My Online Girlfriend Has a Twin Sister

Mingzhu City.

On the hidden terrace of a small villa, a woman wrapped in a soft-colored shawl lay lounging on a sofa. She held her phone, her eyes fixed on the video playing on the screen.

The video showed a scene of noisy chaos.

Hundreds of people were gathered together, their faces all sharing the same indignant expression. The cries for unpaid wages were endless. Even though she wasn’t there, the woman could still feel their fury.

For hardworking laborers, all this talk of "value" and "dedication" was unrealistic. The only comfort in their stifling lives was the salary they received each month. Money was the only thing that was real. Working day and night, endlessly competing in a rat race for performance metrics like beasts of burden—if not for the money, was it all to foster a spirit of selfless contribution?

Drifting far from home, living in such harsh conditions... With elderly parents to support and young children to raise, and with loans to pay every month, a stable salary was a lifeline.

Having their wages withheld for four or five months had long ago made the company’s employees extremely dissatisfied, a fire of resentment simmering within them.

Finally, it seemed there was light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone at the company, from top to bottom, heard they had a massive surge in orders and that their wages were finally secure. But their happiness was short-lived. The news suddenly came that there was no money for wages after all... and that the company was even being shut down, with the boss about to skip town!

Who could stand for that?

The boss could run off and be free, but what about the lives of these workhorses? To be used as free labor for five months—where on earth does something like that happen?

Panic and anger surged into their minds simultaneously. Besides surrounding the office and shouting for justice, these people had no other options. What’s more, someone had already infiltrated their ranks, fanning the flames of their demand for wages.

They didn’t want to cause trouble; they just wanted to get back what was theirs.

"Pay us! Pay us!"

"Release our wages! Compensate us according to the law!"

The five-minute-plus video came to an abrupt end with a shaky camera shot. The final shouts still seemed to echo in her ears as a replay button appeared in the center of the screen.

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and a scornful smile appeared on her lips.

She immediately picked up another phone beside her and dialed a number.

"The time is about right. Tonight, I want you to contact Assistant Qin. Tell her she can send out the materials we’ve prepared. The lawyer will be waiting for her on East Huidong Road in two hours."

"Good, do it just like that. We’ll deliver the fatal blow to Jiangg Ruxue at this critical moment... By the way, have you contacted those ’mouthpieces’? The price doesn’t matter. You think I’d stiff you? Go ahead and do it with confidence. Pay them the standard rate. And another thing, don’t expose yourself."

She made one call after another, methodically arranging everything. She was clearly experienced, and this was not the first time she had done something like this.

If Jiangg Ruxue had been there and seen the woman’s face, she would have been utterly shocked. This person was an old friend she had known for years. No one would have ever imagined she would stoop to such dirty work in private.

In this information age, if you want to destroy a person, the best way is to first destroy their reputation. When one person tells ten, and ten tell a hundred, they quickly become a public enemy.

Every gossip-hungry netizen watching from the sidelines is always eager for juicier material; they don’t care about the truth at all.

Once a reputation is tarnished and a first impression is made, you fall into an indefensible position. Most importantly, no one will listen to your explanation. A single casual rumor is enough to nail someone to the pillar of shame for good.

Some people had targeted this very weakness, using sex scandals to frame others. It didn’t matter if you were a criminal, a law-abiding citizen, an entrepreneur, or a public figure—once targeted by a viper like this, there was almost no escape.

The most terrifying part was that these framers were part of a vast community of shared interests, spread across the globe, their organization so secretive it was almost impossible to imagine or uncover.

From this, one could get a small, chilling glimpse into the dark side of the world.

...

「As midnight approached, the night air was cool as water.」

In a rented room in some unknown fourth-tier city, the only light in the dim space came from the faint glow of a laptop on a desk.

A figure sat in the computer chair—overweight, with a large head, wearing glasses. His silhouette was barely discernible.

When a DING signaled a new message, the man shot up straight.

As he leaned closer to the laptop’s glow, his face came into focus: a greasy face, a bird’s nest of unwashed hair, and a corpulent body that strained the flimsy computer chair, his fat bulging through its gaps.

The man opened the message. His fingers flew across his phone’s keyboard with a CLACK-CLACK-CLACK. After replying, he copied and pasted his bank account number and sent it over.

"Don’t worry, I’ve already got the video and the copy ready. It’s scheduled to go live after midnight... I’ve written countless articles like this. I guarantee it’ll go viral, bro. Just you wait and see."

He replied in a smarmy voice memo, holding down the record button.

After receiving the payment.

The man shoved aside a pile of takeout containers, pulled over some recording equipment, lowered his voice, and with a few clicks of the mouse, began to record the voice-over.

Scenes identical to this one were playing out in several small, distant county towns.

These "professional" independent content creators were already poised for action, just waiting for the signal to fire the first shot.

...

「Atop the high-rise.」

At the very center of the storm, Jiangg Ruxue’s chairman’s office was, by contrast, terrifyingly quiet, possessing the eerie calm that precedes death.

No matter how noisy it was outside, only the faintest of sounds made it into the office.

If one didn’t listen closely, they would likely hear nothing at all.

Jiangg Ruxue had made countless calls tonight. It wasn’t that she had no time to escape. On the contrary, if she had wanted to run, she’d had countless opportunities since last night.

A starved camel is still bigger than a horse. Even if the company went bankrupt and she faced legal repercussions, it wouldn’t be enough to destroy her. She would only lose everything she had now...

’But what could she do after running away?’

She had grown up in Mingzhu City and had painstakingly built her current life over so many years. If she lost all this, what would she have left? Running away would be more painful than death.

Jiangg Ruxue wasn’t actually afraid of legal punishment. No matter how serious things got, it was still just a commercial dispute. It was this outcome...

’She... she couldn’t accept it!’

And so, Jiangg Ruxue remained in her office.

She had already called everyone she could think of, over and over. For more than ten hours, she hadn’t eaten a single bite, too dazed to even feel hungry. She just waited, call after call, hoping for some kind of turnaround.

She had even begun to calculate the amount of compensation she would have to pay.

After a long while.

Jiangg Ruxue took a deep breath. As if remembering something, she quickly grabbed her phone and dialed a number.

"Hello... Zeng, don’t panic, just listen to me! Calm down. Did you find President Qi like I asked? Is he still abroad?"

"Okay, I understand. Remember, do not tell Ningning and Yaoyao about this, no matter what. As their uncle, if something happens to me, you’ll be the one they rely on from now on... Don’t you get it? It’s useless even if you tell them. This isn’t a problem two kids can solve. It will only cause them more worry."

"Alright, that’s settled. Call me back when you get in touch with President Qi... What is a grown man like you crying for! You hold those tears back!"

Even when forced into such a desperate corner, Jiangg Ruxue was still cold and harsh when she got angry.

But after she hung up, it was as if all the strength had been drained from her body. She collapsed back into her chair, her head lolling back, her vacant eyes staring at the ceiling.

’It seems... no one can save me now...’

’All hope is lost,’ Jiangg Ruxue thought in utter despair.

...