Chapter 519 - COGS TURNING
AFTER talking to the two students, Luo Yan took out his phone and checked Weibo. It didn't take long before he found the article in question. It was even much easier because it was on the top 20 trending list on Weibo. Considering the many things that could have trended at this very minute, that already said a lot.
The more he read about the article, the more he felt magical. Just how the hell did the person who posted this went from mentioning his real identity to some live streamer and then finally tying the two together as if they were one and the same person?
His first thought was, this person was definitely pushing it. Surely, no one would believe this shit. It's too absurd and almost without logic. Even if he provided pictures and putting them side by side together for comparison, it wouldn't prove anything. After all, the picture of that streamer could easily be altered to make it look more similar to his game avatar.
But to Luo Yan's surprise, there were a lot of comments believing the article. First, people thought that the article was ridiculous. But soon, more and more comments appeared saying that the article might be true. Until at the very end where majority of the people were simply condemning 'Noctis' and asking him to get out of the game.
Some of the comments were as follows;
[How thick-skinned is this Noctis? Was he expecting the players of Arcadia to be his next victims?]
[The big question here is, what was Yunyue thinking? Were they so desperate for a comeback that they would just pick anyone regardless of their quality as a human?]
[Maybe Noctis is simply YUN's type. LOL.]
[Hahaha! So, he accepted Noctis' chrysanthemum as collateral for joining Yunyue?]
Luo Yan's brows furrowed when he read the last two comments. This farce would obviously drag Yunyue, especially Shen Ji Yun. How could he just let that happen?
It was quite obvious that someone was guiding the public opinion. And they, whoever they were, only had one goal – to make people turn against 'Noctis'.
The kind of flow the comment section had, it's probably the work of a water army. This person really spent a lot of money for this. They hired someone who had quite a number of following on Weibo to post that nonsensical article, then he even hired water army that could make this topic entered the top 20 trending list. And for what? So, people would dislike 'Noctis'?
If the situation was different and it was not an open-secret that he was a new member of Yunyue, he might feel funny and even flattered. After all, someone spent so much money just to deal with his game account. He would probably spend a lot of time just so he could toy around the other thoroughly.
But that was not the case. He was already representing Yunyue. How could he let the reputation of their team be tarnished in this way just because of such a silly article? So, he would deal with this quickly and decisively.
He just had to look for the ringleader and everything would be easy after that. Based on the comments he read, he already had an idea who might the person be.
"Yan Yan, this… are you going to tell everyone that you're the real Noctis?" Yu Jiao asked in a voice that only the two of them could hear.
She had also read the article and the subsequent comments. Frankly, it was a real mystery to her how those people believed that… she didn't even want to call it an article because it felt like she was degrading what a real article should be. Was everyone just that gullible?
Although there were reasonable people who didn't believe the article and there were also those with a 'wait-and-see' attitude, they were few and far between. As unbelievable as that might be.
Now, the easiest way she could think to solve this was for Luo Yan to reveal to everyone that he was the real 'Noctis'.
Luo Yan shook his head. "No."
He did say that he would solve this in a quick and decisive way, but that didn't include him revealing his identity. Yes, it might be easier. But he didn't want to sacrifice the peace he had now for that.
He would surely be hounded by the students in this school if he did. It was quite obvious that Arcadia was pretty well-known here. Maybe if they found out that he was Noctis, people would just discriminately post his pictures on social medias. And then what's next? People ambushing him on the gate of the school just to get a glimpse of his beauty?
Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration. But still. His father and older brother would surely do something about that. But he didn't really want to trouble them for such things.
Besides, he could deal with this without revealing his identity.
"I will only reveal that I'm Noctis on the finals of the next Arcadia Cup," he added with confidence.
Because on every Arcadia Cup, except the first one, the two teams who reached the finals would have to fight at a huge arena where people could buy tickets and watch the fight in real-time. It's like those DOTA or LoL tournaments. Except that instead of keyboards and monitors, they had their VR helmets with them.
So, during the finals, the public could see the real people behind the avatars of the famous players. That's the kind of stage Luo Yan wanted to reveal his identity as 'Noctis'. And not because he had to defend himself against someone who was deliberately hacking him on Weibo.
Yu Jiao was immediately amazed by Luo Yan's confidence. What he said meant two things – first, Yunyue would join Arcadia Cup next season and second, he was certain that they could win until the finals. But even so, Yu Jiao was still worried about this article.
Luo Yan must have seen that. Because she heard next;
"Don't worry, Jiao Jiao. I won't let this silly thing ferment even further," Luo Yan said, the cogs in his brain already turning.