Work was something that would never truly end.
Just when you thought the hectic workload was finally over and you could take a break, new work would always come charging at you when you least expected it.
That was exactly how Shu Yu felt right now. Not only had work come charging at her, it had arrived in a way she absolutely did not want to deal with.
On the third day after returning from J County, a new public-opinion crisis began brewing across the bustling online platforms.
Shu Yu noticed it immediately and contacted the people involved, only for them to insist that they could handle it themselves.
And so, during the three days in which they claimed they were “dealing with it,” Shu Yu personally witnessed a spectacularly failed attempt at silencing discussion online.
She had no idea where their confidence came from. They had genuinely believed they could cool the matter down this way.
By the second day, Shu Yu already had a very bad feeling.
In the end, they would probably be the ones cleaning up this mess.
On the morning of the fourth day after the public-opinion crisis began, a phone call came in.
Xiao Cai’s voice was filled with anger as he said to Shu Yu, “They really did dump the mess on us.”
“Those people in K City?” Shu Yu immediately realized what Xiao Cai was talking about. “Didn’t they claim they could handle it themselves?”
“The only thing their mouths are good for is spewing crap.” Xiao Cai’s surroundings were somewhat noisy. “I just got word from above. The case has been forcibly transferred over to us.”
“Because it caused a major public-opinion crisis?” Shu Yu could already guess what had happened.
“What else could it be? We’re always the ones who have to clean up after these people.” Xiao Cai walked out of the office carrying his things. “It’s urgent. I’ve already booked your flights. I’m going to notify the others now. The flight is at five this afternoon, so start packing.”
After hanging up, Shu Yu poked her head out of her room.
“Mom, I’m going on a business trip this afternoon. I won’t be eating dinner at home tonight.”
Shu Yu didn’t even see where her mother was. After calling out, she simply returned to her room and started packing.
The housekeeper downstairs heard her and replied, “Got it. We won’t save dinner for you tonight.”
Business trips were the most ordinary thing in the Shu household when it came to Shu Yu. As a busy frequent flyer, she spent more than half of every month away on business.
Shu Ling had already joined the production crew, so the house had become quiet again.
By the time Shu Yu finished packing, the car Xiao Cai had arranged was already waiting outside her house.
Inside was Feng Tang, who looked utterly devoid of hope.
“Why do you look like that?” Shu Yu put away her suitcase and turned around, only to see depression written all over Feng Tang’s face.
“I’ve been discussing a small entertainment-industry job these past few days, but before I even finished negotiating it, I got dragged away on a business trip.” Feng Tang held up a huge “four” with her fingers for Shu Yu to see. “It was only three days of filming for a variety show, and they were paying a whole four thousand.”
“Four thousand…”
For a moment, Shu Yu didn’t know what to say.
Feng Tang could technically be considered half a member of the entertainment industry, but her income was nowhere near entertainment-industry levels.
Because they needed to maintain their public identities over the long term, whatever income Shu Yu earned from her outside work and whatever Feng Tang earned in the entertainment industry belonged to them personally. Xiao Que was a half-baked editor and also earned a little extra income, and the same applied to Lu Anran.
In a sense, they were all working two jobs.
“I’ll send you a red packet after we finish this case.” Shu Yu generously patted Feng Tang on the shoulder. “It definitely won’t be less than four thousand.”
That bold declaration immediately made Feng Tang’s eyes light up.
“You’re seriously not joking?” She stared at Shu Yu in disbelief.
“My dad gives me a hundred thousand in pocket money every month,” Shu Yu said in an extremely low-key manner. “He’s afraid I’ll starve to death if I try to survive on my salary alone.”
Feng Tang: “……”
“You class enemy.”
That was her final conclusion before she turned to serious matters.
“I’ve been following this case the whole time. They spent three whole days deleting posts and banning accounts, but instead of disappearing, the public-opinion crisis just kept getting worse. I’m guessing that if they still refused to hand the case over to us, the provincial leader in charge of publicity could spend the second half of the year handing out labor-protection supplies at the trade union instead,” Feng Tang said disdainfully.
“They never remember we exist until things become an emergency.” Shu Yu had long since gotten used to it. “Xiao Cai is still going through the handover process for the detailed case materials. Xiao Que said he already has control of the official account.”
“If we respond right now, we’d just be asking to die. Let’s figure out what kind of case this actually is first.” Feng Tang expertly unwrapped a lollipop. “I don’t want to know anything until we board the plane. They’ve already spent three days blindly messing around with it. It’s already too late now that we’re only getting involved, so we might as well get ourselves into the right state first.”
Shu Yu looked at the compressed files Xiao Cai kept sending into the group chat and decided she would wait until their plane landed before dealing with them too.
D City wasn’t particularly far from K City. The flight took about an hour and a half.
The province where K City was located was far more developed than F City, where they had handled their previous case. As a prefecture-level city in the southeast with fairly good economic development, K City’s leaders were clearly more confident in the way they spoke and handled matters.
And so, with great confidence, they had completely screwed things up.
Shu Yu didn’t even know how to describe the way these people thought. They were already living in the internet age, yet their minds were still stuck several decades in the past.
They always believed that their experience was still effective, never considering that in just over twenty years, the public-opinion environment had transformed into an entirely different world.
Along with the rapid development of the internet, the ways people exchanged and obtained information had gone through several generations of change. Now that netizens generally no longer obtained their information from mainstream media, the attention traditional media could attract was truly limited.
Some cases might be repeatedly reported on the national news for an entire week, but as long as no high-traffic accounts on self-media platforms paid attention to them or pushed them, and there was no trending topic boosting their visibility, then in the eyes of many people, the incident might as well never have happened.
Shu Yu was extremely familiar with the current online environment. She also knew how exhausting it was to communicate with older leaders who had such a vast generational gap with them. So whenever the other side refused to transfer a case to the Public Opinion Response Division, she never bothered saying much.
The complicated environment of online public opinion would usually teach them a lesson soon enough.
As a result, taking over public-opinion cases halfway through after someone else had already made a mess of them and starting all over again was the situation the Public Opinion Response Division encountered most often.
That was why they sometimes jokingly called themselves the department that specialized in cleaning up other people’s messes.
In other words, any public-opinion disaster would eventually be dumped into their hands.
The proactive cooperation they had received from J County during the previous case was extremely rare in the Public Opinion Response Division’s work. Most of the time, what they encountered was exactly the kind of situation they were now facing with K City.
After Xiao Que gained access to the account, he began looking through the statements and responses they had previously issued. It didn’t take long before he gave his assessment.
“Believe it or not, the moment we issue our first statement, that group that’s been watching us will immediately know someone else has taken over this case,” Xiao Que said confidently while they were waiting to board.
“Let me see.” Lu Anran leaned over to look at the content previously posted by the account and quickly frowned.
“Did they skip last year’s public-opinion response training?” Lu Anran shifted her gaze back to the laptop in her hands. “They made practically every mistake we repeatedly warned them about.”
“Forget it. How much use do you expect three days of training to be? As far as I know, more than half the departments just sent people who had nothing better to do. They’d show up, clock in, and disappear. But you could guarantee they’d be there for lunch and dinner. Can’t waste those buffet vouchers, after all. Not only would they eat, they’d take food away too.” Feng Tang had absolutely no hope for this kind of training. “You could bring in eight or ten major verified government accounts to train them and it still wouldn’t help. Though I did notice that the university students who attended the training were all very serious. Hopefully, when the exams come around in the second half of the year, they’ll assign a few more people to us.”
Feng Tang had already placed all her hopes on the next generation.
Shu Yu was momentarily speechless.
From the original Shu Yu’s memories, she found the three-day training session and saw that the number of attendees had dropped by half with each passing day.
“Forget it. Whatever happens, happens.”
Shu Yu finally gave up trying to save them.
Before boarding, Lu Anran transferred all the materials onto her laptop and said, “This one involves another death. Come to think of it, it’s pretty strange. We could go several months without encountering a single case like this, yet now we’ve gotten two death cases in a row.”
“That really isn’t good news. Especially since even though Yang Jie’s case was closed, we never completely figured everything out in the end. The trail went cold at an overseas IP address.” Shu Yu frowned. “I vaguely feel like Yang Jie’s case was somehow aimed at us. Pay extra attention this time too. If any of you notice something wrong, tell me immediately.”
What had happened last time had made Shu Yu much more vigilant.
The other side was extremely quick to adapt. They were even very familiar with the Public Opinion Response Division’s internal procedures and had begun predicting their moves.
……
After the plane landed, Shu Yu and the others saw someone waiting outside with a sign to pick them up.
This time, it was a man around thirty years old. He was impeccably dressed, with the words “promising young professional” practically written all over his face.
“Hello, everyone. I’m from K City’s Publicity Department. Welcome, and thank you for coming to provide guidance.” He wore a particular kind of practiced smile. “The car is outside. Please follow me.”
Shu Yu didn’t exchange too many pleasantries with him. After politely greeting him, she followed him into the business van.
“Sorry to trouble all of you. I’m the person assigned to coordinate with you for this case,” he said only after getting into the vehicle. “I know about your confidentiality requirements, so I didn’t say anything directly back in the airport terminal.”
“It’s fine. We’re here to solve the problem,” Shu Yu said. “Then let me formally introduce myself again. I’m Shu Yu, Director of the Public Opinion Response Division. Now that the case has been transferred to us, I’ll be fully responsible for it.”
“Hello. My name is Chen Heng.” He started the vehicle as he spoke. “We’ll go over the specifics once we arrive.”
Shu Yu said nothing more. She simply opened the files Lu Anran had organized and began getting a basic understanding of the case.
The moment she opened the first document, her brows knitted tightly together.
The story currently circulating online was that this was a case involving a man whose body had been dismembered.
But the actual case involved suspected sexual assault?