its dispatch and then execution might only need a few minutes.

Especially things like pulling from the trending search or blocking certain terms, which Weibo has done not just for a day or two.

Thus, with one command, all trending searches related to Zhao Group and those high-profile individuals were pulled down.

Many netizens, not convinced, continued trying to discuss the issue.

But because Weibo had preemptively added blocked words to their backend, many netizen's Weibo posts were immediately blocked as soon as they were posted.

Ordinarily, to this extent would have been enough.

Previously when Weibo assisted various parties in handling public sentiments, this was pretty much the extent of it, sometimes not even bothering to blockall the keywords.

But now, Cao Weiguo was planning to escalate things per Chen Yan's instructions.

So, this time the level of public sentiment handling on Weibo was exceptionally high.

Not only were posts containing relevant content blocked from being published, but even private messages containing the keywords were blocked.

Moreover, typically blocking just the original word would suffice, but this time even euphemisms were added to the prohibited word list.

At this, the netizens really blew up.

Since the issue had initially fermented on Weibo, but now so thoroughly silenced, many netizens became furious.

They flocked under the comments of Weibo related staff, cursing and demanding explanations.

While demanding explanations, they also frenziedly tagged various major media outlets, hoping they would champion their cause.

Among them, many netizens combined the issues from before and began to question, "Can capital now stuff mouths whenever it wishes, hype things up as it pleases, is it now beyond national control?"

Others questioned whether this was infringing on free speech.

Some even went more conspiracy theory, suspecting Weibo was Zhao Group's lapdog, thus always hurriedly stepping in to clean up their mess.

And just when the public fervor was at its highest, a heavyweight official account "Tuan Tuan" finally spoke amid universal anticipation.

After finding a deleted media Weibo post, it commented:

"Public sentiment should not be harshly managed but should rather be openly investigated, and only official investigation can restore the true facts of the matter."

Upon seeing this Weibo post, netizens felt as if they had found their backbone, swarming to comment and share underneath it.

But seeing this post, all the forces who had been attempting to quell this issue were dumbfounded.

Neither Zhao Qingtian, various media outlets, nor those universities and local organizations had expected Tuan Tuan to enter the fray.

This even threw Zhao Qingtian, who had been strategizing behind the scenes, into a panic.

Nonetheless, they were all seasoned players who, after a slight panic, began to use their connections to reach out to insiders within Tuan Tuan.

Upon establishing contact, they discovered that the insiders at Tuan Tuan were not aware of this matter and that it was the social media managers themselves who had made the post.

Normally, as managers, they did indeed have discretionary power. But... given the magnitude of this issue, for them to act without prior consultation was definitely problematic.

Thus, Tuan Tuan immediately initiated an investigation to determine whether the ones involved had merely misjudged the importance and complexity of the matter or had acted intentionally.

As for Zhao Qingtian and the others, upon learning that the incident was the independent action of lower managerial staff, they breathed a sigh of relief, assuming it was just a misunderstanding.

They surmised that given the sensitivity of the issue, Tuan Tuan would likely soon announce the results of the investigation and deal with the relevant personnel and Weibo post.

At that time, they could throw out a few celebrities' gossip or scandals to divert attention and let this matter smoothly blow over.

However, just as everyone thought everything was settled, suddenly... Tuan Tuan's Weibo post was directly deleted, and the account was shown as banned.

At that moment, everyone was truly shocked.

Before this, no one had expected such a bold platform to challenge Tuan Tuan, and that too with a direct ban!

This was an official communication channel!

What was happening!

Who exactly was in charge of this country!?

Thus, the netizens completely exploded, and Zhao Qingtian and his fellows completely panicked.

This time, Zhao Qingtian himself couldn't sit still and immediately made a call to Cao Weiguo.

The phone connected, and Zhao Qingtian bellowed, "Are you insane? What are you doing? You banned Tuan Tuan!"

Cao Weiguo, ever so interesting, used his seemingly honest voice to ask, "You... are? Sorry, did you dial the wrong number?"

Hearing Cao Weiguo's words, Zhao Qingtian was taken aback for a moment.

Then he hesitated, put down the phone, and checked the number on the desk against it, confirming he hadn't dialed incorrectly, he took a deep breath to calm himself down.

Then he said with composure, "Hello. Is this Cao Weiguo, Director Cao? It's Zhao Qingtian."

On the other end of the phone, Cao Weiguo's sincere voice continued, "Zhao Qingtian? Zhao Group's Zhao Qingtian?"

Zhao Qingtian grunted affirmatively.

Cao Weiguo continued to ask, "Is it the Zhao Qingtian of Zhao Group who has recently been involved in incidents?"

Zhao Qingtian: ....

His composure let him grunt affirmatively again.

Then, with his "honest" tone, Cao Weiguo said, "Oh oh. Mr. Zhao, I've long admired your reputation. What can I do for you?"

Zhao Qingtian, having recovered from his earlier lapse, now spoke every word carefully, "Director Cao. I wonder, why did you ban Tuan Tuan's Weibo?"

Hearing Zhao Qingtian's words, Cao Weiguo said doubtfully, "Ban Tuan Tuan's Weibo? What ban? I don't know about it."

Zhao Qingtian countered with, "You don't know?"

Cao Weiguo said in a "confused" tone, "Yes. Hang on, Mr. Zhao, I'll find out."

After that, the sound of typing rapidly on a keyboard came from the other end of the phone, followed by a while, then distant voices of Cao Weiguo speaking to someone else could be heard.

The voices started loud then grew softer, suddenly turning into cursing.

"Have your brains been messed with by pigs! How dare you ban Tuan Tuan!"

"What? Zhao Group notified you?"

"They notify you and you do it? If they told you to hand over Weibo to them, would you do that too?"

"Is Zhao Group your boss, or am I your boss?"

"Every day their phone call notifications outnumber mine."

"You might as well just do things according to their orders."

Listening to Cao Weiguo's scathing words, Zhao Qingtian gripped his phone so tightly his knuckles whitened. However, knowing he needed to clarify the situation, he had to endure it for now.

But after enduring it for two minutes, Zhao Qingtian suddenly seemed to realize something.

His expression darkened, then with a snap, he hung up the phone.

"Not right. Not right..."

After hanging up, the more Zhao Qingtian thought, the more he felt something was amiss.

At first, he thought this incident was a misunderstanding, and assuming that after the misunderstanding occurred, Cao Weiguo and he would be in the same boat, hence his call to question and discuss remedial measures.

But now, the more he pondered, the more he felt something was wrong.

Could Weibo really be so foolish as to make such a massive mistake?

——————

It's been a tiring year; the book was completed almost seamlessly. Initially, I hoped to finish before the New Year for some rest, but ended up being lazy until the New Year arrived. My baby is about to be born soon, and I still need to prepare the maternity bag among other things, so I'm taking two days off for some rest.

No updates on the 1st and 2nd. I will update on the evening of the 3rd~

Also, in the new year, I wish all the book friends good health, family harmony, success in careers/studies, and fulfilling love. Love you all~~

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.