Shu Yu wasn’t the type to passively take a beating, so when faced with a situation like this, she would try to anticipate the other side’s next move.
By the time her face mask was almost dry, the WeChat group had started becoming lively.
After Feng Tang woke up, she discovered that the few friends she had in the entertainment industry had quietly deleted the Weibo posts they had previously made about the case.
“They finally realized something wasn’t right,” Feng Tang said, taking pleasure in their misfortune. “Their companies are probably going to scold them again.”
“I don’t really understand. Don’t they all have management companies? How were they even allowed to post things like that?” Lu Anran found it strange. “Doesn’t the company review what they post?”
“How should I put it…” Feng Tang thought for a moment before replying with four words:
“Flop hard, act wild.”
The answer was flawless, so Lu Anran gave her a thumbs-up in the group chat.
After breakfast, Chen Heng came over to pick them up and take them to the office.
“Looks like you slept pretty well last night.” Shu Yu glanced at Chen Heng, whose dark circles had mostly disappeared. “Finally feeling less pressure?”
“A little.” Chen Heng looked somewhat embarrassed. “But I’m curious. Do you normally fly all over the place handling public-opinion cases like this?”
Only after asking did he remember their confidentiality rules. He hurriedly waved his hand.
“If you can’t answer, just pretend I never asked.”
“There’s nothing particularly secret about that. Our department’s classification level isn’t that high,” Shu Yu said, not thinking much of it. “Within the system, departments whose work is related to ours basically know about us. As for whether we fly all over the place handling cases, just look at our dark circles and you’ll know.”
Shu Yu pointed at the dark circles under her eyes.
“Basically semi-permanent.”
Chen Heng immediately regarded them with newfound respect.
After handling this public-opinion crisis for only three days, he had already felt like he was going insane. Yet the people in front of him dealt with this sort of thing practically every day.
No wonder they all looked so exhausted.
“It’s unusually calm this morning. I wonder whether the other side is thinking about their next move or planning some other scheme.” Feng Tang unwrapped a lollipop. “It feels like things being this quiet can’t possibly be good.”
Based on their work experience, if something that had originally been causing an uproar—as though the entire internet were paying attention to it—suddenly cooled down without warning, that definitely didn’t mean the matter was ending.
It meant the people behind it were adjusting their strategy.
“What direction do you think they’ll come from next?” Shu Yu asked with her eyes closed. “After our leak yesterday diluted the narrative they were pushing before, it’ll be difficult for them to build that same narrative up again.”
“I keep feeling like they’ll make their move through Yan Yu,” Lu Anran guessed based on experience.
Yan Yu was the HIV-positive student who had previously been expelled from the vocational and technical college for spreading the virus.
“Since the other side intended to use this incident to steer public opinion, how likely do you think it is that they didn’t know about Yan Yu’s case?”
“Not very likely at all.” Shu Yu opened her eyes. “Xiao Que, ask the police for detailed information on Yan Yu and his family. Preferably his direct relatives within three generations. If he has any siblings, we need detailed information on them too.”
Since they suspected the other side might use Yan Yu to make their next move, they needed to take precautions before it happened.
Xiao Que acknowledged her request. Whenever he didn’t need to write official statements, he was usually responsible for communications.
After thinking for a moment, Lu Anran added, “If they know we’ve gotten involved in this matter, they can definitely guess that we’ll start with Yan Yu’s previous case.”
In other words, the other side might already have anticipated their move of using Hong Guodong’s cause of death to steer public opinion toward the theory that Yan Yu had killed him in revenge for being expelled.
During their previous confrontation, Shu Yu had clearly sensed that the other side was every bit as familiar with the online environment as they were. In fact, because Shu Yu’s side operated in the open while the other side remained hidden, their opponents were often able to seize the initiative.
“But no matter what, our first response had to bring the matter back on track.” Feng Tang leaned against Shu Yu’s shoulder. “Otherwise, it would’ve been difficult for us to regain any control.”
Shu Yu nodded helplessly.
“If they really are targeting us, then I believe they should already have a plan prepared for what to do after we intervene.”
At the moment, the initiative really was in the other side’s hands.
Because K City and its subordinate C City had continuously tried to suppress the news, Shu Yu and the others had gotten involved far too late. It could be said that they had never had any opportunity to seize the initiative in the first place.
Meanwhile, the other side currently controlled the direction of public opinion.
If the Public Opinion Response Division hadn’t intervened, they undoubtedly would have continued with their previous narrative, attacking the police, prosecutors, and courts for supposedly protecting Hong Guodong.
But now that Shu Yu and the others had intervened, there was no way the other side would be completely unprepared.
“If they still want to steer things toward the cover-up narrative, the tactics they used before definitely won’t work anymore. After our coordinated push yesterday, it’s obvious that Yan Yu’s case is much more attention-grabbing now.” By the time the car stopped outside the office building, Lu Anran had already taken out her laptop. “I need to monitor the situation closely. I have a feeling their silence will last until noon at most.”
It wasn’t that Lu Anran had any ability to tell fortunes.
Rather, in this era of extremely fragmented information, a single day was already enough for an incident to reverse direction two or three times. If the other side reacted too slowly, then once the DNA comparison results came out, Shu Yu’s side would have complete control over the subsequent public-opinion narrative.
At that point, it would be difficult for the other side to continue using the incident to their advantage.
At ten in the morning, Xiao Que received the files packaged and sent over by the special investigation team. Clearly, they had already investigated Yan Yu’s immediate family members as well.
After listing Yan Yu as a suspect, the entire special investigation team had begun searching with all their strength for his current whereabouts.
“Something’s very strange. Yan Yu hasn’t appeared for two or three months,” Team Leader Liang told Shu Yu over the phone. “We think something isn’t quite right, so I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“When you say he hasn’t appeared, what exactly do you mean?” Shu Yu asked.
“His phone’s location isn’t in K City. The last time he used his ID to purchase a ticket was for a bus from K City back to C City. After that, there have been no records under his identity information of purchasing tickets, registering at hotels, or even registering for any software.” Team Leader Liang clearly had quite a headache over it. “We suspect he left in a private vehicle and has been staying at someone else’s home ever since.”
“Doesn’t that make it very difficult to determine his exact location now?” Lu Anran asked with a frown.
“That’s right. Based on our analysis, he probably stopped using his previous SIM card as well. His last call record was three months ago.”
Team Leader Liang had brought them some rather discouraging news.
“Is he even still alive?” Shu Yu had already begun considering the worst-case scenario.
“We’ve already arranged for people to check unidentified bodies from various provinces and cities over the past three months to see whether any of their DNA can be matched against Yan Yu’s father,” Team Leader Liang said. Clearly, he had also considered the bleakest possibility. “But based on my experience, he’s probably still alive.”
“Why?” Shu Yu asked, puzzled.
“His parents and older sister were very calm when they heard that he was missing. They even seemed to be pretending to panic. We’re all veteran criminal investigators. We can tell at a glance whether an emotional reaction is genuine or not,” Team Leader Liang explained. “Considering how much his parents spoiled him before, if something had really happened to him, his family wouldn’t be this calm.”
“So Yan Yu has become our only lead now?” Xiao Que felt somewhat troubled.
Pinning their hopes on a missing person hardly inspired confidence.
The harder someone was to find, the longer they would have to remain in K City. It also meant they would have to deal with an increasingly complicated and unpredictable public-opinion environment.
And, of course, it meant overtime.
“We’re comparing the other DNA samples as well, and we’re continuing to expand the scope of the investigation. Hopefully, we can solve the case as soon as possible,” Team Leader Liang said, knowing they were under considerable pressure. “Chen Heng told me this morning about the statement you issued yesterday and everything you did afterward. You really are professionals.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
Shu Yu felt absolutely no joy whatsoever.
“You’ve all worked hard too. Contact us if anything comes up.”
After the video call ended, Shu Yu looked at Lu Anran, whose brows were drawing tighter and tighter together.
“Tell us. What happened?”
It was precisely because she had noticed something wrong with Lu Anran’s expression that Shu Yu had quickly ended the conversation with Team Leader Liang.
“Look.”
Lu Anran projected her laptop screen onto the meeting room’s display.
“All of Yan Yu’s personal information has suddenly been exposed—and it was leaked simultaneously across several platforms.”
“How private are we talking?” Alarm bells immediately began ringing in Shu Yu’s mind.
“Down to his ID number, completely uncensored. And the other side seems to know exactly where Yan Yu is. They even exposed his current address,” Lu Anran said. “I’ve already sent it to the cyber police. They’re going to verify it now.”
“I have a very bad feeling about this,” Shu Yu suddenly said. “Of the DNA samples recovered from Hong Guodong’s body, I’m certain none of them will belong to Yan Yu.”
“I think so too. What the other side is doing looks like they’re deliberately exposing Yan Yu. If he were actually connected to this case, wouldn’t they just be helping us?” Lu Anran stared at her laptop. “It’s hard to tell where this information was leaked from. Personal information is practically transparent nowadays, so tracing the source will be extremely difficult.”
“Found something! Yan Yu’s biological older sister was also a student at the vocational and technical college!”
Feng Tang had been going through and filtering the information on Yan Yu’s immediate relatives that the special investigation team had sent over.
“She’s the only one among his immediate family members who has any connection to the vocational and technical college.”
“Check whether Hong Guodong ever taught her class.” Shu Yu calmly turned toward Feng Tang. “It would be best if you could also find out whether there were any rumors about his sister while she was attending the school.”
“I’ll check whether his sister was on the list of people who were recently exposed as having been sexually assaulted by Hong Guodong.” Xiao Que frowned deeply. “There’s absolutely no way these two things are completely unrelated.”
Shu Yu unconsciously rubbed the gel pen in her hand.
Why exactly had the other side immediately leaked all of Yan Yu’s identity information?
Were they planning to incite netizens to cyberbully Yan Yu?