novelraw Chapter 78 : Public Opinion War! The Patriarch Became a Hardliner
Chapter 78 : Public Opinion War! The Patriarch Became a Hardliner
Chapter 78: Public Opinion War! The Ancestor Became a Hardliner
Wu Hao held the jade slip that Chu Feng had just sent through a special channel—his hands were trembling.
Not from fear, but from excitement.
As expected of the President—even when locked away by a Nascent Soul Restriction, he could still deploy the most precise counterattack strategy at the first possible moment.
This was no longer human. This was divine!
“Red Emergency Plan!”
Wu Hao took a deep breath. The panic in his eyes was instantly replaced by a kind of frenzy called professionalism.
He immediately activated the Ascension Group’s highest-level internal communication network.
It was something Chu Feng had instructed him to construct long ago. Through a set of special encrypted runes, it could deliver point-to-point transmissions—bypassing all of the Sect’s regular surveillance systems.
At first, Wu Hao had thought it a bit excessive. Now, he realized the President’s foresight was impeccable!
He immersed his divine sense into the jade slip and, following Chu Feng’s instructions, quickly edited an “Internal Notice” that could shake heaven and earth.
The notice didn’t use flowery rhetoric, but rather the plain, emotionally charged, and most inflammatory kind of language.
【An Emergency Letter to All Family Members of the Ascension Group】
“Family members! Our shared enterprise is facing an unprecedented crisis!”
“Today, the Ancestor, True Lord Xuantian, suddenly emerged from his century-long seclusion. Having isolated himself from worldly matters for a hundred years, the Ancestor has gravely misunderstood our Group’s great model of ‘Common Prosperity—Everyone Has Merit in Cultivation.’”
“He believes that our efforts to help everyone live better lives are the acts of ‘heretics and demonic cults!’”
“Just moments ago, in the Main Peak Hall, the Ancestor brazenly ordered the forcible disbandment of our Ascension Group! He seeks to reclaim all our Contribution Points, dividends, and all our future hopes!”
“In order to defend our shared wealth, Elder Liu Changqing and Elder Wang Xuanfu, among the Group’s senior advisors, fearlessly risked their Golden Core bodies to plead for our cause right there in the hall!”
“They said, ‘The Group must not fall apart, the future of our family members must not be severed!’ Yet in return, they suffered the Ancestor’s merciless thunderous strikes! Now, Elder Liu, Elder Wang, and the others are gravely wounded—their lives uncertain!”
“And I, your President, Chu Feng—for the sake of protecting our enterprise and seeking justice for the injured elders—have been unjustly confined in the West Mountain Old Pill Institute under the charge of ‘bewitching the masses with heretical words!’”
“He wishes to break our will, to make us surrender!”
“Family members! I, Chu Feng, can be locked away, can even be killed!”
“But the enterprise of our Ascension Group must not stop! The dream of our shared prosperity must never perish!”
“Now, in my capacity as President, I assure you all—so long as I draw breath, your Contribution Points will forever remain valid!”
“Your shares will forever remain valid! Our shared wealth is sacred and inviolable!”
“The Ancestor wants to drag us back to that age of senseless internal strife, where people fought bloody battles over a single low-grade spirit stone! Do you agree to that?!”
Buzz—
The encrypted message was instantly delivered into the minds of every disciple in the Sect who wore the “Ascension Group” identity jade tag.
In that instant, the entire Qingyun Sect fell silent.
Disciples repeating dull motions along the alchemy production line suddenly froze—the numbness on their faces replaced by shock.
Those lining up in the Mission Hall to accept “Outsourcing Tasks” stopped whispering mid-sentence and stood dumbfounded.
Even the miners in the Heishan Mining Area, who had been loudly singing “Workers Like Us Have Strength”, stopped singing. The entire mining area fell into dead silence.
A brief silence—then a tidal wave of fury!
“What? Disband the Group?!”
An Outer Sect Disciple suddenly crushed the jade slip in his hand, eyes turning red.
Just last month, he had spent half a year’s worth of Contribution Points to trade a beginner cultivation manual for his mediocre younger brother—so that he too could walk the path of immortality.
If the Group was dissolved, wouldn’t that mean death for his brother?
“The Ancestor wants to take back our dividends? On what grounds! We earned those through missions and alchemy!”
“Elder Liu and the others… seriously injured? They’re Golden Core Elders! How could the Ancestor strike so ruthlessly?!”
“The President has been imprisoned? Just because he wanted us to live better lives?”
“Damn it! That old Ancestor must’ve fried his brain after being in seclusion too long! Does he even know what era this is?! Still trying to pull that ancient crap!”
“Go back to the past? I’d rather die! Do you remember what those days were like? Worse than being a dog! At least now I can live like a person!”
Countless disciples, from every corner of the Sect, erupted in long-suppressed rage.
They might not understand terms like “Dao lineage” or “sect reputation.”
But they understood this—whoever touched their Points and dividends was trying to kill them!
Chu Feng’s letter was venomous—perfectly binding his own interests to those of every disciple, turning True Lord Xuantian, the supreme elder of absolute might and authority, into a “hardliner ignorant of the people’s suffering.”
And Chu Feng himself transformed—from a mere “merchant” or “opportunist” into a “tragic hero” crushed by power for protecting the people’s collective dream.
In an instant, public opinion across the Sect completely reversed.
True Lord Xuantian’s thousand-year prestige crumbled before the weight of “Points” and “dividends.”
At that moment, Zhang Daniu’s thunderous voice resounded across the Sect.
He had already rallied the core members of the “Corporate Culture Promotion Department” and “Core Client Care Department.” These were the most thoroughly brainwashed and silver-tongued members of the Group.
They dispersed throughout the most crowded areas of the Sect to begin their “offline mobilization.”
“Family members! Don’t panic! Don’t lose order!”
Zhang Daniu stood atop a massive boulder, raising his arm high. His towering frame and booming voice carried an instinctive aura of conviction.
“Before the President was detained, he arranged everything! He said—the sky will not fall!”
“Our Group will not collapse! Our Points and shares are guaranteed—President Chu stakes his head on their eternal validity!”
His words were like a powerful stimulant, injected straight into the hearts of every panicked disciple.
Yes—President Chu was that divine; he would surely have a plan!
“Right now, the Ancestor has been deceived by slander and misunderstood us! We must let him hear our voices! Let him know—the Ascension Group works for the good of the Sect! We are everyone’s hope!”
Zhang Daniu drew in a deep breath, channeled all his spiritual power, and bellowed the slogan Chu Feng had taught him—
“Oppose dictatorship! Return our Group!”
The core members beside him instantly followed, roaring in unison.
“Oppose dictatorship! Return our Group!”
A spark could ignite a prairie fire.
Soon, more and more disciples snapped out of their fear and fury, joining the chant.
“Protect our shared wealth!”
Voices upon voices merged into a roaring tide that echoed above Qingyun Sect.
Atop the Main Peak, True Lord Xuantian—who had just laid down restrictions to observe in silence—slowly furrowed his brows.
He could hear the mountain-shaking cries below.
He did not understand what “dictatorship” meant, nor what “shared wealth” referred to.
But he could sense within those voices something he had never felt in Qingyun Sect before.
It was not reverence.
It was anger. Defiance. Resistance?
During this hundred years of seclusion—what exactly had happened to his Sect?