Chapter 70: Why Is There a Mole?

The situation has escalated to this point—it’s far more than just an insider leaking information.

To claim there’s no mastermind behind it, stoking the fire and exploiting the moment for hype—others might believe it, but Qin Xiaoyu flat-out doesn’t.

The reason he made this judgment is:

It’s not that Qin Xiaoyu suffers from paranoia or has an overly dark mind.

If this were merely about an insider leak and players being dissatisfied with Zhongli’s design, they’d at most vent a few complaints and demand an official statement.

Nothing more.

It would never escalate to the level of accusing the Chinese people of being slandered.

The videos and discussions on Xiaopu Station are no longer just about Zhongli’s power level.

This is clearly abnormal—it’s obvious a large group of ordinary players have had their emotions manipulated.

But for now, Qin Xiaoyu can’t figure out who’s pulling the strings behind it all.

And right now, what urgently needs to be done isn’t to uncover the mastermind, but to calm the players’ emotions and prevent them from being further exploited, which could widen the crisis.

So the response can’t be delayed, and a simple official announcement won’t suffice.

It would be best to engage with players face-to-face.

Compared to a cold announcement, direct interaction with players better conveys the game company’s sincerity and stance.

After careful thought, Qin Xiaoyu decided to host a live stream on Xiaopu Station himself and fully address the players’ doubts and confusion.

Besides, he had already planned to hold a live stream for the version preview earlier, but there were simply too many trivial matters.

He never got around to carrying out the plan.

Now, with this incident occurring, it’s the perfect chance to finally do what he’d long wanted to do.

…

As Qin Xiaoyu suspected:

After the clarification and live stream announcements appeared on Xiaopu Station and the official website, the players’ anger gradually cooled.

“Holy shit, the leaked stats were just from internal testing—I thought they were real!”

“Guys, calm down. If the official says so, let’s wait for tonight’s stream!”

“Yeah, better wait and hear what the official has to say in the live stream.”

“Honestly, I’m a looks guy—I don’t care if Zhongli’s strong or not. I just felt like if I didn’t join the ranting, I’d seem out of place…”

“Something feels off—I feel like I was pushed into this without reason. I never even wanted to rant!”

“I couldn’t accept the setting where a god based on Xia Guo is way weaker than the useless Babatoss, so I reacted.”

“The guy above is right—I also couldn’t accept this absurd design. When I saw the video exposing Zhongli as a martial god with top-tier power, I got excited. Then I heard he’s weaker than a wild boar, and I flew into a rage!”

“…”

Looking at the comments under the announcement, Qin Xiaoyu slowly exhaled—he was relieved the players had temporarily regained their reason.

But:

The players were right.

A god based on Xia Guo being weaker than gods from other nations? Even Qin Xiaoyu himself couldn’t accept such a design.

Back on Earth, when he designed this character, his stats were already the version 1.3 buffed version.

But those idiots in planning, citing stat inflation, nerfed him into a nobody—triggering the “Zhongli incident.”

Ironically, under player pressure, those same bastards eventually had to revert the stats back to their original state.

They called it a “buff.”