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

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the sunlight in Fengtian City shone through the glass windows of the Humanities College corridor, cutting out distinct blocks of light and shadow on the floor.

Zhao Shuyao walked down the corridor with his hands in the pockets of his gray hoodie. As he passed several second-year history students who had just finished class, he keenly noticed the subtle pause in the air.

One of the boys was looking down at his phone, the screen of which vaguely showed the interface of Toutiao (a Chinese news aggregator). Suddenly, he looked up abruptly, and the contempt that had accumulated in his eyes because of the "scumbag incident" shattered completely at this moment, replaced by a stunned look of extreme shock.

Zhao Shuyao didn't linger. Their eyes met for only half a second before he naturally looked away. The bullet had already been fired, so he might as well let it fly for a while longer.

Reaching the office door at the end of the corridor, which was ajar, Zhao Shuyao raised his hand and knocked lightly twice on the wooden door.

"Come in." A hoarse baritone voice, filled with deep weariness, came from inside.

Pushing open the door, the smell of cheap tobacco immediately hit you. Zhang Jianguo, who was in his fifties, sat behind a desk piled with documents, his face full of worry.

He was holding a teacup in his hand, and the screen displayed an internal notification email that had just been sent by the Academic Affairs Office.

Upon seeing that the visitor was Zhao Shuyao, Zhang Jianguo slammed his teacup down on the table, spilling a few drops of tea.

"You dare to wander around like that?" Zhang Jianguo stood up, strode to the door, slammed it shut, turned around, and almost touched Zhao Shuyao's nose with his finger.

"You made Yan Chongnian faint from anger first, and today you've become the modern-day Chen Shimei (a notorious figure in Chinese folklore known for abandoning his wife) online. This morning, my office received three calls from the dean's office and two from the academic affairs office. Just how much trouble are you trying to cause?"

Zhao Shuyao did not back down, his gaze moving from Zhang Jianguo's tired face to the ashtray on the table overflowing with cigarette butts.

A hint of tenderness flashed in Zhao Shuyao's eyes, but his expression became increasingly relaxed. He casually pulled over a chair, sat down, and handed over a tissue.

"Teacher, I'm sorry to have troubled you with this." Zhao Shuyao had a gentle smile on his lips. "The dean's office must have been trying to sabotage you with their annual performance evaluations, right?"

"You still have the mind to care about my assessment?" Zhang Jianguo took a tissue to wipe his hands, opened a drawer, pulled out a printed screenshot, and slapped it directly on the table. It was the three-thousand-word essay "The Stolen Youth Rain".

"The school contacted me first thing this morning, asking me to give my opinion on how to handle it. I had to risk my reputation to stop them!" Zhang Jianguo said, his hands on the table, leaning forward, his voice extremely low.

"I told the school leaders that this is just one side of the story online. Academic disputes cannot be forcibly defined by personal moral flaws. No one can stop your graduation defense without solid evidence."

The old man's chest heaved twice, then he stared at Zhao Shuyao with an almost pleading look and asked worriedly.

"Shuyao, tell me the truth, is what your ex-girlfriend said online true? If it is, what are you planning to do?"

"If this isn't handled properly, it will become a serious issue of conduct, making it extremely difficult for you to graduate. You'll also receive a demerit, and you won't even pass the civil service exam. Have you thought about how you'll live in the future?"

Faced with his mentor's barrage of questions and genuine anxiety, Zhao Shuyao did not rush to defend himself. Looking at the long printed document on the table, he stretched out his finger and lightly tapped the paper twice.

"Teacher, you've been teaching me for almost three years. Look at my outfit, and then look at how stingy I am when I order food at the second canteen." Zhao Shuyao shrugged, his tone revealing an extremely insightful sense of humor.

"Do you think that if I were truly capable of winning a girl's heart and getting her to spend all her savings to support my graduate school entrance exams, I would have needed to ask you for funding even to buy a foreign-language local gazetteer over the past three years?"

Zhang Jianguo was stunned. His mind quickly recalled Zhao Shuyao's life trajectory over the past three years: his worn-out sneakers, his ever-present gray hoodie, and his figure that spent most of his time in the library.

Zhao Shuyao leaned back in his chair: "They tried to use the trope of a talented but unfaithful scholar from a popular novel to fool me, a history major. Unfortunately, their chronological account was too fake."

Zhang Jianguo's heart, which had been in his throat, eased slightly, but he quickly frowned again: "Since it's fake, why don't you clarify it online? As long as you provide evidence, I have the confidence to completely protect you from the school's concerns."

"Because there's no need to prove it myself." Zhao Shuyao shook his head. "Teacher, if I produce a bank statement today to prove I didn't spend her money, tomorrow they'll forge a recording saying I'm mind-controlling someone. If a dog in a mud pit barks at you, you don't need to squat down and bark back at it. That's not in my nature."

Hearing these words, a hint of surprise flashed in Zhang Jianguo's eyes. He realized that he seemed to hardly recognize the student in front of him anymore. The Zhao Shuyao of the past was meticulous, obedient, and even knew how to bow his head appropriately for a future spot.

But now, the young man sitting opposite him exudes an absolute sense of detachment, as if he were outside the three realms and outside the five elements.

"Dignity? Your rice bowl is about to be smashed, and you still care about dignity?" Zhang Jianguo sighed, walked back to his chair and sat down, earnestly advising, "Shuyao, listen to my advice. I can still swallow my pride and go to Yan Chongnian."

"Prepare a sincere apology letter, not to apologize for academic issues, but for your 'disrespectful' attitude towards elders. Then we can put this matter behind us, and I guarantee you'll receive your diploma without any problems."

"Teacher, I'm sorry to have troubled you." Zhao Shuyao sat up straight, his smile vanished, and his tone became extremely solemn. "But I still maintain that every historical account I've calculated is correct. There is no room for compromise in the face of the truth. I will not bow down to those academic cliques who whitewash the truth for the sake of a job."

After a pause, seeing the confusion in her mentor's eyes, she continued, "Moreover, I don't really intend to enter the system. The turmoil these past few days has made me see things clearly. This kind of academic atmosphere that values ​​seniority and uses the position to bind people's thoughts is really not suitable for me. I don't want to write articles against my conscience in order to get promoted to associate professor."

"If you're not going to work for the system, what are you planning to do?" Zhang Jianguo frowned even more deeply. "Teach at a tutoring center, or go back to your hometown and stay unemployed?"

"I'm planning to become a freelancer, write some things, do some self-media, and maybe I'll be more successful than in school." Zhao Shuyao's tone became relaxed again, with a hint of reassurance.

"Don't think of a government job as something sacred. With what I know, I can correct people's historical views just as well, even if I'm in a different place."

Zhang Jianguo thought Zhao Shuyao was simply daydreaming.

"Shuyao, you're too naive." The professor took off his reading glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, and his voice carried a helpless tone born of experience. "How do you plan to deal with them? Write a few online articles to retaliate? You're a history major; you should know better than anyone how powerful these people are!"

"The Yan family has been deeply involved in academia for decades. How many cultural programs are they involved in? Now they have money and power, and they control the approval process for columns in major newspapers and periodicals."

Zhang Jianguo put his glasses back on and stared at Zhao Shuyao: "The resource network behind them is not something a student like you can easily deal with. Choosing to confront them head-on is like throwing an egg against a rock; it's not a wise choice!"

This was a heartfelt statement born entirely of concern. In the cognitive system of this old-school scholar, controlling academic journals and television programs was equivalent to controlling the world's discourse.

After listening, Zhao Shuyao did not hesitate to retort and naturally refilled Zhang Jianguo's teacup with hot water.

"Teacher, I understand everything you've said." Zhao Shuyao put down the thermos, his gaze piercing through the steam with a prophetic sharpness. "However, you've overlooked the most important time variable. It's 2016 now, not 2006."

He pointed to the computer monitor on Zhang Jianguo's desk.

"They did indeed once wield absolute power, controlling traditional print media, television lectures, and academic journals. In that era, if they wanted to censor someone, they only needed to shut down their publications, and that person would be completely 'socially dead.' But what about now?"

Zhao Shuyao pointed to his phone: "Sir, times have changed. We've entered the era of algorithm-recommended self-media. They used to control bulky printing presses and TV towers with declining viewership. Now, hundreds of millions of people each have a radio station in their hands that can broadcast anytime."

Zhang Jianguo stopped holding his teacup. Although he didn't understand "algorithms" very well, he could hear the absolute confidence in Zhao Shuyao's words.

"They can use resource websites to bribe influential figures and hire online trolls." Zhao Shuyao's lips curled back into that humorous yet extremely cold smile. "But this is like using a late Qing Dynasty musket to blindly fire on the vast naval battlefield of the internet."

"As long as I have enough solid historical evidence, as long as I tear down those long-forgotten, bloody truths and feed them to netizens, the sandcastle they built with money will be instantly washed away by the torrent of traffic."

Zhao Shuyao stood up, placed his hands on the desk, looked directly into his mentor's eyes, and said the words that reassured Zhang Jianguo the most.

"Don't worry, since they like to smear me online, I'll fix their facade online. I've already delivered the fatal blow, and they're probably feeling the pain now."