Chapter 46: Sigh! The account & Capitalism

Black profile picture.
Period as a username.
Talked like an asshole.
IP always located in Central District.

That was already four matching traits.

Lin Zhiyan calmly evaluated the account, then reopened the video posted there, replaying it over and over while repeatedly listening to the few spoken lines in it.

Great.

The voice sounded like Lu Weixi too.

So this account belonged to Lu Weixi?

After reaching that conclusion, Lin Zhiyan immediately sat down at her desk and began researching. After digging around for a while, she realized Lu Weixi actually was cautious—there wasn’t a single selfie on the account.

However, he had posted many screenshots of his accounts being reported by platforms.

Using those screenshots, Lin Zhiyan quickly located several of his banned accounts on other platforms. After browsing through his past posts, she felt his bans were entirely justified.

For example, on a microblogging platform like TweetBlog, his daily routine consisted of reposting other people’s posts just to mock them.

Meanwhile, on a photo-sharing app called Outs, his daily routine was flexing luxury cars, watches, designer brands, his physique, outdoor activities, and then slapping on ridiculously dark shadow filters over everything.

One by one, Lin Zhiyan dug out his accounts, then followed his old follows all the way back until she successfully found his earliest TweetBlog account.

The latest post there had been made just now.

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: I will never reconcile with people who love tattling.]

Lin Zhiyan scrolled downward and found a post from several days ago.

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: Going to Districts 11 and 12 in a few days. If people start preaching at me nonstop, I’m using a machine gun.]

The Interstellar United Empire had once expanded through war and colonization. Nowadays, it maintained its prosperity by absorbing and assimilating immigrants. Every district retained a certain level of autonomy, which meant the power structures of each district were extremely complicated.

For example, District 3 was an economic and technological hub where conglomerates held enough influence to create miniature corporate political circles.

District 4, meanwhile, was dominated more heavily by military and police authority.

As for places like Districts 11 and 12—clusters of cities connected to residential and slum regions—religious organizations often stood above secular power.

Lu Weixi was probably wary of the religious forces there.

Lin Zhiyan opened the comments section.

“Don’t provoke the mob spawner.”

“Brother Lu exiled you to the frontier?”

Lu Weixi only replied to the second comment:

“f*ck off!”

Who exactly was this “Brother Lu”?

Lin Zhiyan began combing through his interaction list, trying to find someone surnamed Lu.

By now, the sky had grown very dark.

She was getting sleepy too.

But Lin Zhiyan summoned the same determination she once used preparing for the college entrance exams. Tonight, she was absolutely going to completely research Lu Weixi’s accounts.

At the same time, she thought viciously:

Lu Weixi, just you wait. You pissed me off, so I’m going to stalk your online activity forever. Even if I never actually do anything else, I’ll definitely show up when you’re unlucky.

Lin Zhiyan researched all the way until three in the morning.

At this point, she had successfully acquired four separate TweetBlog accounts belonging to Lu Weixi.

And buried in the eighty-ninth post on Account #2, she finally found a “Brother Lu” who had interacted with him.

The post had been made several years ago.

It was a censored group photo, captioned:

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: An annoying older brother left. R.I.P. 【prayer emoji】]

One comment underneath stood out sharply:

[Arlo-Lu: Looks like your fists haven’t eaten enough yet?]

Lu Weixi had replied with a smiling emoji.

This “Lu”…

Could he be that “Brother Lu”?

Curious, Lin Zhiyan clicked into the account.

The “Brother Lu” account was still active. The profile picture was a sword, and the account was almost entirely reposts of cute pets or funny videos.

And his captions were extremely repetitive.

Either:

“Hahahahaha”

or

“This is fun”

or

“Nice.”

…It somehow radiated the terrifying aura of an ultra-extroverted normie.

Digging through older posts, Lin Zhiyan found several people directly calling him “Brother Lu” in the comments.

Clicking into their accounts revealed they were also students from the United Military-Political Academy.

Lin Zhiyan stroked her chin.

At this point, she had gathered a lot of information.

This Brother Lu was very close to Lu Weixi, but probably no longer attended the school.

Even after switching accounts multiple times, Lu Weixi still mutually followed him, meaning their relationship remained close.

Lastly, Brother Lu also seemed to be an alumnus of the academy and was currently located in Telong County City, one of District 4’s cities.

The comments saying Lu Weixi had been “exiled” by Lu implied Brother Lu held fairly high status.

After thinking for a while, Lin Zhiyan began messaging someone.

[yzy: Can you buy social media accounts? The kind that can’t be traced to a real identity.]

[aaaAnythingAccepted: Yep. Five thousand credits for three accounts. Includes ID verification and virtual identities.]

[yzy: ? Why do you have everything]

[aaaAnythingAccepted: Guessing you’ll also want:

【500 virtual image pack】

【300 multi-scene image pack】

【100 activity image pack】

Spend another thousand and I’ll throw in extras.]

Lin Zhiyan: “……”

If she wanted fake photos, couldn’t she just generate them with AI herself?

Then another message arrived.

[aaaAnythingAccepted: Includes anti-image-search algorithm interference. Impossible to reverse-search online. Totally realistic.]

[yzy: …Fine.]

After receiving the accounts and image packs, Lin Zhiyan didn’t rush into action.

Instead, she checked the academy forum.

Sure enough, several trending posts were discussing Jiang Yi’s canceled course.

[??? Anyone else take War History? Did you guys get the notice too?]

[What???]

[Heard Instant Noodles and Baguette got into a fight]

[f*ck, we sat through all those classes for nothing!]

[Will there be compensation? Otherwise I’m actually gonna assassinate Instant Noodles!]

[Calm down upstairs. If someone knocks on your door later don’t open it.]

[Does anyone know more details?]

[The information got locked down really fast. I only saw that both of them got summoned by the school.]

Lin Zhiyan read through several posts and noticed nobody mentioned her involvement.

Everyone was focused entirely on cursing those two lunatics.

That relieved her a little.

The information lockdown seemed extremely strict. Otherwise, if even one or two people mentioned she had been present, these people probably wouldn’t let her off easily.

After all, they couldn’t do anything to Jiang Yi or Lu Weixi.

But her? She was someone they could bully freely.

Lin Zhiyan then searched the campus forum for “Lu” and similar-sounding nicknames.

She guessed Brother Lu probably had nicknames too.

Unfortunately, after searching for an hour, she only found one vague post.

The post said some people were extremely good at disguising themselves. Acting friendly with everyone was merely a cover for their tyrannical nature.

The replies were filled with question marks mocking the original poster for acting crazy.

Only one person had commented:

“Lu?”

Lin Zhiyan couldn’t determine whether it was the same Lu.

But she could determine one thing:

It was already four in the morning.

The sky outside had begun faintly brightening.

Finally, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

The next day, her emotions seemed completely back to normal.

When Aiwen asked about the cancellation of War History, Lin Zhiyan simply smiled as though it were no big deal.

And just like that, a week passed.

Lin Zhiyan continued substitute-attending classes for Lu Weixi and successfully completed all her elective course assessments.

She let out a breath of relief, feeling the burden on her shoulders lighten considerably.

Then, shortly after elective finals week ended, all students who had selected War History received a brief notification:

[Due to the cancellation of War History because of unforeseen circumstances—and because the course was already near completion—the following students will participate in a two-day, one-night educational trip to Telong County City in District 4 as compensation.

After the trip concludes, credits will be added to next semester’s elective statistics.

The trip is currently tentative. Timing has not yet been finalized. Please prepare in advance.]

Orange sunset light spilled across the campus.

“Telong County City?” Aiwen walked beside Lin Zhiyan beneath the trees, looking at her face. “What a shame I didn’t take that class. Otherwise I could’ve gone with you.”

Lin Zhiyan blinked while staring at the message, her mind somewhat blank.

After a pause, she asked,

“What are educational trips usually like?”

“Usually just touring schools, government offices, city infrastructure, things like that.” Aiwen sounded slightly helpless as she thought about it. “Honestly, they’re kind of boring. But there’s usually free time afterward. If I could go too, we could explore together.”

“—But even without me, you probably still can, right?”

Aiwen suddenly remembered something and wiggled her brows suggestively at Lin Zhiyan.

Receiving the signal, Lin Zhiyan forced a smile while cold sweat spread across her back.

“Well, it says tentative, doesn’t it? Maybe the plans could still change.”

Aiwen shrugged and draped an arm over Lin Zhiyan’s shoulder, green eyes fixed on her.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you want to see Lemang?”

“H-how could that be?” Lin Zhiyan licked her lips and reached up to straighten Aiwen’s bangs. “I’m just afraid of getting excited too early and ending up disappointed, so I keep denying it.”

Aiwen immediately understood and laughed.

“I know what you mean. I get like that too sometimes!”

No, you don’t.

You know absolutely nothing.

Lin Zhiyan’s neck twitched. She almost wanted to bury her fingers into her hair.

So annoying.

Why, after barely half a month, did she already have to deal with those people again?

Even after parting ways with Aiwen, Lin Zhiyan’s brain still felt numb.

She repeatedly reopened the notification, repeatedly checked the participant list.

Then she opened Lu Weixi’s account.

Recently, Lin Zhiyan had been stalking Lu Weixi online like some internet cockroach.

She had reached one conclusion:

This man was a pure online lifeform.

He spent twenty-four hours a day online with terrifying intensity, radiating the energy of someone dumb enough to take selfies even while carrying out missions.

Sure enough, Lu Weixi had just posted several new updates.

[One minute I’m going to District 12, next minute District 4. Can I just grow wings already?]

[Big Brother’s been talking for forty minutes and still hasn’t gotten to the point. Did his brain get genetically modified too?]

[Why do people keep DMing me begging for money every day? If you’re broke, go steal or rob someone. Don’t you have hands?]

Inside the military council chamber, uniformed officers sat in rows while the speaker on stage droned endlessly.

The chamber lighting was solemn and dim yellow. Though the room itself was enormous, the presence of so many tall, heavily built people somehow made it feel cramped.

Today’s meeting emphasized discipline.

Naturally, the cause was last week’s conflict between Lu Weixi and Jiang Yi at the academy.

Meanwhile, the long-standing discord between the Direct Military and Honorary Military had already displeased the cabinet.

The lengthy meeting spent its first half criticizing “certain individuals,” namely Jiang Yi and Lu Weixi.

The second half devolved into endless statistics and case reports.

Most attendees looked bored—daydreaming, pretending to sleep, or resting their chins on their hands.

Lu Weixi and Jiang Yi both sat in the front rows with several seats between them.

Jiang Yi could still listen expressionlessly.

Lu Weixi absolutely could not.

He pulled out his terminal, preparing to complain about a few more things online, when a message from Lu Suiyuan suddenly arrived.

[Arlo-Lu.: Looking to get beaten up again?]

[Arlo-Lu.: 【image】]

Lu Weixi opened it and saw screenshots of the posts he had just made.

He froze, irritation rising instantly.

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: I can’t even complain about being tired now?]

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: Can you mind your own business instead of monitoring what I post online]

[Arlo-Lu.: You think I want to?]

[Arlo-Lu.: Do you realize all your accounts are being collected and mass reported?]

Lu Weixi’s eyes widened.

His brain blanked for several seconds.

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: What are you talking about? Reported?]

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: Reported for what? Having a bad temper?]

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: Or for being rich?]

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: f*ck, have you figured out who’s doing it? How do they know my accounts?]

[Arlo-Lu.: Which idiot besides you insults people everywhere while begging for attention?]

[Arlo-Lu.: I’m still investigating.]

[Arlo-Lu.: 【link】Do you know this person?]

Lu Weixi opened the link and navigated through layer after layer of encrypted authorization.

Finally, a photo and several lines of information appeared.

He stared at them for a long time, brows tightly furrowed, gray-blue eyes lowered.

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: Don’t know her.]

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: Why would she report me? What was the reason?]

[Arlo-Lu.: She’s from the academy. You don’t know her?]

[Arlo-Lu.: 【link】Whatever. The reason’s here. Look yourself.]

[Arlo-Lu.: Districts 4 and 12 aren’t enough to contain you. One day you’re getting sent to District 16.]

Lu Weixi frowned and clicked in again.

After agreeing to various permissions once more, the reporting backend opened.

He scrolled to the reason section.

Soon, several lines appeared.

【AAAAAHHH BABY YOU ARE SUCH A STUPID CHEAP ANNOYING DUMBASS!!!】

Lu Weixi: “…?”

He stared at it in disbelief several times.

Then he exited the link and messaged Lu Suiyuan.

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: ???]

The next second, a red exclamation mark appeared.

【System Notification: This account has been deleted.】

Lu Weixi’s mind went blank.

Several seconds later, before he could react, another message arrived.

[ArIo-Lu: ? 【image】]

He opened it.

It was a screenshot from his friend feed showing a purchase notification:

【I just spent 54,250 star credits on TweetBlog purchasing: [Second-Hand Brain]!】

[ArIo-Lu: Did you get scammed?]

Lu Weixi couldn’t stop himself from shouting:

“f*ck!”

Everyone around immediately looked toward him.

He instantly covered his forehead.

His blood boiled with rage, yet his entire body also felt numb.

What the hell was this?!

What was happening?!

Furious, Lu Weixi opened both “Lu Suiyuan” accounts and checked their profiles.

Instantly, he realized the earlier “Lu Suiyuan” profile had actually been completely blank. It merely copied the same avatar and fake name.

Unlike the real Lu Suiyuan, whose profile had years of activity, followers, and posts.

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: f*ck, someone impersonated you and tricked me into opening links!]

[ArIo-Lu: ?]

[ArIo-Lu: HAHAHAHAHAHA you actually clicked them?]

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: YES I CLICKED THEM]

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: I’m seriously speechless. The way they talked was exactly the same. Who the hell is being this annoying?]

[ArIo-Lu: I’m more curious about when your second-hand brain arrives.]

Lu Weixi still felt dizzy, ears ringing as blood rushed to his head.

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: Stop f*cking joking around]

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: What kind of psycho shares that to my friend feed?]

[ArIo-Lu: Hurry and delete it. Lots of people already liked it.]

Lu Weixi furiously opened his friend feed to delete it—

only to discover nothing was there.

He froze and sent a screenshot to Lu Suiyuan.

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: What’s going on?]

[ArIo-Lu: ? Maybe the link had a virus script.]

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: f*cking hell, may their whole family die for messing with me like this]

[CrushingPotatoChipsBarehanded: Tonight I’m finding out who did this. I’ll kill them!]

[ArIo-Lu: No need. I got curious and investigated just now.]

Soon, Lu Weixi received another image.

Filled with rage, eyes dark with hostility, he opened it.

The image loaded slowly.

A blurry feminine profile picture appeared—

then suddenly sharpened.

Several grotesque ghost faces burst onto the screen like they were lunging out at him.

Lu Weixi screamed in shock and flung his terminal into the air.

This time, his voice echoed especially loudly.

The entire council chamber turned to stare at him again.

But Lu Weixi no longer cared.

Picking up his terminal, face dark and stormy, he strode outside while immediately calling Lu Suiyuan.

“LU SUIYUAN! ARE YOU f*cking SICK?!”

His fingers clenched tightly.

“What now?” Lu Suiyuan sounded baffled.

“Why the hell are you sending me ghost pictures?!”

Lu Weixi gritted his teeth.

“Do you think I’m in the mood to joke around right now?!”

Lu Suiyuan paused several seconds.

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m already busy cleaning up your mess and arranging this stupid educational trip. Why would I have time to send you ghost pictures?”

Lu Weixi’s lips parted slightly.

His eyes turned blank.

He hung up.

Opening Lu Suiyuan’s account again, he quickly discovered that account had also been deleted.

Before deletion, it left behind one final message:

【Idiot.】

Lu Weixi: “…?”

Nearly numb now, he examined the deleted accounts carefully.

Only then did he realize:

The first account had added an extra “.” at the end.

The second account had replaced the “L” in “Lu” with a capital “I”.

Meaning—

he had been tricked twice by the same person.

The world spun around him.

Anger clogged his chest, yet he couldn’t even figure out where to direct it.

Then another text message arrived, adding fresh fuel to the fire.

[Hello. Your account has just been charged 54,250 star credits through TweetBlog Verification Services for 【Product Purchase】. If you have concerns regarding this order, please contact us.]

Lu Weixi braced himself against the wall.

Layers of redness spread across his pale face alongside fine beads of sweat.

He ripped off his military cap and shoved his platinum hair back, breathing unevenly.

Who the hell was it?!

He was so angry he felt faint.

The orange sunset gradually faded gray.

Meanwhile—

Lin Zhiyan clutched her terminal while rolling around on her bed laughing hysterically.

Ha.

She had spent an entire week carefully nurturing that second account before activating it.

Originally, she planned to use the second one only if the first failed.

Yet this idiot had fallen for the very first account immediately.

This guy was practically built for targeted online scams and pig-butchering schemes.

Lin Zhiyan secretly wondered whether she should “take care” of this repeat customer more often in the future.

Then suddenly, her terminal began vibrating repeatedly.

She instantly covered it without daring to check the messages.

Damn it all.

She didn’t want to go to District 4.

Please, please don’t let it be another school notification…

Lin Zhiyan began praying fervently.