Chapter 261: Playing the World

The minor incident in the Library about "serious nonsense" vanished like a playful note tossed into a grand symphony. Qin Feng's gaze soon returned to the grand issues truly vital to the New Era.

The analysis of the suspected artificial signal returned by Pioneer One had entered its most critical, grueling phase. Top experts from mathematics, physics, information science, and other fields gathered to work day and night to crack the information hidden behind the complex encoding. Preliminary judgment indicated the signal was not random noise—it exhibited clear intelligent design features—but its specific content remained shrouded in mist, impossible to discern in full.

Meanwhile, the external world had not paused its operations due to the New Era's temporary silence. The aftermath of the Malacca "gift money" incident still lingered; Pandora, like a wounded beast, licked its wounds in the shadows, but Lilith's obsessive flame had not extinguished—it burned even more twistedly under suppression. She ceased overt provocation and adopted a more covert, more venomous strategy—using Pandora's vast public influence to quietly spread negative information about the New Era and Qin Feng across the globe.

These rumors were a mix of truth and falsehood, hard to distinguish. Some portrayed the New Era as an evil organization monopolizing technology and seeking to enslave the world; others fabricated tales of Qin Feng possessing certain secret, dangerous proclivities; worse still, they twisted and amplified earlier internal rumors about Xia Madam and leaked them to the outside world, attempting to tarnish Qin Feng's personal character.

These public-opinion attacks, like poison, seeped silently, aiming to isolate the New Era on the international stage, damage its image, and create obstacles for its future development.

On this day, Qin Feng was listening to the latest update on signal analysis when Su Wenqian entered with a grave expression and handed him a report summarizing recent external public-opinion trends.

"Sir, within the past week, several multinational media outlets controlled by Pandora and some covert online troll armies have concentrated on releasing a large volume of negative reports and comments targeting us and you. The content is crude, but the spread is widespread, causing some impact among uninformed groups." Su Wenqian's tone carried coldness. "Should we activate our public-opinion countermeasure protocol?"

Qin Feng took the report and scanned it quickly. It listed various sensational headlines and content—so absurd that he didn't even furrow his brow.

He casually tossed the report aside, his voice flat and unruffled: "Just a swarm of ants, their buzzing merely annoying."

"But, Sir, if this continues long-term, it may affect our cooperation with some neutral nations and institutions, and cause potential talents to misunderstand us," Su Wenqian worried.

Qin Feng stood and walked to the massive star map, his gaze deep. He did not directly answer Su Wenqian's concern but asked a seemingly unrelated question:

"Wenqian, when playing chess, are the pieces on the board more important, or the one holding the pieces?"

Su Wenqian paused slightly, then answered: "Naturally, the one holding the pieces."

"Then," Qin Feng turned to face her, his gaze calm, "would you stop placing your pieces or alter your strategy because a few flies are buzzing beside the board?"

Su Wenqian instantly understood her master's meaning. He had never taken Pandora's public-opinion tricks seriously—in his eyes, they were merely annoying, irrelevant noise beside the game.

"I understand," Su Wenqian bowed her head. "Then… shall we ignore them?"

"No." Qin Feng shook his head, a faint, utterly indifferent smile curling at his lips—yet one that seemed to hold boundless sharpness.

"Flies may not hinder the game, but their constant buzzing is still irritating."

His gaze returned to the star map, as if gazing at some distant coordinate.

"Since they enjoy playing the public-opinion game, enjoy fabricating stories…"

Qin Feng's voice was soft, yet carried a detached air—as if he could toy with the stars themselves.

"…then let us play a bigger game with them."

He stirred his mind, his consciousness sinking into the System Star Swirl.

【Initiate Zhanlueji Xinxiao Rao Dong Xieyi.】【Target: Global primary information network nodes.】【Content: Deploy disguised fragments of 'Pioneer' signals and 'Blueprint' fragments.】【Execution method: Intermittent, low-intensity, multi-source infiltration.】

At his command, an invisible flood of information, channeled through System Star Swirl's technology far beyond current human capability, silently merged into the underlying data ocean of the global internet.

These deployed fragments, meticulously disguised and cut, appeared to be leaked pieces from certain top-secret research institutes or military Bases. They contained a slightly distorted version of a fragment from Pioneer One's "suspected artificial signal," along with several blurry yet futuristic-looking fragments resembling some colossal space station or interstellar vessel's "design blueprint."

These fragments were impossible to verify as true or false, their technological sophistication far exceeding humanity's current public knowledge—immediately sparking uproar among the world's top intelligence agencies, hacker collectives, and secret R&D departments of major multinational corporations!

"God! This signal encoding… never seen before!" "This blueprint… this energy system design… too advanced! Which country created this?" "Source of leak cannot be traced! It appeared out of nowhere!" "Is it the New Era? Or some hidden force we don't know about?" "Could it be… the alien signal is real? They've already made contact?"

Speculation, panic, excitement, greed—emotions spread wildly across the international dark web. All forces instantly shifted their gaze away from Pandora's crude rumors, utterly captivated by this sudden, potentially civilization-altering "earth-shattering secret!"

In comparison, Pandora's accusations about personal morality and technological monopoly seemed laughable and trivial.

You like fabricating stories?

Fine.

I'll give you a bigger, more thrilling story—one that will make you strain your brains to guess.

Use real, transcendent "secrets" to bury those dull lies.

Use a mystery concerning the survival of civilization to divert everyone's attention.

Qin Feng stood before the star map, like a god overlooking the chessboard.

He did not directly refute, nor did he use force.

He simply tossed out a few seemingly tempting, yet unverifiable "fragments," and the entire world's attention danced to his tune.

He made those self-proclaimed puppeteers of public opinion, those petty clowns, insignificant within the storms they themselves had stirred.

This was more than a counterattack.

It was more like a condescending…

Play.

Playing with those obsessed with petty gains, delighting in stirring up trouble…

The people of the world.

Su Wenqian stared at Qin Feng's calm, profound profile, a profound awe and reverence surging within her.

Her master's methods were like a unicorn's horn hanging in the air—untraceable, effortless.

He heard thunder in silence.

He played the people of the world in laughter.