You were supposed to have a fake marriage with the diva, so how did you become her father?

The United States' direct intervention did indeed have an immediate effect.

It's not because they're reasonable, it's because they're arrogant.

The first wave of actions was diplomatic pressure.

The U.S. Embassy in China issued three diplomatic notes in two days, each one more strongly worded than the last.

The first document stated that "we hope Longfang can take the concerns of the international community seriously." The second document stated that "Longfang's actions have already posed a threat to the stability of the global supply chain." The third document directly quoted a clause of an international trade rule, stating that "we reserve the right to take further action within the WTO framework."

China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has maintained a restrained response, with the spokesperson reiterating: "China has always advocated the principle of equal and mutually beneficial trade. Consumer choices made by Chinese citizens are market-driven, and the government neither interferes nor guides them."

The translation is: "Don't blame us if you're not good enough; it's your own problem if you can't control public opinion in your own country."

The second wave of actions targeted the financial sector.

The Federal Reserve unexpectedly announced a new currency swap arrangement outside of its policy meeting period, specifically to provide liquidity support to the Bank of Japan.

Technically, this move means that Japan can obtain a dollar loan with an extremely low interest rate to stabilize its foreign exchange and stock markets.

After the news was announced, the Japanese stock market rebounded by more than five points before the close of trading that day, and the curve that had been green for nearly two weeks finally turned red.

The third wave of actions was the most direct.

On the same day, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a brief statement announcing that the schedule for the joint U.S.-Japan military exercises had been moved up and that the location would be in the East China Sea.

The statement was worded as "aimed at strengthening the joint operational capabilities of the US-Japan alliance," but it's clear to everyone that this is using force to back up diplomacy, openly telling everyone "who's standing behind Japan."

After these actions were launched simultaneously, the international public opinion did indeed shift.

European media outlets that had been following and reporting on the wave of self-reflection among the Japanese public have begun to shift their focus, with new headlines changing from "Japanese people spontaneously awaken" to "International trade dispute escalates."

A French newspaper published a commentary saying that "public sentiment in China is being amplified by geopolitical maneuvering," implying that official forces were behind the boycotts.

A German financial media outlet went even further, writing in a front-page analysis that "the essence of this turmoil is the strategic rivalry between the US and China in the Asia-Pacific region; the game is merely a facade."

The article has problems with both data and logic, but nobody cares about the facts; everyone just wants to see what they want to see.

Journalism principles are sometimes used in this context.

Even media outlets in other Asian countries have begun to adjust their reporting.

A South Korean television station produced a special program in which it interviewed three scholars of international relations. Two of them believed that China's boycott was somewhat excessive, while one believed that the outburst of public sentiment in China had historical reasons.

Ultimately, the production team cut out most of the interview that had "historical reasons," leaving only the content that said it was "too much."

The pressure was also felt in the Dragon Kingdom.

After the list of additional tariffs imposed by the United States was released, the stock prices of several export-oriented companies were indeed affected.

Factory owners in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions have shifted their conversations at dinner tables from "How are your recent orders?" to "Have you been affected by the US tariffs?"

Someone joked, "TuTu's Lu Ran is really good at causing trouble. He made the Americans angry while playing games." Someone next to him chimed in, "It's good that they got angry, it means he played the right game."

The fervor in the public discourse was suppressed by this series of combined measures from the United States.

The voices discussing historical materials on Japanese forums are still there, but they have been drowned out by more macro-level news events.

The library is still full of people flipping through archives, but no media outlets are reporting on it anymore.

Someone lamented on social media, "It feels like the wind has shifted back again," but that post was filtered out by the platform administrator's algorithm in less than three hours.

Lu Ran saw these changes at noon on a Sunday.

He sat on the living room sofa, scrolling through his phone. On the screen was a public opinion monitoring report that he had asked the operations department to prepare.

The report used red, yellow, and green colors to mark the changing trends in discussion popularity in different regions. In that week's report, the red area was significantly larger than the previous week.

He flipped to the last part of the report, glanced at it for two seconds, and then sent a message to Zhou Mingzhe: "This move by the United States has indeed been effective. They are applying pressure simultaneously on three fronts: finance, public opinion, and diplomacy, which has immediately dispersed the pressure on Japan."

Zhou Mingzhe replied quickly: "Then what about your stuff? If the news gets suppressed, the subsequent effects will be diminished."

Lu Ran was silent for a moment before replying, "Perfect. Continue to push forward where necessary, but don't make any moves now. Let them think we've secured the situation, and then we'll act when they lower their guard."

"Do you still have cards in your hand?" Zhou Mingzhe asked.

"I have one. I haven't printed it yet, I'm saving it for today's situation."

He put away his phone, stood up, went to his study, turned on his computer, and found a file package called "Pearl Harbor Spur Line" in an encrypted folder.

The content inside was an extension that came with the full version of "Bloody Battle of Shanghai" that he had downloaded from the system before. It was originally designed as a hidden level after completing the game, but he decided not to open it at the time and locked it in the background.

That mission was very straightforward, turning the Pearl Harbor attack into a short, actionable storyline.

Players take on the role of a U.S. Navy soldier stationed at Pearl Harbor. One Sunday morning, he is awakened by an explosion and rushes out of his barracks to see Japanese carrier-based aircraft bombing the naval base.

The game's perspective follows a soldier from beginning to end.

As I stood at the entrance of the barracks, a group of black dots appeared in the distance of the sky, and then the air raid siren sounded, its piercing sound echoing from all parts of the base at the same time.

Players need to run to the designated anti-aircraft gun position to operate the anti-aircraft weapons. The crosshair on the screen tracks the Zero fighters that fly across the sky, and the background sounds are full of explosions and the crackling of burning fuel.

After firing the anti-aircraft gun for a while, the area around the gun position was bombed, forcing the player to evacuate and run towards the port along the base's passage.

Along the way, you could see capsized warships, burning hangars, and soldiers felled by shrapnel. One battleship was listing on its side, with thick smoke still billowing from its hull.

Players can hear someone shouting in the water as they pass by, but they can't see where the person is.

The last part is about walking to the side of a bombed-out dock.

The player stands there watching the USS Arizona sink. The camera zooms out, showing only half of the ship above water, surrounded by wreckage and oil.

Several Japanese planes were circling overhead, with sporadic gunfire and sirens blaring in the background.

This expansion level doesn't take long to complete; it only takes fifteen to twenty minutes.

But Lu Ran knew that its impact lay not in its duration, but in its perspective—allowing American players to personally experience what it felt like to be ambushed by Japan.

Previously, all they saw were words in history textbooks and blurry black-and-white photos; now they could stand in the shoes of a soldier and personally experience the raid.

Later that day, he sent Zhao Yiming a message: "Unlock that hidden level in 'Bloody Battle of Shanghai' for me. Don't make any announcements, just let players who have already completed it see it in the game. Put the entrance below the main menu, don't give any guidance or hints, let them find it themselves."

Zhao Yiming replied, "The Pearl Harbor one? Are you sure you want to release it now?"

"Right now."

"Okay. I'll make the arrangements tonight. We should be able to see the entrance by tomorrow morning."

The next morning, before eight o'clock, when Lu Ran arrived at the company and opened the backend, the access data for that hidden level had already popped up.

At first, there were only a few decimal places, but by noon the line started to steepen, with the number of visits per minute refreshing the data from the previous minute.

Around 2 PM, related posts began appearing in the discussion forum of TUTU International.

An American player posted, "After I finished the game, there was a line of text below the main menu. When I clicked on it, I unlocked a hidden level. Can anyone tell me if that part of the story is real or purely fictional?"

Someone replied to the post, "That was the Pearl Harbor attack. My grandfather participated in that battle." Then someone else posted the Wikipedia link.

That post's readership surged into the top ten on the entire site within an hour.

More American players began flocking to the game to play the hidden storyline. After each playthrough, someone would post about it, and the discussion gradually shifted from "Did Japan really do such a thing back then?" to "Why doesn't the US government tell us the complete history?"

The explosion actually occurred on the third day.

An American history video blogger made a live commentary video of the entire storyline, and at the end of the video, he added a section of historical data he found to compare every warship and every time point that appeared in the game with real historical records.

At the end of the video, he said, "I used to think history class was boring, but now I know why it's boring—because they didn't teach the things that should have been taught."

The video garnered over ten million views within 24 hours.

The comments section shifted from initial discussions about the game to discussions about the US government, textbooks, and Japan's post-war reparations.

Someone wrote below, "I don't care about the grudges between China and Japan, but I owe a thank you to the person who told me about this."

American gamers are beginning to question the US government's perceived bias towards Japan.

Someone posted a tweet on social media that said, "Our government is helping a country that once attacked us," and then shared a screenshot of themselves beating the Pearl Harbor level in the game.

That tweet was retweeted tens of thousands of times. In the comments section, some people supported it and some opposed it, but no one could refute the content in the screenshot—because that content was real historical fact.

The US stock market then experienced slight fluctuations.

The fluctuations were not significant, with several military enterprises falling by one or two points, and the aviation sector also experiencing a slight decline.

What really puzzled analysts was that the declines had no clear triggers – there were no problems with the financial reports, and there were no changes in the industry landscape.

During the analyst meeting, someone whispered, "Is it because of that game?" A colleague next to him replied, "Don't be ridiculous, a game can affect the stock market." Then the two of them started talking about other topics.

But Lu Ran knew where those slight fluctuations came from.

He saw in the backend data that the number of visits from North America had set a new record that week, with American players spending more time on that hidden storyline than on the main storyline of "Bloody Battle of Shanghai".

Someone posted on a forum, "I originally thought Japan was in a pretty bad situation and we shouldn't boycott them anymore, but after playing the Pearl Harbor mission, I changed my mind."

Once the American people learn about that history, it becomes difficult for them to support their own country, especially the United States, which is completely unaware of its own support and has no regard for ordinary people.

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