14
On the anonymous forum "Bishui," abbreviations were often used to avoid directly mentioning authors' pen names. For example, "sc" had been used to refer to Cen Sisi's pen name—"Su Cheng."
That was why Ruan Yu found those two letters familiar.
Cen Sisi's pen name shared the same initials as Li Shican's. She wasn't sure if it was just a coincidence.
But since she had already fallen out with the former, it wasn’t appropriate to reach out to the latter either. For now, there was no way to verify the relationship between these two.
Shen Mingying gasped. "Are these two in cahoots? Look, Cen Sisi is definitely scheming, but she’s not that skilled. How could she alone stir up such a huge storm on Weibo? And didn’t she say she only hired a small portion of the trolls, not knowing how it ended up trending? What if she’s just a scapegoat, and Li Shican is the real mastermind, seeking revenge out of love-turned-hate?"
"..."
That was quite the wild theory.
Ruan Yu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Just then, her phone buzzed with a notification, and she lowered her head to check.
Liu Mao had sent over the lawyer’s statement, along with the court’s case acceptance notice.
After carefully reviewing it and organizing the wording under his guidance, she was about to post the image on Weibo when her phone buzzed again.
In the group chat, Xu Huaisong wrote: Not strong enough.
Followed by a flood of red-circled corrections.
Ruan Yu couldn’t fully grasp the legal jargon, but the gist seemed to be: Change this, change that, change everything.
Liu Mao must have finally lost his patience. He replied: Picking bones out of eggs—do I not deserve any respect?
Xu Huaisong: You only get one shot at a statement. If it doesn’t hit the mark, it’s a complete failure. What’s more important—the client’s rights or your pride?
Ruan Yu gulped and silently lurked.
Zhi Kun Liu Mao: If you’re so good, you do it.
Xu Huaisong: Your choice. Zhi Kun Liu Mao.
Xu Huaisong withdrew a message.
Xu Huaisong: Your choice. Ruan Yu.
Ruan Yu: "..."
Was he so angry he tagged the wrong person?
She wasn’t about to provoke him. She typed: Then I’ll trouble Lawyer Xu to send me the revised version. Xu Huaisong.
Then she quickly switched to a private chat with Liu Mao: Lawyer Liu, I only said that because he seemed really worked up. Don’t take it to heart.
After sending it, she pursed her lips, feeling a little ashamed of herself.
Being a two-faced fence-sitter trying to keep the peace was exhausting.
But to be fair, Xu Huaisong wasn’t deliberately targeting Liu Mao this time—his revisions were indeed sharper and more compelling.
The warning shot had its intended effect. Once the document was released, the named bloggers immediately backed down under the threat of legal action, quietly deleting their defamatory posts.
Within hours, Cen Sisi’s remaining allies also fell silent.
Ruan Yu had initially thought her junior might resort to desperate measures, perhaps even deploying trolls to accuse her of "the villain suing first."
But strangely, Weibo was eerily peaceful this time.
Those who had once been so eager to smear her now acted as if they’d been struck mute.
The next morning, a well-respected book blogger in the original fiction community posted a detailed timeline of the entire incident, presenting a long infographic that favored Ruan Yu’s side.
Like Cen Sisi’s defamatory long post before, this one spread rapidly.
A flood of apologies poured in for Ruan Yu, while another wave of netizens sharply criticized the bloggers who had led the earlier smear campaign.Readers supporting Ruan Yu finally caught their breath. Led by this wave of disciplined netizens, they quickly seized the moral high ground in public opinion.
Starting from that long infographic, it seemed the entire world began sympathizing with Ruan Yu.
Her Weibo followers skyrocketed, rapidly approaching the 300,000 mark.
Ruan Yu was stunned. How could a lawyer's statement be this effective?
Late at night, the situation took another turn—Cen Sisi got exposed. She was identified as a junior from Ruan Yu's real-life university, who had been targeting her online due to personal conflicts.
The internet erupted in shock. Public attention swiftly shifted from the plagiarism accusations to the juicy gossip about these so-called "real-life conflicts."
"I knew it! After 'Poet Writer' already clarified and apologized, why was this third-party 'Su Cheng' still running around smearing 'Wen Xiang'? Turns out it was personal drama."
"Thinking deeper, isn't 'Su Cheng' such a scheming b*tch?"
"Which school is she from? We need a deep dive!"
"Keyboard warriors living by the sea? First cyberbullying 'Wen Xiang,' now doxxing 'Su Cheng'—since when is her school any of your business?"
The situation's development exceeded Ruan Yu's expectations. The more she scrolled, the deeper her frown became.
Until she saw one comment: "Don't be used as pawns. From the infographic to the exposé, can't you see this is professional PR team work? 'Wen Xiang' has powerful backing!"
She froze, wanting to examine this comment closely, but upon refreshing, it had disappeared.
Continuing downward, she saw another: "The wind changes direction so fast—doesn't anyone suspect foul play?"
This time she clicked swiftly, only to see: "This comment has been deleted."
All these unfavorable remarks vanished in the blink of an eye.
Once might be coincidence, but twice was suspicious.
Analyzing this reversal carefully—while her legal statement and case acceptance notice started it, the subsequent developments seemed orchestrated.
The initial book blogger's infographic was relatively fair, but the later netizen revelations went too far.
If Ruan Yu had intended to use underhanded tactics against Cen Sisi, why bother with a lawsuit in the first place?
Who was this person acting without her authorization?
She picked up her phone to consult Liu Mao, but seeing the time—00:07—she exited the dial screen and sent a WeChat instead: "Lawyer Liu, please call me back at your convenience."
Yawning, Ruan Yu went to bed, only to be awakened by her ringing phone the next morning.
Groggily grabbing her phone and seeing Liu Mao's caller ID, she immediately became alert. "Lawyer Liu, have you seen Weibo?"
"I have."
Still not fully awake, Ruan Yu spoke bluntly: "Was this the law firm's doing?"
"Huh?" Liu Mao sounded surprised. "No."
"Then who could it be?"
His voice carried equal confusion: "Not sure. But this 'tit-for-tat' approach isn't how we solve problems."
His "we" referred to legal professionals.
Regaining her faculties, Ruan Yu realized her speculation somewhat disrespected his profession.
Apologetically she said, "Sorry, I wasn't fully awake and spoke rashly."
"No problem, it's understandable. Rest some more—I'll look into this further."
But Ruan Yu couldn't possibly fall back asleep now.Before the alarm rang, she was already having a nightmare—Cen Sisi was strangling her.
There was no denying that even if she hadn’t orchestrated the actions on Weibo, she was the direct beneficiary of the incident. So Cen Sisi must have thought it was her doing, and who knew if this would lead to an endless cycle of retaliation.
Ruan Yu rubbed her temples in frustration and opened Weibo, only to find Cen Sisi’s homepage hadn’t been updated—a calm before the storm.
She got up, washed up, ate breakfast, and did laundry, but her mind was elsewhere. Before she could even finish hanging the clothes, she pulled out her phone again and opened Xu Huaisong’s WeChat chat window.
Her imagination was making her heart race, but after misspeaking in front of Liu Mao earlier, she was too embarrassed to ask him for help. She could only turn to Xu Huaisong.
Well, judging by how effortlessly Xu Huaisong had handled the defendant’s retaliation before, maybe he could offer some advice.
After hesitating, she sent a message: Lawyer Xu, are you free right now?
Five minutes passed with no reply.
Ruan Yu locked her phone and stuffed it into her pocket, glancing back at the basin of clothes waiting to be hung. She carried it to the balcony and had just picked up the clothes hanger when her phone vibrated twice in quick succession.
Two consecutive messages didn’t seem like Xu Huaisong’s style. She checked—sure enough.
10086: Service Suspension Notice: Dear customer, hello…
10086: Payment Reminder: Dear customer, hello…
Her phone had been suspended due to unpaid fees. Since the Wi-Fi was still working and wouldn’t affect WeChat messages, she ignored it for now and went back to hanging the laundry. Only after finishing did she hear her phone vibrate again.
This time, it was Xu Huaisong: No time to type.
What was the difference between "No time to type" and "No time" ?
The answer came the next second—a voice call invitation from him.
"......"
She answered, but before she could even say "Hello," she was met with a cacophony of voices on his end. Men and women were speaking over each other in English, sounding like they were in the middle of a heated discussion.
She quickly said, "Lawyer Xu, it’s nothing urgent. If you’re busy—"
The next moment, silence.
All noise in the call vanished completely.
Ruan Yu frowned and glanced at her phone screen. Bad signal?
On the other end of the line, in the conference room, seven or eight Black and white professionals froze mid-sentence, staring at Xu Huaisong, who had raised a "stop" gesture, their expressions puzzled.
Without a word, Xu Huaisong stood up and wrote on the whiteboard behind him: urgent call.
Everyone promptly shut their mouths.
"Go ahead," his unhurried voice came through the phone, reaching Ruan Yu’s ears.
Oh, so the call hadn’t dropped.
Leaning against the windowsill, she carefully phrased her words: "Well, Lawyer Xu, the defendant and I ran into each other at the mall before. I’m not sure if it was a coincidence or intentional. If it was intentional, I’m worried my personal information might have been leaked more severely than I thought. Also, after the phone recording the other day, the defendant sent me a threatening text..."
Her explanation was a bit scattered, lacking focus—probably because her mind had already spiraled into worst-case scenarios.
But that didn’t stop Xu Huaisong from understanding. "You’re worried the defendant is threatening your safety?"
"Yeah..."
Ruan Yu let out a dry laugh. His indifferent tone made it sound like his next words would be— Do you have a persecution complex? Before he could say more, she quickly interjected, "Of course, it must be me thinking too—"
Before she could finish the word "much," she suddenly froze, her gaze fixed on a white van parked downstairs.
Most of the vehicle was obscured by two lush trees, hiding the windshield and license plate. Only faint traces of mud stains were visible on the body, and the side windows were tinted black.
Why did it look so much like the kind of van kidnappers used in TV dramas...?
Ruan Yu fell silent, and Xu Huaisong asked, "What's wrong?"
Too absorbed in her panic, she didn’t notice the slight tension in his voice.
She immediately crouched down, hiding herself, and stammered, "There’s... there’s a van parked downstairs. It wasn’t there when I was doing laundry earlier..."
"What kind of van?"
Ruan Yu’s mind went blank. "Just... just the kind that’s perfect for kidnapping someone!"
"Stay calm." Xu Huaisong was naturally much more composed than her. Just as he was about to ask her to describe it more objectively and clearly, he suddenly heard a "ding-dong."
At the same time, Ruan Yu gasped, her voice on the verge of tears. "My doorbell just rang. What do I do...?"
OpenNovel