Chapter 1

The person filming falsely accused my father of beating up an honest college student on the bus to grab a seat.

Because of this, my father was fired from his job and hid at home, too afraid to go out.

I encouraged him to report it to the police to clear his name.

Even after the police issued a detailed report, the clickbait account wouldn't let him go.

They liked our personal information and spread lies in the comments, saying we had connections.

1.

In the dormitory, I was watching an online course on my computer.

My roommates were scrolling through short videos, angrily shouting:

"This old bastard is bullying people too much!"

"Fight back! Ugh, this makes my blood boil. That kid clearly can't fight. If it were me, I'd beat that old bastard to death!"

Then one of my roommates shoved the phone in my face.

"Alan, look at this! Isn't it infuriating?"

I usually don't care much about the truth or falsehood of online matters,

but I glanced at the video and was shocked. I immediately grabbed my roommate's phone.

The video had a huge red title: "Young man beaten on the bus by an old man, who claims he wants to discipline the youth."

In the video, my father was pressing a frail young man into a seat with one hand, covering his mouth tightly with the other.

The people around them had scattered from their seats, afraid of getting involved, some even smiling, but no one stepped in to help.

The woman filming the video said, "The young man got on the bus first and took an empty seat. The old man came up and forcefully demanded he give up the seat. They started arguing."

"Then the old man began to beat the young man. The young man didn't fight back at all. Even after the young man stood up, the old man continued to hit him!"

"The young man got off the bus later, bleeding!"

I quickly searched for related content and found that the video had gone viral, topping social media trends. Every comment under the video was cursing my father:

"Find this old man, he's infuriating! Shameless old man."

"Doesn't he have children?! Why should we pay welfare for people like him? He should just die!

It's not that old people have become bad; it's that bad people have grown old!"

"He must apologize to the young man! This is heartbreaking!"

"Taking advantage of his age, despicable! That poor kid, clearly can't fight..."

"The passengers around were even laughing. What's wrong with society..."

I searched more thoroughly for the source of these videos and found that the initial spread came from a personal media account. She already had nearly a million followers, and this video alone gained her over 200, 000 new followers in just one day.

Her video content was all about sensationalism, violence, controversy, and stirring up conflict.

Claims like a woman being pregnant with Evan's child and demanding a DNA test,

a woman committing fraud and causing a man to commit suicide by jumping into a river,

exposing a woman flipping the bird at the Olympics,

a national shooting team champion being rejected twice and selected through special channels,

and even insinuating an inappropriate relationship between a newly crowned Olympic champion and her coach.

Her content was basically all fabricated, and she became a social media star with millions of followers by thriving on drama.

Some officials had already debunked her claims, but she would just leave a comment saying it had been debunked and let the videos continue to generate topics and views for her.

This person not only knew how to exploit the internet but was also naturally evil and without morals.

I suddenly noticed that just a few minutes ago,

she had uploaded new content featuring the young man from the video with my dad. The young man, lips pale and fighting back tears, said my dad not only hit him but also tried to force him to crawl under his body. Instantly, that video reached tens of thousands of views,

with comments like: "Hope this kind of old man gets hit by a car when he goes out.

"

Seeing these comments, spreading like snowflakes and full of curses, my face turned pale, and I clenched my fists tightly.