Chapter 126

However, in the face of this situation, it was not only them who were annoyed, but also the Bureau of Culture and Tourism of Y City.

At this moment, they wished they could rush to the front of these keyboard warriors through the internet cable and then roar in a possessed state:

Stop nitpicking!

All you do is find faults!

All you know is conspiracy theories!

Do you know how many domestic attractions there are?!

Do you know how hard it is to stand out from so many attractions?!

This barely noticed attraction was just gaining some popularity, yet a bunch of keyboard warriors started scrutinizing it. How can this be tolerated?!

The more they thought about it, the angrier they got. During an emergency meeting, the person in charge of the Bureau of Culture and Tourism directly announced that the previously deleted interview footage should be released online.

"But..." The people below hesitated, "Wouldn't this cause other adverse effects on our attraction?"

"Yes, online tides will always pass, but the impact of this fake promotion and unpresentable behavior will remain..."

"Public opinion comes and goes, but the negative impression of fraud and ugly behavior on our attraction will definitely stay," the person in charge pondered and said,

"Besides, it was our work mistake in the first place. How could we let the former residence of celebrities be wrongly labeled as 'fake' for no reason?"

Upon hearing this, everyone nodded in agreement. Indeed it was so.

Soon, the public WeChat account of the local Bureau of Culture and Tourism released a video with verbose explanations.

The gist was:

First, the attraction has never falsely advertised or staged any shoot.

Second, the reason for not publishing this video segment earlier was worrying that previous work mistakes would cause tourists to have a bad impression of the attraction.

Little did they expect such malicious speculation from everyone, which they could never tolerate the attraction being tarnished like this.

The ending even came with a promotional slogan "The scenic spots of Y City welcome tourists from all walks of life".

With this statement out, netizens’ attention was instantly shifted, clicking to watch the video that the local Bureau of Culture and Tourism had previously hidden. Apparently, they were very curious about the truth.

The video was not long, just an extra clear audio segment after the original promotional video.

"The tour guide mispronounced that character, the character ‘nie’ should be pronounced ‘nie’," said a girl in a knee-length aqua blue skirt, with companions beside her nodding in agreement.

The camera gave a close-up of the chattering "tour guide" with a thoughtful label on the side — the person in charge of the attraction.

Followed by the three words "docking pay".

The netizens watching the video couldn’t help but raise the corners of their mouths.

"No no, this is the diary of the son of an entrepreneur, not his own. I looked up information that at this period, this entrepreneur was held hostage by invaders and had no idea about the situation at home."

This was said by the tallest boy in the group.

Caption afterwards: Relic archivist, docking pay!

After that, following the guide’s narration, the children visited every sight, with the camera closely tracking like a shadow. Until the end of the tour, the staff came forward to ask the children if interviews were possible.

"You are?"

The handsome boy asked politely, but his body subconsciously shielded the girl who had been quietly standing among the crowd.

The girl was dressed in sportswear with her jet black long hair tied up, quite eye catching among the group who all had outstanding appearances.

At the same time, two teenagers on the side also stepped forward, one with clear eyes and one slightly chubby face, cooperating to block the already petite girl.

The companions who were originally scattered in a range of more than 30 feet also successively gathered around, with pairs of scrutinizing eyes all falling on the filming crew.

By now, the familiar figure that caught the audience's attention could no longer be seen on the screen.

The filming crew were obviously startled by the children’s sudden wariness. After some explanation, the children reluctantly agreed.

Yes, reluctantly.

"Are you locals?"

"No, we are from the neighboring Capital City."

"Then why did you come to Y City in groups? Did you see promotions of the attraction or..."

"We came to participate in a competition. We have to go back to school tomorrow and checked information in advance and found out there was a celebrity residence here, so we came to take a look."

...

The above Q&As were still reasonable until —

"So what's your impression of the attraction?"

Upon hearing this, the children instantly fell silent. Finally, the handsome leading boy said impassively, "Barely satisfactory."

"Well...do you have any suggestions for the attraction?"

"Sure."

When this matter-of-fact reply came out, the interviewer still did not realize the severity of the situation.

"For example, this display cabinet on the left is easily injured if someone bumps into it." A boy pointed to the map of the attraction and said.

"Also, there is a dead mouse in the corner of this room. It probably just died this morning.”

"There is a cockroach inside that display cabinet, right under the books. I just saw its antennae, hmm, it should still be alive."

...

With each thing they pointed out, the face of the interviewing crew turned stiffer.

However, these were just appetizers. The real killer blow came from the chubby-faced boy.

He pointed to the plate in the display cabinet claimed to be a celebrity’s collection and asserted categorically, "That is fake."

"Ah?"

Upon hearing this, even the already dumbfounded staff were shocked.

"How...how could that be?"

Their expression was just short of writing the words "How could you distinguish antiques at such young age?" on their face.

The next second, the boy righteously said,

"Because my dad took the real one ten years ago. It was appraised by me last year and for that, my dad beat me three times."

Companions: ...You really are something.

Online audience: ... *speechless*

The video ended here, but the barrage of ridicule from netizens came like a tide. The official website of the attraction had completely fallen. 【I admit that I was a bit too critical of you just now. To make up for it, I will come to check out your attraction tomorrow. Not for anything else, I just want to see what that already appraised fake antique looks like.】

【This wave...this wave...I'm done. I've started buying tickets for the attraction. 】

【As the official seller of mouse poison, we've just shipped mouse poison to the attraction. Don't worry, this poison can kill a nest of mice.】

【Cockroach poison shipped.】

...

Of course, some netizens worried about the hygiene issues of the attraction. After all, everyone goes sightseeing for leisure and who wants to see cockroaches and mice saying "hello" to them?!

In response, the official who had just turned over a new leaf and gained access to massive traffic naturally would not ignore it.

Soon promotional videos of the attraction were released, showcasing every corner from 360 degree angles without dead ends.

Even the display cabinet that was previously said to be prone to bumping had been rearranged. As for the fake antique...

Well, since netizens were so curious about it, it would remain, only that three words "reproduction piece" were added behind the original tag.

With that, the situation became perfectly clear and things began to develop for the better.

Although there were reasonable guesses from some netizens on what competition these children were participating in and their family background. After all, in a family where smashing an antique only led to three beatings instead of beating to death, there must be something going on.

Of course, some people associated it with the previous incident where Ji Ruochu was suspected of using the backdoor to enter the gifted class, thus reasonably suspecting that this group of children might be those ten gifted students.

However, the public was mostly still focused on the attraction itself and that fake antique. Therefore, the Ji family only sustained collateral damage and toned down the hype surrounding Ji Ruochu.

However, the reason why things could go so smoothly was thanks to several children who spontaneously shielded Ji Ruochu from the cameras. If the cameras had lingered on her more, the popularity would have undoubtedly blown up again with the spring breeze.

Although knowing the children's feelings were very pure, the Ji family still reciprocated by slightly compromising on profits in cooperating with others in the new quarter.

Of course, the children were completely unaware of this as they had already entered special training for the competition when the hot search appeared.

There were not few participants from Capital Middle School this time. The results actually came out on the same day. By the time a few children returned to school, they more or less had a sense of where they ranked.

Although they would not know the provincial team roster until a month later, judging from the competition results of several subjects this time, the participating students from Capital Middle School had all performed remarkably.

Of course, these ten children had the longest faces, because with such outstanding results in every subject, the teachers did not stop them from choosing subjects to compete in.

There were even a few children who participated in multiple events in the preliminaries, but they split up when entering the joint competition.

Ji Ruochu chose mathematics simply because it was what she had selected in her previous life, so she was more or less familiar with the "cunning" competition questions.

There was no need to mention Jiang Zhi. As a mathematics enthusiast who always had a Rubik’s cube in his hand.

As for Qi Yibin...he purely wanted to prove himself with his own achievement after living under Ji Ruochu’s shadow all these years.

Fang Zhiyuan was very passionate about experiments and eventually chose the physics competition which contained both written and experimental sections.

In the end, apart from Ji Ruochu, Jiang Zhi and Qi Yibin who swarmed to mathematics, the remaining seven people chose the same subject at most in pairs.

The reason was also easy to understand. There were so few national team quotas, so naturally the eggs could not be put in one basket.

To boast a bit, among these ten people, apart from the strong yet modest Ji Ruochu, the rest were confident that they could make the national team or even participate in international competitions.

If you don’t split up, wouldn’t you end up fighting against your own people?

Why make things difficult? Isn’t dispersion the way to go?

***

The imagined business battle: A critical moment between life and death! Turning misfortune into a blessing!

The actual business battle: Oh wow! Your kid doesn't want to play with ours huh? Fine! Our company won't cooperate with your company either!

-

The imagined negotiation: Not giving an inch! Fighting for every minute and second! Battle of wits! Overall planning!

The actual negotiation: Well, for the good relationship between the kids, we’ll let you earn a little more this quarter!