Chapter 14 — Mermaid Rising Waves

The story is like this. At exactly 10 a.m. on Friday, all platforms of Huaxia Media Group simultaneously published shocking investigative reports. In the first half hour, netizens were still in the state of "Ah, another business being exposed", half paralyzed and half awake. Anyway, environmental pollution news in recent years has been rife, netizens have already formed a standard reaction cycle: Click, frown, curse twice, share the article, then scroll to another news. But at 10:37, everything turned upside down. Lam Triet's video was cut separately. No one knows who started it - maybe a certain editor on duty, maybe a netizen who happened to surf and read the full report, or simply Fate herself who just woke up and decided to force the whole world to stop to admire what is called "Deadly Beauty". That video is only 47 seconds long. The video quality is actually not that great. I used a waterproof action camera that my mother gave me. He filmed it himself so the camera angle was a bit tilted and the lighting was also muted. But it is that level of unprofessionalism that brings a feeling of documentary authenticity, plus a beauty that seems to come from another dimension. It took the entire Internet space about fifteen minutes to absorb these short 47 seconds. Fifteen minutes later, the world went crazy. Huaxia Media Group's server crashed twice within 40 minutes after the video was released. The engineer in charge of maintenance then posted a status on his friends circle (Wechat Moments), along with a photo of the traffic chart jumping straight out of the frame, the caption was just two short words: "Fuck fake." The video was posted everywhere, from Weibo, Bilibili, Douyin, Xiaohongshu to Zhihu... on every platform, the same scenario played out: First click to watch with a bewildered look on your face, next your eyes will quake, then replay it like crazy, screenshot it to your friends circle, and finally send it to all your acquaintances with the slogan "CMN people, you have to see this now". The number of views on Bilibili reached 8 million within the first hour. Comment bullets (danmaku) are densely stacked up to twenty-some layers, you are completely blind to the image, only seeing a sea of white text rolling at the speed of light. The most critical comments are “??????”, followed by “Did I just see God”, followed by “Pause for 10 minutes to confirm that this is not an AI product”. In the top 10 Weibo hot search deification boards, there are 5 hashtags directly related to Lam Triet, 3 hashtags "follow" the consequences. #Tham Lam Group pollutes the environment# is currently ranked Top 1 hot search, with 5.3 billion reads. It's a matter of business, of course. But the hashtags that follow are starting to go a bit far. #Most handsome in the world# climbing Top 2 hot search. The person who created this hashtag must have been typing in an extremely high state. This hashtag is too direct, too blunt, shutting down all avenues of retreat for critics. The person who started the hashtag is an entertainment blogger with 20 million followers. Her post sharing Lam Triet's clip had the caption: "Using 10 years of experience in courting idols as protection, this is not handsome, this is a devastating blow. This is is Nuwa's graduation project. This is the Creator flexing his level. This is——I won't say any more, you guys can see for yourselves.” The post attracted 1.2 million shares and 900 thousand comments. The top comments were all one color: "Declaring this is my husband."

“Declared invalid, this is my husband.”

"What's the point of arguing? I've already lined up at the gate of the Civil Affairs Department. No matter where he is, I believe he will come pick me up."

“Wake up, ladies, he might be diving in the sea right now, is the Civil Affairs Department where you guys are located near the sea?”…

I just sipped instant noodles and waited for hot search. Amidst a noisy and bustling forest, a hashtag is silently climbing to the 23rd position on the gold board. #That sea area is really dead# The owner is a PhD student in Marine Biology. She posted a long Weibo post, looking at each frame, carefully analyzing the ocean environment behind Lam Triet: bleached coral, turbid sea water, light streaks of oil film and even dead fish floating at the edges of the frame. She wrote: "While admiring his beauty, please look at the sea behind. He is beautiful, but the sea is ugly. The juxtaposition of Beauty and Ugliness in the same frame is the whole message of this clip. He used his beauty to expose the corruption of the sea, please remember this.” The article received 800 thousand shares. In the comments section, countless people began seriously discussing the issue of ocean pollution. There are people who disseminate knowledge about the harmful effects of burying waste in the deep sea, there are people who collect evidence of the crimes of the Tham Lam Group, and there are people who proactively contact environmental organizations to get more information. Someone left a comment: "Suddenly I saw that his tears were more memorable than his face." While watching enthusiastically, Lam Triet raised his head above the water, shook his hair, and water bubbles splashed in the sunlight.

“Tieu Ngu,” he called out, “what are you watching?”

“See how you smash the mate selection standards of all human women.”

“What?”

“It's nothing.

You're on hot search."

“What's hot?”

“Hot search means there are a lot of people talking about you online.”

He frowned, swam close to the reef, leaned on his hands and climbed up.