Chapter 10 Cyber Storm
The voice on the other end of the phone was so shrill it almost pierced eardrums, completely devoid of its usual soft and sweet tone, "Xu Nianyi! You refund our room fee immediately! 568, not a penny less!"
Xu Nianyi was completely bewildered, standing there holding her phone, stunned. "Xiaoxiao? What refund fee? Explain yourself, what's going on?"
"Still playing dumb!" Su Xiaoxiao's voice rose even higher with excitement, bordering on out of control. "The boss lady told us! We transferred 568 yuan to you, but she only received 400! Did the other 168 yuan go into your pocket? Have you no shame? You even cheat students out of their money! Have you lost your conscience?"
The story begins after the four of them parted ways at noon.
After saying goodbye to Xu Nianyi and Tan Chen, Su Xiaoxiao and Wang Yue strolled over to the only modern five-star hotel in Hemu—the Shuborui Hotel.
In stark contrast to the dilapidated state of the "Snow Town Inn," this place boasts a luxuriously decorated lobby, filled with the aroma of fragrances and bread, making it a gathering place for snow enthusiasts from all over the country with strong purchasing power.
With their good looks, youthful energy, and deliberately cultivated innocent and helpless student-like demeanor, the two quickly struck up conversations with two male skiers who appeared to be financially well-off in the hotel's lounge area.
During the conversation, Su Xiaoxiao subtly revealed her grievances and vulnerability.
She took out her phone and pulled up photos she had taken that morning of the yellow stains of dog urine at the entrance of the "Snow Town Inn," the dried dog poop on the carpet on the stairs, and the cramped and narrow rooms. With a slightly tearful voice, she pitifully complained that she was a poor student with a very limited budget, and in order to save money, she could only stay in such a terrible place where even safety was a problem.
This tearful, half-serious, half-fake performance accurately struck a chord with men's protective instincts and desire for self-expression.
One of them immediately waved his hand and booked an expensive double room with a view for Su Xiaoxiao and Wang Yue at the Shuborui Hotel front desk.
Having solved the problem of luxurious and comfortable accommodations, Su Xiaoxiao and Wang Yue were overjoyed.
On their way back to the "Snow Town Inn" to retrieve their luggage, the two were in a relaxed mood, even a little smug.
As they walked, they were still planning what suitable excuse to tell Xu Nian that they wouldn't be playing together anymore, since they had already found better "partners".
More importantly, it would be best to find a way to get Xu Nian to return the 568 yuan room fee that she had already transferred to her.
After all, they hadn't stayed a single night, and the money was being wasted, which really pained them.
Unexpectedly, it seemed as if the heavens were on their side, giving them a perfect excuse to lash out.
When they returned to the wretched little cabin, they were surprised to find a large, obvious water stain near the wooden base of the bed. The area was still expanding, and murky water droplets were continuously seeping out from the gaps in the wood, forming a small puddle of murky water on the floor.
The already unpleasant smell in the air became even more nauseating and almost unbearable after mixing with this damp, musty odor.
This is practically handing them a handle and the perfect reason to refund their money!
Su Xiaoxiao immediately perked up; she wasn't trying to solve the problem, but rather to use the situation as an excuse to make a fuss.
She immediately called over the proprietress, put her hands on her hips, and began to argue in an extremely forceful manner, her voice several octaves higher than usual.
The landlady frowned and explained, "Young lady, you see, it's winter, the weather is so cold, the water pipes froze and burst, that's why water seeps in. This happens all the time, it's unavoidable. How about this, I'll change your room, I guarantee it will be dry."
"Change rooms?" Su Xiaoxiao immediately interrupted her, her tone full of disdain. "Who would want to live in this lousy place? We want a refund! Now! Immediately! Right now! Otherwise, do you believe I'll immediately take a video with my phone and post it online to expose you, showing the conditions of this shady place and the leaks!" Her goal was very clear: she wanted a refund. How could she possibly accept a solution like changing rooms?
The landlady was indeed intimidated by her imposing manner and the threat of exposure, and a look of panic appeared on her face. She said, "Alright then. I'll refund you 400 yuan for the room."
"400?" Su Xiaoxiao's voice became even sharper, as if she had been stepped on. "We paid 568! Are you trying to renege on your debt? Did you eat the 168 yuan?" she pressed aggressively.
The proprietress said with a troubled look, "Young lady, it's not that I want to renege on my debt, I only received 400 yuan. The extra amount must be the difference that your team leader made. For a small shop like ours, we only give the cost price. We can't control how much they sell it for."
"Team leader?" Su Xiaoxiao and Wang Yue exchanged a glance and almost immediately "understood".
It must be Xu Nianyi! She organized carpooling and didn't charge for the rides; she must be trying to make money by inflating the daily house prices.
A mixture of anger at being deceived and excitement at having been caught red-handed.
Thus came Su Xiaoxiao's aggressive debt collection call, where she indiscriminately accused Xu Nianyi of stealing 168 yuan from them.
After hearing this barrage of accusations, Xu Nianyi tried her best to remain patient and communicate. "Xiaoxiao, calm down, I don't understand what you're saying. I didn't cheat you out of your money, there must be some misunderstanding. I'll come back with Tan Chen right now, and we'll talk it out face to face, okay?"
How could Su Xiaoxiao possibly be willing to confront her face-to-face? She roared even more furiously, "Who wants to talk to you face-to-face? Who knows if Tan Chen will threaten us or beat us up? And what's there to say! The evidence is conclusive! You won't refund the money, huh? Fine! Xu Nianyi, then we'll see!" As soon as she finished speaking, the phone was abruptly hung up.
Holding the phone that had been hung up, she was utterly shocked. Su Xiaoxiao's manic tone and unfounded accusations on the phone felt incredibly absurd and chilling.
"Xiaoxiao seems to have misunderstood something; she's very agitated. We need to go back and check on her." Xu Nianyi grabbed Tan Chen's hand and hurried towards the "Snow Town Inn."
However, when they returned to the cabin, Su Xiaoxiao and Wang Yue had already left with their luggage, leaving the cabin empty.
Xu Nianyi went to the proprietress to ask what was going on.
Upon seeing Xu Nianyi in person, the proprietress belatedly realized that she might have mistaken her for someone else and made a huge blunder.
She awkwardly rubbed her apron and began to explain haltingly in heavily accented Mandarin.
These cheap hotels mostly rely on low-priced reservations made by tour leaders or drivers, who then set their own prices and attract guests to stay there.
Seeing Su Xiaoxiao and Wang Yue's aggressive demeanor, which didn't match their appearances, she panicked and mistakenly thought they were customers booked through the platform, not people introduced by the tour leader.
Having basically understood the ins and outs of this absurd and speechless situation, Xu Nianyi was both angry and helpless.
She was angry at the landlady's muddle-headedness and loose tongue, which had brought her so much trouble and stigma out of nowhere, but at this moment, she felt more powerless and deeply worried.
She tried to contact Su Xiaoxiao and Wang Yue again, but when she sent the WeChat message, only a glaring red exclamation mark popped up next to the chat box—she had been blocked.
I can't get through on the phone either.
A bad feeling crept into my mind.
Although Su Xiaoxiao's attitude was terrible, her accusations were absurd, and she wouldn't listen to any explanations, she was still the one who brought Hemu here. The two young girls were in a completely unfamiliar place in Xuexiang; she didn't even want to think about what might happen to them because of a fight or something else.
Xu Nianyi was so anxious that she couldn't even eat dinner.
She huddled on her small bed with her phone in her arms, and even though she knew the message wouldn't get through, she would still try to send a message to the two of them every now and then, asking where they were and if they were safe.
Overwhelmed by worry and exhaustion, she finally succumbed to her fears. Without even changing her clothes, she collapsed onto the bed fully clothed and drifted into a restless, light sleep.
The next day, Xu Nian picked up her phone groggily, hoping against a sliver of hope that Su Xiaoxiao would reply or remove her from the blacklist.
However, the moment she unlocked her phone, she was jolted awake by the 99+ red number displayed on the screen by the Yinlang APP!
My heart skipped a beat, and a sense of impending doom washed over me.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she tapped the app, and the message bar exploded as if a bomb had been dropped on it.
Countless malicious, abusive, and condemnatory @mentions, comments, and private messages flooded in, almost crashing her phone.
She was stunned for several seconds, then forced herself to calm down. She quickly clicked on a few items and browsed them. Her heart felt like it had instantly fallen into an ice cellar, sinking and growing cold.
She immediately understood the true meaning of Su Xiaoxiao's fierce "We'll see" before she hung up the phone last night!
She clicked on the most popular video.
The account that posted the video was named "Xiaoxiaosu is delicious," and the video title was shocking:
Exposing the unscrupulous carpooling tour leader! Female college student nearly lost her life during her trip to Xinjiang!
In the video, Su Xiaoxiao has red and swollen eyes, a haggard face, and a fragile appearance that is pitiful and ravaged.
Facing the camera, tears streamed down her face before she could speak, and then, in a voice thick with nasal congestion and sobs, she began her accusation:
"Driven by our love for skiing, we took advantage of our winter break and used our hard-earned savings to ski at the General Mountain Ski Resort in Altay. On the train, we were persuaded by a seemingly gentle and beautiful woman. No! She tricked us with sweet talk and a promise of breathtaking scenery and a fairytale world, convincing us to cancel our original reservations at an Altay hostel and share her ride to Hemu. We trusted her so much at the time, but who could have imagined that this would be the beginning of our nightmare!"
"Her male partner was driving extremely dangerously! First, he hadn't slept all night and was driving while fatigued to pick us up! Then he was driving incredibly fast on an icy mountain road, the car skidded, and we almost fell off a cliff! We were terrified, but since we were in someone else's car, we didn't dare say anything, afraid of angering them and it would be bad for us..."
"They were picking up homeless people of unknown origin on deserted roads! Who knew who they were? Could they be bad people? The two of us girls were sitting in the back, and we were terrified!"
"This team leader is supposed to be a caring older sister, but she's actually completely irresponsible! She often disappears without a trace, doesn't reply to messages, and we have to chase after her like we're begging for directions before she'll even tell us the departure time!"
"What's most outrageous is that she actually pocketed the difference in our accommodation fees! She ripped us off! We college students don't have much pocket money to begin with, and she's even making money off of this! And after taking so much money, she arranged for us to stay in these shabby, leaky, and moldy rooms! When we found out, she denied it outright and refused to refund our money! Please help us expose this unscrupulous tour leader! Her social media account is @一念江湖!"
The video was edited in a highly provocative manner.
Interspersed throughout are various pieces of evidence: screenshots of their cancellation of a one-night hostel booking in Altay; chat logs showing Xu Nianyi not replying to messages for a long time in Burqin; close-ups of the dilapidated environment of the cabin in Hemu. There are even some video clips that Xu Nianyi was unaware of being secretly filmed: when she first got on the bus in Altay, she asked Tan Chen, "Aren't you tired from driving all night?"; the scene of the ragged hitchhiker sitting in the passenger seat; the scene of Tan Chen suddenly braking when they encountered the white fox, causing the vehicle to shake violently and the two screaming; and most importantly, the cabin owner saying, "I only charged 400; the rest was collected by your tour leader."
These carefully selected and pieced-together "evidence," coupled with Su Xiaoxiao's weak, helpless, and aggrieved image, are extremely deceptive and inflammatory.
"Female college student," "unscrupulous tour leader," "died," "dirty money"
These keywords, when combined, instantly ignited a strong sense of justice and raging anger among netizens.
Xu Nianyi's social media account "Yinian Jianghu" was instantly flooded with activity.
The comments section of the latest video taken in Burqin, as well as the comments sections of all previous videos, was flooded with a torrent of insults and condemnations:
"Heartless tour leader! Get out of here!"
"You've lost all sense of shame for a little money? You bully students all the time, are you even human?"
"Just by looking at his face, I can tell he's no good!"
"I've reported it! I hope the platform will immediately ban this social scum!"
"Doxx her! Find out her ID card and phone number! Make her suffer!"
The private messages were filled with all sorts of vulgar insults and vicious curses, and even lewd jokes.
The language used was so vile it was unbearable to look at. The anonymity of the online platform allowed the darkest side of human nature to be unleashed on her target without restraint.
Some even threatened: "I'm already in Hemu. You heartless tour leader, just you wait! You'd better return the money you swindled from the students! Otherwise, you'll regret it!"
Xu Nianyi stared at the indiscriminate malice on the screen, her fingers turning icy cold, her whole body trembling uncontrollably.
My heart felt like it was being gripped tightly by an invisible hand; it was both cold and painful.
Clearly, that's not the case.
Tan Chen had taken a nap in her car after driving all night; the sudden braking was to avoid the intelligent white fox; the hitchhiking was out of kindness; they chose their own accommodation and booked it themselves through the platform, and the misunderstanding about profiting from the difference was completely unfounded; she wasn't replying to messages because she was editing a video on another phone...
Her painstakingly managed "A Thought Through the Martial World" account, which recorded her courage to quit her job to pursue her dreams and her experiences along the way, has now become the target of public criticism and is on the verge of being destroyed.
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