Chapter 225: Chapter 220 – Hydrothermal Heat
The accompanying police officer stared at the red words on the other person’s face, blanking for a moment, then recalling the recent “blue pill” incident that had gone viral online.
This slap strongly proved that this was yet another case of extraordinary ability crime.
The police officer blurted out, “Have you told anyone else about this?”
The young stewards and the general manager shook their heads.
“Hey, Captain Li. There’s new evidence.”
At the same time, the matter was immediately reported to the department.
In the not-so-distant so-called secret base.
“The donkey of the production team” was playing a single-player game while pausing to lift his head and respond to the guard nearby:
“Unleashing powers? I haven’t done anything beyond conducting experiments, and besides, you should be able to check the surveillance, right?”
“Thank you for your answer,” the guard said, going back to report.
After the special line report, the information was quickly transmitted through electricity to a faraway place.
“This is the second extraordinary event crime; the suspect appears to have been silenced and is unhappy about it.”
Hearing this news, the case officer breathed a sigh of relief.
He was at a workstation in the headquarters of Zhihu, with a few plainclothes police officers in short sleeves nearby.
“Get the recent list of silenced accounts from your company,” the case officer said. “Also, list separately the record of Xiao Yan’s account being banned.”
Xiao Yan was the same young steward who had been slapped.
“Okay, we’ve recorded everything.”
“Do your company accounts have phone numbers linked to them?”
“Our company strictly adheres to national laws.”
The case officer felt relieved. This made the case much clearer; as long as they found the banned account of the steward who was slapped, they would be close to finding the real person.
Lines of text scrolled and refreshed across the screen, quickly filling a page.
“Is this the complete record of banned accounts recently?”
“No, it’s just the accounts handled by Xiao Yan.”
Looking at the filled page, which seemed to have hundreds of entries, the case officer’s mind started to swell at the thought of going through each ID. He unconsciously asked, “Is this just one page?”
The mouse hovered over the digits at the bottom of the screen, 1/36.
“No, officer, there are a total of thirty-six pages.”
“So many?!”
“Xiao Yan has always been an excellent employee in our company.”
The case officer felt overwhelmed.
A police officer came over and shouted, “Captain Li, Captain Li, someone else has been silenced.”
A man in a suit next to him looked like a fish out of water, opening his mouth but unable to make a sound; he looked anxiously at the officers.
An employee who had been cooperating with the police stood up and said, “Comrade police, I have things to attend to, can I leave first—”
He moved his mouth but could not produce any sound.
Everyone around looked at him, some with fear, some with tension.
The employee panicked, opening his mouth and trying desperately to shout, but still couldn’t make a sound. He looked anxiously at the case officer; his throat moved as he mouthed words, but not a single sound came out.
From his anxious expression, the case officer guessed what he was trying to say. He shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, we can’t hear you.”
The employee sat back down, feeling a wave of panic. When only one young steward had been silenced earlier, they had thought it was some kind of mental illness and hadn’t reported it. They had witnessed “Case One” being unable to communicate and unable to work at all, thus forced to take leave.
In a private company, taking leave is not easy.
They didn’t know how long this silencing would last; if it persisted, it would surely lead to losing their jobs.
On that day, according to police contacts, eighty-five percent of the entire company faced silencing, even employees who weren’t at the office and staying home were affected by the silencing package.
The CEO of Zhihu was also silenced.
All employees and case officers were isolated.
If such “silencing” spreads to society, the consequences would be unimaginable.
In response to this extraordinary crime, the police deployed multiple task forces, totaling over a hundred people, working in shifts to thoroughly investigate the silenced accounts. After three consecutive days of sifting through vast amounts of data, they had to request additional personnel from their superiors.
But the headquarters of Zhihu had all its staff silenced.
A certain succubus became extremely angry, cursing at her computer screen while watching the homepage of the silencing situation, unable to contain herself:
“Damn it, is it still not lifted? They really don’t take me seriously! It must be the boss above who’s pressing down and not allowing me to be unbanned. Silenced, silenced, super silenced, they all got me!”
Zhihu Company, known as Emperor Capital Zhike, far away in the U.S., one of the founders suddenly found himself unable to say a word during a chat, while another senior executive realized that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t type a single letter on the keyboard.
They had to attempt writing messages to convey information, but found that even a fine-point pen would not produce a single stroke on paper.
Finally, after repeated experiments, the only way they could communicate with the outside world was by arranging small stones to form words on the ground.
This was the turmoil.
Far away in Huaxia, Meng He remained completely unaware of it.
Driven by curiosity, she read through every trace left by “Flower Ball” online, attempting to analyze the situation along with countless online detectives.
Not only at home, but she also walked around the campus, looking at her phone as she walked, her fingers constantly swiping the screen, hoping to find new clues.
“Ah!!”
Another scream rang out as a boy fell to the ground, clutching his big toe, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes, shouting, “How did I hit that damn stone again! What bad luck.”
This was already the sixth time today. Meng He buried her head in her collar, tightened her mask, put away her phone, quickened her pace, and hurried home.
She opened the door, disinfected her hands, and turned on the computer.
Using a computer to search for information was much more convenient.
In the sea of information on the internet, Meng He found a new rumor.
“My uncle said there has been another extraordinary ability crime; everyone at Zhihu, even the CEO, can’t speak, and all the young stewards have fallen!”
The atmosphere below was heated.
“Good riddance!”
“Let’s pop some champagne!”
“If it’s fake, I hope it’s true; if it’s true, I wish for it to be twice as bad.”
“What’s a young steward?”
“Just a privileged dog.”
“Good riddance!”
“What a joke, you people only dare to insult the young stewards. Even beasts know to be sad when rabbits die and foxes weep. Just wait until it’s your turn, and see who will speak up for you!”
“Just a passerby, the young steward got what he deserved.”
“Tsk tsk, none of you dare to say a word about the elephant in the room. I said it, it’s the tower, always monitoring and controlling, driving people crazy. What’s the big deal about silencing young stewards? It’s completely missing the point. They are just the lackeys for the tigers. All of you who cursed me before are now fine, right? They didn’t realize the essence of the problem and ended up harming you ordinary people, it’s laughable, what is this?….”
But this sense of superiority in the comments made even Meng He want to take a blue pill.
However, she didn’t believe this rumor too much. There were many similar rumors. She had seen versions related to the lunar forces, satirical versions of the lunar forces, versions about Leviathan’s extraordinary experiments failing, reptilian versions, and versions about the revival of spiritual energy. Each comment was different, but the only similarity was that under every rumor.
There would always be someone declaring it as their victory, as the victory of their ideology.
After visiting Zhihu many times, Meng He realized that a whole bunch of people were spouting bizarre things, pointing fingers while spreading rumors, proclaiming their victories based on those rumors, while also throwing dirt on big influencers they disliked.
Meng He knew they had a unified name: keyboard politics.
She instinctively avoided keyboard politics and went to Zhihu, skillfully searching for “Flower Ball’s” ID.
If things went as expected, this online clown, who ran like a clown, looked like a clown, and sounded like a clown, should just be two days away.
This programmer, skilled in human search techniques, ultimately could not surpass the silencing.
Meng He pressed the enter key for a search, and with practiced ease, clicked on Flower Ball’s homepage, her gaze sweeping toward the familiar spot, saying, “Still muted?”
But this time, that line of red silencing words had disappeared without a trace.
Below, a new question had appeared, and Meng He clicked in, seeing the familiar style of Flower Ball.
The title was: “How do I evaluate the people on Zhihu who are about to insult me, potentially facing a lifetime of silence?”
A new answer appeared, tagging dozens of Zhihu IDs, including several prominent Zhihu figures.
Under each Zhihu ID, there was a line of real names, phone numbers, and bank account numbers along with passwords.
“Pretty bold, huh? I’ve muted all of Zhihu for so long, and I’m finally unbanned; next time, it won’t be for half a month but for a year. Just a heads-up to the relevant company executives: if there are any more silences, I’ll hold you accountable. Ordinary employees are silenced for half a month, you at least a month; if you think that’s not enough, there are packages with blindness, deafness, and loss of bladder control, to be used randomly.
“On to business, I’m cruel, cold, cunning, and ruthless, but I’m in a bad mood today, so I want to show a little weakness and give you all a chance to apologize. I’ll give the people I tagged above 24 hours; if I don’t see your video apologizing on Bilibili, you all will receive the silencing package, with the title uniformly reading ‘I apologize to the Demon King.’
“Also, I will randomly select a hundred lucky individuals among those who liked high-rated answers insulting me to experience a week-long curse, randomly chosen from blindness, deafness, silence, and incontinence.”
Meng He’s first reaction was that he was bragging again, but then she recalled Rejga’s warning—ever since that day he went to the police station, he hadn’t logged on again. She also thought about how Flower Ball had been unbanned early.
A crazy thought, yet it didn’t seem so crazy, floated into her mind—perhaps this online clown was speaking the truth?
She had originally found it absurd and just wanted to wait for the official report.
But when she clicked into the comments, she saw a circle of people mocking her.
“Here it comes, here it comes! Familiar incompetent rage.”
A prominent figure replied: “Don’t worry, I am a gentleman with an open mind; what’s wrong with my real name being online? On the contrary, you reek of censorship and arbitrariness; I stand for my freedom of speech.”
The comments below were all sympathetic.
Flower Ball replied: “I also stand for my freedom of speech; since my freedom interferes with yours, let’s have a duel. The blindness curse has been sent for a duration of half a month.”
In less than half a minute, several replies mocked Flower Ball.
Some even argued: “Wuwuwu, I’m so scared. If I post my video in 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds, will that be fine? What if Bilibili doesn’t approve it?”
Flower Ball replied: “My words are laid here; how you do it, how you understand it, is your business; I’m just responsible for cursing you mere mortals.”
“I sincerely apologize, please, would it be fine if I post the video at 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 58 seconds? Let’s be reasonable.”
“Congratulations, you’ve been selected for the week-long silencing curse; goodbye.”
The below was pure joy; people swarmed like moths to a flame, teasing Flower Ball like a cute kitten.
But Meng He felt this was not playing with kittens; this was clearly teasing a tiger; the tiger, with a single bite, would retaliate, while the others foolishly approached to offer themselves.
They failed to notice that those whom Flower Ball had cursed earlier no longer made a sound.
Meng He thought of a validation method and quickly found Zhihu’s customer service number, dialing it. The phone rang a few times before someone answered: “Hello, this is Zh—”
The voice suddenly stopped, and then the call was disconnected.
Meng He thought of something and hurried to click into Flower Ball’s homepage, only to find a new line of red text stating “permanently banned.”
She broke out in a cold sweat, sure that someone had banned Flower Ball; enraged, Flower Ball immediately silenced all Zhihu staff.
The comment section had already erupted in laughter, mocking Flower Ball for being silenced.
This was simply adding fuel to the fire, flipping the lights in the toilet to go looking for shit.
With a kind heart, Meng He hurriedly typed a line: “Don’t insult her! Don’t insult her! She was unbanned two days early! Those who were cursed by her haven’t replied at all! She might truly be an extraordinary person!”
But this went against the group sentiment; no one liked it.
Meng He copied and pasted her comment, replying under each answer and comment one by one.
After finishing copying and pasting, she received several replies:
“Can’t hold it in anymore, are you using a secondary account for dual conversations?”
“Laughing my head off, what Demon King, my king.”
She also received a few private messages, which were much more direct: “Fool!”
“NMSL, I’m killing it.”
