Chapter 2: Everyone's Nervousness (Part 2) Click 1 to hear my revenge plan. ...

Zhang Deng's N+1 was a considerable sum of money. His monthly salary was 18,000 yuan, and after working for three years, he should have received more than 70,000 yuan. The money arrived that night.

Zhang Deng knew that the money would not be repudiated because it definitely did not come from his poor company. He guessed who gave the money.

The next morning at eight o'clock, after waking up with the lights on, he opened the curtains, found the selfie stick that he had never used since he bought it, and wiped the dust off it.

After searching every corner of the house, he finally found a place with better lighting. He placed all the things at his fingertips and sat in front of his phone in a daze for a few minutes before clicking record.

"Hello everyone, my name is Zhang Deng." At first, his throat was a little tight.

Zhang Deng said: "I reported He Qiu under my real name, alleging he plagiarized my article and led his fans to cyberbully me."

He held up his ID card and said word by word, "He Qiu, pen name He Qiu, real name He Xiaoqiu, has plagiarized my articles over 20 times since 2017. He has won three national awards, each worth 30,000 yuan, and participated in over 10 publishing house writing competitions, earning a total of 80,000 yuan. The articles he posted online contain countless plagiarisms."

Zhang Deng's eyes didn't hold any passion or joy for revenge, but rather a certain numbness. He picked up a stack of his own writings from the table, read them line by line, and said, "This sentence is copied word for word."

“That’s the same.”

“Only a few words were changed in this sentence.”

Zhang Deng said, "He Xiaoqiu and I have been neighbors since childhood. We were classmates from elementary school to high school, so I never had any guard against him. My dream is to become a writer. I started writing literature in high school. He Xiaoqiu asked for all my manuscripts, saying he loved them very much. I didn't know he had secretly taken them away."

Zhang Deng said, "I later found out, but he cried to me, saying he was just short of money. I softened my heart and agreed to be his ghostwriter for a while, but I only agreed to write for him for three years, no more than five articles per year. This year is already the last year, and I didn't expect him to show any improvement. He still wanted me to write for him, but I refused. His own writing wasn't high quality and wouldn't pass muster, so I rejected his manuscript. That's how it happened."

"And my former company, Lanyu Culture Media Co., Ltd., has already fired me," Zhang Deng said. "The company's organizational structure is pedantic and overly bureaucratic. As a grassroots employee, I've been shouldering responsibilities I shouldn't have for years. Reviewing manuscripts shouldn't just be my job. I sent the reviewed manuscripts to the editor-in-chief, who should have done a second check. But he neglected his duty and didn't notice that He Qiu's manuscript was missing, which led to what happened today. My editor-in-chief, Mr. Chen, is putting all the blame on me, believing it was a personal mistake. I can't accept that."

"I take legal responsibility for all the above statements."

"I know He Xiaoqiu might get entangled in my relationship issues later, so I'll explain it all here," Zhang Deng paused, took a breath, and then said, "I did like his ex-boyfriend before - they should have reunited now."

Zhang Deng swallowed his saliva and said, "Liu and I met in high school. I wasn't their third party. I knew him first. He Xiaoqiu met Liu because of me. At the time, Liu and I were having an affair—I think it was, but it might not have been. One time, He Xiaoqiu came to visit me. I was working part-time and couldn't take him home, so I asked Liu to take him back to school. That's how they met, and then they got together."

Zhang Deng said, "I don't have any opinion."

"He Xiaoqiu has always been better looking than me since childhood," Zhang Deng said. "I admit that he's more likable than me. Everyone likes him more and is more tolerant of him. But I did nothing wrong in rejecting his manuscript. And the rumor that I'm a mistress is pure rumor."

Zhang Deng said, "The chat screenshot He Xiaoqiu sent also cut out the part where he angered me. He suspected that I didn't write for him because I still liked Liu, so he wanted to destroy him. I never had such thoughts."

Zhang Deng opened his phone and found the chat history from that time. He could see that they actually had some back-and-forth conversations.

Zhang Deng cleared his throat and said, "Now I demand that He Xiaoqiu return the illegally stolen gains, and then..."

He said, "Apologize to me."

"Oh, right," he said, suddenly remembering something. "I know your boyfriend asked the company to fire me. I received the compensation, and he also threatened me not to make any comments. But your deal is illegal, so I don't have to listen."

Zhang Deng looked at the video with clear eyes and said, "I've checked. This money is what I deserve. I won't return it."

Zhang Deng was worried and added, "That's not negotiable."

Zhang Deng did not release the video immediately. Instead, he bought accounts on several different platforms and changed the IDs of all the platforms to "Restore My Innocence."

He then found an account where he was being cyberbullied, sent the video, and bought a streaming service worth 5,000 yuan.

Zhang Deng finished all of this and put the messy manuscripts he'd messed up for the shoot back in their original places. He'd already done so much, so he thought again. He washed the dirty clothes, mopped the floor, scooped the cat feces, cleaned the cat's water bowl, and watered Xiao Ai. After finishing all of this, he lay in bed, motionless for at least twenty minutes, then slowly picked up his phone and opened his account.

The message had 99+ likes, which was what he expected. Most of them were comments, not many likes. This was not a good sign.

This is usually the standard condition for being cyberbullied.

Zhang Deng clicked on the comments and glanced through them quickly. The comments were split 30% to 70% between good and bad. Most of them were from He Qiu's fans. Their latest argument was that Zhang Deng had no evidence.

Zhang Deng slowly got up, found his computer, searched the hard drive for a long time, and then took out his mobile phone to shoot a video. His tone behind the screen was still flat, as if it was just a work report video, without any hint of bullying or cyber violence.

He pointed at the screen and flipped through the pages one by one, saying, "This is the original manuscript of He Qiu's national essay on national unity. The revision date for this one is May 2016. This one is..." He clicked on each one, introducing them one by one, and then said, "Go read He Qiu's article yourself. You should all know it."

He wanted to say a few words to conclude, but he really didn't know what to say to these little girls who hated him so much. No matter what he said, it seemed to mock the poor people, so he said nothing. After the introduction, he closed the video in a hurry.

After posting this video, Zhang Deng thought about it and bought another 2,000 yuan worth of push notifications.

Soon, the backstage was flooded with likes and comments again, but there were fewer criticisms. More people were questioning whether it was fake, saying that there was a noticeable pause in the first few seconds of the video, which seemed like post-editing. Amidst these doubts, a strange comment poured in. One account suddenly mentioned: "The host's hands are so slender."

"I want to lick it." someone replied.

Zhang Deng: “?”

"He's actually quite handsome, with a pure gloomy vibe."

"He speaks slowly, like a robot."

"Transfer to manual labor."

"I want to get him."

Zhang Deng threw the phone back, and thinking he threw it too close, he kicked it, scaring Xiao Mi who was sleeping at his feet. She looked at him like he was a lunatic.

Zhang Deng had only one thought: "The Internet is terrible."

"Everyone's gone crazy."

Even if you kick the phone away, the people who are supposed to come to your door will still come to your door. In the afternoon, He Qiu called him, but Zhang Deng just watched the phone screen go out and didn't answer.

After a while, someone else called. Looking at the name on the phone, Zhang Deng still didn't move.

"Liu Yan." The man's name was displayed on the phone.

After a while, the phone went off by itself.

Then the WeChat notification sound rang quickly.

Because it was already October and winter was approaching, it was getting dark earlier and earlier. At this time, it was already dark, and there were no lights on in the house. The fluorescent light from the mobile phone screen was a bit dazzling.

Liu Yan's WeChat ID is blank, and his avatar is a stick figure of a little boy. He Qiu said that he drew that picture of Liu Yan when he was passing notes in class during his freshman year.

"Delete the video."

"He Qiu has been crying."

Zhang Deng set a Do Not Disturb mode for him. After doing this, he suddenly felt unwell again, and then he remembered to take medicine, and quickly swallowed a small handful.

After calming down, he opened his account again and found that the total number of views of the two videos had reached six figures. He counted the zeros for a long time and found that it was 300,000 views.

Zhang Deng has never been so popular in his life. He heard from Xiao Deng in the office that black and red is also red, but he just doesn't know what the use is.

At this time, the video had been posted for eight or nine hours, and the hot comments had basically settled down. The comments cursing him under the first video were still at the front row, probably saying something unpleasant like saying that he loved someone but couldn't be a mistress.

But starting from the third and fourth comments, things started to get weird.

"What are you talking about? I don't understand. I want to kiss you."

"Are you new to the palace? Why haven't I seen you before?"

"I finally understand the meaning of the sense of fragmentation that hipsters pursue."

"Save him, he's breaking."

Zhang Deng replied: "Thank you, I am very strong."

The style of the painting at the bottom of the second video is completely off track.

The most popular comment: "If I were Liu, I would wake up laughing even in my dreams, two handsome guys pulling hair for me."

"Who is Liu?"

"Do you guys in the literary circle play it this big?"

Zhang Deng replied: "Sorry, I don't represent the literary community."

Someone commented: "Provoking you is like kicking cotton."

Zhang Deng finally understood what chaos was like. Some were teasing him, some were cursing him, some were hunting down Liu, some were denouncing the chaos in the literary world, some were accusing him of plagiarism, and some were saying he had photoshopped his pictures. Zhang Deng received a huge amount of messages in a short period of time. He felt dizzy and nauseous. He quickly exited the comment section and decided to watch some videos.

A marketing video came crashing down: "Help! Is this the winter of your literary world?"

Light up the lights and row away quickly.

"The author seems to have lost all his strength and means—" Zhang Deng relaxed his guard. "Today, a handsome guy released a video, bitterly accusing the writer He Qiu of plagiarizing him. As a result, because he looks too much like the gloomy male supporting role next door in the novel, the comments section..."

Zhang Deng: “!”

Damn the link mechanism!

After clicking on several things he was not interested in, he finally calmed down and Zhang Deng could relax and watch the animals for a while. Then he saw a video.

This seems to have been posted by a fan of He Qiu, with a screenshot of He Qiu's Weibo in the background. It was a New Year's post He Qiu had made on Weibo one year, when he and Liu Yan had just started dating, and he often shared sweet moments of their daily lives. He Qiu's writing was average, but he excelled in writing about lovers. In his writing, Liu Yan was a perfect lover.

The last sentence of He Qiu's article is the same as the original text: "I really love you, just like the sky is high and the clouds are light, and I am alone in setting the prairie fire."

The fan's video copy reads: "I still don't believe that you would plagiarize if you wrote a sentence like this."

Zhang Deng couldn't bear to continue brushing, so he clicked the report button with an expressionless face.

But after turning off the phone, Liu Yan's words kept popping up in my head: "He kept crying."

What's wrong with crying? Zhang Deng thought viciously.

But crying is useful, and he immediately became depressed again. Everyone loves He Qiu's tears, and it has been like this since he was a child. If He Qiu cries, everything will be his.

Zhang Deng's toy airplane, his neatly written notes, his parents, the people he loved. He Qiu cried and took them away one by one with his tears.

It’s the same this time, Zhang Deng actually knows it clearly.

As long as He Qiu cries, sheds two tears in front of the camera, and describes his wrongdoings in a simplistic way, his fans will still forgive him, because He Qiu is the protagonist of this world and everyone loves him. He Qiu's tears are thieves, specifically stealing his most precious things.

But he is just a gloomy male supporting role in the novel. No one likes him and he has no tears.

Whatever He Qiu does is right, and whatever he does is wrong.

There's nothing fair or unfair about it.

The author has something to say:

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