Chapter 8: The Opponent's Conspiracy 8.2 Public opinion storm

The rain poured down in torrents, shrouding the entire city in a leaden-gray curtain of rain. In the conference room on the 27th floor of Xinghai Group, the air was as thick as iron. Lin Mo stared at the frenziedly trending hashtags on the projection screen, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the metal edges of his pen. The cold glow of the screen cast shadows on his face, making his already sharp features even more pronounced.

#Xinghai Smart Fridge Explodes, Causing Severe Injuries#

#Xinghai Group Owes Wages to Migrant Workers#

#Lin Mo's Secret Illegitimate Child and Family Scandal#

Each hashtag was accompanied by "evidence" — a pixelated video of a middle-aged woman with a bloody face holding a shattered fridge and wailing; several handwritten IOUs with crimson fingerprints, signed by a project manager at a Xinghai construction site; and even a forged paternity test report featuring a boy whose eyes and eyebrows bore a striking resemblance to Lin Mo, with an obviously Photoshopped hospital corridor in the background.

"Mr. Lin, our public opinion monitoring shows that these three topics exploded within ten minutes," Zhou Yang, the technical director, said in a hoarse voice. He quickly pulled up a data chart, showing dense red dots radiating from a server in Southeast Asia across the entire network. "Over 5,000 bot accounts are synchronously forwarding them, and the negative keyword repetition rate in the comment section is as high as 92%. It's clearly the work of professional trolls."

Before Lin Mo could respond, the conference room door was abruptly flung open. Ye Zhenzhen, the PR director, stormed in wearing ten-centimeter heels. Her usually impeccable makeup was smudged by the rain, and she clutched a stack of papers, almost crumpling them. "Fifteen partner brands have unilaterally terminated their contracts! Even 'Meijia Electronics,' a decade-long partner, has issued a statement!" She slammed a tablet on the table, and the screen displayed a video of Meijia's CEO making a public announcement with a glaring title: "Suspending All Cooperation with Xinghai Group Based on Social Responsibility."

The man in the video spoke in a sorrowful tone, but a hint of triumph gleamed in the corners of his eyes. Lin Mo recognized him; three months ago, this man had groveled to extend the payment term with Xinghai, and now he had become a pawn in Zhao Tianye's game.

An emergency conference call with the board of directors was forcibly patched in. On the screen, the shareholders' faces were distorted into anxious blobs in front of the cameras, and their chaotic questions almost lifted the roof:

"Hold a press conference immediately to clarify! The stock price has already dropped by 30%!"

"Clarify? The whole internet is saying you embezzled company funds to support an illegitimate child. What can you clarify with?!"

"I say we should contact Zhao Tianye first and negotiate terms..."

"Bang!"

Lin Mo slammed his fist on the conference table. The muffled thud of knuckles hitting solid wood silenced everyone. A toppled teacup rolled to the floor, and shards of porcelain flew to the corner like scattered chess pieces.

"Negotiate terms?" He sneered, with a smoldering fire in his eyes. "Zhao Tianye doesn't want money; he wants Xinghai's life." His fingertips swiped across the tablet, and an encrypted surveillance video instantly projected onto the large screen — at 2:17 am, in the underground garage of Xinghai, Chen Feng was seen whispering with a hooded man under the shadow of a pillar. The other party handed over a silver USB drive, and Chen Feng, upon receiving it, instinctively looked around, his pale face bisected by car headlights.

The image froze on his trembling fingertips.

A collective gasp echoed through the conference room. Unperturbed by the ashen faces around him, Lin Mo walked straight to the whiteboard and swiftly drew three intersecting red lines with a marker. "Zhao Tianye's killing blows have never been limited to public opinion — new energy technology leaks, supply chain disruptions, and short-selling by capital. These three lines must be severed simultaneously." He turned to Ye Zhenzhen, his gaze as sharp as a blade. "The press conference will proceed as scheduled, but the content must change."

"Change... change what?"

"Reveal our new energy patents ahead of schedule."

The following day, at noon, the torrential rain had just subsided. The Xinghai press conference venue was packed with excited media, with cameras trained on the empty podium. The live stream's chat was filled with curses and insults scrolling at a rate of tens of thousands per second.

As Lin Mo walked onto the stage, a shrill female voice suddenly pierced through the commotion: "Mr. Lin! Do you have any explanation for the rumors about your illegitimate child?!"

The entire venue erupted in an uproar. The cameras instantly turned to the back row — a red-haired female reporter held up her phone, with the so-called "conclusive evidence" of a "paternity test report" scrolling on the screen. She wore a "Pioneer Finance" press pass, and her eyes gleamed with the excitement of a hunter.

Lin Mo narrowed his eyes. He remembered this woman clearly: during last year's rights protection incident at Zhao's Real Estate, she had smeared weeping homeowners as a "professional fraud gang," and a biased report had left over a dozen families buried in debt.

"Perhaps Mr. Zhao Tianye should answer that question," he suddenly chuckled, gesturing to the security guards. "After all, the crime of forging the seal of a state organ carries a much heavier penalty than commercial defamation."

The red-haired reporter's face changed abruptly. She turned to flee but was blocked by two security guards. Her phone was forcibly unlocked, and the technical department took only three minutes to reverse-engineer a series of encrypted numbers from her call logs — the owner was the deputy director of Zhao Group's president's office.

The live stream's chat exploded instantly.

"What?! A plot twist?!"

"Zhao Tianye bribed the reporter to fabricate evidence?!"

"Xinghai was framed!!"

Lin Mo seized the moment to turn on the projector. A holographic image of the new energy patent certificate spread across the air, casting a blue halo over the entire venue. "Xinghai has never been in a financial crisis because our real trump card is here — the world's first graphene superconducting energy storage technology, which increases charging efficiency by 300% and will revolutionize the electric vehicle industry." He deliberately paused, his gaze sweeping over Chen Feng, who was pale and tense in the corner. "And the developers of this technology are the very Xinghai lab team that was falsely accused of 'wage withholding.'"

Suddenly, there was a commotion outside the venue. A group of engineers in white coats broke through the security line. The lead professor grabbed the microphone and shouted angrily, "Three hundred members of the Xinghai lab jointly vouch! Anyone who spreads rumors about Mr. Lin again, ask if the patents in our hands agree!" Trembling, he held up a stack of papers, the first page covered with dense signatures like a swarm of ants, each stroke penetrating the paper.

The number of live stream viewers soared into the tens of millions. The trending hashtags boiled like water in a pot:

#Xinghai New Energy Technology#

#Zhao Tianye's Framing Confirmed#

#Textbook-Level PR Counterattack#

In the backstage monitoring room, Lin Mo coldly watched as the stock price curve made a sudden comeback. In the small window at the bottom right of the screen, Chen Feng was secretly inserting a USB drive into a computer, unaware that all his actions were being mirrored and monitored. When the data transfer progress bar reached 100%, Lin Mo pressed the encrypt button, and the virus program in the USB drive activated instantly.

He knew this was just a stalling tactic — Zhao Tianye's next move would surely strike at the jugular. And the real battlefield was quietly unfolding in the neon lights after the storm.