That night, Shu Yu did not sleep well.
Her mind was crammed with all sorts of messy thoughts, and as a result, she had at least three or four bizarre dreams in the middle of the night. She could not remember a single one of them after waking up.
When her alarm went off, Shu Yu rubbed her eyes and realized that it was already seven in the morning.
Even though she had only gone to sleep at two, she was not sleepy in the slightest.
The first thing she did was open her phone and check all the latest updates. Fortunately, nothing else had happened during the few hours she had been asleep.
The group was staying at a hotel in the county. After washing up, Shu Yu noticed that the group chat was gradually becoming active.
Everyone had apparently gotten up early with perfect understanding.
Feng Tang was looking into several accounts that had claimed to be students from No. 1 High School and had posted revelations about yesterday’s incident, trying to find some clues.
Lu Anran was frantically dealing with public-opinion monitoring data from several platforms when she suddenly voiced her confusion.
“Strange. Why is it so quiet today?”
She sent a message in the group.
“I just noticed that the trending searches are gone. Even the discussions have disappeared.”
“What happened?”
Xiao Que, who had not said a word until then, immediately became tense.
Shu Yu also felt that something was wrong. Normally, the second day after an incident like this should be when discussion peaked. Rumors and fabricated posts would flood the internet, while edited pictures and synthesized videos would be everywhere.
Things being this quiet was definitely not a good sign.
It meant the other side had no intention of playing by the usual rules.
“Come to my room,” Lu Anran said in the group chat.
Everyone knew something was wrong, so they quickly left their rooms and gathered in Lu Anran’s.
Her heavy laptop sat on the table, connected to an external solid-state drive.
The computer screen was filled with all kinds of data. Shu Yu could barely make sense of most of it.
“Starting around five this morning, most of the discussions surrounding this incident suddenly disappeared. Based on the data I pulled from the backend, my analysis of these accounts that suddenly went ‘silent’ suggests that they all came from the same troll network.”
Lu Anran continued, “And a lot of those accounts have directly become abnormal.”
“Was it the platforms?” Shu Yu did not quite believe it. “These troll accounts are basically the bread and butter of certain platforms. They wouldn’t cut off their own source of income.”
“I don’t think so either. Later, I found that they started posting pornographic images or comments late at night, then reported one another, which resulted in a massive number of accounts being banned.”
Lu Anran displayed some of the content she had extracted from those accounts.
“It looks like a coordinated operation. And they did it around four in the morning, when almost nobody was watching. No one even saw how those accounts disappeared. By the time morning came, they had already been muted.”
Platforms had their own mechanisms for banning accounts. Only a small portion were manually reviewed, while most were automatically identified and dealt with by the system.
Professional troll networks naturally knew exactly what they had to do to get a large batch of accounts banned at once.
“This isn’t good.”
The alarm bells immediately went off in Shu Yu’s head.
“See if any of the troll accounts have started pushing the narrative that people are being ‘silenced.’ Focus especially on verified financial professionals, lawyers, and journalists.”
The other side had probably changed tactics after seeing how quickly they had responded to the situation.
A coordinated wave of people being “silenced” would more easily make people think of officials protecting one another and all sorts of things that supposedly “couldn’t be talked about.”
But Shu Yu knew very clearly that ever since they had taken over the case, J County had completely washed its hands of it and had barely paid any attention.
Clearly, this was the other side’s new strategy.
And it was indeed difficult to deal with.
“What do we do now?” Feng Tang asked.
“Post something on Weibo saying you’re following the incident, then question the claim that people aren’t allowed to discuss it.”
After saying that, Shu Yu turned to Xiao Que.
“Contact the media you’re familiar with and have them do a video report on the incident.”
Since the other side’s narrative was that J County was “silencing” discussion, then they might as well make the whole thing public.
Feng Tang immediately understood what Shu Yu meant.
She logged into her account and, at eight-thirty that morning, posted a Weibo update.
“I heard we’re not allowed to discuss the J County student’s death. Let me see for myself.”
Lu Anran used more than a dozen accounts to post similar messages.
“Xiao Que, use the official account to repost it directly.”
Shu Yu had already thought of a countermeasure.
So at nine that morning, Xiao Que used the official account to repost Feng Tang’s Weibo, along with posts from several other accounts.
“Thank you for your attention. We will promptly release updates on the progress of the investigation, and we welcome supervision from the public.”
That was Xiao Que’s wording.
Since the other side had already shoved the narrative right into their faces, there was no need to remain overly polite.
Shu Yu had no intention of letting the matter end there either. She began thinking about how the other side would try to steer the narrative next.
“I’m having a hard time figuring out what they’re after.”
After finishing the post, Xiao Que put down his phone.
“Yesterday they were using the usual methods to stir things up. Why suddenly change their angle today?”
“I think they’re testing us,” Shu Yu said. “J County only recently suffered a setback over something like this. Now they’ve suddenly figured out how to respond and even counterattacked. From their perspective, that’s abnormal.”
The Public Opinion Response Division had not been established for very long. It had not even been a year.
Because it was a highly classified department, they only revealed their identities when coordinating with certain government agencies. Most of the time, they operated on online platforms under false identities.
Yet over the past few months, most of the public-opinion cases they had handled using traditional methods had been resolved with surprising ease.
Shu Yu estimated that the other side had probably noticed something was wrong.
Especially with J County’s response this time.
Their reaction had been so fast that it was almost as if they had completely transformed overnight.
“Looks like they’ve finally noticed our existence.”
Feng Tang peeled the wrapper off her lollipop as she spoke.
“They’re changing the way they manipulate the narrative to test our ability to respond?”
“Maybe.”
Shu Yu naturally had no idea what the other side was planning. She could only vaguely sense a growing danger.
“They’ve probably already reached a conclusion. From here on, our work is only going to get harder.”
Once they confirmed the department’s identity, would they have another move waiting?
Shu Yu felt like a beautiful sucker who had somehow managed to land in this mess the moment she transmigrated.
But no matter what, the work still had to be done.
After breakfast, they went to the school.
It was Sunday, so during the day, only some of the third-year students who lived on campus were studying by themselves.
“Let’s take a look at the teaching building and the teachers’ office.”
There was nothing particularly urgent to deal with for the moment, so Shu Yu suggested it.
“We’re not responsible for investigating the case, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a look.”
The others naturally had no objections, so they walked around the empty school grounds and made their way to the teaching building.
“The bloodstains haven’t completely disappeared yet. This is where she jumped from.”
Shu Yu raised her head.
“This building is for the first-year students?”
“No. The first and second floors are for second-year students, while the third and fourth floors are for first-year students.”
A young female teacher who had accompanied them explained.
“The third-year students and the fourth-year repeaters are in another building. It’s quieter over there.”
There were quite a few classes at this county high school. Each floor had six classrooms, with twelve classes in each grade.
The province where F City was located still divided students into liberal arts and science streams, so the first floor had four liberal arts classes and two science classes.
“When she jumped, most of the students had already gone to eat, so not many people saw it.”
The female teacher continued, “Yesterday, the police station called them in for questioning. But honestly, they didn’t really see anything either. I was in the office on the second floor at the time. Aside from a figure flashing past for a moment, I didn’t see anything.”
“That’s normal. But your students must have been frightened.”
Shu Yu asked.
“Actually, this isn’t the first time a student has jumped from a building. There was another case last year. It was a fourth-year repeat student.”
The female teacher sighed.
“The boy was under too much pressure from his family because he was repeating his final year. His monthly exam results weren’t good, and he couldn’t think things through for a moment, so he jumped. He was luckier, at least he survived.”
The fact that she could describe it as him “surviving” probably meant the boy had been left with lifelong disabilities.
“The pressure surrounding the college entrance examination is very high in our province, so every school keeps a particularly close eye on third-year and fourth-year repeat students. If we notice anything even slightly wrong, we call them in to talk and communicate with their parents as well, asking them not to put too much pressure on their children.”
The female teacher sounded somewhat regretful.
“But we really don’t pay as much attention to first-year students who have just entered high school. In the past, we rarely encountered cases of first-year students jumping from buildings.”
Shu Yu understood the school’s reasoning.
Third-year students and fourth-year repeaters faced enormous pressure from the college entrance examination, so they were more likely to become emotionally unstable.
But first-year students had only just entered high school. Logically speaking, this kind of problem should not have occurred.
“Don’t blame yourself too much. Things like this can be highly unpredictable. There’s no way you could have thought of everything.”
Feng Tang comforted the young teacher.
“But I suppose your school will install safety railings on this building too after this, right?”
“Yes.”
The female teacher looked toward the building where the third-year and fourth-year students studied. Railings had already been installed there starting from the second floor.
“Although it’ll make the school look even more like a prison.”
“Safety still comes first.”
Shu Yu could see the helplessness in the teacher’s expression.
“Is this the teachers’ office?”
Before they knew it, they had already reached the fourth floor.
“Yes. This is the main office for this floor. All the teachers from the different classes work here.”
The female teacher explained.
The office door was wide open. The area where the girl had jumped was cordoned off with police tape, while the more distant parts of the office could still be used normally.
The office was indeed very large, roughly the same size as a classroom.
“This looks exactly like how I remember a high school teachers’ office.”
Lu Anran glanced around.
“Stacks of exercise books and test papers, plus all kinds of score sheets.”
“Your school still publishes rankings for every exam?”
Shu Yu asked.
“Yes. Schools in small counties like ours aren’t that particular about such things. Students’ grades are the most important thing.”
The female teacher explained.
Shu Yu picked up a score sheet and saw the girl’s name.