Chapter 142: Hotline Collapses, Jiang Zhe's Counterattack

At this moment, the number of viewers in the livestream had already exceeded 7 million.

Through backend tracking, the majority were from Su City, with the rest from Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.

After entering the commercial break, the self-media bloggers lurking in the livestream room quickly drafted headlines.

Whenever they heard viewpoints that exceeded the average person's understanding, they would attach evidence and mass-post them across all major platforms on the web with a single click.

There were aggressive headlines, gentle headlines, and sensationalist headlines.

"Shocking! You and I Are Both Creators, It's Worth Clicking In."

"One Dream One World, One Flower One Bodhi; You and I Are All Dust."

"The Truth of Zhuang Zhou Dreams of a Butterfly, We Are All Creators!"

"Do You Dare Believe It? The Compound Shape of the Universe Is Actually... an Onion Universe; We Live Inside an Onion Wrapped Layer by Layer."

"The Materialism Truth of Zhuang Zhou Dreams of a Butterfly; Are Your and My Dreams a Continuation of Reality from the Previous Reincarnation?"

"..."

More and more advertorials were quickly published on platforms large and small.

Those self-media bloggers also rode Jiang Zhe's traffic to line their pockets.

...

At this very moment, inside most Television Station buildings across the country.

The half-design blueprint that Jiang Zhe had displayed earlier in the livestream had prompted many leaders of major cities to call personally, only to be brushed off by Old Zhao, Old Wang, Wang Lin, and others.

They had offended people who shouldn't have been offended, or perhaps they had interfered with someone's interests.

Those leaders hiding in the shadows then mobilized their power, getting Jiang Zhe's peer Television Station buildings to report him.

Consequently, such voices were heard inside Television Station buildings across the country.

"This Suzhou TV Station is too hateful. Our Television Station already lacks traffic, and now that Jiang Zhe has appeared, he's snatched away all the viewers who love watching science programs."

"I've already tried to avoid his time slot, but I still can't compete with him during prime time."

"No, we must pull a stunt and snatch our traffic back."

"Why did we have to agree to the local business tycoons? Is it just because our Television Station is controlled by them? To target someone just because we can't get their design blueprint, that's a bit much... sigh, taking money to do a job, forget it."

"..."

Thus, some voluntary and some coerced Television Station buildings successively used their own bots to engage in petty actions against Suzhou TV Station.

A large number of virtual accounts bombarded Suzhou TV Station with smear campaigns and other such behaviors.

At this time, outside the Television Station and the livestream, such headlines appeared.

[Suzhou TV Station host Jiang Zhe is spreading false information, recommend permanent ban!]

[Making so much money and can't even maintain a hotline; definitely a hub of corruption!]

[Has Jiang Zhe developed unauthorized machines? If left unchecked, will he harm our freedom?]

Numerous alarmist news reports came flooding in, simultaneously stirring up a wave of online public opinion.

...

At this moment, in the backend monitoring department.

Old Wang and Xiao Li were busy to the point of being overwhelmed.

"How could this happen?"

Old Wang stared at the surging traffic on the monitoring screen; as soon as the commercial break started, tens of thousands of hotline calls flooded in.

It should have been a good thing, but after the 3-minute commercial break, the hotline calls had surged to 480,000!!

The total number of viewers was only 15 million, and 480,000 hotline calls almost blew out the Television Station hotline in just 3 minutes.

Xiao Li looked anxious, "Master, what should we do? The hotline has completely crashed; calls can't get through."

Old Wang looked panicked; since he had become the leader of the monitoring department, this was the first time he had encountered such a situation.

He carefully checked the call status on the screen and, through a backend check, discovered a large number of virtual accounts. The virtual accounts came from countries all over the world, and some even had no location.

"Damn, the hotline has been occupied by a massive number of machine calls."

"What? Master, what do you mean?"

Old Wang said with an unhappy expression, "Someone is targeting us."

"Targeting us? Why didn't anyone target us before? Why are there so many people targeting us now?"

Old Wang picked up his phone and discovered numerous news headlines appearing that involved the keyword [Jiang Zhe].

He glanced over them casually; they were all smear campaigns and attempts to stir up trouble, causing many viewers who had arrived for no reason to lean towards one side.

Old Wang's expression instantly became extremely serious, "We likely offended someone. It's highly probable that the [Mind Control] design blueprint that Jiang Zhe released earlier only showed half, and the other half wasn't revealed. That unintentional act may have offended some powerful leaders and business tycoons."

"Hiss~ Damn, to think it would come to this over a simple design blueprint; that is so damn hateful!"

Soon, Old Wang felt the matter was quite serious, so he picked up the walkie-talkie to report to Old Zhao.

"What's wrong, Old Wang?"

"Old Zhao, the hotline has crashed; the phones in the customer service department can't get through anymore."

"What? The hotline has crashed? Is it what I understand, that the phone lines in the customer service department have been blown out, and calls can't get through? Are you sure you aren't joking?"

"I'm really not. I suspect someone is targeting us; you can go and listen to the customer service department to see."

"Hold on."

Station Manager Zhao hurriedly picked up another walkie-talkie, opened its channel, and listened to the noisy situation in the customer service department.

The customer service department was in a panic, filled with the complaints of customer service staff.

"Damn, Teacher Jiang talked about what today? The phones rang continuously for 2 minutes, and then they all stopped ringing."

"It's crashed, I'm sure the hotline has crashed."

"Right, this situation also happens during interactive entertainment programs in big cities."

"It's not that the hotline crashed; it's that a large number of virtual bots are calling in, and as soon as it connects, it's a female voice demanding that we ban Teacher Jiang. I checked the backend; it's an AI voice, and they only repeat these words."

"Let me check... it really is a bot. Who on earth have we offended?"

"It's not who we offended, it's that Teacher Jiang may have inadvertently offended someone."

"It's not someone Teacher Jiang offended. Earlier, when I went to the restroom, I heard in the leadership conference room that the Station Manager Zhao, the Broadcasting Department Head, and Wang Lin were all answering phones. I heard a few sentences; it seemed to be business tycoons and leaders from all over the country chasing after the [Mind Control] design blueprint. It's possible our leaders offended someone."

"Damn, I thought it was us who offended someone."

"..."

Confirming that the customer service department had encountered a situation, Station Manager Zhao looked stunned, belatedly realizing that it was their own fault.

He looked at everyone with a guilty expression.

"It seems we've caused trouble, and the pressure has shifted to our side."

Old Wang asked, looking puzzled, "Us? What kind of trouble could we have caused?"

Wang Lin hurriedly explained, "Perhaps it is us. Didn't we just answer dozens or even hundreds of calls? Some were calls to our private phones, and others were to public lines."

"Our private phone numbers are only known to ourselves."

"Why would other strangers know them?"

"This directly indicates that someone is investigating us and has obtained our private phone numbers."

"In the end, wasn't our tone a bit poor? After all, we didn't want to know who the other party was in the later calls; we just answered, chatted a few sentences, and hung up."

Once these words were spoken, Xiao Shiyi quickly nodded in agreement, "Right, it was the people we offended at that time. I suspect it was caused by that [Mind Control] design blueprint; we rejected them all. Because this design blueprint indeed involves massive interests; whether it's medicine or killing, it could be done easily."

Once these words were spoken, the whole room was stunned.

All the leaders' expressions were somewhat unpleasant.

Because the dozen or so people present had all received calls from the outside, it was definitely the ripples caused by that design blueprint.

Jiang Zhe's program was still continuing, and those powerful figures were more or less watching the program, and then, taking advantage of the program entering the hotline period, all sorts of monsters and demons came out.

"Fuck it, this is really messing with our mentality; we don't even know who is targeting us."

"Forget it, investigating this is too much of a waste of time."

"5 minutes, extend the program by 5 minutes, let the professionals fix it, we will continue to play commercials."

...

Studio.

Jiang Zhe jogged all the way back to the studio and sat back down on the podium.

As usual, facing the camera, he smiled and began:

"Let's invite the first lucky viewer."

A moment later, there was no response on the scene, and no "beep-beep-beep" sound of a call came through.

He looked away, puzzled, and discovered that the program screen on the left wall in the distance was still in the commercial break.

He raised his hand to look at his wristwatch; it was already 10:05 PM.

"What happened? Why hasn't it entered the question period yet?"

At this moment, the floor director and staff members below looked over and shouted a few things.

"Teacher Jiang, the hotline has been paralyzed."

"Right, when the commercials started, 500,000 calls came in at once, directly paralyzing it."

"It's the increase in those self-media bloggers online; they posted advertorials before the program even ended, and big influencers posted articles too; it caused a group of newcomers to suddenly come in and crowd the hotline."

"These wouldn't be enough to paralyze the hotline. Teacher Jiang, Station Manager Zhao said that it seems your design blueprint offended someone. No, it wasn't you who offended them; it's because the Station Manager Zhao, the Broadcasting Department Head, and Wang Lin rejected the publication of that design blueprint on your behalf, causing someone to target us behind the scenes. This time, we may have offended a large group of people, not just one individual."

"Right, finding them is impossible."

Once these words were spoken, all the staff members nodded repeatedly.

Upon hearing this, Jiang Zhe's expression was unhappy. He looked up at the leadership conference room inside the glass window.

Old Zhao, Old Wang, Wang Lin, Xiao Shiyi, and a group of leaders were all gathered together, discussing this matter.

"So that's how it is?"

Jiang Zhe's expression was somewhat cold; he pulled over his laptop directly.

Activating Grandmaster-level hacking skills!

He typed rapidly on the computer, first hacking into the station's own hotline.

Then, using a [Counterattack Trojan] he had prepared beforehand, he deleted all the virtual accounts in an instant.

The virtual accounts vanished quickly into the black page like flowing water.

At the same time, through reverse tracking, he spent 20 seconds deleting all the virtual accounts and limiting the hotline channel.

After some operations, he finally left only 1,000 normal phone numbers that had already called in, and all other hotlines were blocked out.

After the operation was finished, he adjusted his headset and gave an order: "It's handled, start taking calls normally."

The floor director in the back said: "We haven't fixed it yet, we are in the middle of emergency maint... Huh? What's going on? The lines are gone, yet the phones can still get through? Do we not need lines to make calls now?"

"Yeah, it's handled. It's been delayed for too long."

"Yes, Teacher Jiang."

No one would have thought that Jiang Zhe had already successfully hacked into the Television Station base station and connected directly to the Television Station satellite.

All calls would be dialed into his computer, rather than going through the Television Station.

In special times, special measures must be taken.

While everyone on the scene was in a panic, trying to solve the problem.

Inside the studio, an excited male voice came through: "It's my turn, it's finally my turn. It's me, it's me, I got through."

Hearing this, Old Zhao and Old Wang both turned their heads in astonishment, looking puzzled: "The lines have been disconnected, yet people can still call?"