Chapter 55: The Heart of the People
Wu Hao drove to the company and took out his cell phone while eating bread.
He found the Weibo post that reporter Xu had posted half an hour ago. He felt somewhat guilty for having misunderstood the other party just now. He wanted to know how many netizens had scolded reporter Xu, and if necessary, he could gather all the company's employees to clear reporter Xu's name.
However, when he clicked on the comment section and saw the comments displayed, his eyes immediately widened and he even forgot to chew the bread in his mouth.
"Publicly apologizing and pinning it on the top of your post can barely be considered sincere. I hope you didn't say this because of pressure from public opinion."
"I didn't expect that Jay would reflect on himself. It seems that he is not hopeless."
"Not bad, like a man. I thought you were going to be a coward forever."
“Admitting one’s mistakes and correcting them is the greatest virtue.”
"I want to thank Soft Rice Jie. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be able to eat such delicious dumplings."
“…”
Wu Hao stared at every comment in amazement. How could this be different from what he imagined? These fans were too easy to fool, weren't they?
Hey, hey, hey, aren’t you anti-fans? You keep cursing and scolding me, how can you accept an apology so easily?
Did you eat too many dumplings and get water in your brain ?
Come on, bring out the energy you had when you were in the black bar and keep cursing.
Wu Hao was very angry and felt extremely unbalanced.
He even once doubted whether he was too old, his ideas were outdated, and he could not keep up with the pace of the times. Otherwise, how could he not understand the netizens' standards of right and wrong?
“Dangdangdang!”
At this time, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in." Wu Hao said coldly.
Click!
The office door was pushed open and Su Lei walked in with a grin on his face.
"Brother Hao, are you busy?"
"What are you doing here?" Wu Hao asked unhappily.
"Aren't you here to see if there's anything you can do to help Brother Hao?" Su Lei said with a smile.
"You're a graduate of an agricultural college, why do you come to my advertising and media company all day long?" Wu Hao was unhappy. The more he looked at this guy, the more he disliked him.
"Brother Hao, although I went to an agricultural college, I majored in computer network engineering, so I am still very professional in photoshopping a picture." Su Lei said confidently.
"Internet?" Wu Hao narrowed his eyes, thinking. After a while, he suddenly took out his mobile phone and put it on the table. He pointed at the screen and asked Su Lei: "Tell me, what is going on?"
Su Lei rushed over and thought the phone was broken at first, so he was about to restart it, but he found out that was not the case.
"Isn't this Xu Jie's Weibo? What's wrong?" Su Lei asked puzzledly.
Wu Hao said with a sullen face, "This morning, I went to see reporter Xu again. I told him that the dumpling restaurant was opened by my friend and asked him to delete the Weibo post he posted yesterday and make a promotional advertisement for the dumpling restaurant..."
"Fuck, isn't this just making things difficult for me?" Su Lei gave a thumbs up, "Brother Hao, do you have a solution? What else?"
Wu Hao's face was gloomy. Was this a compliment or an insult?
I used to think that the other person was just a chatterbox, but now I know that he is just an idiot.
He gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to slap the other person in the face, and continued, "Then the fans not only didn't scold him, but also didn't scold the dumpling restaurant. I just can't understand, for the same promotion, why would these netizens scold the bar?"
Su Lei flipped through Weibo and found that it was just as Brother Hao said. The comments at the top were all forgiving, and occasionally a few comments with swearing could be found, but they would be impossible to find unless you looked hard.
"Brother Hao, isn't this simple? Those comments with a lot of likes must be from Xu Jie's water army. Maybe there are also Xu Jie's smurfs among them, trying to whitewash himself." Su Lei said smartly.
"Water army? Isn't he a reporter?" Wu Hao asked puzzledly.
Internet trolls are usually hired by celebrities to hype topics and gain traffic. How come even a small reporter is doing this?
Does he want to follow Su Yun into the entertainment industry?
This idea is a bit wild!
However, it is indeed very popular to invite celebrity couples to participate in reality shows recently, so maybe reporter Xu is just hyping himself up.
"Brother Hao, as journalists, they understand better how to use water armies to control the direction of public opinion." Su Lei said seriously.
Wu Hao looked at Su Lei. He didn't expect that what this good-for-nothing said today made sense. Otherwise, he would not be able to explain the difference in fans' behavior before and after.
"Oh, right." Wu Hao asked again, "You said, last time we invited him to help promote the bar, there was a lot of abuse in the Weibo comment section. Could it be that he hired some trolls?"
Su Lei thought about it for a while, then shook his head and said, "I don't think it's likely."
"Why?"
"As the name suggests, Internet trolls are only online trolls. You know how big the commotion was at the bar, brother Hao. Even the police came. If only one or two people called 110 without any evidence, would the police believe it? There must have been a lot of people who called 110, which alerted the police."
Wu Hao nodded, but when he saw Su Lei's face, his past experience told him that this kid's words were like a cannon, loud but inaccurate.
At this moment he thought of someone, so he got up and left the office.
"Brother Hao, where are we going?" Su Lei asked behind him.
"You stay in the room, I'm going to get something and will be back soon." Wu Hao said.
"Okay." Su Lei stopped, sat on the sofa beside him, took out his mobile phone and started playing Landlord.
Wu Hao came to the car, rummaged through the storage compartment, and finally picked out a business card from the armrest box. He took out his mobile phone and dialed the number on it.
Soon, the call was connected.
"Hello? Who is it?"
"I'm Wu Hao."
"Wu, Mr. Wu?! Hello, Mr. Wu, what can I do for you? I'm happy to serve you." The voice in the microphone was shaking, and it sounded extremely excited.
"You are a reporter from the Life Channel of Beijing TV Station. Do you know a person named Xu Jie?" Wu Hao asked after looking at the introduction on the business card.
"Xu Jie? I know him. He and I are from the same program team. Why is Mr. Wu asking about him?"
Wu Hao was slightly startled when he heard this, thinking, what a coincidence?
"Has he behaved in any abnormal way on TV recently?" Wu Hao asked.
"Abnormal? Yes, ever since he and Su Yun registered and got their marriage certificate, he has become more and more crazy, and often talks back at seniors. He is simply a black sheep."
"Really?" Wu Hao was a little surprised. From his recent contact with reporter Xu, he seemed not to be the kind of person Shi Fei described. However, people's hearts are often hidden. After all, not everyone has a father who is the deputy director.
"Well, especially in the past two days, he has been accepting advertisements privately, venting his anger on Weibo, and often sneaking around with another colleague from our column team. I don't know what they are discussing..."
"What did they say?" Wu Hao interrupted the other party and asked.
"I didn't hear it clearly, but I think they were talking about 'the fans didn't disappoint me', 'give her a surprise', 'see the effect', and they were laughing and talking."
Wu Hao frowned. Was he talking about him?
Although it was just a few words, it sounded very uncomfortable, as if everything was within the expectations of reporter Xu. Could it be the same with the incident at the bar?
"By the way, he posted an advertisement about a bar on Weibo a few days ago and later deleted it. Did you notice his reaction when he was at work that day?" Wu Hao asked.
"Reaction? It's weird. He was scolded to death by netizens that night, but he was very calm when he went to work the next day, as if nothing had happened. He is so shameless. I guess he got the advertising fee and doesn't care about the effect. The bar owner is also stupid. He actually hired him to do the advertising. I guess he is crying in the bathroom right now."
“…”
Wu Hao looked unhappy. Although the other party was saying that the bar owner was stupid, he was the one who asked reporter Xu to do the advertisement, which was equivalent to scolding him as well.
However, listening to this person's description, reporter Xu's reaction was indeed abnormal.
"Shi Fei, I have a favor to trouble you." Wu Hao said.
"No trouble, please go ahead."
"Keep an eye on Xu Jie for me. If there's anything unusual, let me know. This is my cell phone number."
"Don't worry, Mr. Wu. I'm the best at this. I promise to keep an eye on him for you."
"Well, that's it."
After hanging up the phone, Shi Fei secretly glanced at the window seat in the back row, feeling gloating.
Xu Jie, ah, Xu Jie, you are in my hands this time.
Hey, you're done!
…
