Emergency Protocol
Linda's voice, like an icicle, pierced the brief tranquility of the rest area. Jiang Mo gripped her phone, her knuckles white, listening to Linda's rapid-fire analysis of public opinion and discussion of countermeasures. But for a moment, her mind went blank, with only the phrase "the scandal of being immediately replaced and blacklisted" echoing repeatedly. That deliberately forgotten memory, filled with powerlessness and humiliation, enveloped her once more with a chilling coldness.
She subconsciously looked up and gazed at Shen Zhiyan across from her.
He had clearly heard the key words leaked in the phone call. The usual detached calm on his face was shattered. His brows furrowed slightly, and his sharp gaze focused on her face, a look of intense concentration, as if analyzing a crisis. His hand on the drawings clenched tightly, the edges of the paper forming distinct creases.
Jiang Mo took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, and quickly said to Linda on the other end of the phone, "I understand. You handle it according to the emergency plan first, I'll be right back." Her voice was unexpectedly calm, with a resilience honed by trials and tribulations.
After hanging up the phone, she stood up, her movements revealing not panic, but a sense of urgency to leave. She needed to return to her team immediately, to that battlefield that was hers, a battlefield without gunfire yet equally brutal.
"Jiang Mo".
Shen Zhiyan called out to her. This was the first time he had called her by her name when no one else was around. Not "Miss Jiang," but "Jiang Mo," without any social distance between them.
Jiang Mo paused and turned to look at him.
He stood up, his posture upright but no longer relaxed. He looked at her, his eyes complex, containing concern (or perhaps she was mistaken?), scrutiny, but more than anything, a cool, analytical mind operating at high speed.
"Do you need data support?" he asked, his tone urgent yet organized. "I can access recent online data streams related to this keyword to analyze its propagation path, determine sentiment trends, and identify potential groups of promoters. This will help you pinpoint the source and assess the scope of impact more accurately."
He didn't ask useless questions like "Are you alright?" or offer empty words of comfort. What he provided was the most direct and effective assistance within his knowledge—his weapon for survival: data.
At this moment, amidst this sudden storm, his overly rational "support" acted like a steady ballast, calming Jiang Mo's somewhat unsettled mind.
Looking into his resolute eyes behind his glasses, she suddenly remembered the five identical cashmere sweaters in his office, and his obsession with having a "backup plan" for everything. He might not understand the turmoil in her heart at that moment, but he knew how to deal with "system failures."
“Not for now,” Jiang Mo shook her head, a weak, weary smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Linda and the others have experience handling this. Besides… your data might not be suitable for dealing with this kind of… noise in the entertainment industry.”
She used the word "noise" in an attempt to lighten the mood, but it didn't work.
Shen Zhiyan seemed to want to say something, but in the end he just nodded to indicate that he understood. "Keep communications open," he instructed, his tone as if he were deploying an important experimental safety rule.
Jiang Mo left in a hurry. Shen Zhiyan stood there, listening to the rapid sound of her high heels disappear at the end of the corridor. The rest area returned to silence, but his aura was no longer peaceful. He looked down at the crumpled drawing on the table, which depicted a non-urgent theoretical problem that he had been studying for a long time.
He took out his phone, his fingers swiping rapidly across the screen. Almost without hesitation, he opened a rarely used private chat interface. The contact was his college classmate who worked in the security department of a top internet company.
"Are you there? Urgent," he texted.
The other party replied almost instantly: "Oh, the great scientist Shen actually contacted me? Has the sun risen in the west? What's up?"
Shen Zhiyan's fingers flew across the keyboard: "I need you to monitor the real-time data dynamics of an online public opinion event in a private capacity, focusing on tracking abnormal activities at several key points. I'll send you the event keywords later. Keep it confidential."
The other person sent a surprised emoji: "...When did you become interested in entertainment gossip? This isn't like you, Lao Shen!"
Shen Zhiyan ignored the other person's teasing and simply repeated, "Can you do it?"
"It's possible, but..."
"I owe you one." Shen Zhiyan replied crisply.
"Deal! Send me the keywords."
Putting down his phone, Shen Zhiyan walked to the window and watched Jiang Mo get into her car downstairs, which then sped away. The city's neon lights reflected flowing spots of light on his glasses. He didn't know why he was doing this; it was completely contrary to his efficient and focused work ethic, more like an irrational dissipation of resources.
But the unfamiliar, sluggish feeling in his chest, similar to "system resources being heavily consumed by unknown processes," made it impossible for him to ignore it.
Back at the hotel, Jiang Mo was immediately surrounded by Linda and her team. On the computer screen, various data charts and negative comments scrolled rapidly, and the phone rang incessantly. She forced herself to engage in the battle, working with her team to verify the timeline, contacting those who knew about the events of that year to prepare evidence for clarification, and dealing with media inquiries.
In this familiar media storm, she remained calm and strong, like a battle-hardened warrior.
However, during a break to drink water, her gaze swept across the deep night outside the hotel window, and the image of Shen Zhiyan's calm face, offering to provide "data support," flashed inappropriately into her mind.
At a time when everyone was telling her how to "do public relations" and how to "cope," only he, the man living in the data tower, tried to provide her with a completely different "solution" in his clumsy yet direct way.
It's a strange feeling. It's like being on a chaotic battlefield where you fight based on experience and intuition, and suddenly someone tries to build a precise mathematical model for you.
Late at night, when the initial response plan was finalized and the team temporarily dispersed to rest, Jiang Mo's phone screen lit up in the darkness.
It was a WeChat message from Shen Zhiyan.
There were no pleasantries, no questions, just an encrypted link and a brief description:
"Preliminary monitoring data shows that the information source is highly concentrated, and there are signs of deliberate synchronization at the diffusion nodes. The propagation model does not conform to the natural decay law. We suspect it is an organized, targeted attack. A detailed analysis report has been sent to the link (password: the date of your first film debut, a six-digit number)."
Jiang Mo stared blankly at the message, at the encrypted file that required her to use her personal memory to open.
He eventually intervened. In his own way, he erected a data defense line for her, somewhere she couldn't see it.
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