429: Chapter 429 The Twilight of Public Intellectuals

The report was released at exactly six o'clock in the afternoon.

It was simultaneously pushed by Great Xia Government Affairs Net, the official platform of the State Advisory Council, and the clients of the six major official media outlets, with only a single-line headline—'Great Xia Otherworld Development Government Work Report (Full Text)'.

There was no introduction, no editor's note, and no 'it is reported' or 'disclosed by relevant sources'.

A 347-page PDF, 112 photos, and external links to 46 videos—all accessible with a single click.

At 6:01, the first foreign media outlet to reprint it was Reuters.

Their headline was: 'Great Xia Government Releases "Otherworld" Report, Claiming Control Over Five Parallel Worlds'.

At 6:03, the BBC followed suit. The headline was: 'Beijing Issues Statement: We Have portals, Cultivators, and Aerospace Warships'.

At 6:07, CNN. The headline was: 'This May Be the Most Absurd Government Announcement in Human History'.

At 6:11, Fox News. The headline was: 'Great Xia Claims It Can "Cultivate to Become Gods"—The Greatest Hoax in History?'.

By 6:30, all of the top fifty news websites in the world had posted this news.

The three most frequently appearing words in the headlines were: 'absurd', 'hoax', and 'delusion'.

Not a single mainstream Western media outlet used a neutral headline—not one. They were all sarcastic and mocking.

The reactions of various governments, however, were consistent—silence.

The French presidential palace did not issue a statement.

Downing Street did not issue a statement.

Berlin did not issue a statement.

Tokyo did not issue a statement.

Everyone was waiting for Washington.

But Washington did not speak either.

When asked about the report at a routine press conference, the White House press secretary said: 'We have noticed the relevant reports and are currently evaluating them.'

And then, there was nothing more.

This silence was an attitude in itself—no acknowledgment, no denial, no comment.

Because they hadn't figured out how to comment yet.

Acknowledge it? That would be equivalent to admitting that the USA had been left behind by more than an entire era in terms of military and technology.

Deny it? The clinical effects of the rejuvenation pill had already been broadcast live globally. The Xuanniao had hovered over Washington for more than four hours, and that was captured by CNN's own cameras.

So they could only remain silent.

But the public would not remain silent.

Domestic social media platforms crashed once within ten minutes of the report's release.

After server capacity was expanded and they came back online, the top twenty trending topics were completely filled with report-related subjects.

The hashtag #OtherworldDevelopmentReport# surpassed one billion views in thirty minutes.

The hashtag #CultivationIsReal# followed closely behind.

The hashtag #CitizenRightsAndInterestsList# ranked third.

The style of the comment section was completely different from yesterday's trending topic about the rejuvenation pill.

Yesterday was excitement; today was—disbelief.

'Wait, wait, wait, let me process this. portals? Five Otherworlds? Zombies, giants, Zergs, Yao Beasts, skeletons? Cultivation Techniques? Isn't this the web novel I was following last month?'

'Stop joking around. It's an official document published on the Government Affairs Net, over three hundred pages of PDF, with both photos and videos. Have you ever seen a web novel with over a hundred pictures?'

'I just finished reading the second chapter. If the data on crystal core energy is real, oil will be useless in the future...'

'Article four, article four, article four! Free allocation of citizen housing! One hundred square meters per capita! Am I fucking dreaming?!'

But another voice was also emerging simultaneously.

On Twitter, an account named 'Fang Lei' posted an English tweet.

Fang Lei, fifty-three years old, had lived in the USA for twenty-one years. In his early years, he was a columnist for a well-known domestic magazine. He later became famous for a series of critical articles, and eventually went to the USA, becoming the 'independent Great Xia intellectual' most favored by foreign media.

His tweet read:

'A country that built itself on plagiarism has finally dominated the Universe by making up stories. Congratulations. I suggest the next step is to announce that the sun was made by Great Xia. #GreatXiaSciFiStory #GreatestHoaxInHistory'

This tweet was retweeted over ten million times within three hours.

The comments below were divided into two factions—most of the English comments were laughing, accompanied by various emojis; most of the Chinese comments were cursing him, with a vocabulary rich enough to compile a dictionary.

Fang Lei then posted a second tweet: 'Some people ask me if I believe it. My answer is: Do you believe a country that can't even make chips properly can open the gates to parallel worlds? Do you believe a government that manages 1.4 billion people with red codes has mastered the secrets of cultivating immortality? Logic, everyone, where is the logic?'

The retweets broke five million again.

On domestic platforms, 'Sweet Air' also made an appearance.

He didn't write a long article this time, but posted a three-minute video instead.

In the video, he was sitting in a room that looked like an apartment living room, with a US flag hanging on the wall behind him.

'Hello everyone, I am "Sweet Air". Today might be the last piece of content I post on this platform.'

He held up a dark blue booklet and waved it at the camera.

It was a US passport.

'I just got my green card last month. In a legal sense, I am now a permanent resident of the USA.'

He put down the passport and looked at the camera.

'Some people will call me a traitor. But I want to say, living in a country that publishes web novels as government reports is a tragedy in itself. Otherworlds? portals? Cultivating immortality? Everyone, wake up, this isn't real. This is a massive hoax designed to distract from the economic crisis.'

'As for me, I choose to live in a normal country. Good luck to everyone.'

After the video was posted, the view count rose very quickly—not because many people agreed, but because everyone who wanted to curse him had to click on the video first to do so.

The top pinned comment in the section had over four million likes:

'You already got a green card and you're still posting videos here? Get lost. Don't just talk the talk. Cut up your Great Xia ID card and film a video of it, then I'll believe you.'

The second comment had two million likes:

'Congratulations on finally finding your spiritual home. Just a friendly reminder, though: US health insurance doesn't cover rejuvenation pills. If you get cancer in the future, remember to bring your eagle dollars to line up. It's one hundred million daxia currency per pill for foreigners. Of course, that's assuming you can even exchange for daxia currency.'

The third comment had 1.6 million likes:

'Alright, stop pretending. Everyone knows exactly how many years you've been selling anxiety and how much money you've made. Seeing the wind blow the wrong way this time, you quickly ran away, only to find that once you ran, your traffic disappeared. So you came back to post a video to leech off the last wave. Your behavior is too unsightly.'

Fang Lei and 'Sweet Air' were the two most famous ones, but they were not the only ones.

On Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, a massive influx of similar voices erupted in concentration during these few hours.

Some were written in English, some in Chinese; some had an academic tone, while others were like shrewish street-scoldings. Their arguments were all about the same—the Great Xia government is lying, the Otherworld is fabricated, and the report is a hoax.

A collective carnival.

The final collective carnival.

But people from another group were already doing something completely different.

Zurich, Switzerland.

Two hours after the report was released, Marcus Weber, a key account manager at Credit Suisse's private banking division, received a phone call.

The caller was the Chief Investment Officer of a certain Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund.

The other party said only one sentence: 'Close out all of our eagle dollar positions in Credit Suisse and convert them into daxia currency. Within today.'

Weber asked, 'All of them?'

'All of them.'

After hanging up the phone, Weber received four more similar calls within thirty minutes.

One came from London, an European banking Family that had been passed down for eight generations.

One came from Singapore, an Asian hedge fund managing two hundred billion eagle dollars.

One came from Silicon Valley; he had the number saved—it was the private mobile phone of the CFO of a certain tech giant.

One came from Moscow. Weber didn't know the person who called, but the amount of funds the other party quoted made him spill his coffee onto the keyboard.

Five phone calls, from five different continents, all doing the exact same thing.

Selling eagle dollars, buying daxia currency.

Weber wrote an internal memorandum to his superior that evening, in which one sentence was later leaked and widely circulated in financial circles:

'Smart money doesn't look at news headlines; smart money looks at the flow of funds behind the news. When media outlets all over the world are shouting "hoax," money from all over the world is running toward Great Xia.'

That same evening, in an encrypted communication group, a member of the investment committee of the Rothschild Family sent a message to the group. There were twenty-three people in the group in total, all core members of old-money European families.

The message was only a single sentence.

'When Great Xia says they have a nuclear bomb, you'd better believe they have a hundred. The rejuvenation pill is just this first nuclear bomb.'

No one replied below.

Not because no one saw it, but because everyone was busy—busy calling their own asset management teams.

Beijing, Central Bank.

At eleven o'clock in the evening, the lights in the office of the Governor of the Central Bank were still on.

The Governor sat at his desk, with an A4 sheet of paper spread out in front of him. On it were several handwritten lines of numbers, the handwriting somewhat scribbled because he had written too quickly.

He dialed Su Mingyuan's encrypted number.

'Group Leader Su.'

'Governor.'

'Three hours after the report was released, the total volume of overseas daxia currency buy orders flowing in has already exceeded the sum of all offshore daxia currency transaction volumes over the past three years.'

There was a second of silence on the other end of the line.

'The specific figure?'

'As of 23:00, the total amount of daxia currency bought in the offshore market is equivalent to approximately 1.4 trillion eagle dollars. Moreover, this figure has to be updated every fifteen minutes because it keeps rising.'

The Governor flipped the A4 sheet of paper over.

'Group Leader Su, the exchange rate can no longer be suppressed. Our current official exchange rate is still set at three to one, but the actual transaction price in the offshore market has already reached one to zero point five. If we don't adjust the official exchange rate when the market opens tomorrow, the price difference between offshore and onshore will trigger large-scale arbitrage, and the order of the entire foreign exchange market will be thrown into chaos.'

'Then don't suppress it,' Su Mingyuan said.

The Governor paused.

'Don't suppress it?'

'Let it rise.'

'Rise to how much?'

'Rise to where it should be,' Su Mingyuan said. 'Governor, what do you think the exchange rate should be for a currency that can buy longevity?'

The Governor did not answer this question.

Because he found himself unable to answer.

None of the exchange rate models—purchasing power parity, interest rate parity, portfolio balance theory—could calculate the price of 'longevity'.

'I understand,' the Governor said. 'Tomorrow, when the market opens, cancel the exchange rate intervention.'

'Mm.'

Su Mingyuan hung up the phone.

On the giant screen of the Tianmen Base Command Center, the exchange rate curve of the offshore daxia currency was still climbing.

One to zero point six five.

One to zero point seven.

One to zero point eight.

He watched for a moment, then shifted his gaze to another screen next to it.

It displayed the real-time trending topics of Twitter.

Fang Lei's tweet about 'dominating the Universe by making up stories' was still pinned at the top, and the number of comments below had already surpassed eight million.

Su Mingyuan watched for two seconds, then shook his head. 'Joining the Nationalist Army in '49? The foresight of these people is as poor as ever!'