Chapter 3598: The Lowest of the Low

A sudden shout left Ji Xiaomeng stunned in an instant.

She liked to plan ahead, so before coming she had considered many possible contingencies, but all her considerations were about the opposing side, that is, how these surrounded passersby would react.

She had considered the possibility of being attacked, of being insulted, of encountering someone begging for mercy, and even the slim chance of meeting an acquaintance who knew her in real life, and she had prepared countermeasures for all these possibilities; even if today she said her clothes were recycled or that she had immigrated to Europe with her parents since childhood, it was not an impromptu fabrication but a pre-prepared response.

But she had never considered what to do if one of her own teammates bit her.

So when she saw someone from her own side actually firing at her, she panicked and hurriedly shouted: "Park Su-hyeon, what nonsense are you spouting?!"

Park Su-hyeon was of Korean descent and had joined the team over a year earlier than Ji Xiaomeng; when Ji Xiaomeng wanted to join, she had sent him a flood of private messages on Facebook, and only after her desperate pleas did Park Su-hyeon recommend her to the organization.

Moreover, when Ji Xiaomeng first joined, Park Su-hyeon had personally guided her.

At that time, he thought Ji Xiaomeng and he were both Asian, and in this predominantly white team, having one more Asian face would reduce the likelihood and pressure of Asian members being marginalized, and if they got along well they could look out for each other, so he had been quite considerate toward Ji Xiaomeng.

To quickly integrate into the team, Ji Xiaomeng initially clung to Park Su-hyeon with great enthusiasm, even actively engaging in ambiguous behavior that was more than friends but less than lovers, and to gain his sympathy, support, and help, she even honestly told him many of her personal circumstances.

However, Ji Xiaomeng was more shameless and unscrupulous than Park Su-hyeon, so after a few operations she quickly began to stand out in the team, and not long afterward her status surpassed his; from then on, her attitude toward Park Su-hyeon grew increasingly cold.

Moreover, while Ji Xiaomeng grew cold toward Park Su-hyeon, she began fluttering her eyelashes at the team leader, daily circling him with a face full of admiration, which only deepened Park Su-hyeon's dissatisfaction.

Park Su-hyeon already harbored resentment in his heart, and even without Ye Chen's psychological suggestion, he had long found Ji Xiaomeng intolerable; now, with the psychological suggestion added, this dissatisfaction grew even stronger.

Thus, the more he looked at Ji Xiaomeng, the more he hated her, even to the point of his teeth itching with hatred.

So he pointed at Ji Xiaomeng and shouted sternly: "Ji Xiaomeng, you, a native-born Huaxia person, were just a few months ago an amateur photographer who couldn't even afford a meal, scraping together the money for a Europe trip through online loans, yet you have the nerve to claim in broad daylight that you immigrated here since childhood—had I known you were this hypocritical, I should never have let you join us!"

Ji Xiaomeng jumped in fright, her heart leaping to her throat in an instant, followed by a sensation of weightlessness that made her legs feel weak, and cold sweat broke out involuntarily.

She never expected Park Su-hyeon to suddenly target her, especially at the protest site, under so many live-streaming cameras, exposing her.

Fortunately, she thinks quickly; as the surrounding people began to cast doubtful glances her way, she immediately said with heartfelt anguish: "Park Su-hyeon, I have always regarded you as a senior on the environmental path and a role model for benefiting the world, but you only want me to be your girlfriend—I've already said I don't want to consider personal feelings in the short term; even if you've been hurt, there's no need to slander me now, is there?"

"I'm slandering you?" Park Su-hyeon snapped angrily: "You claim you immigrated to Europe since childhood—fine, then tell me, which country did you immigrate to?"

Ji Xiaomeng knew many people were filming her with their phones, and some had already begun live-streaming on online platforms, so she could only steel herself and say: "I... I immigrated to Sweden—what's wrong with that?"

The headquarters of the environmental organization Ji Xiaomeng joined is located in Sweden, because most of the team members are Swedish environmental activists who have already formed a de facto environmental group; the famous environmental girl is one of the core teams at the highest level of this group.

As for Ji Xiaomeng's organization within this profit-driven environmental group, it currently amounts to little more than an inconspicuous small team; to gain higher status and influence within the group, they began frequently organizing protest activities across Europe.

When Ji Xiaomeng fled in disgrace from the United States, she flew from the U. S. to Sweden, so she brought up Sweden to try to bluff her way through.

Park Su-hyeon scoffed at her lie, sneering: "You say you immigrated to Sweden, so you must already have a Swedish passport; then I ask, we are entering Northern Europe today—why is your passport still a Huaxia one? Since everyone's passports are on hand, dare you take yours out and show it to everyone?"

Ji Xiaomeng didn't know what to do, so she could only look toward the team leader, using her eyes to plead for help.

The team leader hadn't expected such an internal incident; to stabilize the situation and avoid damaging the team's image, he immediately said to Park Su-hyeon: "Park, I warn you—don't bring your personal life into environmental work; if you continue to slander the team out of personal desire, I will kick you out, this rotten apple!"

Park Su-hyeon had long lost normal judgment; seeing the team leader also defending Ji Xiaomeng only fueled his anger, so he sprinted a few steps, leapt onto the roof of the leading Mercedes sedan, and shouted loudly at the surrounded crowd: "I'll tell you the truth—this environmental organization staging these protests isn't for any environmental cause at all! Global warming? Bullshit! It's all business! Many upstream and downstream companies of wind and solar power in Europe regularly donate to us and provide activity funds, just to pressure us to put pressure on coal power plants and European governments, pushing them to gradually shut down coal plants—you know what happened in Germany, right? After coal plants were shut, residents' electricity prices doubled, and those involved in wind and solar are all laughing all the way to the bank!"

"Moreover, our roadblock protests in Northern Europe aren't for environmental protection either—it's because we want to leverage environmentalism to gain influence, attract fans online, not only urging fans to donate activity funds, but also calling on all Europeans to donate clothes for recycling and reuse to avoid polluting the environment!"

"If you search online, you can find videos of our protests in other countries and cities; each time we give everyone an address to an environmental website, claiming we've invested millions of euros to build a green environmental recycling production line, but in reality it's just an empty shell company!"

"If you send your old clothes to that address, those clothes won't be sent for recycling but will be uniformly packed and exported to Africa, even the shipping costs borne by African distributors—we don't need to invest a single cent, only need to contribute some manpower, and we can exchange your donated clothes for large sums of money, all of which goes straight into our pockets, especially those of the leaders!"

"And, do you know why we deliberately damage those world-famous paintings in European museums? Frankly, it's because collectors secretly support us; as long as we destroy a certain master's certain painting, media coverage afterward will make that master's works hot in the collecting world, and moreover, destroying one piece reduces his surviving works by one, which can drive up the prices of the remaining surviving works—collectors just need to sit at home, and their collection's value will skyrocket!"

Having said that, he pointed at the team leader and said coldly: "This person—most of the money earned from each activity goes into his own pocket! He just bought a 6.2-liter displacement Dodge Challenger last month, nearly the largest-displacement muscle car available on the market, and a man who constantly mouths environmentalism actually bought the largest-displacement car—you tell me, how ironic is that?"

Then he turned to Ji Xiaomeng, shouting angrily: "This woman, spouting lie after lie, as soon as she sat in that Dodge Challenger she wore a flirtatious smile, as happy as could be, and even begged several times to experience drifting with him—I've never seen her criticize that car for being unfriendly to the environment! But today, she won't even let a Tesla driver off the hook, standing on the moral high ground of environmentalism and spouting nonsense—she's nothing but trash among trash, a lowlife among lowlifes!"