Malicious Comments

"Xi Chunzhi is dead?"

Zhou Ming pounced on Tu Ran the moment she pushed open the office door the next morning.

"Mm," Tu Ran replied flatly, setting the books she carried onto the desk. She hooked a nearby chair with her foot and sat down.

Zhou Ming chased her to her workstation. "How did she die? She was so capable?" Realizing he'd just acknowledged Xi Chunzhi's competence, he quickly changed tack. "Didn't she think she was all that? How'd she bite the dust so fast?"

Behind him, Ye Qingcai shot Xiao Miao a look to drag him away.

They didn't know Xi Chunzhi personally, but from what Zhou Ming had told them, they knew she was someone impressive and a close friend of Tu Ran's.

Tu Ran had just lost a friend. Wasn't Zhou Ming just begging for a beating by stomping up to her with his clueless questions?

Zhou Ming slapped away Xiao Miao's hand and planted himself stubbornly in front of Tu Ran, determined to get an answer.

Tu Ran, though she knew Xi Chunzhi was still alive, couldn't help but feel irritable at the thought of not seeing her for a long time.

And Zhou Ming just had to come sticking his nose in.

Tu Ran leaned back, crossed her arms, and lifted her eyelids to stare at him. "She wasted away in a hospital bed, beyond saving. Satisfied?"

Zhou Ming looked dazed. "Wasted away..."

Qi Tongda couldn't stand it anymore either. He hooked an arm around Zhou Ming's neck and dragged him back to his own desk. Zhou Ming tried to get up again, but Qi Tongda shoved him back down by the shoulder.

Leaning close to his ear, he lowered his voice. "Do you have a death wish? She's angry! You want her to give you another brain hemorrhage?"

Only then did Zhou Ming settle down.

Tu Ran gave him a cold glance, then turned her attention back to the books on her desk.

These were from the original body's bookshelf, along with a few notebooks the original body had kept.

She'd decided to read every book the original body had left behind, to relearn everything, and not just rely on the original body's memories.

The workload at the Executive Department was nothing compared to the Pioneer Team—not even by half. Their External Affairs Group Nine went the whole morning without a single mission order.

Tu Ran got so absorbed in her reading that she didn't notice the time passing.

It wasn't until the others came back from lunch that she lifted her head from the stack of books, rubbed the back of her neck, and headed over to Qiu Jian's desk.

She had a few questions she didn't quite understand.

Qiu Jian, like her, was a striker, so he might know a thing or two.

Walking to Qiu Jian's desk meant inevitably passing by Zhou Ming's. As Tu Ran rotated her neck, her gaze happened to land on Zhou Ming's computer screen. A black-and-white photo of Xi Chunzhi sat in the upper-left corner.

Tu Ran's hand froze mid-stretch. The book in her hand dropped to the floor as she lunged at Zhou Ming.

"What kind of stunt are you pulling on Xi Chunzhi's obituary page?"

Zhou Ming startled at the commotion and scrambled to exit the page.

Tu Ran immediately intercepted, grabbing his wrist firmly.

Zhou Ming's right wrist throbbed with pain, and he fumbled to close the page with his left hand. Tu Ran swiftly caught that hand too, twisting both arms behind his back.

Zhou Ming tried to resist, but Tu Ran kicked the chair out from under him and followed with a kick to the back of his knee. His right leg gave way, and the six-foot man dropped to the ground with a thud.

"Tu Ran! What are you doing! I didn't do anything! What right do you have to treat me like this?!" He craned his neck to voice his displeasure.

Tu Ran ignored him.

She stared at the computer on his desk.

The screen had already exited to the Pioneer website homepage.

Xi Chunzhi's death notice sat in the scrolling ticker in the upper-right corner.

At the end, it clearly showed 1,179 comments and 243 condolences.

Tu Ran spotted Xiao Miao cowering in a corner and said coldly, "Come here. Pull up the pages he was just looking at."

Xiao Miao looked at Ye Qingcai with pleading eyes.

Did he really have to?

If the evidence was damning, was Zhou Ming going to get beaten to death by Tu Ran?

Ye Qingcai's temples throbbed. What could he do? Tu Ran had a short temper, and Zhou Ming was a handful. The two of them together... He closed his eyes and finally nodded.

Bracing himself under Tu Ran's murderous gaze, Xiao Miao shuffled over, crouched by the desk, and began digging through the pages Zhou Ming had browsed.

Zhou Ming's face flushed bright red as he struggled desperately, but the two hands Tu Ran pressed down on him were like mechanical arms. No matter how he fought, it was useless.

"Xiao Miao! If you dare pull it up for her, we're done! I'm not your brother anymore!"

Xiao Miao's hands were trembling something fierce. He was naturally timid and easily scared. "It... it was the boss who told me to do this..."

"Captain!!" Zhou Ming changed targets, bellowing. "You're taking an outsider's side! I'm the one who's been through life and death for you—she's only been in the group a few days, and you're already taking her side! And she won't even be around long—she's just temporary! Temporary!"

"Shut up! Keep yapping and I'll knock you out!" Tu Ran pressed down harder with her hands.

Zhou Ming's face twisted in pain, and he could no longer speak.

"Did you pull it up yet? Just click on the comment section. Why's it taking so long?" Tu Ran urged.

Xiao Miao wiped a bead of sweat that wasn't there and finally found the page Zhou Ming had been browsing earlier.

At a glance, comments kept piling up.

"Just a poser! Dead's dead! The Pioneer Team doesn't need trash like her."

"The Pioneer Team's got plenty of capable people, and tons of great snipers. What's the loss of her dying?"

"Who does she think she is?"

"For the record, I've never claimed to be some sharpshooter. And as an aside, my personal best sniper shot exceeded 4,000 meters."

"Upstairs, 4,000 meters—that's even better than Xi Chunzhi, breaking the Federation record. Why didn't you report it? You'd be the Pioneer Team's sharpshooter."

"I was in the Threshold back then, too focused on gathering intel to worry about that kind of stuff. I'm not like her—nothing but empty titles. I don't care about that."

"See? See? That's a hidden expert. Who does she think she is?"

As the comments kept rolling up, Tu Ran's gaze grew darker and darker.

"How can these people be like this?" Xiao Miao, who had also been reading the comments, frowned deeply. "She's already gone. Even if they don't offer condolences, they shouldn't be saying such cold-hearted things."

"Is that 'Detached from the World' guy for real? Can he actually shoot over 4,000 meters?" Qi the Young Master, who had come to join them, crossed his arms doubtfully.

Zhou Ming's farthest shot was just a little over 3,000 meters, and he already claimed no one could beat him except Xi Chunzhi. This guy, 4,000? He'd have to be crazy to believe that.

Zhou Ming wanted to answer him, but the pain wouldn't let him open his mouth.

Xiao Miao scrolled up quickly, and the vicious words of those people unfolded before their eyes one by one.

They could clearly feel Tu Ran's pressure dropping dangerously low, on the verge of a massacre.