Chapter 15 Public Opinion: Where to Begin This Story...
In the movie, young Forrest Gump starts running, and the camera pans to his childhood: the children's laughter, the bicycle chase, the clicking sound of leg braces...
As the familiar movie scenes slowly unfolded before her, Ye Yuying stared blankly at each frame of the film. In that instant, the movie images shone into her eyes, causing a glimmer of light to appear in them.
Ding Chu had known Ye Yuying since their time in Germany, and she was aware of Ye Yuying's foreign language proficiency, but she was still somewhat surprised at this moment, and couldn't help but joke:
"Wow, that's impressive, boss. You used to always say your English wasn't good, but you were able to watch the movie in sync."
Ye Yuying gently shook her head, without any overly humble pretense, and honestly said, "My English... is limited to this movie."
Forrest Gump is a 1994 film, from an era that produced a plethora of brilliant classic films, an era that has gradually faded away, carrying with it the brilliance of stars.
When she saw the movie in junior high school, Forrest Gump had already been around for more than ten years.
Looking back, that brilliant era of cinema seemed so far away from me at the time.
Looking back now, even that confused and awkward version of myself from junior high school seems to have vanished.
Looking back now, many years later, she feels that those broken, lonely, and even shameful days were not real at all.
Those pains, mockery, violence, struggles... are all sharp fragments, yet they piece together to create the complete picture of her at this moment.
At the time, Cheng Mingdu gave her the soundtrack to this movie, which was the American version and had no Chinese characters on it. Unfortunately, she was not well-educated at the time and could hardly understand English.
She asked Cheng Mingdu to translate the dialogue for her.
Cheng Mingdu said, "I'll translate it for you once, and then you'll learn how to understand it on your own."
Indeed, her initial motivation to learn a foreign language was not for the high school entrance exam, nor for any more niche or noble purpose, but simply to understand Forrest Gump.
She listened to that soundtrack countless times; it was the only stable background sound during the nights of her most confused adolescence.
Her learning method was so clumsy: she copied every sentence she didn't understand into her notebook, patiently looked it up in the dictionary, and painstakingly studied each word one by one.
She couldn't remember what she was striving for; it seemed... this was the only thing in her muddy life that could still drive her to do something.
She had long since resigned herself to her fate and accepted that her life would decay, but things like Forrest Gump always seemed to squeeze in and fill her idle days and nights.
That summer after her second year of junior high, she stayed in an inconspicuous attic in the Cheng family's house. The fan creaked and groaned, and her English notebook lay open beside her. She took notes, listened to the script, and finally memorized it. In this way, she filled many old manuscript papers with her lines.
Later, she was no longer satisfied with just memorizing the language itself, but began to study grammar and context, learning little by little, searching little by little, and unconsciously rewriting her life little by little.
She doesn't know how many times she listened to the same line of dialogue. She only remembers that for a period of time, she practically memorized the entire movie "Forrest Gump"—and perhaps she still hasn't forgotten it now.
Now, when this movie appears before her eyes again, the familiar sounds, rhythms, and even pauses are as precise as breathing.
That deep familiarity, ingrained in her very being, stemmed from the fact that even though she was a typical underachiever in the eyes of her teachers, she still used all her willpower to gradually make those words clear, from vague to distinct.
The light illuminated her figure leaning on her cane, revealing three unmistakable points of support on the ground.
Meanwhile, the screen displays the image of young Forrest Gump from the movie, running and breaking free from the heavy braces he wears—running towards his brilliant future.
*
Although Ye Yuying, like Forrest Gump, possessed a pair of magic shoes that could change her life, she still failed to run towards her own brilliant future.
Moreover, with the quiet release of a mysterious post online, a huge wave of controversy swept across the internet overnight, and Ye Yuying was drawn into the center of the storm.
The title of this post is: "Can 'school bullies' now be whitewashed and transformed into tech tycoons?"
The title was eye-catching, and the content was even more scathing. The poster, claiming to be a "victim from back then," recounted Ye Yuying's "misdeeds" on campus in highly aggressive language—
She was the "female school bully" in junior high, fighting every day, leaving behind her furious "battle records" on the playground, stairwells, and behind the teaching building; she was a special sports student, getting into a top high school because of her speed, but her academic performance was always at the bottom, so how did she get into scientific research? Are the barriers to scientific research and entrepreneurship really that low now...?
"How can someone like this be thriving in Jiangcheng's startup scene and even securing tens of millions in funding? Is this the standard for a 'tech upstart'?"
We, the victims of bullying, cannot allow such people to use their "entrepreneurial halo" to whitewash their image and continue to exploit others!
The photos accompanying the post precisely hit the readers' emotional triggers: a photo of her in her old school uniform, a competition list that appeared out of nowhere, a "disciplinary notice" at the school gate, and several blurry old photos resembling a "fight scene."
The post quickly went viral, and the comment section exploded with a mix of true and false information.
However, the word "bully" easily ignited public anger, with many posting condemnations and some threatening to "open her up" and disclose all her personal information.
Overnight, "Ye Yuying, the school bully" and "sports special admission student's entrepreneurship and financing" became trending topics. Some accused her of having a collapsed public image, some dug up photos of her from previous competitions, and some even started spreading rumors that she had a powerful background and was backed by a mysterious investor.
When Ye Yuying saw the wave of doubts online, she felt as if all the blood in her body had been drained, and her bones felt completely cold.
In reality, the whole world will do everything in its power to prevent you from having a brilliant life.
Her inbox was flooded with negative news. After Feng Ting's initial investment, several other investors had joined, and negotiations for further funding were underway. However, with the public outcry, the formal investment agreement signing, originally scheduled for next week, was postponed. The investors cited "internal reassessment" as the reason.
Others were even more direct: "Given the current controversy, we have decided to suspend cooperation until the situation becomes clearer."
She always felt that someone was deliberately muddying the waters, not knowing whether it was the posters doing it on their own initiative or driven by competitors.
Just then, Ding Chu pushed the door open and came in, his voice very low: "Did you see Twitter? The post from China is being circulated on foreign websites, and the accompanying pictures have all been taken over. Some people are even starting to dig up your materials from when you were studying in Germany."
Ye Yuying didn't speak, she just nodded. A lot of information about her studies could be found out. She had gotten to where she was through her own abilities. But now these posts denouncing her didn't have a complete timeline. They wanted to condemn her based on just a few words.
She knows how the internet works.
An anonymous account, by selecting the right emotional target and using a few blurry old photos and half-true, half-false tags, can instantly plunge a person from the halo of entrepreneurship into a quagmire of public opinion.
Ding Chu closed the door and walked to her desk: "Do you want to consider issuing a statement? I feel like this is premeditated. We don't think we've offended anyone recently."
Ye Yuying's gaze regained its composure, a fleeting moment resembling a flame still burning brightly in the cold night; her tone was calm:
“Any clarification now will be seen as ‘whitewashing.’ We don’t need to follow their definition of the issue.”
She looked at Ding Chu and said, "Let's do our own thing. The technical launch and testing will proceed as planned. The originally scheduled offline launch event will be scaled down and changed to a closed beta demonstration. Let's not lose our composure and delay the important matters."
"...But what about the investors?" Ding Chu asked.
“Feng Ting won’t leave immediately. He’s tied to us now, and the situation is still unclear.”
Ye Yuying paused for a moment, then said, "The instability of the remaining investors was to be expected. Those who are willing to trust us will stay, and those who are not—we can't cooperate with them in the future anyway."
*
The day after the public outcry broke out, Ding Chu and Ye Yuying were urgently contacting some public opinion control companies to see if they could request the posts to be deleted and the heat to be reduced without their personal involvement.
However, none of the other parties agreed directly. Only one company expressed doubt on the phone: "We already accepted this commission last night. Didn't you commission us?"
Ye Yuying and Ding Chu looked at each other, completely bewildered.
I wanted to ask who the client was, but the other party immediately realized that he had misspoke and refused to answer, remaining tight-lipped.
Upon reopening the online platform, the popularity had indeed decreased.
Ding Chu guessed, "It must have been Feng Ting who orchestrated it, since it's directly related to his interests."
Ye Yuying remained silent, lost in thought, with other guesses in mind.
*
On the night of the fifth day, public opinion began to show signs of reversal.
Bai Yi, a respected and experienced journalist from Jiangcheng, posted a significant update on Weibo after conducting extensive investigations and verifications:
People are willing to unconditionally believe an anonymous post that is cut off from the beginning and end and has a broken chain of evidence, but they are unwilling to see how a person climbs out of the mud step by step?
How much harsher must this world be on women, especially female entrepreneurs? She was admitted through a sports scholarship program, but her complete academic record for three years is there for all to see. How can a simple statement that she was "at the bottom of her class upon entering the school" erase all her hard work?
Some people called her a "school bully" and claimed to be a victim of school bullying. But what we received were anonymous submissions from the real victims during that period—these submissions mentioned that Ye Yuying was not the perpetrator; on the contrary, she was the long-silent, forbearing, and marginalized "easy target."
Until one day, she broke her silence. She fought back, stood up, and protected children weaker than herself. In an environment lacking fairness, she ended the fear in her own way. After her, no serious bullying incidents occurred in that junior high school.
We are preparing a special report on Ms. Ye Yuying, not to whitewash her, but to reveal the truth.
She's not perfect, but she climbed her way up from the mud step by step, relying on her own abilities to reach where she is today. This isn't just about clearing her name personally; it's also a vindication for all female entrepreneurs who are facing adversity.
This Weibo post offered no explanation or protest; it simply displayed a "currently in preparation" message, yet it subtly shifted the tone of the comments section.
Meanwhile, Bai Yi himself was in an old-fashioned coffee shop, facing Ye Yuying.
Ye Yuying initially declined the interview.
She looked at Bai Yi's recording pen and remained silent for a long time before saying, "I'm not really willing to talk about the past, and I don't want to fall into the trap of proving myself."
But she didn't voice the deeper reason—she didn't want the past, which had been carefully pressed into the cracks of time, to be forced to be exposed to outsiders, and she didn't want to touch that memory related to Cheng Mingdu again.
She looked out the window and slowly exhaled.
"If you want to clear my name, the price is that I have to tell everything. Then I'd rather not have that innocence."
Bai Yi didn't speak, turned off the recorder, and only asked her softly, "What if we step away from the interview and chat privately?"
Ye Yuying turned her head and glanced at her, then asked.
"Can you guarantee you won't publish it?"
"I promise." Bai Yi nodded.
Ye Yuying nodded and called over a shop assistant, "Could we change the song?"
She only had the courage to recall things if she changed the background music.
She named a song: "Doing All Right".
The familiar vibrancy filled the afternoon café, allowing her to find a sense of relaxation in the unfamiliar space.
“Where should I begin this story…” she began, her voice low and slow, “It spans five years, maybe longer… so long that I myself dare not look back.”
Bai Yi nodded slowly and said softly, "Then let's start from the beginning."
Ye Yuying remained silent for a long time, then finally seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, "Alright, let's start from the day of Frost's Descent that year."
A note from the author:
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The next chapter will be available for purchase (VIP chapters), and the story will officially enter the school setting! There will be continuous red envelope giveaways, and a 10,000-word update! [Sprinkling flowers]
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