Are You Crazy? He’s only an Intern Lawyer?
Chapter 263 - 261: The Power of Public Opinion? The Power of a Hacker!

Chapter 263: Chapter 261: The Power of Public Opinion? The Power of a Hacker!

(I want to curse someone, Wu Xi got screwed by someone who came back from Devil’s Capital. I tested positive, and now I have to bounce around three districts in Wu Xi for testing early in the morning. People in Binhu District even queued up overnight, and I heard Xingwu District just finished testing. Damn it, no public morals, no sense of responsibility. After returning from Devil’s Capital, don’t they have any damn sense!!)

...

In the evening, Lin Mansion.

As Hu Yaode and Cheng Lisha were discussing, and even as the latter decided to take action,

Zhang Wei had also considered this, so he didn’t even bother making dinner and headed straight for the second floor.

Thump thump thump!

These were the footsteps of Zhang Wei.

Knock knock knock!

These were the knocks of Zhang Wei.

The door creaked open a crack.

"Xiao Xiao ahh~"

This was Zhang Wei’s greeting as he saw the person inside poking their head out, face all licked up and sycophantic.

Zhao Xiaoxiao’s cute button nose sniffed the air, but there was no smell of dinner.

Damn, this bastard didn’t make dinner!

She knew Zhang Wei must be asking her for something, and it must be something big, otherwise he wouldn’t be smearing on that smile while calling her by name.

She’s called the second daughter when there’s nothing, little Zhao when there’s trouble, but Xiao Xiao? That means it’s a big deal.

"What’s up? Something wrong?"

"Yeah, and it’s a BIG something wrong!"

"Knew it!"

Zhao Xiaoxiao, though reluctant, still opened the door to let Zhang Wei in.

Although it’s already June, stepping into the second-floor room, Zhang Wei could still feel a hint of coolness.

"Got the AC on?"

"Let’s talk business, cut the crap!"

Zhang Wei was about to crack a joke to lighten the mood, but Zhao Xiaoxiao wasn’t having any of it.

"Alright then!"

Zhang Wei, feeling helpless, pointed at the computer in the room.

Zhao Xiaoxiao sat down straight away, Zhang Wei attending by her side.

"It’s like this, my case this time is really tricky, but the real tricky part isn’t in court, although I admit there are some difficulties there too. The difficulties outside of court are even trickier."

"My opponent this time is Cheng Lisha. I don’t know if you’ve seen any dramas she directed..."

Hearing what Zhang Wei said, Zhao Xiaoxiao interrupted eagerly: "The seaside villa one, where the guy kills the girl in the end?"

"Holy shit, you watch that too?"

"Why can’t I watch it?"

Zhao Xiaoxiao tilted her head, batting her eyelashes.

Give me a break, that drama is so popular, so famous.

She’s a girl, all right? What’s wrong with watching dramas?

"Right, the client you’re representing, isn’t that Yang Chuanfang?"

"Yeah?"

"Then great!"

Zhao Xiaoxiao suddenly perked up, digging out a book and a pen from who knows where, and handed them over.

"Get his autograph for me, will you!"

"Xiao Xiao, to outsiders, he’s a murderer!"

Upon hearing Zhang Wei’s words, Zhao Xiaoxiao scoffed disdainfully, "What I want is the autograph of a murderer. Who wants the signatures of those photoshop-loving, awkward-acting celebrities..."

"This... isn’t appropriate, right? He’s my client..."

"Hey, you’re the one asking me to do you a favor, and you can’t even handle this tiny request of mine, and you expect me to put in the effort for you?"

Zhao Xiaoxiao snorted coldly again, what should have been a vibrant and beautiful girl looked more like a heartless businesswoman at that moment.

"Ah, this..."

Zhang Wei mentally meowed, almost ready to curse out loud.

Is this the lively and lovely, understanding second daughter of mine?

Since when did you start threatening me?

But for the sake of the case proceeding smoothly, and for the safety of his client, Zhang Wei ultimately had to weigh the pros and cons and opted to compromise.

"All right, since that’s the case, I can only agree to your request!"

Seeing Zhang Wei agree, Zhao Xiaoxiao then asked, "So tell me, what do you need me for?"

"It’s just that I’m afraid Cheng Lisha will use all the power of public opinion and the media to target me, so I want you to help me keep an eye on online public opinion. Once you spot any bad trends, help me control them."

"How far do you want me to go?"

"Hmm, that’s really hard to say, what exactly can you do?"

Zhang Wei looked at his second daughter and countered with a question.

In his mind, his "second daughter" had always been a good girl who liked surfing the internet, but he didn’t have a clear concept of how good she actually was at it.

"Hmm, for the typical public opinion attack, they’ll probably dig up your scandals,"

Zhao Xiaoxiao gave an example, "Like if you stole stationery from a classmate in primary school or bullied a girl, they’ll attack your character, saying you don’t respect women, blah blah blah. Basically, any minor event could become their reason to attack you."

"Moreover, there is a lot of hearsay in online public opinion attacks, and even if you start by strongly denying everything, you’re only one person, while there are millions on the internet. In the end, you’ll find that explaining is useless."

Zhang Wei understood, "Is this the so-called ’Three people can make a tiger, a hundred people can make the truth’?"

"More or less. After all, rumors online are hard to trace back to the source. It’s easy to deal with a single person spreading rumors, but when ten thousand people are doing it, even the internet investigation agency can’t arrest anyone, because the law doesn’t punish the many!"

"If you let me handle it, at most I could help you block some keywords. For example, if someone posts about you, ’Zhang Wei’, I can manage to block posts with your name in them."

Zhang Wei thought for a while and nodded, "That would be great, but you’ll need to block a few more keywords for me, not just my name, but also the names of the principals and the victim of the case, Yang Chuanfang and Wen Xiaoyun."

"OK!" Zhao Xiaoxiao made a gesture to indicate no problem.

She began to clatter on the keyboard, typing away.

After a while, Zhang Wei saw his name, along with Yang Chuanfang’s and Wen Xiaoyun’s, compiled into a series of commands.

"OK, done. My system has started protection. Soon if anyone makes a post with these three keywords, it will be blocked by my system!"

"That’s awesome, second daughter!"

Zhang Wei nodded and was very satisfied with the result.

"But on the other hand, why don’t you fight back?"

Zhao Xiaoxiao lifted her head and blinked, "If someone dares to spread my scandals online, I definitely won’t let them off!"

"Right, fight back!"

Zhang Wei also thought so. Cheng Lisha would certainly launch a public opinion attack against him, so why shouldn’t he counterattack.

Before, he didn’t know many people in the media, so he felt the internet was the enemy’s turf.

But what he hadn’t considered was that he had his second daughter right by his side – as a top hacker on Zhang Wei’s side, she had inconceivable power in the online world.

And this power could be used by Zhang Wei.

"Second daughter, can you dig up any dirt on Cheng Lisha or Cheng Wumei?"

"Of course, no problem. That kind of woman naturally has a lot of scandals, but many are spread by rivals, and it’s not known if they’re true."

Zhao Xiaoxiao said, waving her hands dismissively, "You don’t need to worry, it’s hard to distinguish the true from the false in online public opinion. The battle relies not on decisive evidence, but who has more minions and who posts messages more diligently."

Zhang Wei understood and then looked at Zhao Xiaoxiao, "How far can you go?"

"Heh heh, however you want that woman to be ruined..."

Seeing his second daughter flash a devilish and cunning smile, Zhang Wei felt that the smile was incredibly endearing.

...

Wednesday, pre-trial day.

In the morning, the alarm clock rang, and Cheng Lisha opened her eyes.

"I wonder if the water army carried out the task I assigned last night. Today, the main forums and social platforms should be filled with those guys’ scandals," she thought.

Two names flashed in Cheng Lisha’s mind, Zhang Wei and Yang Chuanfang.

If you choose to oppose me, then I will ruin your reputations.

The power of public opinion is not something that just two people can withstand.

When Cheng Lisha first made her name in the media world, it was this talent for manipulating public opinion that she relied on.

When she was competing with another male host for the Media Host Newcomer of the Year, she leveraged her minions to spread rumors in the dark that the male host had molested a female assistant.

Whether that incident was true or not, she herself did not know, but the influence of public opinion at the time had an immediate effect.

Because of concerns about the impact, the station directly disqualified the male host and even shelved this rising newbie.

It is said that the male host hasn’t been on TV since then.

"Let me think, maybe Jincheng will be concerned about public opinion and fire you straightaway. Then, no law firm associated with Dongfang Capital would dare to hire you, and you can spend your life as a little neighborhood lawyer!"

Thinking of the power of the public opinion offensive, Cheng Lisha smiled.

Until now, no one had been able to withstand such an attack, because it felt like being at odds with the entire world.

Under the overwhelming pressure of public opinion, one’s explanations were ultimately powerless.

"Sister Cheng, it’s bad news!"

But just as Cheng Lisha finished freshening up and was about to touch up her makeup, her personal assistant burst into her apartment in a panic.

Cheng Lisha’s brows furrowed again, "It seems... I really must replace this assistant!"

The assistant still had no idea that her professional fate was facing a bumpy end.

"Sister Cheng, it’s terrible, the internet is filled with negative news about you!"

"What the hell?"

Cheng Lisha was slightly startled, what did you just say?

There’s negative news about me all over the internet?

"Yes, Sister Cheng, look!"

The female assistant immediately displayed a tablet in front of Cheng Lisha, and three prominent characters appeared on the screen of the tablet.

Cheng Wumei!

"Shocking, Dongfang Capital’s famous host Cheng Wumei, actually has such a past!"

"Cheng Wumei!"

Cheng Lisha gritted her teeth, squeezing these three words out from between them.

She snatched the tablet from the assistant’s hand and opened the article directly.

The article was posted by some self-media author, and the author’s name was a jumble of random letters, clearly carelessly chosen.

But the number of clicks on the article was terrifying, it had actually reached the number one spot in real-time internet hot topics.

The content of the article was entirely self-media nonsense, with the first few hundred words even more so lacking any substance.

However, in the short article, Cheng Lisha’s personal information appeared along with a rather ordinary-looking face, and her real name "Cheng Wumei" was written in the name field.

At the end of the article was this sentence, "I am here @Cheng Wumei; please respect the face given to you by your parents, as well as the name they gave you."

"Your nose, mouth, chin, not a single part of you is genuine, even your name is a falsehood."

"I beg you not to use the fake name Cheng Lisha, which you think is so grand but is actually pretentiously Westernized, and that false face to deceive the public any longer!"

Below it, the top comment was this:

The fake Cheng Lisha (X) The real Cheng Wumei (√)

The comment had tens of millions of likes, more than ten times higher than the second-ranked one with just millions.

Even though the content of the post was all nonsense, with only a name and a bare-faced photo being key points, the fact that the click rate reached such a fearsome level was unprecedented.

Seeing this bare-faced photo, a flash of disgust passed through Cheng Lisha’s eyes.

"Get on the phone with the responsible parties at Vbo immediately, tell them to delete this post for me!"

"Sister Cheng, I’ve made the call already, they said it can’t be deleted..."

"What the hell!"

Cheng Lisha held her forehead with one hand, her face showing astonishment.

What do you mean it can’t be deleted?

This app belongs to whose family, just log into the back end and delete something, what’s the big deal?

All those articles I wrote, videos I posted, weren’t they manipulated by you guys in the backend, changing data and click counts?

All those trending topics and traffic celebrities, aren’t they just bought from you with tens or hundreds of thousands, for hot search rankings and traffic?

Now you’re telling me it can’t be changed, are you freaking kidding me?

"Give me the phone!"

The female assistant immediately flipped through the contacts and dialed a number.

"Hello, Director Wang, what’s the meaning of this? That post about my plastic surgery and name change, was it intentionally released by you to chase clout, having the audacity to pin my scandal at the top, are the several million we pay your company each year for PR all gone to waste? Get that post deleted immediately, I don’t want to see it at the top of the hot search anymore, do it now..."

As soon as the call connected, Cheng Lisha couldn’t hold back anymore and immediately started shouting at the top of her lungs.

On the other end of the phone, Vbo’s Director Wang also felt perplexed.

He had just inquired with the backend development center, and the answer they gave him was "cannot be deleted."

Just those simple four words, but those familiar with the media industry knew, the fewer the words, the bigger the issue.

Logically speaking, the entire Vbo was theirs, they held the ultimate authority over backend data and database access.

A picture, a video, or even a brief statement, whoever they wanted to top the charts, would top the charts.

Similarly, if they wanted to delete or control comments, to silence someone, that person simply wouldn’t be able to speak on Vbo.

Maybe thousands or tens of thousands of fans would need to maintain daily clicks over weeks, spending immense effort just to get their idol to the front of the popularity charts.

But in reality, with just a lazy flick of a finger in the backend, a mere few seconds, another idol who has paid doesn’t even need fan support to occupy a higher position.

So, with the backend database in their hands, everything was up to them.

But today, suddenly, they lost control!

The entire development center had been bustling since early morning, but no matter how the engineers tried, they couldn’t break the data lock on this post.

The sticky post exposing Cheng Lisha’s dark secrets clung stubbornly to the top spot on the trending lists like a piece of chewed gum.

"Host Cheng, there’s really nothing we can do. The response I got from the R&D center is that unless we shut down the entire system, otherwise..."

"Then shut it down! Hurry up and sort this out for me!"

Listening to Cheng Lisha’s roar, which sounded almost like an order, Director Wang looked helpless.

Do you think I can shut it down just because I want to?

The company isn’t mine, I can act on a whim, but then I’d lose my job the next day.

I have a board of directors above me, and our company’s large scale operates solely on this product.

Do you know how much it would cost to maintain and restart the system if you want to shut it all down?

Based on the feedback from the R&D center, shutting down and conducting a review would require a minimum of 30 minutes.

For such a large community, losing tens to hundreds of millions in revenue per second, thirty minutes would mean at least ten million in losses.

That’s not even considering the aftermath of shutting down, including the negative comments from online media.

The associated losses could even reach up to a hundred million.

To put it bluntly, is it worth causing so much loss just for you, Cheng Lisha?

And moreover...

The fact that your scandal is topping the list isn’t necessarily a bad thing for us.

Director Wang, looking at the feedback data from another operations department, fell into hesitation again.

Because the operations department informed him that posts related to Cheng Lisha, under the momentum of being number one, saw a constant climb in clicks.

After all, their Weibo is essentially an online community that got rich off traffic.

So whether it’s good news or bad, scandalous revelations or clean ones, as long as it’s trending, they make money.

Even though Cheng Lisha pays us hundreds of millions in PR fees every year, Weibo isn’t owned by Lisha, right?

The money earned from these scandals is swiftly catching up to the yearly earnings from you.

So should this scandal really be taken down?

"Host Cheng, I’ll go and urge them on your behalf, gotta hang up now, ha!"

After giving a perfunctory response, Director Wang immediately hung up the phone.

There was no helping it. Cheng Lisha was still raging on the other end of the line, and he certainly didn’t want to start his day listening to a madwoman’s screeching, ruining his mood.

"Money from haters is still money, and buzz is still buzz. Forget it, I’ll just leave it be!"

After some thought, Director Wang decided to follow the advice of the operations department and let things take their course.

Shutting down the system was out of the question anyway. At most, they could put on a show, maybe even refund the PR fees earned from Cheng Lisha’s team this year.

Making money, who cares who it’s from? If betraying you brings more cash, why bother sucking up to you?

Director Wang immediately gave instructions to the R&D center, telling them not to worry and to just leave the post as it was.

And the consequence of such a decision was naturally...

On Cheng Lisha’s end.

She waited half the day, but there was still no response from Director Wang.

Moreover, the data on that sticky post only grew more terrifying, with searches and click rates skyrocketing.

Initially, it might have been fake data, but because it was number one on trending, a lot of onlookers got attracted, and these were real clicks.

And with Cheng Lisha’s popularity, many unscrupulous media outlets also began to repost her slanderous content for clicks.

Although Cheng Lisha was a top figure in the media industry, to some of those in the self-media industry, they couldn’t care less whether you were the leading sister or not. If there’s traffic to be gained, their lack of ethics defies imagination.

Worst case scenario, I’ll just register a burner account among acquaintances to let you save face.

So, that morning, Cheng Lisha found that her scandals were just proliferating in the online discourse.

Allegations that she was a mistress to some tycoon to climb up the ranks,

that she had a history of violence, had bad-mouthed assistants, and even had illegitimate children – all sorts of slanderous content was fabricated.

"Sister Cheng, it even says here that you like women... Sister Cheng, look at the way you’re looking at me, I’m so scared... they’re not telling the truth, are they... Sister Cheng, I’ve never even been in a relationship..."

Suddenly, the female assistant felt a twinge of fear when she saw the look in Cheng Lisha’s eyes.

Fuck!

Cheng Lisha was about to burst out with expletives. She had made her fortune in the media and had never been subjected to such treatment before.

"Right, Sister Cheng, today’s the preliminary hearing for that case. Weren’t you asking me to remind you? Are you still going to attend?"

"Of course I’m going. I want to ask Zhang Wei to his face if he’s behind all this!"

Hearing her assistant’s words, she certainly couldn’t just stand by.

The lawsuit concerned her future, everything about her; how could she possibly be absent?