Chen Zhanye downed more than half a bottle of beer in one go. Su Muzhi stared at him in shock and quickly snatched the bottle away.
“Drink less. If you get drunk, I can’t carry you back.”
Chen Zhanye pushed her away slightly.
“You’ve got something to do tomorrow, right? Go rest. I’m fine on my own.”
Su Muzhi got a little annoyed at his attitude and stormed back to her dorm in a huff. Zhou Qing was already asleep, her expression much more relaxed than before, completely free of earlier gloom.
Su Muzhi tucked her blanket in gently. To avoid disturbing her, she stepped outside and called Zhou Yu.
As soon as the call connected, she heard stifled sobbing on the other end.
“Su Su… if I had paid more attention to Xiao Qing, would this have never happened? It’s all my fault.”
Su Muzhi folded her arms and spoke softly.
“Xiao Yu, you’ve already done very well as her sister. You’re running an entire company and you also raised her.”
Zhou Yu’s sobbing intensified.
“It’s different. If I had cared more, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Su Muzhi sighed. She immediately understood Zhou Yu had fallen into a mental trap—just like when their parents passed away, she blamed everything on herself and tried to shoulder it all alone.
Back then, Zhou Yu often said she owed Zhou Qing too much, that she had lost her parents at such a young age, and she needed to compensate her with twice the love.
But Zhou Qing was eventually indulged to the point of losing boundaries, and only then did Zhou Yu realize something was wrong and adjust her way of caring, finally helping correct her personality.
“Zhou Yu, this isn’t what you should be thinking about right now. You should be thinking about how we handle tomorrow’s meeting with Xiao Qing’s teacher and find the real culprit.”
Zhou Yu steadied herself. Even though Su Muzhi couldn’t see it, she nodded repeatedly as if reassuring herself.
“Okay. I land at 7 a.m. tomorrow. Send me the location and I’ll go straight there.”
They talked for a while before hanging up. Su Muzhi checked the time—almost midnight. Yet the office lights in the distance were still on.
She sighed and reluctantly turned on her phone flashlight, heading toward the office.
When she pushed the door open, the room was filled with the smell of alcohol. Four or five empty beer bottles lay on the floor. Chen Zhanye was already drunk out of his mind, slumped over the desk, fast asleep.
Su Muzhi walked over and tapped his face, trying to wake him, but it was like scratching an itch—he just turned over and kept sleeping.
Seeing a man with such a muscular build completely passed out, she had no choice but to open the ventilation window and drape her small blanket over him.
Admiring her “work,” she muttered:
“You’re on your own now.”
She turned off the light and went back to sleep.
At 7 a.m., Blackie appeared right on schedule at her window.
“Su Su, wake up! Su Su, wake up!”
Annoyed, Su Muzhi sat up, still half-asleep, and instinctively reached for her phone on the bedside table—but found nothing.
She froze, stared at the empty table for a few seconds, then finally remembered: last night she had left her phone in the office.
Worried about waking Zhou Qing, she threw on a fluffy coat over her pajamas and headed out.
When she pushed open the office door, Chen Zhanye—still hungover and irritated—was holding her phone with a blank expression. Seeing her, he immediately tossed it back into her arms.
“It’s been ringing nonstop since last night.”
“I didn’t log out of the livestream account… it’s probably nothing important.”
But as she unlocked the phone and opened the app, she froze. The private messages were flooded with insults.
“No. This is serious.”
Still dizzy from his hangover, Chen Zhanye didn’t fully react.
“Serious? What kind of serious?”
“We’re being cyberbullied.”
The next second, she shoved the phone in front of him.
The screen was filled with abusive messages, forcing him to wake up instantly.
Chen Zhanye ignored his headache and immediately grabbed his own phone to search.
“How did this happen?”
“I don’t know. It was fine last night. We even got reposted by marketing accounts from the release event—we gained followers.”
She quickly scrolled through messages, trying to find clues.
“I think I know what happened.”
Chen Zhanye showed her a viral video from a marketing account. The title was striking:
“Exposed: The Dark Side of a Viral Animal Rescue Station! Abusing Animals While Profiting Off Sympathy!”
It showed clear images of both Su Muzhi and Zhou Qing. It even included the fake cat abuse video.
The narration went further: it claimed Zhou Qing was Su Muzhi’s biological sister; that they were colluding; that Zhou Qing abused animals at school.
It also accused Su Muzhi of running the rescue station purely for profit, staging animal “cute moments,” and even beating injured animals.
“This is completely fabricated,” Chen Zhanye said angrily. “They just made this up from a single image.”
But the video had already been reposted over fifty thousand times. Their personal information was already appearing in the comments.
“Su Su…”
Zhou Qing stood at the office door, holding her phone, wearing only thin sleepwear. Her eyes were filled with tears.
Su Muzhi immediately understood—she was likely being harassed with calls.
She quickly draped her coat over her and said softly:
“Go back inside. Turn your phone off. Your sister will be here soon.”
Zhou Qing hesitated, then returned to her room.
The moment she left, Su Muzhi slammed the desk in anger.
“Call the police. I’m going down the mountain to report this.”
“You might not be able to leave.”
Chen Zhanye pulled up the surveillance feed of the gate. A group of people had already gathered outside. Some were even splashing red paint at the entrance.
For once, Su Muzhi felt almost grateful for the scar-faced troublemaker—since that incident, Chen Zhanye had invested heavily in reinforcing the gate and installing surveillance.
“Then call the police.”
While Chen Zhanye made the call, Su Muzhi began compiling screenshots of all the malicious accounts spreading rumors, preparing evidence in case they deleted them later.
Then she suddenly realized something.
How did these marketing accounts get Zhou Qing’s video in the first place?
The school teachers wouldn’t leak it.
That only left one possibility.
Wang Shanmeng.