Hot searches and counterattacks
[Morning in the resort's meeting room]
The night rain had just stopped, and the coconut palms along the outer ring of the park swayed against the window. The air conditioning in the conference room suppressed the stuffiness, but the air felt like it was filled with needles. Last night, an anonymous account posted several telephoto photos, pushing two names back to the top of the trending searches. The photos were taken at odd angles, compressing the distance to make it look like they were shoulder to shoulder, and the comments section was almost unanimously filled with jeers.
The moment Mu Tianlang entered, the entire room fell silent. His gaze was cold, like a blade capable of tearing rumors to shreds with a flick of the wrist, yet he remained completely still. His suit was impeccably tailored, and his cufflinks were fastened to the last button. The conference staff placed a standard communal glass and a conference kettle to his right, but he didn't touch the water. He merely turned the glass away from himself, as if giving himself and his emotions a buffer.
Hu Li sat down near the window, flipped her tablet to the sketch page, and added a reflection to the small sample on the frosted glass with her pen. She didn't look at the screen, nor did she browse trending topics. The noisier it was, the more aware she was of how steady her breathing was.
Jiang Rouyin placed the folder on the table, her tone crisp and efficient as she confirmed the investigation and response plans item by item. She maintained a steady pace throughout the meeting, and no one mentioned the live-streaming venue.
Hu Li didn't say a word throughout the meeting, focusing solely on her tablet sketching. She only put the pen away after the meeting ended, her eyes thoughtful.
——
[Resort President's Office Morning/After Meeting]
Jiang Rouyin had just finished filing the documents when Hu Li pushed the door open and came in. Mu Tianlang was sitting behind the table, his brows still furrowed with coldness.
Hu Li spoke, his voice low: "The live stream this afternoon will still be done in that corner of the outer ring road. We'll show the audience clearly how those paparazzi choose angles to grab attention and boost their traffic. Only by putting the scene on camera can we truly expose them."
Jiang Rouyin paused for a moment, then nodded: "Understood. I'll handle the production, lighting, and IT. Camera A will shoot the actual distance from the front with a wide angle, while Camera B will replicate the telephoto illusion from the side. Compare the two images."
Hu Li pointed to the on-site markers on the plan with his fingertips: "This way everyone can compare it themselves, and there's no room for ambiguity." After saying that, he looked up at Mu Tianlang, "Just don't change the lines at the last minute."
Mu Tianlang stared at her for a few seconds, his eyes filled with coldness and restraint, before finally uttering only four words: "I'll cooperate with you."
The air pressure inside was still low, but because of this decision, all three knew that their counterattack would be more powerful.
[Resort President's Office, Morning]
The door closed very softly, as if deliberately trying not to disturb anything. The floor-to-ceiling windows inside were polished to a shine, and the sea breeze, carrying a hint of saltiness, was stopped halfway by the air conditioner.
The assistant placed several documents on the corner of the table: "Mr. Mu, the board of directors requests your review. In addition, the legal department has compiled the preliminary judgment and accountability path regarding the leaked images."
A few keywords peeked out from the corner of the page: fund, strategy, family. The words looked like hard iron sheets, arranged as two cold lines.
Hu Li didn't approach, standing by the window watching the halo of light slowly spread across the poolside in the distance. She suddenly smiled, a faint smile. "It looks very suitable for you."
Mu Tianlang withdrew his gaze, his fingertips slowly tracing the rim of the cup, as if smoothing out the rough edges one by one: "That's someone else's catalog, not my choice." He paused for two seconds, then added in a low voice, "I won't agree."
Hu Li hummed in agreement, tapping lightly twice on the window frame with his fingers, as if to give himself a rhythm or to give him one. She turned to leave, and he raised his hand, not touching her, but simply to block the sliver of cool air seeping in through the crack in the door.
She turned her head to the side, a glint of light in the corner of her eye: "Don't be afraid."
"I'm afraid you'll be wronged," he said very softly, as if talking to himself.
She raised an eyebrow, a foxy smile flashing across her face: "Then don't let me stand here for nothing."
[Afternoon in the resort's conference room]
After noon, the internal network was quiet for an hour, but the first screenshot stirring up trouble still appeared. The title was deliberately vague: "Interior layout exposed? Designer and CEO's 'exclusive route' captured on camera."
Jiang Rouyin pointed to the corner of the screen: "Zoom in."
IT pushed the pixels to the extreme, with two almost invisible gray dots hidden in the lower right corner, arranged at a relatively fixed distance.
"The markings match." The IT staff breathed a sigh of relief. "The third batch, the version distributed to the field shift supervisors."
The security supervisor's face darkened: "Call someone."
The small conference room was instantly transformed into a temporary command center. A few phone calls were made, and the three shift leaders were quickly asked to wait outside.
Hu Li placed a hand-drawn path map on the table: "Someone was camping out in this corner last night, and others were trying to replicate it during the day. With camera compression, it will look very close. I'm going to do a comparison live stream here this afternoon, and Camera B will be stationed in that corner."
Mu Tianlang lowered his eyes, silently tapping his pen twice on the table, as if suppressing a deeper layer of anger. "Legal department, follow up. Proceed according to the rules."
"Yes." The legal counsel turned the page, his tone even colder than before. "If true, this constitutes a leak of internal business information, and in accordance with the contract, he/she will be immediately suspended and criminally prosecuted."
The air cooled down again, but the sunlight outside the window was so bright it was hard to open one's eyes. This alternation of hot and cold forced everyone to be more alert.
[Resort Meeting Room]
The frosted glass cut the shadows of people outside the door into several segments. The indoor lighting was so white it was almost harsh, and there was only a water glass and a voice recorder on the table.
The legal representative sat opposite Hu Li, his voice flat: "Ms. Hu, this is a routine inquiry. Have you had any private contact with the shift leader of the third field team?"
"No." Hu Li stood ramrod straight, his eyes unwavering. "All contact occurred during work hours and in the workplace."
HR checked the records: "At 11:32 PM last night, you walked alone through the inner ring road."
"I inspected the halo device along the inner ring, checking the locations on the map." She handed over her phone, and the location matched the photos one by one. "Someone was filming me, and they were very skilled at taking pictures."
The security supervisor's Adam's apple bobbed: "Who said you were filming me? Did you name names?"
"I'm just stating the facts." She smiled slightly, like a soft knife. "You're in charge of finding the names."
Jiang Rouyin tapped the table and pushed her water glass in front of Hu Li: "Let's talk about evidence."
Sitting to the side, Mu Tianlang remained silent, his gaze fixed on the lines of the table, like a wolf watching a series of footprints in the snow, calm yet dangerous. His silence itself was a pressure, making every breath in the reception room steady.
The questioning continued intermittently, stopping and starting again, like probing nerves with a fine needle. Finally, the legal representative concluded: "Thank you for your cooperation."
As she stood up, Hu Li's hand brushed across the tabletop, grazing a small section of cool wood grain. She pushed open the door, brushing past Mu Tianlang, who was also standing up at the same time, through the crack in the door frame.
She whispered, almost inaudibly, "You look more nervous than I am."
"I'm afraid you'll get hurt." He didn't deny it.
She clicked her tongue softly: "Let's see if you can get people to behave themselves today."
[Inner Ring of the Resort]
An hour before dusk, the wind pushed the clouds toward the sea, making the light thin and sharp. Two live streams opened simultaneously. Camera A was positioned on the inner line, at direct line of sight; Camera B was positioned at the outer corner, replicating last night's "intimate illusion."
Hu Li stood in the center of the A camera's frame, raising his hand to indicate a "half-finger distance": "Let's maintain this distance when we speak, and communicate normally. Please open both live stream screens simultaneously and compare the difference in angle compression."
The comments section erupted in an uproar, followed by viewers switching between different shots for comparison: "Switching back to A from B, the difference is huge!" "The telephoto lens is so deceptive."
She turned to B and reminded him, "This is the corner where someone hid last night. It looks like you're very close when you close the distance, but you're not." Her tone was flat, but there was a hint of provocation in the corner of her eye, like a fox dismantling a hunter's trap for the hunter to see.
Mu Tianlang stepped back half a step to the position she had marked, turned sideways into the frame, and looked directly at the camera: "We are discussing official business, specifically how to arrange the exhibition and the flow of traffic." His tone was calm and his words were clear, without any hesitation.
The comments section started to shift in opinion: "Perspective ≠ Facts" "I misunderstood yesterday too, sorry." "This female designer is so calm and cool."
Softly linked the two live streams on her homepage, pinning the message to the top: "Perspective does not equal fact." Her PR team also contacted several top accounts to push and edit the content, simultaneously cutting segments to go viral.
Twenty minutes later, the first account that had stirred up trouble last night quietly deleted its post. Five minutes later, the second account retracted its post.
Hu Li watched as the tide of the comments slowly turned in her favor, exhaled, and nodded to the camera: "Thank you all for taking the time to see the facts." She turned to Mu Tianlang, her voice as light as a breeze: "That's a wrap."
He glanced at her, his brows furrowing slightly before lifting again: "Thank you for your hard work."
She shrugged: "I just adjusted the lighting."
These words struck him like a blow to the chest. He suddenly realized that it wasn't that he didn't care, but that he had simply hidden his feelings too deeply.
[Live stream after turning the corner of the resort's inner ring road]
The staff left, and the light thinned. The wind from the outer ring, carrying the scent of sea salt, passed between the two.
Hu Li took off the microphone, his fingers brushing against his cuff like a cat's tail. His muscles tensed, but he didn't back down; he simply tightened his cufflinks, locking his impulse inside the metal.
She looked up at him, her eyes bright, but her tone was soft: "Mr. Mu, you have excellent self-control."
He looked at her, his voice slightly hoarse: "If you keep talking like that, I'm going to lose control."
She chuckled, albeit only slightly: "Then you'll have to clear the place out." With that, she turned to leave, her steps light, as if she knew the gaze behind her would follow.
He didn't chase, but stood still, letting the wind soothe his body. The wolf suppressed its animalistic instincts, waiting for a more opportune moment.
[Night at the Resort Staff Dormitory]
As night fell completely, the dormitory corridor lights came on one by one. In the room, only the desk lamp was on, its light as small as a hand.
Hu Li turned the note to the blank side, first drawing a very straight line, then drawing another one next to it. The two lines were parallel and did not intersect, leaving a blank space about a finger's width in between. In the lower right corner, she embedded a glimmer of light from a piece of sea glass.
Her phone vibrated; it was the number she knew about but never saved under her name. [I saw it. You think you can get away with this?]
She stared for two seconds, a fleeting chill creeping into her fingertips. But the chill only lingered on the surface of her skin, not penetrating to her bones. She typed—[My actions will not be as you wish. This is my answer now.]
Sent out.
He quickly replied with three words: "Useless."
She didn't reply, letting those three words slide away like trash and into the recycling bin. Her heart sank an inch, but before it hit the ground, it was supported by something harder—like herself, or like someone in the distance shielding her from the wind.
She put down her phone, washed her face, and watched the water droplets slowly slide upwards in the mirror. She gave herself a very faint smile, as if comforting herself: "We will slowly come together." Her voice was as soft as a wisp of white mist, but her eyes held a deeper determination.
At the head of the bed, the drawing board leaned against the wall. She left the lines of the fox and wolf blank, and with only a very light stroke of lead gray, drew an almost invisible angle at the intersection of the two parallel lines—not an intersection, just a slight change in direction. She knew what she was waiting for, and she knew she wouldn't beg.
[Night in the Resort CEO's Office]
The building was unusually quiet, unlike any other building during the day. The sea outside the window was a dark blue, and the wind seemed to be shut out behind the glass.
Mu Tianlang closed the last document, leaving a watermark on the matte black glass beside him. He slowly traced the rim of the glass with his fingertip, stopping at a spot where her fingertip had touched it, and then applied slightly more pressure there.
Assistant Xiao Zhou knocked and entered, his movements even quieter than during the day: "Mr. Mu, this is the preliminary investigation you requested. It's not completely conclusive yet, but the outline is clearer."
A thin report was pushed onto the table. The cover had no heading, only brief small print: The source may involve the third outsourced group, and two online marketing accounts, one of which has a long-term partnership with a media outlet under a certain fund.
"Just say 'maybe'." Mu Tianlang's voice was cold.
"Yes, 'possibly'," the assistant immediately followed. "The chain of evidence is still being pieced together. Also, the second page is the public relations roadmap related to the 'family,' and someone seems to be trying to steer today's events along that line."
He looked up, his gaze sweeping across the paper like a blade. "Who's directing?"
"It's not certain yet. There are very faint figures in there, deliberately separated by two hands." The assistant lowered his voice even further. "I'll keep an eye on it, and I'll give you the second version tomorrow morning."
"No need to wait until tomorrow to make a move."
The assistant understood: "I'll go right now."
The door closed, and the room fell silent again. The report on the table remained unopened, yet it sat like a piece of iron slowly heating up.
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