The male supporting character was actually myself.

"Hey, Wei Jiangchen is almost driven to the brink of depression by cyberbullying. It's definitely not him photoshopping himself. Anyone with a brain can figure out that the person who has access to his phone and computer is someone close to him. So who is trying to kill him?"

"Maybe it's all scripted, but I didn't expect it to become such a hot topic. Let's wait for the official update!"

"5G has been around for so many years! And you're still so easily led by a few pictures? I really don't know whether to call you stupid or just plain dumb..."

A new wave of people flooded into the live stream and started spamming messages, quickly drowning out the original comments that supported Wang Yiyun.

Jiang Chen raised an eyebrow slightly. Was Peng Ziyang's men starting to launch a precise sniping attack?

That kid's expression seems a little off.

"Welcome everyone to my live stream, thank you for your support." Wang Yiyun looked at the scrolling messages on her phone screen, pretending to be calm and not daring to use Wei Jiangchen to steer the conversation any further. After exchanging pleasantries, she smiled and said, "I don't want to ride on the coattails of my old friend. I hope you all will stop mentioning Wei Jiangchen. How about I give you all a nice song instead?"

Thank you for your support, family!

"Thank you so much, the number one fan for the cruise ship, thank you..."

Chapter Five: Public Opinion Reversal

"Did Wei Jiangchen hire an online army to whitewash this? Why is everyone speaking up for him?"

"Based on the information found online, he's just an ordinary college student. Where would he get so much money to hire online trolls to whitewash his situation?"

"Do you think professional haters do this for free? Didn't you see the transfer records? They charge a lot more, they're much richer than us! Besides, they're in the hater industry, they must have connections."

"Damn, have the brains of this generation of netizens been eaten by zombies? The comments above are quite neutral, reasonable, and well-founded, without praising or criticizing anyone. How did they become paid trolls whitewashing the situation?"

"They probably think that any difference of opinion is just a whitewash by online trolls. Who knows if they're paid to attack Wei Jiangchen? Normal bystanders should want to know the truth."

"Past experience as a gossip observer tells me not to rush to take sides and wait for the twists and turns. To be a proper gossip observer, you should have the awareness of a badger. It's so rude to criticize this person or that person..."

…………

Wang Yiyun was singing a rather sentimental ballad, but the comments scrolling through the wildly popular live stream were all neutral onlookers, supporters and opponents arguing amongst themselves. Everyone treated his singing as background music and no one was really listening.

He glanced at the clamoring comments every now and then, clearly distracted, making several mistakes while playing the piano, and even going off-key and forgetting the lyrics. Fortunately, no one seemed to care; they were just using this place as a battlefield, attacking each other with words as weapons.

As more and more people started arguing and more people watched the drama unfold, his live stream's popularity soared. The platform also deliberately skewed its traffic towards him, and soon Wang Yiyun's live stream topped the Yuexiu Dou platform's homepage, attracting even more viewers.

"His singing was indeed mediocre." Jiang Chen made an objective assessment after listening for a while.

In the original owner's memory, her roommate Wang Yiyun started out as a small-time streamer doing mobile game live streaming, so she chose the Yuexiu Dou platform when registering her account.

However, despite his high self-esteem in gaming, he was not much better than Xiaobaimao's pure recklessness. He had been streaming for a long time but had not attracted many gaming fans. Instead, he relied on his good looks and fashion sense to transform into a singing and playing streamer after Yuexiu Dou's transformation.

"What an effeminate guy! He's only in his early twenties and he's already wearing heavy makeup and using beauty filters all the time on his live stream. How fake must that face be?" The fluffy dumpling realized that its host had left the live stream and there was nowhere to send money, so it could only follow him around to watch the fun.

After seeing Wang Yiyun's off-key singing, the little white cat wagged its fluffy tail, looking indignant. "Pah! You keep saying you're good friends with Wei Jiangchen, but being good friends means you're just trying to ride on her coattails and subtly label her, right?"

It must have been you!

Otherwise, why, from the perspective of a good friend, would you ignore the well-founded doubts and only try to steer the conversation towards the idea that Wei Jiangchen is Jin Chenxi?

The fluffy ball of fur got angrier the more it thought about it, so it simply waved its furry little paws and busied itself for a while.

"Thank you for your support, everyone. Also, I saw everyone's enthusiastic comments. There's really no need to be so heated." Wang Yiyun was not so happy as she watched the popularity of her live stream soar. It was obvious that many of the people who flooded in had joined the flame war, and the popularity was purely driven up by the two sides arguing back and forth.

Damn it, nobody cares about how talented I am!

Nowadays, online platforms are strictly managed, and if someone makes harsh remarks that involve other people, their live stream may be banned.

Although blocking him wouldn't be a big problem, it would still have a bad impact, so he wanted to steer the conversation in a different direction. "Um... could you please stop using my good friend Wei Jiangchen to flood the screen? He is him, and I am me. Even if we are roommates or former friends, please don't confuse the two."

He will naturally bear the consequences of his actions. Everyone should be rational and refrain from sending unfriendly comments in my live stream...

Wang Yiyun's internet speed seems to be a bit slow.

The live stream froze for a moment, then I carefully selected the right filters and beauty effects and turned them all off!

A face heavily made up was suddenly presented to the public without warning.

"Holy crap! Is this really my little Yunyun? Am I blind?"

"Oh my god, I saw a ghost while watching the live stream!"

"I was drinking water and I was so shocked I almost fainted. This is what the streamer really looks like?"

"Wow! How could I have been so blind as to think I'd met a super handsome streamer!"

"Even the top-ranked beauty is silent now, regretting spending the money, right?"

"I was wrong, I was really wrong! I always thought that only female anchors wore heavy makeup and used filters to make themselves look like twenty-year-old girls even when they were seventy or eighty. I really didn't know that male anchors could do this too!"

"Unfollow, unfollow! What garbage! The singing is terrible to begin with, I only came here to see that face, but it turns out the face is fake..."

The live stream chat was thrown into chaos.

The onlookers were all criticizing the streamer's fake face, and neither side in the argument paid any attention to the streamer.

They were all filled with righteous indignation, their hearts burning with nameless anger, racking their brains to figure out how to persuade the opposing netizens to agree with their views.

"I don't like hearing you say 'fake face streamer.' You're a public figure, how can you maliciously mislead people? Is there any evidence to prove that Wei Jiangchen is Jin Chenxi? If you have evidence, produce it and sue him so the law can punish him!"

"That's right, Jin Chenxi deserves to die! But it must be Jin Chenxi herself who deserves to die, not Wei Jiangchen who framed her with two photoshopped pictures!"

"After arguing for so long, I'm still not convinced by the comments of netizen 'Kati,' but she's right, Jin Chenxi deserves to die!"

"Besides Jin Chenxi himself and his accomplices, no one should sympathize with professional trolls, right? Jin Chenxi must die! But it must be Jin Chenxi himself, not a scapegoat!"

"How is the behavior of cyberbullying Wei Jiangchen and publicly denouncing him online to the point of wanting him to die without any solid evidence any different from Jin Chenxi's behavior?"

"Who says there's no evidence? The transfer records have been released!"

"I'm more concerned about who released the 'evidence'; it doesn't feel that simple."

"Quick, quick, switch to 'Big Detective Bobo's' live stream! They have evidence to clarify things! The person involved in the transfer records has come forward to explain, it's not what's being said online!"

"Holy crap? We're already getting some fresh gossip?"

…………

Someone spammed several messages in the live stream, and the popularity of the live stream, which was originally booming with more than 7 million viewers at the same time, quickly cooled down. In less than half a minute, only two viewers left.

One of them was Jiang Chen, who was watching the commotion; the other was a fluffy little dumpling that had followed its host over and was secretly trying to trip him up.

One person and one system quickly exited the live stream, one after the other.

Before the fluffy dumpling quit, they even specially brushed two blobs of "dog poop" props on him.

Wang Yiyun: ...

Damn it, what happened?

Has the person involved in the transfer come forward to clarify? Is it true, or are other streamers just trying to ride the wave and advertise their services?

He was very unsure of himself, and since there was no one else around, he hurriedly closed the live stream.

"Fuck you! How could things change so quickly?" Wang Yiyun didn't log out of the software; he wanted to see if someone had really come forward to clarify things.

Before he could even find the other person's live stream, he noticed that almost all the popular live streams on the platform's homepage, marked with large flames, were related to Wei Jiangchen and Jin Chenxi.

It's the age of live streaming, everyone's learned all sorts of creative ways to ride the wave of trending topics!

Many live streams featured highly impactful descriptions, with most of the content questioning whether Wei Jiangchen was being used as a scapegoat. A large portion of these viewers pointed the finger at the mysterious whistleblower, suspecting that the mastermind behind the release of the two images was Jin Chenxi herself or her accomplices, using cyberbullying of Wei Jiangchen to divert netizens' attention.

The more he looked, the more panicked he became.

Jiang Chen's guess was correct; Wang Yiyun was indeed the professional troll Jin Chenxi himself.

His designer shoes, bags, and daily necessities, which cost tens of thousands of yuan, were all purchased by colluding with others to smear them and using the money converted into platform tips.

Actually, he never intended to frame Wei Jiangchen at first.

After all, the two had a very good relationship. Apart from Wei Jiangchen, who was gentle and honest, the other six roommates all looked down on Wang Yiyun, who was more effeminate.

After deciding to become a live streamer, his other roommates laughed at his terrible gameplay, but Wei Jiangchen would often offer suggestions and was willing to team up with him to try and boost his popularity.

But Wang Yiyun really didn't expect the reversal to come so quickly.

Previously, their methods of digging up dirt, smearing, and using a barrage of online trolls had never failed. Who would have thought that this time, when they went to smear the couple of internet celebrities who partnered with Bei Kuai, they would run into a brick wall and meet a tough opponent?

The opponent's counterattack was too fast and too fierce, as if it had been prepared in advance.

I had only launched an initial offensive, writing sarcastic and sarcastic posts, and hadn't even made any bigger moves yet, when the other party immediately dug up everything I had done in the past and posted it all online.

If he were exposed again, he would be doomed. In desperation, he thought of shifting the blame to another party.

Apart from Wei Jiangchen, with whom she had the best relationship, Wang Yiyun had no more suitable target to frame.

Time didn't allow him to slowly find more "practical" evidence. The counterattacks launched by the couple of internet celebrities reversed public opinion in just one day, and the whole internet was denouncing "Jin Chenxi".

Wang Yiyun could only choose the method of framing someone that she was best at.

It just so happens that Wei Jiangchen had just bought a new laptop, and he had also saved a screenshot of that transfer record. He originally wanted to record it as material and then discuss with his handsome friend about doing a live broadcast together, hyping up Wei Jiangchen's appearance and forming a group to become popular.

When the time is right, I can help him establish his image as a resilient person, showcasing how the orphan Wei Jiangchen earns his living by tutoring through his own hard work...

Unexpectedly, things happened suddenly. Wei Jiangchen did not agree to his invitation to try being a live streamer; Jin Chenxi's true identity is also about to be revealed.

So Wang Yiyun had a sudden inspiration. Taking advantage of the time when he went to class without his notebook, she used the password Wei Jiangchen had given her to log into Jin Chenxi's account on the other party's computer, took pictures of "evidence," and then edited the transfer records before posting them online as "exposés."

Everything was going smoothly.

Wei Jiangchen was almost driven to the brink of collapse by the sudden barrage of abusive messages and harassing phone calls. The fervent fans of the internet celebrities who had been tricked by Jin Chenxi in the past also couldn't hold back and started harassing and cursing him in various ways.

After half a month, with the police having little effect and Wei Jiangchen feeling powerless to fight back against the cyberbullying, she was exhausted both physically and mentally and could not hold on any longer. Wang Yiyun felt that victory was in sight.

Anyway, Jin Chenxi's account can't be used anymore.

I've already deleted all the data and destroyed all the cards that needed to be destroyed. Even if the police get involved, they won't be able to find me.

As long as netizens recognize Wei Jiangchen as Jin Chenxi, how could someone with no money or power possibly control a channel to speak out?

Wait until he is driven to death by cyberbullying, then stand up and condemn the cyberbullying, indirectly confirming his identity as a friend of the deceased.

Everything calmed down after Jin Chenxi "died".

But now...

Wang Yiyun's heart was pounding. She wondered where Wei Jiangchen had gone, since she hadn't been driven to the brink of collapse and suicide.

The online public opinion seems to be developing in an uncontrollable direction. Now even the person who made the transfer has been identified to gain attention. If Wei Jiangchen is cleared of suspicion, I will be in danger!

Even if someone's live stream goes wrong while wearing heavy makeup and a fake face, there's still a way to defend them. As long as the platform gives them views, this bit of a dark past doesn't matter.

Once the "evidence" is overturned, and those guys on the internet continue to relentlessly pursue Jin Chenxi, what tricks will I have left to use?