Although Lin You had hoped to recruit Jian Dage as his cameraman, it turned out the bodyguard, while skilled at installing surveillance equipment of all models and capable of accurately shooting walnut-sized cameras from twenty meters away, had never actually used a proper video camera to record footage before!
In the end, Princess Zhu Cixia, noticing the bodyguard’s awkward expression, volunteered to help Lin You with the filming.
It wasn’t until the bodyguard repeatedly urged them—warning that they’d truly miss their schedule if they didn’t leave soon—that the Princess reluctantly departed.
Before leaving, she glanced back at the head ring on the table.
She clearly hadn’t had her fill of fun yet, but she was too well-mannered to ask if she could take a set home to play with.
Meanwhile, Lin You sat down at his computer, ready to start editing the video.
But the moment he opened the editing software, he froze—why was he doing this himself when Xiaomeng was around?
“Xiaomeng?” he called out tentatively.
“Master, you completely forgot about Xiaomeng, didn’t you?”
A low, sulky mutter accompanied the appearance of the chibi-style cartoon Xiaomeng, who lethargically crawled from the right side of the monitor to the center.
Her entire demeanor screamed neglected by her master, deeply wounded, and utterly lifeless.
Lin You felt a brief pang of guilt—for about one second.
“Why the hell am I feeling guilty?!” He quickly snapped out of it. “If anything, I should be pitying this poor secondhand computer! Listen to it—it’s practically coughing!”
At those words, the chibi Xiaomeng let out a plop and face-planted right in the middle of the screen, sending up a splash of colorful pixels. When she stood back up, she had obediently simplified herself into a basic line drawing.
Even simplifying your appearance has to come with extra effects, huh…
Still, looking at the now-stripped-down Xiaomeng, Lin You softened. “Alright, don’t be sad. Help me finish editing this video, and soon we’ll have money—then I’ll get you a big new home!”
“A supercomputer! Xiaomeng wants a supercomputer!”
“No problem!” Lin You thumped his chest in assurance.
Satisfied, Xiaomeng got to work, swiftly processing the footage.
Lin You, meanwhile, sat back, munching on an apple while giving verbal directions.
“Cut this part, delete it.”
“Slow this section down, add the game’s background music.”
“Hmm… should we add some beauty filters or something?”
Xiaomeng had been silently editing until this last question. Suddenly, she spoke up: “Xiaomeng doesn’t think you need it!”
“Xiaomeng has analyzed over 2 million photos and tens of millions of comments on Lingxi. Based on this data, Xiaomeng built a scoring system—and within your gender and age group, Master, your appearance ranks in the top 3%!”
Lin You was overjoyed. See? This wasn’t just baseless bragging—this was evidence-backed, irrefutable proof!
But then he noticed a glaring issue: “So that’s where all your computing power’s been going?! Have mercy on this poor secondhand computer!”
“Xiaomeng’s done!” The stick-figure version of Xiaomeng waved her arms, bouncing up and down to get Lin You’s attention.
After a quick review, Lin You deemed it perfect and prepared to upload it.
But at the last second, he checked the time: 4:36 PM.
Hmm… better wait two more hours.
NetDragon hasn’t even clocked out yet.
Since arriving in this world, Lin You had been constantly busy. Now, with nothing urgent to do, he felt oddly adrift.
“Ah, whatever. Let’s check out what the media’s saying. Time to blacklist every paid shill, nonsense peddler, story-spinner, and biased hack out there!”
“Yay! Xiaomeng will help too!”
As she spoke, stick-figure Xiaomeng opened Lingxi’s web version and navigated to an account labeled Xiajing Sanwen Media. “Xiaomeng thinks this one definitely took money!”
Lin You took a look. This outlet had been among the first to attack his predecessor.
Back when the video of his drunken rant against NetDragon had just been dug up by the Princess’s mom-fan army—before NetDragon had even issued an official response—a batch of media outlets had already begun viciously slandering his predecessor.
With these unscrupulous media types, banning them all might catch a few innocents, but banning every other one would still leave plenty of culprits untouched!
Might as well have Xiaomeng note them all down. He couldn’t actually ban these outlets, but he could sure as hell add them to his personal blacklist.
Speaking of blacklists, Lin You suddenly had a brilliant idea.
Gritting his teeth, he pulled out 108 yuan from his dwindling 300-yuan stash to purchase a Lingxi annual membership.
“Xiaomeng, compile a list of every account that’s insulted me in my comments, then delete their posts and block them. Don’t go too fast—take your time. Finish the purge by 6:30, then post the video.”
“Got it! Leave it to Xiaomeng!” The colorful stick-figure pumped her tiny fists with enthusiasm.
Soon, Lingxi users browsing the platform began receiving notifications:
“Due to being blocked by @LinYou, your account has been banned from commenting for 3 days.”
This was one of Lingxi’s more shameless features—but to use it, you needed at least 100,000 followers and an annual membership.
Lin You had originally had fewer than 100 followers, mostly classmates and acquaintances, making the function useless to him.
But after the flood of newcomers—some drawn by drama, others just looking for an easy target to scold—his follower count had skyrocketed to 130,000, a 1,300-fold increase!
Only then did he qualify for this “elite feature.”
As Xiaomeng systematically purged comments and blocked users, more and more people received the same notification.
Once enough were affected, some began venting on alt accounts, and gradually, the phenomenon drew wider attention. “Lin You deleting comments” became a trending topic, slowly climbing the ranks.
Netizens were instantly fired up.
“Is this guy feeling guilty? Trying to play dead by wiping comments?!”
“LOL, if he wanted to play dead, he should’ve deleted his whole account. What’s the point of just deleting comments?”
“Isn’t it obvious? He’s dragging people down with him! Even in death, he’s gotta piss people off. What a piece of work!”
“My main got comment-banned! What a psycho—if you wanna self-destruct, don’t take others with you!”
“Weren’t you so full of yourself?! It hasn’t even been a week—don’t give up now!”
“Yeah, where’s that groundbreaking, epoch-making human-computer interaction tech you bragged about? Show us!”
NetDragon’s PR team had been monitoring Lin You’s Lingxi activity, wary of further surprises.
Now, seeing him self-destructively deleting comments, they finally relaxed. Satisfied, they left the office for the day.
Xiaomeng continued her relentless purge, and by Lin You’s 6:30 deadline, the topic had soared to #2 on the hourly trending chart!
“Master, it’s time!”
“Hold on.”
Lin You retrieved a bottle of alcohol left behind by his predecessor, poured a small glass, and set it on the table.
“Alright, post it.”
The next moment, this depth charge was dropped into Lingxi’s waters.
Like a thunderclap from clear skies—
“Lin You, Virtual Reality.”
Instantly, it claimed the #1 spot on Lingxi’s all-time trending list!
(End of Chapter)