After carefully reading through part of the materials, Shu Yu felt as though her brain was running at full speed.
The complexity of the situation far exceeded her expectations. In particular, the public opinion surrounding the case was obviously being manipulated, steering further and further off course.
“Were you the one handling this case before?” Shu Yu asked him.
“That’s right. I’ve been handling it ever since people first started spreading the story online.” Chen Heng drove steadily. Before Shu Yu even felt that much time had passed, he had already stopped the car outside an office building. “Our office is here.”
Thinking back to that official statement, Shu Yu felt that this elite-looking man, despite being dressed so impeccably, probably had about the same ability to handle a public-opinion crisis as some random old man playing cards by the roadside.
To put it plainly, he was indescribably terrible at it.
Feeling somewhat melancholy, they entered the relatively new office building and found the office that had been specially arranged for them on the first floor.
“This used to be a meeting room. We were short on time, so we converted it temporarily. The conditions aren’t very good, so I hope you won’t mind,” Chen Heng said apologetically.
“We don’t really care about the working environment.” Shu Yu looked at him. “I just want to ask you one question. Handling public-opinion cases isn’t actually your job in your department, is it?”
“Uh…”
Chen Heng’s previously calm expression immediately became somewhat unnatural after Shu Yu asked that question.
“Forget it. I’ll tell you the truth. I really don’t know much about this.”
“Huh?” Feng Tang couldn’t stop herself from blurting out.
“I… I’m responsible for promoting cultural and ethical development.” His voice grew less and less confident.
“Then how did this case end up in your hands?” Shu Yu had already vaguely guessed the answer.
“Because I’m the youngest. The others barely use Weibo…” Chen Heng said awkwardly. “And they thought the work I do was more or less the same as this.”
“Thinking that promoting cultural and ethical development is basically the same thing as handling public-opinion cases—your leaders are really something.” Xiao Que couldn’t resist complaining. “No wonder the responses you posted on the official account read like publicity copy.”
Chen Heng stopped talking completely.
“Forget it. This isn’t your fault.” Shu Yu had no interest in making things difficult for Chen Heng, who had clearly been shoved forward at the last minute to take the blame. “We’ve seen this place. Take us directly to the police. A case like this must have a special investigation team, right?”
“Yes, yes, there is,” Chen Heng hurriedly replied. “Do you want to go now?”
“Mm. The situation is complicated. We need to communicate with the special investigation team.” Shu Yu had no intention of wasting time here. “Although three days have already been wasted, we still have a chance.”
From the moment she got off the plane, she had completely entered work mode.
This public-opinion crisis was extremely difficult to handle. It involved far too many sensitive issues on the current internet, and one careless step could send them straight into a trap someone else had already dug for them.
And so, Chen Heng drove them to the special investigation team.
“Why exactly were your leaders so determined to suppress the discussion before?” Shu Yu asked on the way.
“Because the person who died had a pretty bad reputation locally,” Chen Heng explained as he drove. “He was the vice president of the only vocational and technical college in C City, a county-level city under our jurisdiction. There were rumors locally that Hong Guodong frequently molested female students at the school and kept mistresses.”
“That shouldn’t have anything to do with his death, should it?” Shu Yu didn’t quite understand.
“After he died, people kept saying that he’d cheated on his mistress with another woman, and that the mistress had killed him in a crime of passion. At the time, the special investigation team was still searching all over C City for the remaining body parts after he’d been dismembered. They didn’t know yet that he had been sexually assaulted.” Chen Heng sighed. “The leaders were worried that his identity would damage the reputation of C City’s vocational and technical college, which already had trouble recruiting students. The college entrance examination is only a little over two months away. If something happened now, they’d have even more trouble attracting students.”
Shu Yu was already used to hearing reasons like this.
Every time, they worried about a negative impact and tried to stop people from discussing the matter so they could quietly suppress it. Yet they never considered that people naturally had a rebellious streak. If they had immediately come forward and announced how the case would be investigated and how it would subsequently be handled, with reason, evidence, and proper restraint, then the resulting public-opinion crisis would never have grown into such a huge storm.
Just like the J County case a few days ago. Once they had taken over immediately and issued targeted responses, even the marketing accounts trying to steer the narrative had decreased in number. When officials responded promptly to an incident, there simply wasn’t much room left to fabricate attention-grabbing rumors, which meant there was little traffic to profit from.
Marketing accounts enrolled in revenue-sharing programs weren’t going to work for free.
The reason this incident had continued escalating—from only a small number of people discussing it at first to marketing accounts everywhere now making things up for traffic—was entirely because of the ridiculous way those leaders had handled it earlier.
“Forget it. Let’s go to the special investigation team and figure out exactly what happened first.” Shu Yu pressed her temples. “Otherwise, we won’t even know where to begin with our response.”
Lu Anran sent Shu Yu the high-frequency keywords she had compiled, along with the main topics currently circulating online.
“The current narrative is being steered toward the idea that he was killed by a group of girls he had sexually assaulted,” Lu Anran said, her fingers moving even faster than she spoke. “Clearly, they still don’t know that he himself was sexually assaulted.”
“It’s normal that they haven’t gotten hold of the confidential information from the special investigation team yet.” Shu Yu closed her eyes. “We need to cut off this increasingly extreme narrative first. Otherwise, if it keeps fermenting, this won’t be a public-opinion crisis anymore. It’ll turn into a cyberbullying carnival.”
The case had already begun affecting the teachers and students who were attending classes normally at the vocational and technical college. Some people had even started receiving packages containing razor blades, pesticides, and other things that were clearly sent with malicious intent.
As for whether these people genuinely cared about the case itself or merely wanted somewhere to vent their emotions, there was no need to think about it to know the answer was the latter.
“The biggest narrative right now is that Hong Guodong committed multiple sexual assaults but was protected and never prosecuted, and was even allowed to remain at the school without consequences. According to the story being pushed, someone finally couldn’t stand it anymore and took revenge on him.” Lu Anran finally finished compiling all the topics. “The target is very clear. They’re aiming directly at the police, prosecutors, and courts.”
“It’s the same old tactic.” Xiao Que naturally took Lu Anran’s laptop and glanced at it. “But I have a question. Why was he sexually assaulted?”
“I don’t know either. The lower half of his body was only found this morning. I learned from the special investigation team at noon that he had been assaulted, and then I picked you up this afternoon.” Chen Heng didn’t know much about that part of the case.
The special investigation team had spent two days just locating all the body parts. The autopsy report wouldn’t be ready until tonight at the earliest.
So when they arrived at the special investigation team, they happened to see a middle-aged woman dressed as a forensic examiner speaking in the conference room with a frown.
Chen Heng knocked on the office door.
“Secretary Chen, who are these people?” After opening the door, a man in his forties asked.
“Let me introduce myself. I’m Shu Yu, Director of the Public Opinion Response Division. This case has now been transferred to us, so we’ve come to discuss the current progress of the investigation with you.” Shu Yu introduced herself while observing the situation inside the conference room. “Chen Heng brought us here after completing the handover with us.”
“Oh, so you’re the Director of the Public Opinion Response Division that the bureau told me about this morning. I’ve heard a lot about you.” The veteran criminal investigator in front of her clearly hadn’t expected the director to be so young and suddenly seemed unsure what to say. “You arrived this quickly?”
“Yes. We received the notice around noon and flew straight over. There’s no need to be so formal with us. We came because we need to know how the investigation is progressing. Public opinion has already escalated to this extent, so we need to issue a strong response as soon as possible and turn the situation around.”
Shu Yu had long since gotten used to situations like this, so she smoothly steered the conversation toward business.
“Of course, of course,” Team Leader Liang Hui said. “The forensic examiner has just confirmed the cause of death. Why don’t we let her explain it directly?”
Shu Yu had already noticed the report in the forensic examiner’s hands, so she turned her attention toward the woman she had seen from outside the door.
“Tan Jingrong, forensic examiner with the Municipal Public Security Bureau.”
The forensic examiner nodded in greeting, then immediately began explaining Hong Guodong’s cause of death.
“According to the autopsy results, the condition of his body is consistent with our previous conclusion that he died from mechanical asphyxiation. Judging from the ligature marks around his neck, the object used was most likely a belt.”
“Then what happened with the sexual assault?” Shu Yu asked in confusion.
“His anus was severely torn, and his intestinal tract also suffered a certain degree of damage. We extracted several DNA samples from the area, so we can confirm that the injuries were caused by sexual assault,” Forensic Examiner Tan explained.
“Wasn’t everyone saying he was killed in a crime of passion?” Feng Tang stared in astonishment.
“Based on our investigation so far, although he had a bad reputation at the school, he really hadn’t assaulted any female students,” Team Leader Liang answered Feng Tang’s question. “According to the interviews and investigation we’ve conducted so far, there were indeed problems with his personal conduct. He was financially supporting two mistresses at the same time. One was a minor local influencer whose main source of income came from tips she received while livestreaming on a platform. The other was a female university graduate who had returned home after being unable to find a job. Neither of them had ever studied at the technical college where he worked.”
“That still doesn’t seem to have anything to do with him being sexually assaulted.” Xiao Que pushed up his glasses. “Surely it really wasn’t a crime of passion?”
“The only clue we’ve found during the investigation that might have something to do with his sexual assault is that a little over six months ago, he expelled a gay male student. The reason was that after becoming infected with HIV, the student deliberately had sex with people around the school, resulting in three other students becoming infected. It was reported in our local news at the time, but the story never spread beyond the area.”
As Team Leader Liang spoke, he found a copy of a local newspaper.
“This is the report from back then. After the male student was expelled, his family came to cause trouble. They were beaten by the parents of the other students who had contracted HIV at the school gates, and after that, he never appeared again.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: A little off-topic, but I wrote the outline for this novel and the summaries of the first five cases more than half a year ago, when I first opened the novel for advance collection. If any of this really happens to look somewhat related to real-life events that occurred afterward, all I can say is that there’s truly nothing new under the sun.
Just consider me a prophet…