Chapter 48.1

The second day of the sports meet was packed with events from morning all the way through the afternoon, with the all-grade relay race set to kick off at 3 PM.

The sports field was already buzzing with people early in the morning, as the participants gearing up for the morning events warmed up in their own main camps.

Qixing High School main camp.

He Xiezhou lounged in his chair, legs crossed with his left foot resting over his right on the table. His finger casually swiped across his phone screen as his whole body gently rocked back and forth.

He was checking out the post he’d made yesterday.

Hahaha, this feels so damn good.

The influence of gossip among students from three different schools was no joke. Within one night, thousands of replies flooded in, and Jiang Zhihuo’s reputation suffered a major hit. All that talk about him being the school popular guy or a hot alpha? Nonsense. He was a scumbag, a gay, and an omega pretending to be an alpha to attract attention.

He Xiezhou chuckled several times to himself, but suddenly, he felt his vision darken as a shadow loomed in front of him.

He looked up and saw Yan Mu, the popular guy from No. 1 High School whom he had met yesterday—the one who had been kissing and injecting the inhibitor to Jiang Zhihuo in the equipment room. Unfortunately, the photos hadn’t captured his face clearly.

Otherwise, how could he dare to show up in front of so many people?

There was nothing to be afraid of. He Xiezhou believed he had the upper hand with the other party’s weakness in his grasp. He raised his eyebrows and said in a provocative tone, “Hello, what’s the matter?”

Yan Mu sneered coldly at him, “Scheming behind someone’s back?”

Just four words, delivered with a chillingly sharp voice that cut like a blade.

Even though he was clearly prepared, He Xiezhou couldn’t help but shrink back.

Yan Mu’s aura was too strong. Although there were other people in the main camp, none of them dared to speak at that moment; they unconsciously shrank into the corners, only daring to cast furtive glances in this direction.

He Xiezhou had to admit that he felt momentarily suppressed, but he still forced a wicked smile. “Is there? This classmate, you need to provide evidence when you speak. Oh, oh, did you see the posts in the forum?” 

He Xiezhou was full of confidence as he said, “Didn’t the original poster say ‘rumour’? If he really didn’t do anything, then an upright person has nothing to fear.”

Yan Mu coldly snorted, “Is that so?”

He Xiezhou always felt that this person had more to say, but he shrugged it off. He couldn’t afford to lose face, so he stubbornly maintained his momentum and retorted, “Yes, this school popular guy, if you want to pick a fight, don’t do it here. There are so many people watching.”

Yan Mu glared at him coldly, his eyes sharp and penetrating. He Xiezhou felt as though he was undergoing a slow slicing torture; a shiver ran down the back of his head as an overwhelming sense of dread washed over him. 

Fortunately, he didn’t stay long and turned to leave.

He Xiezhou didn’t notice his back gradually tensing up due to excessive nervousness and comforted himself in his heart.

So what if he came over?

What can this person do?

On the forum, it was hard to tell what was true or false, and half-truths were even better at stirring things up.

That was what it meant to be condemned by thousands of people. Now, no matter what he said, who would still believe him?

He could only come over and say a few harsh words.

Thinking like this, his suppressed mood improved a lot. He Xiezhou opened the forum again, continued to browse the posts he had published, and frantically liked every comment that cursed Jiang Zhihuo.

Damn it, how dare he provoke me.

Just as He Xiezhou was admiring his ‘masterpiece,’ a new post appeared on the forum, rapidly climbing to the top of the trending list and being pinned at the top of the discussion section.

The title was very simple, just two words—[Gossip Rationally].

It was also posted by an anonymous user.

Anonymous user: Issues caused by the forum should be resolved by the forum. The original poster speaks with certainty and provides ample evidence. I will not comment on this matter for now; I just want to ask the original poster four questions first.

1.Is the original poster He Xiezhou from Qixing High School?

2. Why create alternate accounts?

3. Why stir up trouble?

4. Why not release the full audio?

2nd comment: Another anonymous poster? What’s going on? Is this a battle with the poster next door?

3rd comment: Jumping straight in with questions? No, I don’t get it. What alternate accounts, what stirring up trouble?

4th comment: Waiting for gossip.

5th comment: Is this a post to clear someone’s name?

6th comment: Can this still be cleared? I want to see how this can be done!

7th comment: He Xiezhou? Who is this person??

Anonymous user: [Image][Image][Image][Image][Image]

This poster didn’t waste any words and immediately shared a few pictures.

The first few images were screenshots of comments from the previous thread, stitched into a long image. 36th comment, 41st comment, 57th comment, 79th comment, and a bunch of later comments were organized to identify ten IDs.

These ten IDs had no personal characteristics. Their profile pictures and names were also quite generic. Clicking into their homepages revealed that none of them had ever posted anything. They were all new accounts, only three days old on the forum.

These ten accounts also shared a clear commonality—every reply was obviously intended to support the original poster, attack neutral parties, and aggressively stir up trouble.

Originally, there had been a rational discussion in the thread, but since these IDs appeared, the direction of the post changed abruptly.

The next few images were screenshots of a string of complex code, with a series of the same numbers highlighted in red in each snippet.

12th comment: What is this?

13th comment: IP address?

Anonymous user: Yes.

As soon as the post went up, several accounts began reacting irrationally without presenting any evidence, which is illogical.

I checked a little bit, and as shown in the picture, the IP addresses of the ten accounts are exactly the same.

There are only two possibilities in this situation.

1.These ten people use the same computer or the same communication network to browse the forum.

2. These ten accounts come from the same person.

22nd comment: ???????

23rd comment: What do you mean??

24th comment: The accounts stirring up trouble are the same person?

25th comment: Why stir up trouble?

Anonymous user: The forum rules forbid stirring up trouble, so I reasonably requested the administrator to check the registration number in the backend.

The sixth picture is a coded number, a total of ten mobile phone numbers.

Anonymous user: One of the numbers comes from [He Xiezhou] of Qixing High School.

As for why I am directly named He Xiezhou, I will explain it later.

Now, I hope you can answer my questions.

Why use alternate accounts?

Why stir up trouble?

Did you post yesterday’s post? Why not release the full audio?

The new anonymous poster presented solid evidence, leaving no room for anyone to question or refute it. The crowd, which had been passionately following the gossip for an afternoon and a night, suddenly calmed down.

46th comment: Wait, what? What do you mean? Was yesterday a setup? Who is this He Xiezhou? Why is the poster directly pointing him out?

47th comment: No way! Are all the people jumping up and down in the whole thread the same person? Why?

52nd comment: I just looked back and noticed that everyone was in a good mood at first, but after those people showed up, everyone’s energy suddenly surged. People were asking for the full audio, but once things got stirred up, no one mentioned it anymore!

53rd comment: So what? OP, we’re waiting for an update! You posting this thread now definitely means there’s more to the story.

57th comment: OP?

62nd comment: Where is the OP? He Xiezhou didn’t respond either. Does anyone know him?

69th comment: Where is the OP?

This post appeared out of nowhere, even the original poster was also strange, asked a few questions, and then never showed up again.

But the less the original poster clarified things, the more curious the onlookers became.

He Xiezhou was about to quit his post when he found a link thrown over by someone in the last few comments—

[Link] Everyone, come take a look! There’s a new update! Someone named the anonymous OP as He Xiezhou from Qixing High School! Suspecting him of stirring up trouble!

He Xiezhou’s heart tightened. At this moment, the phone kept ringing with notifications. No one had responded for too long, and people were continuously tagging him.

He Xiezhou clicked on the link and entered the post.

The anonymous poster only had a few short comments, but they stripped him bare.

How the hell did they manage to dig this up??

He Xiezhou scrolled down the  comments.

83rd comment: So who is this He Xiezhou, and why is he stirring up trouble?

84th comment: He used to be from No. 9 Junior High School, but later transferred. It seems that he had a conflict with Jiang Zhihuo before the transfer.

85th floor: What’s going on?

Post 86: This is what was mentioned in yesterday’s thread. Jiang Zhihuo got into a fight with someone, and as a result, that person ended up transferring schools—that person is He Xiezhou. If he holds a grudge against Jiang Zhihuo for this, it’s not impossible for him to try to ruin Jiang Zhihuo’s reputation.

87th comment: Does anyone know what actually happened back then? And what’s the deal with that audio of the person jumping? Now that I’ve calmed down, listening to the three audio clips separately, they don’t seem related at all. It seems highly likely they were forcibly pieced together.

He Xiezhou’s face gradually turned pale.

As the competition drew near, the number of people at the main camp increased. A girl spotted the post first and shared it with her friends, and it spread from person to person. Someone quietly whispered, “Hey, isn’t that He Xiezhou?”

Everyone’s eyes turned to him.

Two girls from He Xiezhou’s class asked him, “Did you post that thing yesterday? What’s this about being expelled for fighting?”

Being confronted directly like this, denying it would be useless and only make him look guilty. He Xiezhou hardened his tone. “I posted it! So what? He’s allowed to do it, but I’m not allowed to expose him? The facts are obvious! He forced his ex-boyfriend to jump off the building. I couldn’t stand it, so I fought with him, and he used his connections to get me expelled! Aren’t those recordings proof enough?”

“Is that so?” The two girls looked at him suspiciously. “Then why did you stir up trouble? Where’s the complete recording?”

“What else is there to ask? Believe it or not, I don’t care!” He Xiezhou turned around, his expression was extremely unnatural.

So what if everyone knew he was the one who posted it? The post had already been published, and he couldn’t take it back!

That happened so long ago, any evidence would be long gone! What else can Jiang Zhihuo do?!

To take control of the situation, He Xiezhou immediately switched to the main account: I was the one who posted yesterday. I couldn’t stand seeing him emotionally manipulate his ex-boyfriend and force him to jump off a building. Did I do anything wrong? I got beaten up and didn’t say a word, yet you’re not going after the real offender. Instead, you’re questioning me, the victim?

***
Yan Mu turned off the screen.

He stared coldly at Zhu You in front of him. “You are his ex-boyfriend?”

Zhu You held the warm soy milk in both hands, a straw resting in his mouth as he took small sips. When he heard Yan Mu’s extremely unhappy, accusatory question, he couldn’t help but shudder.

He was not a participant; he had come just to watch the game. He went home early yesterday afternoon, and by the time he saw the post, it was already 9:30 PM.

As another protagonist in the post, he was the most hurt by what happened that year, and he couldn’t forget it. After scanning it twice, he could see that He Xiezhou was reversing black and white.

Zhou Yu’s first reaction was to go find Zhihuo-ge, but he didn’t have his contact information. He replied a few times in the post and was immediately bombarded by a wave of angry comments, making it impossible to respond.

So, he went to No. 1 High School early in the morning, wanting to discuss countermeasures with Zhihuo-ge, but he couldn’t find Zhihuo-ge. Instead, he saw Yan Mu making trouble for He Xiezhou.

The moment Yan Mu saw him, he walked toward him with a cold expression and said, “Come with me.”

“No!” The two sat by the window in the cafeteria. Zhu You hurriedly tapped the table and explained, “Not my ex-boyfriend! We weren’t together! When I recorded that, I was having a breakdown, and Zhihuo-ge was really good to me. I never thought of using this to morally blackmail him!”

This must be explained clearly!

While others couldn’t identify the boy kissing Jiang Zhihuo in the equipment room due to the photo angle, Zhu You recognized him because he had walked with Yan Mu yesterday and Yan Mu was wearing the same outfit as the boy in the photo.

It! Is! Yan! Mu! Ah!

No wonder this handsome guy always looked at him with eyes that seemed to want to kill him yesterday!

He is Zhihuo-ge‘s real boyfriend!

The misunderstanding is too big!

Yan Mu: “…….”

“I’m not Zhihuo-ge‘s ex-boyfriend! Really!” Zhu You took out his mobile phone and typed. “I’ll go and make it clear!”

Yan Mu: “No need for now.”

Zhu You: “Why?”

Yan Mu was somewhat impatient with him and didn’t want to explain further. He opened the video and asked, “Which ones can be posted and which ones can’t?”

Zhu You watched the video completely and remained silent for a long time.

He had a mental breakdown then. In a moment of impulse, he went straight to the rooftop. At that time, only He Xiezhou and Jiang Zhihuo were on the roof.

Back then, he didn’t know Jiang Zhihuo at all. He was only aware of his existence as someone in the school, not even an acquaintance.

He Xiezhou was still the same, openly insulting and trampling on his self-esteem without mercy in front of Jiang Zhihuo.

He stood on the roof.

It was Jiang Zhihuo who dragged him down while coaxing him.

Worried he might have another breakdown, he stayed by his side for days, rushing to see him as soon as classes ended. He had never told Jiang Zhihuo anything about himself, and out of consideration, he didn’t pry.

He Xiezhou continued to humiliate him as always, locking him alone in an empty classroom.

Zhu You was inside, banging on the door like crazy, begging He Xiezhou to let him out, but He Xiezhou said, “This is also a form of treatment, so thank me properly, hahahaha you pervert!”

He was locked up until school was over, and that day, Jiang Zhihuo couldn’t find him. It was unclear who mentioned it, but after learning the whole story, Jiang Zhihuo rescued him from the empty classroom. In front of him, he dragged He Xiezhou to a nearby alley and thoroughly beat him up.

Jiang Zhihuo used all his strength, beating He Xiezhou so hard that he couldn’t even crawl, leaving him sprawled on the ground.

He also grabbed He Xiezhou’s hair, forcing him to raise his head and confess his actions, making him apologize to Zhu You.

He Xiezhou’s appearance in the alley was very different from his usual arrogant self. He cried and begged for mercy, and even wet his pants.

A light yellow liquid dripped down his pants. Smelling the strong stench of urine, Jiang Zhihuo turned to Zhu You and pointed at He Xiezhou, whose eyes were swollen from crying. “You jumped off the building because of someone like this???”