CHAPTER 93: CHAPTER 94 – EMBERS BENEATH THE ICE: FRACTURES AND FRONTS

The headlines were still burning. Spectron’s connection to media bot networks had ignited national conversations, spawning livestream debates and influencer breakdowns across platforms. Public sentiment shifted like a tide crashing against a dam. Overnight, support for Lin Feng surged—tempered, skeptical, but no longer dismissive. He had exposed something real, and the public couldn’t unsee it.

But beneath that surface shift, something colder was settling in.

Zixuan hadn’t responded publicly, but he didn’t need to. Three media outlets that had run pro-Lin pieces now published walk-back editorials. Anonymous posts began circulating, accusing Lin of fabricating data, of forging the Spectron links, of manipulating the system himself.

It wasn’t random. It was coordinated.

Lin Feng stood in his study, arms crossed, watching a silent news clip on loop. The footage was cropped. It only showed him stepping into the Qiyuan Group offices, cut before Guo Yuwei had broken ranks and handed him the file. No context, no story. Just optics.

"They’re seeding confusion," Luo Bingbing said from the leather armchair behind him. "Tearing holes in your credibility, not refuting—just... muddying."

"Controlled fog," Lin Feng muttered. He turned to face her. "But if they’re moving that fast, they’ve got another play lined up."

Bingbing nodded. "They don’t want to win the argument. They want to blur it long enough to bury you with the next scandal."

He knew she was right.

At noon, his legal counsel arrived with grim expressions. A small-time investment fund Lin had barely interacted with filed a formal complaint alleging securities manipulation tied to his earlier acquisitions.

"It’s paper-thin," his lawyer said, flipping through the dossier, "but it’ll force a regulatory inquiry. Civil litigation follows. It’s lawfare—delay and discredit."

Lin exhaled slowly. "And if I counter too hard, it looks like suppression."

"Exactly."

By evening, he called an emergency strategy session in the penthouse. Qin Yiren, Mu Qing, Bingbing, and Song Wei all sat around the marble kitchen island, their expressions tight. Lin Feng didn’t bother pacing. He knew this wasn’t about muscle anymore. It was chess.

"They’re attacking my information flank," he said. "So we turn our public narrative into a pipeline—undeniable, verifiable, and emotional

."

"How?" Mu Qing asked. "They’re filtering everything."

Lin pulled out a slim folder. "We take the Spectron investigation deeper. No more media middlemen. No more soft leaks. We go direct to the people—public archive. Crowdsource verification, timestamps, transaction traces. Let netizens become the investigators."

Song Wei raised a brow. "That’ll take time. Weeks."

Lin gave a faint smile. "Which is why we create pressure from a second front."

By the weekend, Lin’s team had quietly contacted several whistleblowers from within Spectron’s regional operations. Using legal buffers and data encryption, they began compiling internal messages, memos, and target algorithms—detailing which influencers were being boosted and what narratives were being promoted.

Simultaneously, a less visible operation began: financial tracing. The bots cost money. Hosting costs. Infrastructure. Payments.

It all left footprints.

And Lin Feng, leveraging his access through the system and newly acquired assets, traced those financial threads into two unexpected companies—both publicly listed, both minor shareholders in Helios Media Holdings.

Zixuan’s name didn’t appear. But the chairman of Helios had been photographed with him three times in the last year. And one of the subsidiaries was managed by Zixuan’s old classmate.

A shadow web.

Lin stared at the pinboard in his office as Mu Qing finished laying it out. "This isn’t enough for court," she said. "But for public pressure? It’ll melt their whole PR wing."

Lin nodded. "Then we need one more piece—motive. Why invest in narrative control?"

The answer came two days later from an unlikely source—Su Wen, the idol with the controversial past.

She reached out through Qin Yiren, asking for a confidential meeting. They met in a private studio in the Xicheng District, where Su Wen arrived dressed plainly, no makeup, flanked by only one manager.

She got straight to the point.

"They used me," she said. "Spectron bought trending slots, sure. But they also pushed out my dating scandals to draw fire away from the Fang Group."

Lin leaned in. "You’re saying Spectron used you as a decoy?"

Su Wen nodded. "I have screenshots. Payment requests. My old manager was paid to leak fake stories."

Qin Yiren was already typing on her tablet, confirming the evidence validity.

"This could tie Spectron directly to deliberate reputation sabotage," she said quietly. "Affecting stock value, public trust. If we time this right, it’ll fracture corporate partnerships."

Lin Feng looked at Su Wen. "Why now?"

The idol’s eyes were tired but steady. "Because I was a product to them. And because you’re the only one making them bleed."

That night, Lin published the first part of his data dump through a private server. Clean, timestamped, and open-source, it contained:

Internal Spectron memos with campaign directives

Bot network logs with IP overlaps

Financial trails linking influencer boosts to shell companies

Attached was a public tracker showing how these narratives correlated with stock shifts in unrelated companies.

The next day, hashtags exploded. #GhostInfluence, #SpectronLeaks, #WhoOwnsTheNarrative.

But even as his side surged in momentum, the pushback came fast. A doctored video showing Lin bribing a city councilor was circulated anonymously. Deepfake, but slick enough to fool casual viewers.

And then came the smear article—published by a news outlet under Helios control—accusing Lin of hiring hackers, of using "black box" AIs to wage cyberwarfare on China’s free press.

Public opinion wobbled.

Bingbing slammed the printed article onto the table. "They’re going full scorched earth."

"We expected this," Lin said. But his tone had cooled. Calculated. "They can throw noise. But if we show one real, irrefutable act of coercion... it breaks the illusion."

That moment came two days later.

Guo Yuwei resigned from Qiyuan Group—publicly, citing "ideological conflicts." But in private, he handed Lin Feng something explosive: recorded audio of a private Spectron board meeting.

In it, executives joked about "buying fear," discussed targeting specific influencers for takedowns, and most damningly, referenced "political cover via Helios Beijing."

Lin Feng sat in silence after hearing it. For ten full seconds.

Then he turned to Qin Yiren. "We release this. And we announce a coalition—public, civic, corporate—against narrative laundering. Give it a name. Make it a movement."

By week’s end, Lin’s camp launched "ClearSignal"—a digital transparency pact for influencers, small businesses, and consumers. Within 48 hours, over 20,000 signatories joined. A dozen companies followed, vowing not to participate in covert promotion or black-box targeting.

And in response?

Helios stocks dipped.

Spectron’s offices in Chengdu were "inspected."

The Ministry of Information posted a cryptic bulletin warning against "unregistered digital propaganda operations."

Lin Feng wasn’t celebrating. Not yet. But the lines were being drawn.

In his penthouse, as dusk fell over the skyline, he stood at the edge of the balcony.

Mu Qing walked up behind him. "You dragged something massive into the light."

"Only the start," he said.

She didn’t argue. Just stood beside him.

"More enemies will come," she said softly. "The ones who built the fog won’t like a man who lives in flame."

Lin Feng didn’t blink. "Then we burn louder."