Chapter 212
Chapter 212
Ding Ruoning chose to expose the people who had violated her daughter online because she wanted to use the power of the internet to punish those three people, as well as their families.
But what she never expected was that public opinion online would veer off course. Someone, she had no idea who, started steering the conversation, and before long, Ding Ruoning’s family background had been exposed too.
Ding Ruoning’s family was wealthy. They lived in a mansion and drove luxury cars. So people started saying that since Ding Ruoning’s family was that rich, they must have done plenty of immoral things, and the money their family earned had to be dirty.
Others said that children from rich families always made a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe nothing had even happened. Maybe it was just a little scuffle between kids, but rich people just loved bullying the poor.
Once that kind of rhetoric appeared, there was naturally a massive crowd ready to jump on the bandwagon.
No matter the era, there were always more poor people than rich people, and even more people who resented the wealthy. So a large group of them began attacking Ding Ruoning’s family online. Some even photoshopped black-and-white memorial portraits of Ding Ruoning’s family and placed funeral wreaths at the entrance of their residential compound.
To be honest, those comments and actions still weren’t the most outrageous part to me.
What came next was even worse.
Someone exposed Sun Jiayu’s photos online, accusing her of dressing revealingly at such a young age and claiming she had loose morals. They said she must have been deliberately trying to seduce men, only to end up attracting three poor losers instead, and then, out of humiliation and anger, she slapped the crime of “violation” onto children from poor families…
Those photos were actually in the case files too. I looked through them, and there was nothing inappropriate about them at all. She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and denim shorts. It was only because Sun Jiayu came from a wealthy family and had that kind of aura about her that she looked youthful and pretty.
And just because of that, a mob of people online spread vile sexual rumors about her.
Even adults couldn’t withstand that kind of abuse. How could Sun Jiayu possibly bear it?
Later, she went online and saw those comments. That very night, she hanged herself…
“Holy shit, what the fuck!”
Meng Yifan cursed as he read. “Are these people sick in the head?”
Song Xiaotian yawned and sat up. “Cyberbullying is nothing new. Back when I was a police officer, I’d get reports every now and then from people saying they’d been cyberbullied.”
“Cases like this are hard to define. There aren’t any specific legal provisions for it either. And with large-scale cyberbullying like this, there are countless people involved. Having their accounts banned basically counts as the punishment.”
Meng Yifan started cursing under his breath. “Fine, attack adults if you have to, but they even attack kids? Do these people have no bottom line? The key thing is, they don’t even know her. They don’t have any grudges against her. Where does all that malice even come from?”
I said, “If they were standing in front of the person involved, they probably wouldn’t dare let out a fart. But hidden behind the internet, no one knows who they are, so they can act without restraint.”
“The hostility of people online is worse than terrorists. I once replied to a comment saying I liked savory tangyuan, and several people called me a dumbass just because I don’t like the sweet kind.”
In truth, the cyberbullying against Sun Jiayu online went far beyond that. There were comments so twisted they could shatter your worldview.
Some people even painted those three little beasts as heroes bravely fighting against power.
I honestly thought it was cursed. What kind of brain circuit could come up with an argument like that?
Just because Sun Jiayu’s family had money?
And after Sun Jiayu died, the cyberbullying still didn’t stop. Once again, someone started guiding public opinion, this time to attack Ding Ruoning.
I had no idea what Ding Ruoning was thinking. She had already suffered a loss online, yet she continued posting statements online, condemning the people who had cyberbullied them.
What she should have done at that point was gather evidence, call the police, and pick out a few of the worst offenders to sue.
But maybe because Sun Jiayu’s death had plunged her into grief, she’d already lost all reason. All she did was keep condemning them online.
And the people who already hated the rich-how could they possibly stop just because she condemned them?
Those people weren’t exactly normal to begin with. What they wanted to see most at that moment was Ding Ruoning’s anger. They would think their actions had dealt a heavy blow to a rich person, so the angrier Ding Ruoning became, the more excited they got. Then they would make up another wave of rumors to attack her with.
From the files, I saw that Ding Ruoning also had records of visiting the psychiatric department. She had seen a psychologist too.
Before Sun Jiayu committed suicide, she had already gone to see a psychologist. In other words, she had been having mental issues long before that.
And the cyberbullying that followed was no different from rubbing salt into her wounds.
A large part of Ding Ruoning’s suicide was because of Sun Jiayu’s passing, but part of it was also because of the attacks from those online abusers.
Among them was someone with the online handle “Qiankun Wuji.” This person was the most vicious instigator. Many of the rumors about Ding Ruoning were fabricated by him.
But this person had only appeared after Sun Jiayu’s death, during the cyberbullying against Ding Ruoning. It was as if he had specifically targeted Ding Ruoning. Some of the things in the rumors he made up were true, but those true parts were harmless. He built malicious claims on top of the truth, creating a situation where it was hard to tell what was real and what was fake.
And when many people saw the true parts, they took the fake parts as true as well. That was why so many people believed his rumors without question.
This Qiankun Wuji must have investigated Ding Ruoning. Otherwise, there was no way he could have known those real details.
“Fuck!”
“Can we find this Qiankun Wuji and chop him to death or what?!”
Meng Yifan cursed as he read, probably unable to stomach the rumors Qiankun Wuji had fabricated anymore.
I read faster than he did and had already gotten to the later sections.
What came next immediately startled me.
“Look. One of the boys who violated Sun Jiayu is already dead.”
The boy’s name was Liu Tianyi. He had died five days ago. Cause of death: falling from a height.
He had jumped to his death.
Suicide?
“A beast like that could suddenly grow a conscience and kill himself to atone?” Meng Yifan looked utterly unconvinced.
I said, “I think I heard Xie Peng mention a couple of days ago that a kid in a residential compound near his home jumped off a building and killed himself. Could that have been Liu Tianyi?”
Song Xiaotian asked me, “Where does Xie Peng live again?”
Meng Yifan said, “Over by Longshi Road. I went near his place to pick him up once.”
Song Xiaotian nodded. “Liu Tianyi’s home was near Longshi Road too. I asked one of the officers who responded to the scene at the time. He said Liu Tianyi jumped in the early hours of the morning, when everyone in his family was already asleep. Liu Tianyi woke up his parents and his grandparents, then jumped out the window right in front of all four of them. Their apartment was on the fifteenth floor.”
Meng Yifan and I felt chills crawl up our spines. The eerie image from that moment practically formed in our minds.
Before Liu Tianyi died, his consciousness probably no longer belonged to him…
“He was possessed by Ding Ruoning.”
I frowned and said, “This was most likely Ding Ruoning’s revenge. Ding Ruoning wanted Liu Tianyi’s family to watch with their own eyes as their child died horribly right in front of them.”