Chapter 232: The Scheme (Part Seven)
Fourteen hours after the demoness descended.
It was already morning.
The sounds of chatter from outside the window jolted Meng He awake from a nightmare.
She jumped out of bed, her back soaked with cold sweat from the nightmare, and shivered as the cold air from the air conditioner hit her.
The voices became clearer.
Meng He discerned that people were talking; she opened her mouth and tried to make a sound.
“Ah.”
Her own voice echoed in her ears.
“Ah!!!”
In her excitement, she tried harder, her voice resonating in the room, the curse was lifted. She jumped up, opened her mouth to shout again when a loud roar came from outside:
“What’s with the shouting? Can you let people sleep?!”
“Then why are you making noise?”
An argument ensued.
Meng He hurriedly shut her mouth and opened her computer to check on the situation.
Her heart raced. Since the curse was lifted, perhaps a certain demoness had been shot, which would surely be great news.
But it disappointed her.
The internet was still chaotic, the turmoil in reality amplified a hundredfold in the online world.
She rushed to Bilibili and searched for apology videos.
The originally top-ranked mischievous video had vanished without a trace.
In its place was an apology video from the same uploader.
Meng He clicked to watch, seeing a high school student kneeling like a frightened child, crying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, spare me, Demon Lord, I don’t want to be paralyzed again—”
A long fart sound interrupted, causing him to pinch his nose and say, “And I don’t want to keep farting.”
The barrage of comments criticized, “What’s there to be afraid of? Just yesterday, we called you a hero!”
Followed by a string of comments: “What a keyboard warrior.”
“Easy to talk when you’re standing, huh?”
“You think you’re so great, why don’t you give it a try?”
The hot comments were all attacking keyboard warriors who encouraged others to court death.
Some hot comments even scolded the uploader, denouncing him for entertaining to death:
“Why use an apology title for that mischievous video? It made the Demon Lord not even watch the apology video. Now we’re the ones getting cursed again!”
The once harmonious atmosphere of mockery and camaraderie was gone, surrendering particularly quickly.
Meng He didn’t feel mocked; instead, she felt a wave of afterthoughts, worried and fearful, her hand abruptly flying off the keyboard, afraid of angering an unknown entity and bringing disaster upon herself.
She felt that the youth known for their passion and recklessness had all yielded to the fear of the Demon Lord, and she shuddered at how terrifying future life might be.
Meng He exited Bilibili and went to Zhihu.
If she didn’t check the traces of Huahua Qiu, she wouldn’t feel at ease, feeling anxious and scared, as if an alien egg was deeply implanted in her chest, vaguely wanting to burst forth.
Searching for Huahua Qiu on Zhihu, traces of him had disappeared completely.
But discussions about her were rampant there; the internet was plunged into a chaotic state, an utter mess.
Her origin had over ten different versions.
One of the highly upvoted answers analyzed that the previous “donkey of the production team” and “Wan Ziqi” were both tests from the Demon Lord, with the former serving as a smokescreen and the latter as a shield.
The former was used to throw stones to find the way and confuse people, the same with Wan Ziqi. Using Wan Ziqi to probe human methods again, ascertain strength, and mislead and confuse.
“From the Demon Lord’s behavior, she shamelessly tramples on our civilized consensus, disregarding the psychology of boasting. It is likely that she believes humans have no ability to threaten her. I try not to be too pessimistic, but given the current situation…
“It’s difficult; with her methods, we can hardly grasp her. When I talk to friends who haven’t seen the video, they say she has posted videos, and the police simply can’t see her, just going in circles. The authorities even thought they had caught Wan Ziqi, while the actual body of Wan Ziqi was in the freezer.
“This shows that she has a way to distort our human perception. Have you heard of ‘brain in a vat’? No matter how advanced our technology gets, even if we develop an instrument that can pinpoint her location in a second, it won’t be possible.
“The author conservatively predicts that in the future, not only our country but all humanity worldwide may become her slaves. Who would have thought the future of human civilization would turn out this way…”
Upon reading this, Meng He felt even heavier with worry; the anxiety in her heart was nearly about to burst out. She forgot that she had come to Zhihu to alleviate her worries.
“Next, I will analyze the trends in real estate.”
Meng He was stunned, doubting her own vision. She glanced at the answerer, making sure she hadn’t misread, and continued reading.
“The author analyzed the locations of exceptional incident outbreaks and deduced the potential capitals chosen by the Demon Lord. At that time, real estate prices in that area are sure to rise, significantly increase, so it’s best to invest timely…”
It was only then that Meng He noticed the answerer’s signature: “Financial Investment, public account…”
Meng He suddenly lost interest and looked at other answers.
Other responses began analyzing the origin of the Demon Lord, becoming increasingly serious with each answer amidst the trending events.
Some forensic experts deduced from photographs that Wan Ziqi had been dead for a long time, possibly for months.
Others dug up connections between Wan Ziqi and the trending figure Fang Shiyun from yesterday, revealing her account. Her experiences closely resembled someone cursed by the Demon Lord.
Gradually, someone started to piece together the scattered clues.
“Wan Ziqi died a month ago, and after that, Fang Shiyun was cursed. The donkey of the production team sold blue pills…”
“Wan Ziqi’s death must be related to the descent of the Demon Lord.”
Twenty-four hours after the demoness descended.
A special task force boarded a plane heading to Tianfu City. The local police station reported that several people had called in claiming to have headaches and suddenly recollected seeing someone jump from a building over a month ago.
The task force went directly to the scene, where they found faint dark bloodstains on the cement ground. People were coming and going, yet no one noticed.
They retrieved surveillance footage; the hard drive had already been overwritten, but they still managed to recover the video using technical means.
Over fifty people watched the surveillance video, finally identifying a fleeting image in the footage that lasted over a month.
In the video, a person fell from a building, chest-down, hitting the solid concrete ground with a thud. The jumper twitched on the ground for a while before their hands went still.
Just as they stopped, a hole appeared in mid-air; the demoness, clad in a red dress and holding a cleaver, appeared beside the corpse, kicking the body forcefully a few times.
She was so eerie that the moment she appeared, the whole normal world became abnormal.
Distant vehicles came to a halt as people exited their cars and moved closer to her. A group of people going downstairs utterly failed to see the demoness right at their feet or the corpse she stood over.
This discovery was invigorating; at least they had clarified the origins of the demoness.
At the same time, the autopsy report came in.
Wan Ziqi had indeed died from the fall.
The investigation continued.
The investigative process was lengthy and tedious. They had to sift through a lot of records to find traces of Wan Ziqi. Fortunately, the demoness was initially unaccustomed to human society and had been using Wan Ziqi’s ID.
Records for transportation, housing, and more all left traces.
Forty-eight hours after the demoness descended.
They discovered that the demoness began living under Wan Ziqi’s identity, even returning to care for Wan Ziqi’s sick father.
They hurried to Long City that night.
They met with Mu Yaoping, whose eyes were swollen from crying, and she barely managed to control her emotions as she said, “I saw her. She froze me, pulled open the freezer, inside was my son.”
At this, the mother couldn’t help but cry again.
Although the DNA test had confirmed that the body in the demoness’s freezer was Wan Ziqi, the police still agreed to let Mu Yaoping identify the body.
Not long after, a detailed report on Wan Ziqi’s relationships was released.
They pinpointed Fang Shiyun.
Sixty hours after the demoness descended.
Despite Fang Shiyun’s attempts to downplay the situation, the task force that rushed to Magic City clarified the details overnight.
They investigated the reasons behind Wan Ziqi’s suicide; it was not difficult. Just asking the bank for a transaction record, those experienced detectives could piece together a rough idea. This world lacked suckers.
Seventy-two hours after the demoness descended.
In just three days.
China announced a lockdown of the internet to contain the spreading curse. Most websites went into “maintenance” and “technical upgrades,” with comment sections closed.
The preliminary summary report was submitted to the decision-makers’ desks.
At the end of the summary report:
“We believe that the death of the victim Wan Ziqi attracted the demoness. The initial behavior of the demoness is likely for revenge on Wan Ziqi, tormenting Fang Shiyun. She even took on the obligation of caring for Wan Ziqi’s parents…
“After seeing her parents for a few days, the demoness left them, only to transfer a million RMB to Wan Ziqi’s parents’ account each month in Wan Ziqi’s name.”
After discussions and consultations with many experts in mysticism, and reviewing numerous ancient legends about demonesses.
Some believed this was a type of contract. Wan Ziqi summoned the demoness, who fulfilled her wishes at the cost of consuming her soul.
This hypothesis made logical sense; the demoness viewed mortals as ants, taking pleasure in their suffering. It was hard to imagine that she actually cared about a mere mortal.
According to testimonies from doctors and nurses, “Wan Ziqi” even helped her father change his urine bag and had argued to hire help.
Besides a contract, what else could explain why the demoness would change a mortal’s father’s urine bag, and do it personally?
She could have used her extraordinary abilities to persuade Wan Ziqi’s father to avoid changing the urine bag herself, but she didn’t.
Additionally, with many ancient legends supporting the contract theory, this conjecture gained the approval of the working leadership group.
Eighty-four hours after the demoness descended.
For some special reason, this detailed investigation report was miraculously leaked and circulated in the restricted internet—considering people’s livelihoods, many sites related to livelihoods couldn’t be completely shut down.
Plus, there were loopholes.
This report was made into a BT torrent and spread across the internet.
Ninety-six hours after the demoness descended.
After a self-inspection, the working leadership group was convinced this was the demoness’s doing, further reinforcing the contract theory.
Six days after the demoness descended.
This report continued to spread; although the loopholes were plugged, people were spreading the word.
People began to sympathize with Wan Ziqi, the formerly clueless extraordinary awakener who transformed into a weary wage earner and was defrauded, simply portraying her as innocent.
Everyone was gnashing their teeth at Fang Shiyun.
Twelve days after the demoness descended.
Fang Shiyun’s mental state collapsed. Within two days, she had been pelted with eggs over twelve times, facing countless insults and shove.
After being recognized while wearing sunglasses and a mask, she nearly went insane and was subsequently sent to a mental hospital for isolated treatment.
In a dream.
Ji Ma saw the yellow mist symbolizing lies spread across the entirety of China and extend its tendrils into developed and neighboring countries.
The massive power of lies underwent a qualitative change, and she even felt as if she had acquired mythic power.
Ji Ma happily concluded the “Great Scheme” task, adding another layer of security for herself.
Filled with confidence, she believed she would win.
