Chapter 47: Weibo Trending Search Number One: Weibo Going Out of Business?

This name left netizens utterly bewildered.

"What's the meaning of this? I have to check this out."
"What the hell, did the Underworld start making donations too?"
"Is this a haunting?"
"Why does it suddenly feel so chilly?"

Netizens clicked to take a look, and oh boy.

"God Feng and SY making a joint donation?"
"Credit where credit is due, Mad Dog actually acted like a real man this time."
"Wait, what on earth are Black and White Impermanence?"
"I know about this. Last night during his live stream, God Feng said he was going to donate all his gifts and asked everyone to come up with a name for his fan group. They ended up voting for Black and White Impermanence. It's hilarious as hell."
"Hahaha, I can't even, Black and White Impermanence of all things—whoever he points at dies, right?"
"By the way, Jiang Wei and Liang Fei's donations were also invited by God Feng."
"Redefining the word 'invitation'."
"No wonder those two clowns suddenly started donating."
"As expected of God Feng, a streamer full of positive energy!"
"God Feng is awesome!"

The trending search for the Soul-Reaping Envoys' donation soared rapidly, quickly stepping over and burying the trending searches for Liang Fei and Jiang Wei's donations.

What broke the two men's hearts even more was that the ten million they donated was also credited by netizens to Xu Qingfeng's account.

"What the actual hell? That was money donated by me! What the fuck does it have to do with that animal Xu?"
"I'll screw your ancestors!" Liang Fei was so furious he turned bright red.
"Damn you, Jiang Wei! Damn you, Xu Qingfeng!"
"Using my money to polish their own image, are they?"

Both men were shaking with rage, but the matter was far from over. Although Jiang Wei and Liang Fei had apologized and made donations, the fallout had not dissipated.

Zhang Hongbo had essentially received a death sentence from the capital investors. All his endorsement contracts were terminated, and he was facing massive financial penalties.

New dramas that had already been negotiated were completely put on hold, and Xinghui Entertainment mobilized all its connections, only managing to secure a temporary shelving of the projects.

Commercial performances were entirely canceled, and variety shows and galas severed cooperation at the first possible moment. Everyone was in a wait-and-see mode; since official disciplinary actions had not yet been released, no one could figure out whether he still held any residual value.

Capital has never possessed any empathy. Just as they had abandoned Xu Qingfeng without hesitation back then, they were abandoning Zhang Hongbo today without a second thought.

The only difference was that Xinghui Entertainment was still backing Zhang Hongbo, making it seem like he still had a sliver of survival left.

Zhang Hongbo was gasping for his last breaths. Having been exposed earliest, he had already endured the baptism of countless subsequent trending searches by others, to the point where the public was almost forgetting what he had actually done wrong.

Jiang Wei and Liang Fei, however, were entirely different. The scandals surrounding them were simply too fresh.

Brothers-in-law and kindred spirits—no matter who it was, everyone had something to say about them. The number of followers on their Weibo accounts plummeted, and their comment sections became a wasteland of curses.

The whitewashing campaigns that used to be foolproof had lost their utility, because while they were frantically trying to whitewash themselves, the opposing camp was frantically smearing them. With both forces canceling each other out, it was as if they had done nothing at all.

The mutual tearing down between the two sides turned Weibo into a foul, murky mess. By the end, the people stepping into the arena to rip into them could no longer be clearly identified as belonging to either faction.

Jiang Wei's reputation was ruined, and Liang Fei was completely finished.

Xu Qingfeng's credibility had already won the recognition of the capital. Although this guy was completely unhinged, the scandals he exposed were one hundred percent real.

When he exposed Li Deshou, nobody believed him, so Li ended up in a police detention center and vanished from public view. When he exposed Chen He, people believed it even less, yet that animal Chen had been wearing silver bracelets for several days. When he exposed Zhang Hongbo, people didn't believe it, but his grave was already buried up to his neck. And Miao Qing? People didn't believe that either, yet now the label of "public bus" would probably follow her for the rest of her life.

If an ordinary person dared to spread fake dirt, they would simply wait to be disciplined by the iron fist of the law. Yet Xu Qingfeng remained completely unscathed; aside from getting his Weibo muted and taking a bit of abuse, he ate well, slept well, and remained active as a bee.

It was utterly bizarre. No matter how much people refused to believe it, deep down, they couldn't help but harbor doubts.

This was what you call reputation.

Consequently, although Jiang Wei and Liang Fei's endorsement brands didn't directly break their contracts, they all decided against renewing them and started taking down the duo's promotional posters that very day.

Given the current exposures, forcing them to pay financial compensation might be a bit difficult, but the negative impact had to be minimized to the absolute limit.

Jiang Wei's confirmed concert was announced as canceled almost simultaneously due to "force majeure" factors.

All of Liang Fei's movie offers were rescinded.

Commercial performances, variety shows, and galas treated them like venomous snakes. The only two offers they received were purely intended to exploit their negative traffic and squeeze out their remaining value.

With a single live stream, Xu Qingfeng had launched an unprecedented—and in all likelihood, never-to-be-repeated—artillery barrage on Weibo, while simultaneously triggering a vicious turf war between Jiang Wei and Liang Fei.

The massive cesspool of fan circles began to bubble and churn once again.

The most crucial part was that the dark secrets of Weibo exposed by Xu Qingfeng had finally been verified.

While the trending search about Weibo officials being cursed out hadn't been pulled down, the trending searches for Jiang Wei and Liang Fei bounced up and down repeatedly, bearing far too obvious traces of manual manipulation.

At Weibo headquarters, several executives were so angry they wanted to curse their mothers.

Right in the eye of the storm, they hadn't even dared to pull down their own trending searches, yet Jiang Wei and Liang Fei's tags were being removed left and right as they tore at each other like rabid dogs.

This was partly because their agents didn't take things seriously, but also because internal factions within Weibo were deliberately trying to sabotage each other.

The larger a company grew, the more factions it contained, and the lucrative fat pie of trending searches was something more than just a few people wanted a bite of.

Weibo's trending search list began to spin completely out of control.

Nosy netizens even took screenshots of the trending rankings every single minute, meticulously recording the view counts and discussion volumes of each hot topic.

"The number one trending topic has 11 million views and 5,000 discussions, while the second one has 170 million views and 17,000 discussions! And they still have the shameless nerve to claim they don't sell trending spots!"
"It's crystal clear. Aren't these trending searches way too absurd?"
"Just go bankrupt already! Trash platform!"
"Truly a public toilet, anyone who pays can get on the list!"
"Dumping garbage onto the trending list every single day!"
"God Feng is awesome for managing to expose even this. If Weibo is useless, it might as well go under!"
"I think SHANYING is pretty good."
"That's right, produced by God Feng, completely trustworthy!"

The internet was filled with curses, and Weibo took the brunt of the foul-mouthed abuse. Unable to take it anymore, they resorted to an even more erroneous tactic: muting accounts and deleting comments.

They couldn't delete Xu Qingfeng's Weibo posts because his influence was too massive and would easily trigger an explosion, but ordinary users were of no concern to them—they would delete you the moment they felt like it, showing zero tolerance.

Little did they realize that countless people were simply waiting for them to make a stupid move. Weibo's frantic wave of account mutes and comment deletions directly provoked widespread public anger.

In an instant, whistleblower reports flew toward the Cyberspace Administration like snowflakes, and the number of cancelled Weibo accounts surged. In less than a day, the number of deactivated users exceeded one million.

Seeing that the situation was slipping out of control, Weibo quickly halted its actions and forcefully put an end to all trending-search manipulation.

As a result, a truly magical phenomenon appeared on the trending list.

#WeiboGoesBankrupt# forcefully occupied the number one spot on the trending list, leaving netizens highly amused.
#JiangWeiPlaysBadminton#
#LiangFeiStirsRiceNoodles#
Ranked second and third respectively, these tags—bought at great expense by the two unfortunate scapegoats—were permanently frozen in place.

The fourth entry made the audience laugh so hard their jaws dropped.
#BlackAndWhiteImpermanenceDonateFifteenMillion#

The reason it totaled fifteen million was because everyone had lumped Jiang Wei and Liang Fei's donations into Xu Qingfeng's tally as well.