Editor-in-chief Eric Bennett also hadn’t expected this article to have such a huge social impact. He had never cared about online feedback before, but now he was glued to the newspaper’s forum. At first, Eric Bennett thought everyone would be cursing him, but he soon discovered that the forum was full of people calling out William Bolton by name and cursing him, with very few mentioning himself. This was a rather strange phenomenon: when it came to praise, it was all directed at him, but when it came to criticism, all the firepower was focused on William Bolton. Could it be that this kid just naturally attracts negativity?

Chapter Six: Blood-Stained Glory

Eric Bennett specifically called William Bolton into his office and asked with great concern, “Xiao Zhang, have you been following what’s happening on the newspaper’s forum?”

William Bolton replied indifferently, “Yeah, they’re all cursing me. Someone’s deliberately stirring things up, so just have the admin delete the posts and ban the accounts. Worst case, just shut down the forum for a few days—out of sight, out of mind.”

Eric Bennett pointed at him, “You young comrade, do you know what kind of society we live in now? We value freedom of speech. The forum is a channel for listening to the voices of the people.” The forum had only just become active, and he didn’t want to shut it down.

“But you can’t listen to every voice. Some of them are just malicious, and it’s already escalated to personal attacks.” William Bolton realized that Old Du was a sly old fox. What was strange was that hardly anyone on the forum was cursing him. In the past couple of days, William Bolton had become quite famous, but his reputation score had first risen and then plummeted. After just surpassing twenty thousand, it had nosedived all the way back down to just over five thousand. William Bolton felt that at this rate, his score would be negative by tonight, which was not a good sign. If the decline didn’t stop, wouldn’t that mean his life was over?

Eric Bennett stood up and looked out the window. There were still more than a dozen people at the main entrance holding banners and blocking the way. Eric Bennett said, “Xiao Zhang, how about you take a few days off and come back to work after things calm down?”

William Bolton followed him to the window, sneered, and said, “That bunch is just a mob, nothing to be afraid of. I’ll call the police right now and have them all arrested.”

Eric Bennett glanced at him, “Don’t escalate the conflict any further. Leave through the back door, and things will blow over.”

But William Bolton wasn’t about to miss this chance to make a name for himself. He wasn’t going to change his name or hide his identity—he would never bow to the forces of evil in society.

He swaggered out through the main entrance. As soon as he reached the door, a group of protesting farmers recognized him: “That’s him! He’s William Bolton, the one who exposed the clenbuterol scandal.”

In a flash, a crowd surrounded William Bolton.

Eric Bennett watched everything clearly from the window. He’d told him to leave through the back, but this stubborn kid just wouldn’t listen.

If you don’t listen to your elders, you’ll suffer right away.

Worried that something might happen to William Bolton, he quickly called security to go over and mediate. But seeing the size of the crowd, the security guards didn’t dare approach either. They stood at a distance, using a loudspeaker to urge everyone to stay calm while hurriedly calling the local police station.

Facing more than a dozen burly, aggressive men closing in, William Bolton wasn’t the least bit afraid. “What do you want? Do you know where you are? Attacking a government office will land you in jail!” He used his momentum to intimidate the crowd.

Sure enough, a few people were startled by his words. Someone shouted, “Don’t be afraid of him! He’s not even a full-time employee at the newspaper, just a trainee reporter, a temp. He’s just putting on airs, and to get a permanent position, he resorted to dirty tricks and faked photos to smear us farmers. Beat him up!”

“Beat him up!”

Even Eric Bennett, watching from the window, couldn’t bear to look anymore. He also felt a bit scared—if this group wasn’t targeting William Bolton but himself instead, his old bones wouldn’t survive a group beating. It was hard enough being a journalist, but being a conscientious journalist who tells the truth was even harder. Did this kid give him the article because he’d already foreseen the uproar it would cause after publication? Was he using him as a shield? The more he thought about it, the more unsettling it became.

This group had come looking for trouble and never intended to be reasonable. As soon as someone shouted to beat him up, another crowd surged over. William Bolton was a bit stunned. He’d just checked and there were only eleven people—based on his own fighting ability, he could easily take on eleven at once. But suddenly, so many more had appeared. Looking around, there were at least fifty or sixty people packed together. This was no longer a problem that could be solved by fighting alone.

William Bolton had been holding his phone the whole time. Fortunately, he’d made full preparations before coming. With just over five thousand reputation points left, if he didn’t redeem them in time, they’d soon be gone. On the redemption page, he pressed 2, using five thousand reputation points to exchange for a ten-second time freeze.

The moment he pressed the button, the whole world suddenly fell silent. The scene before his eyes froze instantly—a burly man was swinging a wooden stick at William Bolton’s head, but it stopped abruptly just half an inch above him.

William Bolton punched him in the face. Time was tight, and in those ten seconds, he needed to hit as many of his attackers as possible. Without pausing, William Bolton moved like lightning, unleashing a flurry of punches and kicks. In ten seconds, he managed to launch twenty attacks. Attacking twenty different people is not the same as hitting the same target twenty times. Even though all the targets were frozen, the former required him to move around. No matter how hard he tried, it was impossible to attack all fifty-plus people in ten seconds, but he was definitely faster than Ip Man throwing punches.