This Text Adventure Game is definitely poisonous
Chapter 215 - 185: Public Opinion Storm_1

Chapter 215: Chapter 185: Public Opinion Storm_1

Looking at the frenzied scene outside, Mu You decided not to go out and join in, instead redirecting his attention back to the game.

[You’ve collected one-fifth of a bottle of Lucky Dust at the location where the Fairy Lady left.]

"Huh?"

Mu You was taken aback by the notification — why was there less fairy dust?

He remembered it used to be collected a bottle at a time; this time, he got only one-fifth of a bottle...

So, was the fairy dust also a non-renewable consumable?

Mu You wasn’t sure, but fortunately, he wasn’t short of it. Apart from this one-fifth, he still had two full bottles - enough for the time being.

After spending some more time near the Troll Cave and fighting a few trolls until his energy ran low, someone knocked on his door to inform him it was time to return.

Half an hour later, Mu You boarded the helicopter bound for City K.

Several colleagues from the City K Paranormal Affairs Bureau were also with him. Zhang Yang was not there, apparently handling some other matters.

Mu You didn’t mind. He chatted with his colleagues on the plane for a while. They seemed extremely curious about the situation across the river, bombarding him with questions all the way.

Mu You picked out some information he could share and filled them in. They would announce these matters to the public the next day, so revealing some information didn’t really matter.

It was five in the morning when he returned to the pet shop.

Mu You didn’t bother with anything else, went back to his room to catch some sleep. After fighting all day, he was indeed exhausted.

He slept straight until nine in the morning. When he woke up, Lin Xue and Little Ya were already in the shop. They were downstairs, animatedly discussing something on their phones. As soon as Little Ya saw Mu You, she called out excitedly: "Boss, check out the forum, so much big news!"

"Oh? Let me see."

While brushing his teeth, Mu You took out his phone and checked the forum.

Four or five hours had passed, he figured by now most of the information would be out on the forum.

Sure enough, as soon as he opened the forum, he saw three hot topics in a row, constantly being pinned by the users.

"Statement about last night’s massive Magical Beast invasion in a town of City Y!"

The first post was by a senior official of the Paranormal Affairs Bureau who was well-known on the forum, making the post equivalent to an official national statement.

The post detailed everything that had happened in the small town of City Y, including the timeline, process, and results of the Magical Beast invasion. As the final result was positive and the Godlike Players and supporting players had done a brilliant job, it was worth documenting fully.

In addition, the post also explained the concept of the ’Gate’.

There was no way to hide this.

The incident yesterday had made a big impact, with many witnesses. Even on the ordinary network, they couldn’t suppress the news, let alone on the Fool’s Forum where everyone can speak freely. If they didn’t reveal it now, someone else would later.

So, in the end, the officials didn’t hide it, and simply explained the existence of the ’Gate’ to leave a good impression on the majority of common players.

This post had not been out for an hour, and already there were over 6700 replies.

Many had already heard about the anomaly at the Yangtze River.

However, most only just found out how serious yesterday’s incident was. They had nearly lost the entire Yangtze River Basin!

Both the first-time large-scale invasion of the Magical Beasts and the novel ’Gate’ were hot topics of discussion.

Even many foreign IDs joined in the discussion on the local forum, as the event had global implications. With the existence of the ’Gate’, a crisis could erupt anywhere in the world tomorrow after it happened domestically today.

China’s player strength was world-leading, which helped it weather the storm, but what about other countries? If a similar situation happened to them, would they be able to handle it?

This was a matter of concern to many far-sighted individuals.

The details of the operation behind the Gate were not clearly described in the post, only briefly mentioned overly successful actions. It didn’t mention the loss of Godlike Players, nor the Ancient Altar and the curse received after breaking it.

Of course, there were doubts in the comments below, but the fact remained that China had managed to control the uncontrollable ’Gate’ with its own strength. Since three o’clock this morning, no new Magical Beasts had appeared, and no new battles had occurred on the Yangtze River.

All of this was clearly observed by satellites from all over the world, so it couldn’t be fake.

The post ended by stating that China would be responsible for the long-term management of the Gate, ensuring no similar explosion would happen again, and asked the players of other countries to rest assured.

Another piece of explosive information in the post was that the Ten Commandments were the culprits behind this event and that the Illuminati had aided and abetted them.

"Is the Ten Commandments a covert force of the wizards of the Star Spirit World?"

This was the second most popular post, posted by an unknown ID. But considering the almost identical posting time to the previous one, it’s clear that this was also the work of some official.

The post clearly states that the incident was orchestrated by the Ten Commandments, and that the Godlike Players and the Ten Commandments battled behind the scene, revealing the secret that members of the Ten Commandments were actually wizards of the Star Spirit World.

No substantial evidence was provided in the post, but surprisingly, no one challenged it. Given the mysterious Ten Commandments’ past anomalies, it all made sense if they were indeed covert agents sent by extraterrestrial wizards.

The Ten Commandments, a somewhat obscure force, had not made any public response, so the matter was decisively concluded.

Compared to that, the third post "The Treason of the Illuminati" attracted even more attention from domestic players.

The post title directly labeled the Illuminati as ’traitors’, and pointed out that the Illuminati had colluded with extraterrestrial forces, and the incident was a joint effort by the two organizations.

No one questioned this post either because the evidence was conclusive.

During the mission, four members of the Illuminati were captured. Apart from one who was unconscious and couldn’t be interrogated, the others had confessed under interrogation to their and the Illuminati’s treasonous acts.

The post caused quite a stir among domestic players. It’s one thing for extraterrestrial powers to stir up trouble, but to assist in the wrongdoing, instead of stopping it, as a domestic player force?

People were outraged, hurling insults at the Illuminati, and called on the official side to deal with this traitorous force as soon as possible.

And indeed, that’s exactly what the officials did.

An hour before the post was published, the government had secretly assembled a team of players to surround the Illuminati’s headquarters in City A.

A video attached to the post documented the entire process of besieging the Illuminati.

The local special affairs bureau and the military, along with reinforcements from other allied forces, led by five Dragon Team Big God, surrounded the Illuminati’s headquarter building and caught over 300 members.

Other Illuminati members scattered across the country were also secretly arrested.

When the Illuminati’s headquarters was raided, the inside members intended to resist at first, but they gave up the idea when they saw the five players from the Dragon Team leading the raid.

The battle did not take many twists and turns. Facing the overwhelming forces outside and the pressure from the five big players, most Illuminati members could barely muster any will to resist and quickly surrendered.

Finally, after the big players killed a few who tried to resist and flee, everyone else surrendered, and a total of 311 members were captured and taken back to the special affairs bureau’s headquarters.

Unfortunately, the president and vice president of the Illuminati had disappeared, along with more than fifty of their key personnel. These people evaporated into thin air, leaving no trace behind.

Furthermore, all valuable items in the Illuminati’s headquarters had been relocated in advance.

It’s clear that those left behind were disposable pawns, most of whom were unaware of the Illuminati’s clandestine activities and were puzzled when they were arrested, maintaining their innocence.

But even if they were truly innocent, encountering such a situation is just bad luck.

All of them had their phones and electronic devices confiscated and underwent thorough investigation. Only after being confirmed to pose no danger could they be released, but by that time, they would have missed the golden period of game development.

As a result of the interrogation, the whereabouts of the remaining Illuminati members were not discovered, but information about an old case emerged.

The recent conflict between the Illuminati and Soul Extinguishment wasn’t due to some romantic conflict, but over an object – the Shadow Ghost!

When this name came up during the interrogation, it scared the officers in the interrogation room. They immediately notified the higher-ups and more senior officials were assigned to conduct a more thorough interrogation.

The final result of the interrogation was that the Illuminati had failed to intercept the Shadow Ghost, which was either taken away by Gao Ziming and sunk into the sea, or had been taken overseas by Gao Ziming.

Of course, this was kept confidential and only shared among a small group of people in the special affairs bureau and the Dragon Team. Mu You only found out about it from Zhang Yang much later.

But he didn’t care, since all evidence from back then had been thoroughly erased and couldn’t be traced back to him.

Mu You continued to scroll through the forum and soon saw a new post.

"Shocking! The twists and turns of this incident only got reversed due to the intervention of a mysterious Godlike Player!"

This post was from an ordinary ID with no notable reputation, but its contents were quite explosive, hence it drew considerable attention and became another popular post of the day.

The poster claimed to be a journalist who got exclusive insider information from a special source: during the clash between the official players and the Ten Commandments yesterday, the players were initially losing. But a mysterious independent Godlike Player intervened, helping to turn the tide.

The post also mentioned that this Godlike Player was apparently on good terms with members of the Ice Emperor’s forces...

Because of the last sentence, Mu You seriously suspected that this post might have been orchestrated by the Ice Emperor’s people themselves, probably with the intention of subtly increasing their influence.

After all, the ’Godlike Player’ who reversed the situation seemed to be ’close to the Ice Emperor’. This didn’t need to be confirmed; as long as this impression was left in people’s minds, it would be greatly beneficial to the Ice Emperor.