Chapter 2540 - 2604: Online Uproar
The hotel was the best in Dan City. When Li Yifei came over in the car arranged by Jiang Hu, he took one look at the hotel’s name and knew whose place it was. This hotel belonged to a guy in Dan City called Wang Taiji. The Wang Family counted as a not-so-small clan in Dan City. After Li Yifei took down several families in the provincial capital, he’d once held a banquet for guests; Wang Taiji had barely been qualified to show up at that time.
Of course, Jiang Hu would never go so far as to tell Wang Taiji about this matter. What if that ended up making Li Yifei unhappy? That kind of thing was not something he dared to gamble on.
"Uncle, I still have to say thank you. You made me believe there really are a lot of good people in this world, so maybe this time I was just a little bit unlucky." Before going into the room, Lang Wenqin called out to Li Yifei and thanked him.
"Most people in this world are just ordinary, a small number are the so-called good people, and an even smaller number are bad. But I also believe this time was just a coincidence." Li Yifei smiled.
Lang Wenqin nodded along. After Li Yifei finished speaking, she added, "When you run into something bad, just daring to stand up isn’t enough, you also need to be really strong, like you, Uncle."
"Haha, go in, get some rest early." Li Yifei shook the room card in his hand, watched Lang Wenqin walk in first, then went into the room himself. Their luggage had already been brought up. Starting today, Tang Fatty’s hotel was going to temporarily close down to accept investigation and rectification. It was likely Tang Fatty would never get back up again, might even be facing prison time. And in fact that was exactly how it turned out. After the investigation, they found that the hotels, restaurants, and other projects run by Tang Fatty all had tax evasion to varying degrees, plus passing off shoddy goods as quality, false marketing, and this kind of collusion with the Underworld, condoning pros... in short, the list of evidence they’d compiled was enough to make him choke on it, and what’s more, these charges weren’t made up—they were things Tang Fatty had truly done.
After a shower, lying back on the bed, Li Yifei plugged in his phone. As soon as he turned it on, several messages came flooding in. He glanced at the time and decided to reply tomorrow, since it was already a bit late. He replied to Chu Xiaoyao’s message, though. Sure enough, two minutes later she replied: "Uncle, what are you doing, why are you still not asleep this late?"
This form of address... Li Yifei had been called "Uncle" quite a few times today. Mm, Lang Wenqin was probably one or two years older than Chu Xiaoyao; the two were about the same age, but the feeling they gave off was still different. Li Yifei replied: "Aren’t you also still awake? It’s almost three. Can’t you play on the computer during the day?"
"Who said I wasn’t sleeping? After I sent you that message and you didn’t reply, I went to sleep. Then the moment you replied, I woke up!" Chu Xiaoyao answered.
"You didn’t put your phone on silent?"
"It was on vibrate, under my face."
"Sorry, I just finished up with something. I saw it and replied right away." Li Yifei quickly apologized.
Chu Xiaoyao sent a rolling-eyes emoji, then a few seconds later sent over a short video. Li Yifei tapped to open it and immediately felt his mouth go a bit dry. The girl was standing in the bathroom, wearing a thin nightdress, key parts faintly visible, temptation off the charts. Sending something like this at this hour really made it hard for Li Yifei to hold himself back.
"Does it look good?" Chu Xiaoyao asked.
"Looks great, I’m totally in love with it." Li Yifei replied.
"Hee-hee, then when hubby comes back, I’ll wear this nightdress and let you bully me."
Whoosh—another surge of fire rushed up in Li Yifei. He quickly took a deep breath, shifted his attention, and replied: "I’ll be back tomorrow. Wash up and wait for me. It’s too late now, hurry under the covers and sleep, see you tomorrow."
"Okayyy, hee-hee, good hubby, good Uncle, you go to bed early too!" Chu Xiaoyao replied.
Just as Li Yifei was about to sleep, the girl sent over another picture. This time she had taken the nightdress off completely, nothing covering her inside. Li Yifei coughed twice, held his breath for a bit before slowly letting it out, gave two dry chuckles, and thought to himself, that’s it, it’s going to take a good while before I calm down.
Unable to sleep, Li Yifei took out his phone. As soon as he opened Twitter, he saw over a hundred thousand @ mentions. He hadn’t logged on these past few days, but not to the point of having this many messages. He scrolled for a bit before figuring out what had happened.
Turned out that when he’d stepped in at the hotel to stop those two thugs, and later when he beat up the security guards and manager who were in on it with the thugs, someone had recorded the whole thing on their phone. After editing, they’d posted it online. It wasn’t exactly early when it went up, but once the video hit the internet, it was quickly picked up. A few Internet Celebrities reposted it and the incident spread like wildfire.
The uploader’s title read: "An innocent woman checking into a hotel is forcibly dragged away by two men in the middle of the night, an unnamed man steps in bravely and stops them, now he’s been taken away by the police, suspected that the hotel and the two men are in cahoots! It’s even possible the police are in on it too, I’m now asking netizens to spread this!" This post had already been reposted over four hundred thousand times, and that was in less than four hours, basically causing a wave of uproar. The crucial point was that this kind of video hadn’t been harmonized away. Lots of people didn’t feel reposting once was enough—they forwarded it several times in a row. Li Yifei skimmed through the popular comments and couldn’t help but laugh.
Just as he’d thought, the behavior of enthusiastic netizens in this kind of hot event did not disappoint. They were tearing into those two thugs, praising the unnamed man, and cursing out the hotel and the two fat-and-thin cops, calling them out. But very quickly, someone also recognized Li Yifei.
One comment with over twenty thousand likes said: "Guys, isn’t that our Big Brother Veteran? Look at the man in the video stepping in to help. I swear on next month’s salary, that’s Big Brother Veteran!"
The next comment, with over ten thousand, close to twenty thousand likes, also said: "It’s Mr. Veteran, I recognize him, he’s the richest man in Ning Province. Remember that act of bravery last year? His deeds—my god, it’s him again. He saved that girl. With Mr. Veteran taking action, we don’t need to worry about the girl; she’ll definitely get justice!"
The replies below were basically all fans of Mr. Veteran—meaning Li Yifei. He didn’t use Twitter often, but his fans already numbered in the tens of millions, making him an A-list public figure. The key thing was that Li Yifei’s words matched his deeds. Whatever he advocated everyone to do, he always led by example. Because he’d been fighting Noah’s Ark Organization a while back, he hadn’t posted for a long time. Around New Year, he’d only sent a Happy New Year greeting.
Countless people recognized him and realized the man who stepped in was Li Yifei. Of course, some people objected, saying Li Yifei couldn’t possibly show up at that kind of small hotel. Especially one local from Dan City said: "Lies. I’ve been to that hotel. A night is a hundred, two hundred tops, and the most expensive room is four hundred. Who is Li Yifei? A billionaire with assets in the hundreds of billions, and he’s staying in some small Dan City hotel? I don’t buy it, do you? Besides, even if it’s true, I still think it’s hype, textbook hype."
His comment was quickly flamed. People opposing him said: "Why impossible? You got money so now you don’t eat plain rice anymore? Mr. Veteran is just a regular guy, he lives a normal life, how is that impossible?"
"And you say Mr. Veteran is hyping this? Is there any need to hype something like that? You think he’s one of those trashy online influencers chasing views? You’re disgusting. I’ll put it right here today: I absolutely don’t believe Mr. Veteran is hyping this. Did you read the follow-up posts from the person who uploaded the video? He even posted his room card and other info. You’re still here doubting? When people talk about brainless idiots online, they mean people like you."
"Everyone, ignore this kind of person. He’s just clout-chasing off a hot topic. Why bother with him! What a joke, thinks he’s smart, but he’s actually just an idiot."
That’s why countless people were @-ing Li Yifei, wanting him to come out and restore the truth. Seeing these warm-hearted netizens’ replies, Li Yifei couldn’t help but chuckle. He hadn’t expected that someone would film this and post it online, even setting off such a big discussion.
While recognizing him and showering him with praise, a lot of netizens also felt shocked and chilled. Some even wrote long analyses. A single woman checking into a hotel—her safety should be the hotel’s responsibility. Instead two burly, vicious-looking men charged out and tried to drag her away by force. At a time like that, the bystanders didn’t step in, and not only did the hotel fail to help, they actually aided the villains. This is what really happened. If that kindly older woman hadn’t blocked them at first, if Mr. Veteran hadn’t finally lost his temper and stepped in, what would have happened to that girl? Would she have just been taken away like that?
Someone familiar with how things worked wrote: "If the girl really had been taken away tonight, what awaited her would be unimaginable torment—her whole life could be changed. How terrifying is that, how evil is that? The thugs, the hotel, maybe even those two cops—you can tell from the skinny cop’s behavior in the video. What would be waiting for the girl? Rape, beatings, imprisonment, being drugged, or her young life just ending there? Early spring nights are cold, especially late at night, but right now my heart feels even colder, down to the bone. I don’t know what kind of place this is, how those thugs dare be so brazen, how they dare to do this."
"The girl was lucky—but how many aren’t? If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d think this was something from a hundred or two hundred years ago. What era are we in that this can still happen? I don’t even know what to say anymore. Thank you, Mr. Veteran. No matter what status Mr. Veteran holds in real life, today he deserves our gratitude. It was he who made me feel a bit of warmth in this cold night. And also that older lady who first spoke up to stop and ask questions. In a society like this, we should be thankful for people like them!"