Chapter 601 - 366: Another Charming Moment for Journalism (Part 2)

Chapter 601: Chapter 366: Another Charming Moment for Journalism (Part 2)

Figxin flopped onto the bed, exhausted.

’Who knew filming could be more exhausting than fighting a war? I had to maintain a professional, fake smile the entire time, my posture had to be approachable, and I had to be mindful of the camera—making sure the key moments were captured without it looking like I was deliberately playing to the lens. It’s so hard.’

She had planned to sleep straight through until morning, as she still had to deal with the numerous minor nobles in the region. But driven by curiosity, she booted up her computer and logged onto YouTube.

It wasn’t that she wanted to see how she looked; she wanted to see the reaction online.

She wanted to know what people in Sutton and other regions really thought of her.

After all, she was still accused of regicide and patricide. With Zog’s help, many opinions pointing out the suspicious nature of these accusations had appeared online, but she hadn’t been fully exonerated yet.

And no matter how you sliced it, what she was doing now was rebellion—a rebellion against her own brother.

She cared a lot about her reputation. Everyone dies eventually; the only thing left behind is their legacy.

Zog had said that rebelling against her brother was no big deal. He even gave an example of a brilliant and enlightened ruler from history who had personally killed his own brother, yet later generations’ evaluations completely ignored the matter. In fact, many even thought he did the right thing.

Figxin thought he had made it up on the spot just to comfort her, because she had scoured the history books and couldn’t find any such enlightened ruler.

On YouTube, the news video about her distributing free boxed lunches in Delong Castle had already shot up the trending list.

She clicked on it cautiously, then immediately paused the video and scrolled down to the comments section, wanting to avoid seeing herself on screen.

Most of the comments were positive.

Things like, "A truly good Lord."

"Much better than her brother."

"I think *she* should be Sutton the Seventh."

"You got a death wish? How dare you say that? Aren’t you afraid the current Seventh will come after you?"

"I’ll say what I want. What’s the big deal? Maybe he’s the one who killed the Sixth and framed Figxin. I’m not in Sutton anyway, what’s he gonna do to me?"

...

Figxin scrolled through. Most of her supporters showed their location as the Northern Domain or Deepwater City, with a few from Twin Tower City. Supporters from other locations were extremely rare.

Besides the voices of support, there was, naturally, opposition and skepticism.

"It’s a publicity stunt. It’s all just for show. Don’t tell me people actually believe this?"

"All nobles are the same."

"A family civil war, and all of Sutton suffers for it."

These were the milder ones. There were also plenty of comments that were just direct, merciless insults.

These comments usually had long threads of endless flame wars beneath them.

’I really am a controversial figure.’

Figxin sighed.

But these harsh comments didn’t extinguish her fighting spirit.

’The more they say things like this, the harder I have to work.’ She would prove to all her detractors that she was on the right side.

Just as she was getting ready to sleep, she suddenly spotted a comment sharing a video.

"The Atrocities of the Northern Legion: The Truth of the Delong Castle Massacre"

Huh?

Figxin was completely bewildered. Where was this coming from?

She immediately clicked on the video. The first thing she heard was a tragic, somewhat sinister background track.

Then the first shot appeared: a large group of prisoners of war squatting outside the city, their faces filled with terror. A few close-ups on their expressions made it seem as if they had suffered some terrible abuse.

’But they only squatted outside the city for one night—the night of the assault! The very next day, they were transferred in batches to the prisoner of war camp!’ And the treatment at the Northern Prisoner of War Camp was as good as it could possibly be; they were even holding a sports meet in the camp right now.

The rest of the video made Figxin laugh in anger.

It spliced together shots of older houses in the residential area, houses that had been partially dismantled to build barricades, and completely destroyed military buildings.

It made it look as if they were all residential areas and that the devastation was caused by the Northern Legion.

That wasn’t all. They had found footage of all the dozen or so civilians who had died, and the shots were horrifying. It also included footage of the twenty-odd wounded, specifically showing them before they received treatment—all bloody and mangled. It was terrifying.

Anyone watching just this video would definitely think Delong Castle was now a living hell.

’No, wait, Hell is actually doing pretty well these days. As long as you avoid the levels with active combat, the other areas are even popular tourist destinations now.’

After her anger subsided, Figxin suddenly realized something. The person, or team, who made this video had to be from either the Northern Legion or the Zog Group.

’There’s a mole!’

’How else could they have gotten so much material!’

Realizing this, Figxin was no longer sleepy. She immediately got up and rushed straight to where Zog was staying.

"This is bad, Zog! We have a mole!" Figxin said, agitated.

She just hoped the mole wasn’t one of her own people. She refused to believe that the legion she had personally built would betray her.

"What do you mean, a mole?"

"On YouTube, there’s a video"—Figxin recited its title—"The content in it is definitely information only an insider could have. And the video is very professionally made. Someone who hasn’t been in this industry for a long time couldn’t possibly be so good at... uh..."

She couldn’t think of the right word to describe this way of making a video.

"Good at taking things out of context?" Zog finished for her.

"Yes, taking things out of context! That’s exactly it."

"Of course. That video was meticulously produced by our marketing department."

"?"

Figxin wondered if she had fallen asleep and was having a nightmare.

"By ’our’ marketing department, you mean..."

"The Zog Group’s marketing department, of course," Zog replied.

Figxin started gesturing wildly with both hands, so flustered she was at a loss for words.

"You want to ask why I had someone make a video like that?"

Figxin nodded vigorously.

"Actually, it’s not just the video. There’s also promotional copy and a whole series of other smear content waiting to be released. As for why..."

Zog’s mini-lecture on online media strategy began. "Have you noticed that the positive content we’ve been producing isn’t getting a particularly great response?"

"I guess so."

Figxin thought about it. Most of her supporters online were people who already knew her or had some contact with her. In other regions, skeptics were far more common.

"Because people have a rebellious streak. The more you praise something, the more you push positive content, the more people instinctively feel that something’s wrong. This is especially true when the person being promoted is a Princess. People have a natural aversion to nobility; they assume by default that nobles are all scumbags."

This default assumption wasn’t really a prejudice. Saying that *all* traditional nobles were scumbags would certainly be an exaggeration, but saying ninety percent of them weren’t even decent human beings might even be a bit conservative.

"So, when we release this fabricated negative material, it generates way more buzz. People will think, ’Ha! See? I told you she was no good.’"

"So?" Figxin didn’t understand. What was the benefit of fabricated negative material getting more attention?

’Could this be the legendary "famous for being infamous" strategy?’

"But the negative material is all fabricated! Controversy creates discussion, discussion creates buzz, and when the buzz reaches its peak, we prove that all the negative material was fabricated. At that point, a significant portion of the people who were skeptical of you will stop being skeptical just for the sake of it. They might even become staunch supporters to make up for their previous misunderstanding."

Zog said smugly, "A perfect image overhaul. Besides, you don’t even need one—you’re already pretty clean."

This whole strategy was completely beyond Figxin’s comprehension. "But, this... it..."

’You can play with the news like this?’

Looking at Zog’s dragon face, she found it more and more sinister.

’He’s thousands of years old. I can’t outplay him.’

"Relax, don’t panic. According to the plan, public opinion of you should reverse in about a week. For now, just keep doing your job well. Leave the rest to time," Zog said. "Public opinion is, for the most part, just people following the herd. Thinking for yourself has never been an easy thing to do."