Chapter 556 - 30: An Immeasurable Bad Influence on Teenagers

Arrogance is wrong, without a doubt. Even the Elder Sages have said as much.

However, only the more powerful civilization has the luxury of humbly admitting such a flaw.

Of course, this particular troll didn’t warrant such a high-minded, rational response from Su Zhou. He couldn’t even be bothered to engage, simply firing back with a practiced, anonymous reply: "Piss off, you sanctimonious snowflake!"

The matter should have ended there, just an ordinary online spat.

But, just as the banquet was about to end, Su Zhou was surprised to find that the number of his Weibo followers had suddenly skyrocketed.

"Huh, what’s going on?"

Casually crunching his chopsticks to bits and swallowing them, Su Zhou stared at his Weibo notifications, unable to make heads or tails of it. ’Did the government buy me bots and fake followers again? That shouldn’t be it.’

But he soon found out why. Li Hanshan, who was sitting nearby, had forwarded him a video—which was strange, why was Li Hanshan suddenly so far away from him? Didn’t their squad always eat close together?

’Tsk, why’s he trembling again? I only glanced at him. Seriously, his social anxiety is such a hassle...’

After muttering to himself, Su Zhou opened the video.

Instantly, he understood why Li Hanshan had suddenly distanced himself.

The video showed the battle in the Beast God Realm, with Su Zhou in his Giant Dragon form. It ended with him chomping down on the Divine Bird Ghost Car, reducing it to a bloody pulp in one bite. As someone who also possessed a Divine Bird bloodline, Li Hanshan naturally felt a kind of sympathetic phantom pain in his neck.

’So, the recording leaked out after all. It even has multilingual annotations, pointing out that this Dragon is my True Body.’

Su Zhou wasn’t surprised. He knew from the beginning that this recording would inevitably get out. The goal of the other countries wasn’t necessarily to smear his name; at most, they just wanted to curb his rapidly growing global popularity and fame.

’But logically, why would my followers increase? Shouldn’t they be decreasing?’

With a strange expression, Su Zhou opened the video’s comment section.

He had expected it to be filled with criticism about his cruel and bloody methods... but he never imagined that the vast majority of people were actually, passionately discussing what kind of Dragon he was, how powerful he was, and how cool his final rocket-propelled flight looked!

"On Earth, whether in myths, legends, or modern works, this kind of Dragon doesn’t exist!" a netizen claiming to be a folklore researcher confidently declared. "Professor Su’s True Body is clearly highly unusual, a very unique True Body. There’s nothing else like it!"

"Analyzing the gap between Quasi-Commander Tier and True Commander Tier strength—a Perfect Peak Extraordinary Rank Divine Beast boosted by an Ancestral Relic is roughly equal to an entry-level Commander Tier. The fact that Su Zhou could one-shot a Divine Beast proves his strength is at least five times that of an ordinary entry-level Commander Tier!" This was from a netizen who specialized in comparing combat power, and Su Zhou had no idea what "Quasi-Commander Tier" and "True Commander Tier" were, let alone what "Perfect Peak Extraordinary Rank" was supposed to be.

"Su Zhou used his ultimate! He’s started eating people!" This was a meme reference.

"Makes me crave duck necks." This one was simple and easy to understand.

And a comment from a user named [I Know It All!] got tons of upvotes: "That was a good meal! But why didn’t you add any chili peppers?" The replies below were a chaotic free-for-all, with people suggesting to add vinegar, salt, sugar, and even a can of surströmming. It was a comment you could smell.

And there was more. The comment section was full of interesting remarks.

[He Knows, Ask Him]: "Zhouzhou, stop eating, it’s not sanitary to eat it raw. Mommy’s scared."

[Su Zhou Fan Club 014]: "Zhouzhou is so cool!"

[Su Zhou Fan Club 0189235]: "Zhouzhou is so cool!"

[Objectively Speaking]: "See?! I told you this guy was savage! You all didn’t believe me! Now the proof is irrefutable!"

[Cold Mountain Scenery]: "I think this is very bad. The negative influence on teenagers is immeasurable."

After browsing the comments a bit more, Su Zhou finally understood the situation. His reputation was already bad to begin with; he was known for being hot-tempered and flaming people online, so he never had a "little angel" persona to maintain. Basically, all of his followers, whether they were haters or actual fans, completely believed that Su Zhou was the kind of vile person who would eat his enemies raw.

All in all, his public image hadn’t been shattered. There was no need to worry about such a trivial matter.

After reading the comments for a while longer, Su Zhou couldn’t help but shake his head and laugh. "Heh, to think it would just blow over like this. I thought it would cause a huge online backlash."

As he thought this, he was struck by a wave of emotion. ’A bad reputation has its perks, I guess. Did everyone’s standards for me drop this much just because I chose to be the bad guy?’

He had, however, used his own standards and overestimated the empathy of the netizens. A Divine Bird, which in his eyes was a sentient being, was just an animal to the vast majority of humans. As long as it hadn’t taken human form, who cared if it was eaten? There was no psychological burden, nor was it a reason to hate someone.

Clearly, the video leak had not achieved the result the leakers had hoped for. In fact, one could say it had completely backfired.

Because of this, Su Zhou was in such a good mood about gaining new followers that he ate an extra two tables’ worth of food. And with that, the celebratory banquet came to a perfect conclusion.

「A few days later」

On the very day that Jin Qiong, in a swift power play, defeated several rival Divine Birds and successfully claimed the title King of the Feather Race, earning the fealty of her entire people.

The Beast God Realm’s Two Realms Teleportation Gate Fortress received an unexpected visitor.

It was none other than the king of one of the Five Races: the King of the Mao Race.

The Divine Beast, the Water Qilin, Ann Duo.