Chapter 17: The Incident Further Escalates!

“Captain, this guy’s a walking monster!”

“Exactly! With this kind of power, weren’t we just redundant?”

“How heavy was that punch?!”

“The situation really was dire—only someone like Xiao Shen would dare sleep out in the wild!”

“Right—if he’d woken up just a second later, Xiao Shen would’ve been bear food.”

“This is seriously worth studying—I’d love to dissect his body structure.”

“…”

“…”

Upon hearing this, all the rescue team members instinctively stepped several paces away from Dr. Xue.

After the rescue team returned to base, no one felt sleepy; everyone couldn’t help but rush to check the playback footage of Xiao Yi’s critical moment.

When they saw Xiao Yi punch the bear’s face into a pig’s face, they all burst into exclamations, each saying something different.

…

…

Night had grown still; after the heavy rain, the air in the wild was unusually fresh and invigorating, and most of the wild creatures had entered dormancy.

Of course, the wild also had nocturnal hunters—the top night predators now hid themselves, masking their scent, hoping for a good haul tonight.

In contrast to the wild, the metropolis teeming with people—like Rongcheng at this moment—was ablaze with red lanterns and green lights.

Everywhere, voices roared, music played, and for those living here, their nightlife had only just begun.

But Rongcheng had far more hardworking office workers burning the midnight oil.

As one of China’s newest metropolises and among the top ten cities for survival pressure, overtime was routine here.

Inside Rongcheng’s Chongming Tower, in a relatively cramped office, a mature-looking man in a suit passed by and, seeing a young man still working at his computer, couldn’t help but say with concern.

“Wu Jiang, it’s this late—aren’t you going home to rest? Do it tomorrow; no need to work this late.”

“You go ahead, Boss Shen. I just need to finish this— I feel our ‘Curiosity World’ public account might be saved this time.”

The man in the corner, startled by the voice, looked up, recognized the visitor, and smiled as he replied.

The man was Wu Jiang, a typical office worker and employee of Hongfeng Internet Company—and also a minor shareholder, with negligible equity.

The man who had just spoken to him was Shen Hao, the company’s founder.

As for Hongfeng Internet Company, it was less a company and more like a small studio.

The entire staff totaled exactly ten people, including the boss who had just spoken to him.

The company had no special technology or core expertise—just seized the tide of short videos.

In the early days of short videos, Boss Shen Hao seized the opportunity, creating several original public accounts across major short-video platforms and websites, then posting all kinds of videos.

As the short-video trend surged, these accounts gathered substantial followings.

Boss Shen Hao used this traffic to attract investment and successfully launch his own internet company.

Like this kind of sparrow company that rose on online videos, they were everywhere in Rongcheng.

This was the great tide of the traffic era—even a single viral video influencer could build their own online studio.

Their company, among these similar sparrow studios, could be considered mid-sized.

After all, their studio had one account with ten million followers, seven with a million each, and twelve with tens of thousands.

Wu Jiang’s ‘Curiosity World’ account was their studio’s first public account, co-founded by Shen Hao and himself.

In fact, ‘Curiosity World’ had surpassed a million followers on major platforms like Yinfu, Shoushou, and Weibo.

Its content mostly featured the world’s strange wonders—like fire that had burned for decades without extinguishing, or why bats were the kings of poison—to prove the universe held endless marvels.

But now, good material was too hard to find; recently, this account’s posts had hit their lowest points in views, searches, likes, and comments.

It wasn’t that Wu Jiang hadn’t tried hard—that caused the account’s traffic decline.

The world simply didn’t have enough bizarre material left for him to uncover; current content mostly just spread common knowledge, and audiences had grown bored.

Hearing Wu Jiang say this, Shen Hao—who had been about to leave—perked up; after all, this was his very first account. He walked over to Wu Jiang.

Shen Hao himself knew the account’s problem—but he had no good solution.

So now, the company’s main focus and attention were on cultivating female streamers.

Compared to earning money solely through short videos, the profits from live-streamed e-commerce were far more important to him.

Seeing Shen Hao approach, Wu Jiang immediately opened the video he’d recorded and said, “Boss Shen, check this out.”

What appeared on screen was a man punching a giant fish underwater three times until it passed out, then lifting a thousand-jin white poplar log, and finally punching a bear twice.

“This… this isn’t edited by you, is it? Xiao Wu, this account is our baby—I want it to revive and return to the public eye, but I don’t want it done through deception.”

After watching the video, Shen Hao first couldn’t believe it, then turned to Wu Jiang with a serious face.

Wu Jiang naturally sensed the misunderstanding from Shen Hao’s tone and quickly explained.

“Boss Shen, you’re overthinking—I’m not that kind of person. All this is real footage I took from Yinfu’s Wild Challenge show; the man in the video is one of the contestants.”

Shen Hao “…”

Hearing this, Shen Hao was utterly stunned, at a loss for words.

Yinfu’s Wild Challenge show had been heavily promoted since yesterday—he’d heard about it, of course.

But he hadn’t been interested in such shows, so he hadn’t paid attention—yet who would’ve thought…

…

…

The two offices at the farthest corner of the sixteenth floor of Chongming Tower didn’t turn off their lights until 3 a.m.

Afterwards, ‘Curiosity World’ posted several videos and captions across its major platforms overnight.

“What’s the human limit of strength? Today, Curiosity World reveals the truth.”

“The man who wrestled a black bear—who’s the real king of the north?”

“How many astonishing events still exist in this world!”

…

…

“Huh? Has Curiosity World switched back to its old style? I haven’t seen it in ages—but what’s this? Yinfu’s giving it a top recommendation?”

“Damn, who’s the guy in the video? Awesome!”

“That white poplar log can’t be real—I don’t believe anyone could lift such a heavy log, and that bear’s definitely fake. Curiosity World’s really going downhill.”

“Holy shit, today I learned bears can be punched—got it, got it.”

“Learned something new! Does anyone know who this guy is? I’m going to follow him—where can I see him?”

“Isn’t this the No. 6 contestant from Yinfu’s Wild Challenge? I watched a bit two days ago and turned it off—it was boring. What did I miss?! So regretful!”

“Let me tell you—it’s from Yinfu’s show, and the video isn’t edited. This guy’s a contestant.”

“100% real—I was in the live stream last night and saw Xiao Shen punch the bear into the ground.”

…

…

Immediately after the videos were posted, likes and shares on Yinfu, Shoushou, and Weibo all broke 100,000 within minutes, and comments surged past ten thousand.

This was even during late night hours—most short-video viewers still preferred watching videos over live streams, so even with Yinfu’s massive promotion, most people still hadn’t seen the show.