He fiercely criticized the Manchu scholar clique and the twelve emperors of the Qing Dynasty.

Zhao Shuyao's hand, holding the thermos, froze in mid-air. The cheap-looking camera on the screen, with its appalling image quality, combined with his relaxed state—wearing loose pajamas and having his hair casually disheveled—clearly formed a perfect disguise.

No one would equate this lazy blogger, whose title reads "Daydreaming and Talking Randomly," with the up-and-coming historian who engages in heated debates and makes decisive judgments online.

I glanced at the top right corner of the screen. I don't know which recommendation mechanism the shout had triggered, but the number of online users started jumping up at a very regular frequency: ten, fifteen, twenty-three.

"Great," Zhao Shuyao put down his water glass and leaned back in his slightly worn computer chair. He had been too tense these past few days, and it was rare to encounter such a casual, unofficial friend online. Suddenly, he felt a strong urge to relax completely.

"Of course I know the person you're talking about," Zhao Shuyao said into the microphone, his tone a perfect blend of helplessness and easygoingness. "There are only so many graduate students in the history department at Northeastern University. We see each other all the time. Everyone knows each other."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the rapidly scrolling comments on the screen: "What, judging from your tone, you know him very well, or could you share your feelings about him? I'm genuinely curious about how the outside world views him right now."

The southern boy immediately perked up, his initial restraint vanishing, replaced by the extreme excitement of having caught the first scoop of gossip.

"Holy crap, you actually know him!" The guy's speech suddenly quickened. "So, are you two close? Tell me quickly, what kind of person is this guy in real life?"

"To be able to shut down an 80-year-old professor in a lecture, sending him to the hospital, are you usually the kind of person who acts arrogantly, very high-profile, and particularly cocky at the university?"

As the boy pressed for answers, the previously silent chat section of the live stream suddenly erupted into its first mini-climax.

"He's from the History Department at Northeastern University, so the host is practically a fellow student of Zhao Shuyao!"

"Hey, front row vendors selling sunflower seeds and cola, come quick! Tell me, is this tough guy in your department usually the kind of troublemaker?"

"I'm a fan of Zhao Shuyao, and I've liked all of his videos on Toutiao. Host, hurry up and reveal some juicy gossip!"

Zhao Shuyao stared at the flashing text on the screen, tapped his fingers rhythmically twice on the table, cleared his throat, and adopted a serious, earnest expression as he recalled the text.

"Actually, I'm quite familiar with him." Zhao Shuyao looked straight ahead, as if he were commenting on a very close old friend, "But to say that he's high-profile and arrogant at school, you've really misunderstood him."

"He was a relatively low-key person at school. Before this incident, if you walked on the tree-lined paths of the University of Tokyo or went to the cafeteria to get food, you would not recognize him even if you brushed past him. He was just an ordinary student who would not make a splash if he fell into a crowd."

The boy's question came through the earpiece: "No way, someone who can quote classics and dominate on stage, how can they be so unnoticed in real life?"

"I'm not lying to you." Zhao Shuyao tried his best to suppress the smile in his eyes and continued to analyze himself seriously. "As for his character, I think he's pretty good. At least, he's always polite to us classmates and never puts on airs like an academic elite."

"He has a very gentle personality. As long as you don't provoke him, he's basically a kind-hearted person who doesn't fight with others. He's an extremely well-mannered person."

This comment caused a brief pause in the scrolling of the comments section, followed by an even stronger backlash.

"What kind of mild-mannered person would use the phrase 'Zhuge Liang scolded Wang Lang to death' to attack an eighty-year-old man? You call that a 'good old man'?"

"Host, did you take bribes to whitewash him here?"

"I don't believe it. Someone with that kind of eloquence would definitely be a chatterbox and a troublemaker in real life!"

Seeing the screen full of "disbelief", Zhao Shuyao not only did not refute, but instead reached out and grabbed the mouse. Since he couldn't understand it by talking to one person, he would just make the table bigger.

"Since everyone is so enthusiastic, and doesn't believe what I'm saying," Zhao Shuyao swiped the cursor and opened the live stream's permission settings, "then how about this, let's all go on the mic and chat for a while, since it's a weekend evening and we're all free anyway."

The moment the operation was completed, the microphone queue was immediately full, and the platform's default five-person voice chat limit was completely filled in less than two seconds.

"Hello, am I up yet?" A young male voice with a strong Beijing accent came through microphone number one, sounding very capable.

"You're up here, my friend from Yanjing. What would you like to talk about?" Zhao Shuyao picked up his water glass, ready to listen.

The man with a Beijing accent cleared his throat and got straight to the point: "Answerer, you're also from the History Department of Dongda University, and you said you're very familiar with Zhao Shuyao. So I'd like to ask, were you there when he was swearing at people during his lecture? What do you think of his views, especially his criticisms of those Qing Dynasty emperors?"

When this question was posed, the other three people on the microphone all fell silent, waiting quietly for Zhao Shuyao's answer.

Zhao Shuyao's gaze lingered on the computer screen for a second. Was he there that day? He was absolutely there.

"I was indeed there at the time." Zhao Shuyao nodded, his tone calm, as if he were just an objective witness to history. "To be honest, the moment he stood up and started criticizing, I was holding my breath for him."

"I admire his courage. After all, in that kind of situation, facing a senior scholar of that caliber, to dare to speak frankly is something that not everyone can do."

He paused, his tone taking on a scholarly rigor: "As for his views, I certainly agree with them completely. The underlying logic he put forward, whether economic or cultural, is supported by verifiable evidence in the county annals and Ming and Qing archives of various provinces. Academically, his arguments are sound."

Just then, a female voice suddenly interrupted from microphone number two, her voice filled with an extremely strong sense of curiosity and gossip.

"Answerer, since you agree with his point of view, do you believe that Emperor Kangxi was actually the son of the notorious traitor Hong Chengchou? Or is this all just a bunch of nonsense that Zhao Shuyao deliberately fabricated to intimidate the old professor?"

The moment this topic came up, it was as if a depth charge had been dropped into the entire live stream. The room, which had been filled with an atmosphere of academic discussion, instantly shifted to the realm of unofficial history, which is most popular among the general public.

Before Zhao Shuyao could speak, a slightly older-sounding male voice immediately took over the conversation from microphone number three.

"That's definitely nonsense!" Number Three's tone was extremely certain, with an arrogant air of self-righteousness that he thought he had seen through the laws of history. "You young people are easily misled by these unofficial histories. Imperial families value the purity of bloodlines."

"The inner palace is governed by strict rules. How could such a thing as switching a dragon for a phoenix be allowed to happen? That would be a crime punishable by the extermination of nine generations of one's family. These words were definitely said by Zhao Shuyao to provoke that Professor Yan by deliberately using popular folk literature to disgust him. This is completely unfounded in official history."

The man with the Beijing accent on microphone number one immediately retorted: "That's not necessarily true. There are many clues in the historical records about Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang marrying Dorgon. In the early days of the Manchu conquest of China, the internal power struggles were so intense. It's not entirely impossible that they used some special marriage methods to win over the Han official Hong Chengchou."

"Winning them over is one thing, but can you just mess around with something like having a baby?" Number Three retorted.

Zhao Shuyao did not stop their argument. He leaned back in his chair, half-closed his eyes, and quietly listened to these strangers exchanging barbs in the virtual space.

This was precisely his original intention in starting the live stream—to observe how information ferments and spreads among ordinary people after leaving the ivory tower.

The debate lasted for about three minutes, with neither side able to convince the other. In the end, the focus inevitably returned to the "insider from the Department of History at the University of Tokyo".

"Hey host, don't just listen without saying anything!" the girl on microphone number two urged. "You're a history major by training, and you're Zhao Shuyao's classmate. What's your opinion on this? Do you think what he said is true or false?"

The headphones fell silent instantly, everyone waiting for a professional assessment.

Zhao Shuyao's gaze swept across the screen, and his fingers tapped lightly on the table again. He did not immediately give a positive or negative answer, but spoke in an extremely gentle tone, even with a hint of inquiry.

"If you're looking for irrefutable evidence in the official history, the Veritable Records of the Qing Dynasty, you really won't find it." Zhao Shuyao's voice was calm and clear, with a kind of magic that made people want to listen. "However, the results of my private research are similar to the views that Zhao Shuyao put forward in his lecture at the time."

"Why do I say that?" Zhao Shuyao sat up a little straighter and began to lay out his logic in an orderly manner. "We can't just look at what is written in the history books. We have to look at what those people did at the time. Otherwise, many things are simply not logically clear."

He raised a finger and gestured towards the camera: "First, let's look at Hong Chengchou's treatment in the early Qing Dynasty. He was a surrendered official, a Han Chinese. In an era when the Qing Dynasty emphasized the supremacy of the Manchus and was extremely wary of the Han Chinese, what made him so capable of being entrusted with important responsibilities, serving as the governor-general of military affairs, and even receiving the highest honors after his death that many Manchu princes could not attain?"

Before his viewers could refute him, he immediately offered a second argument: "Secondly, go and look through the daily records of Emperor Kangxi's reign. You'll see the extraordinary favor and tolerance Emperor Kangxi showed towards the descendants of Hong Chengchou."

"It goes far beyond the scope of an emperor's reward to the descendants of meritorious officials; that attitude is more like making up for some kind of blood debt."

In the live stream, the four viewers who were connected with each other held their breath, deeply captivated by the logical deduction that linked them one by one.

Zhao Shuyao smiled slightly and threw out his last and most damaging point of view, his tone revealing an extreme sense of humor befitting a cultured person.

"Of course, all of the above are just inferences based on behavioral logic. The most intuitive way is to suggest that if you have time, you visit the Palace Museum or search for high-definition documents online. Put the court portraits of Emperor Kangxi in his middle and old age together with the portraits of Hong Chengchou that have survived to this day and do an overlay comparison on a computer."

Zhao Shuyao spread his hands, his tone becoming extremely easygoing and certain: "You will find that the bone structure of those two faces, the distance between their eyes, and even the curvature of their jaw angles are almost as if they were carved from the same mold."

"Sometimes, genes are much more honest than those distorted history books."

After this, the entire live stream fell into an eerie silence. It wasn't that no one was speaking, but rather that this extremely professional yet down-to-earth way of breaking down the information caused their brains to briefly freeze.

A few seconds later.

The man with the Beijing accent who was quoting classical texts on microphone number one suddenly gasped, and the sound of his gasp was amplified by the microphone and sounded particularly clear.

"No..." The Beijing-accented man's voice began to tremble, revealing a mixture of extreme shock and sudden realization. "The rhythm of these sentences, the logical reasoning that combines official history and unofficial history to deliver a devastating blow, and this humor that can expose someone's true nature without using vulgar language..."

Holy crap!!!

The man with a Beijing accent burst out with a startling exclamation from the other end of the microphone: "You're not his classmate at all, you're Zhao Shuyao himself!!!"