16: Live stream across the entire internet? Mom, your top fan has run away!

The news of the Gu Family inviting a Great Master only to be struck by lightning had already spread among the neighbors like a joke before the Gu Family even had a chance to suppress it through public relations.

The Gu Group's stock was even worse, flatlining like a heart monitor—completely dead.

In this desperate situation of internal and external troubles, the mistress of the Gu Family, the disfigured warrior Madam Li, decided to activate her backup plan.

A media war.

In this era of advanced networking, sometimes even special-grade powerhouses are afraid of social death.

As long as she portrayed herself as the perfect victim and utilized the saliva of hundreds of millions of netizens, it would be enough to completely drown a person.

Eight o'clock in the evening.

The Gu Family's magnificent living room had been transformed into a live streaming room filled with a miserable atmosphere.

All the expensive furniture had been moved out, replaced by a few tattered-looking wooden chairs. The lighting was also adjusted to a ghastly white tone, very much like the color scheme of a morgue.

Madam Li was wrapped up like a mummy about to be sent into an incinerator, leaving only her red and swollen eyes exposed.

Sitting next to her was Gu Yu, who was lethargic due to having "black dog blood drenched over his head." To cooperate with the performance, this unlucky child had specially dressed himself up to look even more miserable, with two layers of old newspaper wrapped around his cast-covered leg.

As for Gu Qingluan, because she could only croak like a frog, she was arranged in the back to serve as a background prop, responsible for holding up a sign.

The sign had four large characters written on it: [JUSTICE FOR ME].

"Start the stream!"

Following the assistant's command, during this prime time with the highest traffic, a live streaming room named [A Wealthy Mother's Tearful Accusation] was opened.

Relying on the trending searches and internet water army bought by the Gu Family, the number of online viewers instantly broke one hundred thousand and was still skyrocketing.

"My dear family! Can anyone understand this?!"

As soon as Madam Li spoke, it had that familiar short-video formulaic flavor.

Her voice sounded a bit slurred due to the necrosis of her facial muscles, but she had that crying tone down perfectly.

"I worked hard for twenty years to raise a son. But he... ever since he came back from running away from home, he's been like a different person!"

"He beat his father! He abused his disabled younger brother! He even... he even beat me into this ghostly state!"

Madam Li showed her gauze-wrapped head to the camera. "He said our whole family owes him! He wants to seize all the family property! He even drove me to a dead end!"

Gu Yu squeezed out a few crocodile tears at the right time and lifted his broken leg: "Brothers and sisters, look at my leg... it was broken by him with his own hands!"

The bullet screen was instantly flooded.

[That's too beastly! Is this a biological son? This is a debt-collecting brat!]

[Wealthy families are so messy! But for this kind of scum who beats his parents, I suggest he explode on the spot!]

[I feel so bad for the auntie! I feel bad for the little brother! That leg looks so painful!]

[Dox him! Find this scum!]

Looking at the dense bullet screen of insults directed at Gu Fan, Madam Li let out a smug, cold laugh under the gauze.

She could feel that massive amount of malice gathering.

The malice of millions of people across the entire web!

Gu Fan, this time, I will turn you into a pariah!

"I want that little bastard to suffer social death! I want him to never be able to hold his head up again!" Madam Li cursed frantically in her heart.

And outside the camera's view, at the railing on the second floor.

Gu Fan was leaning against the handrail, eating a top-quality spiritual fruit he had scavenged from Master Zhang's corpse... oh no, belongings, while watching the performance downstairs with great interest.

"Wonderful, truly wonderful."

Gu Fan clapped his hands.

"Mom, if you went into show business, they'd have to custom-make an Oscar Statue for you overnight."

He tapped open the System panel and looked at the numbers jumping frantically on it.

The malice was off the charts.

This time, the malice didn't just come from Madam Li, but was connected to tens of millions of blindly following keyboard warriors through the internet.

[Ding! Massive-scale cyber violence and malicious guidance detected.]

[Malice Sources: Madam Li (Mastermind), Ignorant Netizens (Followers).]

[Malice Nature: Rumor-mongering and defamation, inciting hatred, using public opinion to kill.]

[Malice Rank: S-Rank.]

[Due to the massive total amount of malice, a new backlash mechanism has been triggered—Real World.]

[Backlash Effect: The truth may be late, but the System will make it hit you in the face on time. Stripping away all means of disguise, forcing the restoration of the essence of things.]

In the living room.

Madam Li was performing at an emotional peak, even trying to squeeze out two tears to increase her persuasiveness.

"Thank you 'Life of Peace' for the Big Rocket... thank you for the support, family..."

Suddenly.

The screen of that professional live-streaming phone, worth over a hundred thousand, flickered for a moment.

Immediately after, all beauty filters, slimming, and skin-smoothing functions went offline in an instant.

Not only that, the System thoughtfully and automatically switched the camera to the rear 4K ultra-high-definition macro lens, known as the "Beauty-Revealing Mirror."

Moreover, it auto-focused.

Right in her face.

On the large screen, the image of the noble lady who was originally wrapped in gauze but had fair skin and pitiful eyes disappeared.

In its place was an old woman with stiff facial muscles, yellow-green pus seeping through the gauze, large pores, and a venomous gaze.

Because the beauty filters were gone, the sinister look in her eyes behind her sunglasses, exposed due to her being carried away by success, was clearly displayed.

This wasn't even the most fatal part.

What was even more terrifying was that the live-streaming software's backend seemed to have been infected by a virus, as an audio playback window suddenly popped up.

And it automatically began to loop the cloud recordings from the Gu Family Manor's internal monitoring System.

[Recording 1]:

Madam Li's sharp and mean voice rang out: "Why hasn't that little beast died in the Forbidden Zone yet? Clear out his room to make a walk-in closet for Xiao Yu! Just looking at him makes me sick!"

[Recording 2]:

Gu Yu's voice: "Mom, this time I'm going to cripple him, and then find some media outlets to hype it up and completely ruin him!"

[Recording 3]:

Accompanied by the sound of whipping, Madam Li was scolding a servant: "Are you blind! Does a waste like Gu Fan deserve to eat this kind of bird's nest? I'd rather pour it down the toilet than give it to him! Let him go eat the leftover dog food!"

This series of evidence bombardment, combined with that nauseating close-up shot.

After the live stream's bullet screen froze for three seconds, the style suddenly changed.

From one-sided sympathy, it instantly turned into a screen full of "???" and "Holy crap."

[What's the situation? This is too terrifying!]

[Did the beauty filter just drop? This is too ugly! It's like a Resident Evil scene!]

[Wait, what's with those recordings? Who is abusing whom exactly?]

[Making the true young master eat dog food? Is this something a human would do?]

[Vicious old hag! I'm going to vomit!]

[The top donor just deleted his account and ran away overnight; he was probably scared by this look without filters.]

Looking at the insults flooding the screen, Madam Li suddenly felt a chill all over her body.

"No! It's not like this! This phone is broken! These recordings are synthesized!"

She frantically tried to grab the phone, wanting to turn off the live stream.

As her hand touched the screen, the System showed its power again.

Her finger accidentally tapped the "Screen Mirroring" and "Amplify" buttons.

The "stockpiled goods" in the phone's photo album—photos of Gu Fan working in old clothes as a child, photos of Gu Yu covered in designer brands mocking him from the side—all began to rotate and display automatically.

Now it was settled; solid proof.

The evidence was as solid as a mountain.

"Ah!!! Turn it off! Turn it off for me!"

Madam Li screamed in collapse, the gauze burst open, and that half-human, half-ghost face was completely exposed to millions of people.

That terrifying imagery directly caused the live-streaming room to receive a ban warning from the platform for "extremely uncomfortable content."

But before it was banned, Gu Fan's lazy figure happened to walk into the frame.

He was wearing a crisp white shirt, his face was handsome, and his skin was clear.

As if nothing was wrong, he walked over to the hysterical Madam Li.

"Mom, stop shouting."

Gu Fan gave a helpless, bitter smile toward the camera and then thoughtfully handed over a mirror.

"Look, your makeup is all ruined. It's quite unhygienic for that pus to flow into your mouth."

"Is it really that hard to face your true self?"

"Everyone."

Gu Fan waved at the camera. "Today's wealthy family ethics drama ends here; it's time for my mom to take her medicine. After all, this kind of Histrionic Personality Disorder is quite troublesome to treat."

Click.

The live stream ended.