Chapter 228: Peaceful Days from a Love Rival, Waiting Quietly for Flowers to Bloom!
Can’t win the argument, so you just silence people?
That really fits Lin Yibai’s stereotype of certain people. But even if you silence them for a moment, can you silence them forever?
You shut down the school forum. But can you also shut down Zhihu, Weibo, TikTok?
Are you going to shut down the entire internet?
And why is Lin Yibai so sure and confident that they will eventually give in?
Because everything comes with a cost.
That company doing the campus recruiting, and their recruiter. Unless they saved the world in a past life, Lin Yibai really can’t think of any reason to protect them.
Is it all really worth it?
Lin Yibai never even worried about the whole thing. Every day, she just read information, worked on her research papers, and casually looked at job opportunities she liked.
Xia Changyu also told her not to worry, “You just enjoy peaceful days and wait for your flowers to bloom.”
Lin Yibai raised her beautiful eyes, “Hmm?”
Xia Changyu had become more and more daring. He swore that he wasn’t just a man driven by passion, he was a true suitor who wanted to take responsibility.
In this society, peace doesn’t come easily. But if possible, he was willing to be the one who carried the heavy load for her.
Meanwhile, in the department office building, a group of people were in full crisis mode.
They were so anxious that they were pacing around the meeting room.
Then, a staff member rushed in and reported, “We’ve already shut down the school forum and blocked posts. We also tracked several users by their IP addresses through the campus network and gave them verbal warnings. We believe they won’t keep making trouble.”
(Author’s notes:)
(Fun fact: A school can track IP addresses on its campus network.)
(Hot tip: If students switch to using mobile data, the school can’t trace them unless they report it to the internet provider company.
Don’t ask how we know. Back in our day, out of several dorm rooms, over ten people, the only ones who didn’t get caught were the ones using mobile data. Everyone on campus Wi-Fi got busted. It was brutal.)
The middle-aged man who was the department head finally let out a long sigh of relief, breathing heavily like he had just survived a disaster. “Good, good. If this blew up, it wouldn’t help anyone.”
To protect the school’s reputation, they were willing to use some internal resources. After all, universities are public institutions and have some influence.
But a university isn’t just one department. If this kind of scandal grows, the biggest problem won’t just be the school’s name. It could ruin certain people’s careers.
Just as the middle-aged leader was about to take a break and have a sip of water, another staff assistant rushed in, panicking, “Sir! Bad news!”
The middle-aged leader froze, “What now?”
The assistant, catching his breath, said, “We managed to control the school forum, but now it’s trending on Zhihu!”
The leader let out a long sigh, “Ugh…”
He suddenly felt utterly drained, physically and mentally. Was this that feeling of solving one problem only to have another immediately surface?
You push down on one platform, and another one pops up. Trying to silence people on the forum already made things worse. And Zhihu isn’t like the school forum. To remove a trending topic there, you need serious help from higher authorities.
And he had a strong gut feeling. Today it's Zhihu. Tomorrow it might be Weibo. The day after, BiliBili, or all kinds of social media influencers.
“Meeting, meeting~”
“Go and tell everyone in our department. As long as they can move, get them all here. We need to figure out what to do.”
"......"
As a leader, the middle-aged man had a strong feeling that this mess, where fixing one thing caused another problem, definitely had something to do with the girl involved in that recent incident.
This was an obvious and open challenge. For them, the worst result wasn’t just the school’s reputation being damaged, but that many people’s careers could be affected.
The leader had a headache and sighed, “Should we maybe ask that girl to come in and talk again?”
The head of the Academic Affairs Office slammed the table and said,
“Let me remind everyone, don’t keep picking the softest target! Even clay dolls have tempers. That girl has already been very polite and cooperative with us. She’s already made a public statement. What more do you want? Do you want her to start a livestream and say everything was her fault? I’m begging you all, be human!”
There are still people in the school who care about fairness. Yes, students are the easiest group to pressure, but you can’t just keep bullying them!
Besides, that’s not the right way to calm down public anger online. At best, it’s only a short-term idea. Maybe everyone already knows what the right thing to do is... They’re just waiting for someone brave enough to speak up first.
They kept talking about Lin Yibai, public opinion, and possible solutions.
After a long discussion, they still couldn’t come up with a clear plan.
Finally, someone quietly said, “How about we talk about that company that caused all this? What do you all think?”
The head of Academic Affairs took a drag from his cigarette and said in a low voice.
“What’s there to talk about? That company may be nothing special, but it was brought in by the previous school leadership as one of our campus recruitment partners. They used our department’s 100% job placement rate as an achievement to get promoted to a government position. If we now cut ties with that company, wouldn’t it be like slapping our old leaders in the face?”
Are you trying to get yourself fired?
Or does anyone here actually dare to take the lead on this?
In a system like this, rejecting someone else’s achievements is basically the same as making enemies.
The meeting room fell silent again for a long time.
Finally, someone broke the silence and said, “I mean… is it possible that this whole thing isn’t the fault of our school, or that girl Lin Baiyi, or even the company that was brought in by the former leaders?”
The head of Academic Affairs raised his eyebrows and asked curiously, “Oh? What are you suggesting?”
That person smiled and slowly said, “What if… this was actually just the personal behavior of a certain someone? He treated our students like slaves. Not only did he damage the school’s reputation, he also hurt the company’s image. Shouldn’t we all come together and take a stand against people like that?”
The head of Academic Affairs: “Damn!!”
He stared wide-eyed at the person who made the suggestion, a man who looked just a bit over thirty. All he could think was, ‘Young people these days really are sharp, this guy has a bright future!’
Yes, it was one person’s fault. One person’s actions caused problems for the whole group.
So that recruiter from the campus hiring event should take full responsibility for everything that happened.
In fact, that company was already in a mess. They didn’t manage to recruit a single “slave,” and many of their front-line sales positions were affected, which directly hurt the company’s performance.
And because of all the online backlash, there were now posts on the internet calling for a boycott of that unethical company’s products. In the long run, this was a disaster for their brand. They absolutely hated the HR recruiter who caused all this.
So when the school reached out for a talk, everyone quickly agreed on one thing.
Take him down!