Chapter 1611 - Fengqing
The article was not long—about six or seven thousand characters. It described the incident in which terrorists had attacked the Xiaocang and been repelled. Though the piece was full of flattery, this was the Propaganda sector's habit: any Elder-related stories had to be embellished to highlight the "greatness" of the Elders.
Other than that, the article was honest enough—there was nothing fabricated, at least nothing that differed from the article in Weekly Reference.
Lu Xuan pondered for a moment, then called the archive room again and asked them to bring all recently published periodicals.
The Elder Council didn't publish many periodicals. He noticed that all of them—except for the scientific journals aimed at Elders and naturalized technicians—had covered the Xiaocang incident, and at considerable length. Some had even published background materials: the popular science magazine Gewu, for example, had run three articles: Building the Small Sailing Craft Xiaocang, The Revolver, and Handgun Speed Shooting.
Tianshui Life Weekly—Lingao Edition, a leisure magazine aimed mainly at Elders and upper-level naturalized citizens, had published an article by Qian Shuiting: Hunting with Duoduo in the Appalachian Mountains of Australia.
Zhiyin, a literary magazine for naturalized citizens and natives, had run: How a Young Girl Became a Terrorist-Fighting Hero.
...
Lu Xuan returned to the BBS and used "Xiaocang," "Qian Duoduo," and "young Elder" as keywords to search all posts since the terrorist incident.
The results were surprising: over the past two weeks, there had been more than twenty posts containing these three keywords. He read through them one by one, removing three posts from the "young Elder" search that were clearly unrelated to the Xiaocang incident or Qian Duoduo.
Then he began detailed analysis of the remaining posts.
Among them were posts expressing dissatisfaction about the Xiaocang attack, leading into discussion of the Political Security Bureau's "dereliction" and "loopholes" in the Elder security system. Some questioned details of the Xiaocang incident—one Elder had written an entire article arguing that Qian Duoduo could not possibly have achieved such results using .357 Magnum rounds; Qian Shuiting himself had responded, explaining that .38 caliber ammunition had been used. Others used the incident as a springboard to discuss "differences between Chinese and American education"; and of course there were those who called for comprehensive "quality education" for underage Elders, reducing "book learning"...
The Xiaocang incident had spawned all kinds of topics. But Lu Xuan noticed that regardless of the post's theme, the attitude toward Qian Duoduo was uniformly positive and admiring. Among the "Women's Crew" members caught up in the Xiaocang crisis, her name was mentioned most often. By comparison, Lin Ziqi and Zhang Yunmi were mentioned less frequently, and usually only as part of the overall group. As for Dr. Zhong's adopted daughter and Lin Hanlong's female slave, their names appeared even less—only a handful of posts mentioned them.
"Interesting, very interesting." Lu Xuan stroked his chin. Statistically, these posts showed no particular bias—neither the original posters nor the commenters displayed obvious faction markers. But objectively, Qian Duoduo's visibility within the Elder Council had risen sharply, and her image was extremely positive.
"Practically the embodiment of wisdom, courage, and composure." Lu Xuan muttered to himself, looking at the statistics on his notepad. "Well, let's wait and see how things develop."
Lu Xuan went to Ma'ao Fort the next day, completed five days of training, and returned to find the BBS situation had changed again. After only a few days offline, the debate over institutional reform had reached a fever pitch. Participation was ever-expanding, the essays ever longer, the tone increasingly strident. Thanks to real-name registration, personal attacks had not yet surfaced—but compared to the various committee meetings constrained by Robert's Rules of Order and pseudonyms, the BBS debates were much more colorful, showcasing the subtleties of the Chinese language in all their glory.
He noticed that, according to his latest analysis, the frequency and intensity of attacks on the Political Security Bureau, the police, and other powerful agencies had declined significantly. Popular support for the previously widely criticized Executive Committee system was beginning to recover. Posts had begun to question what purpose new committees would serve under current conditions; others analyzed, from a technical standpoint, the difficulties of implementing such oversight.
"It seems both sides are now evenly matched." Lu Xuan reviewed his latest figures. Although the general wind still blew toward criticism of the Executive Committee and the powerful agencies, calls for sweeping reform had diminished. Only the proposal to establish a Secret Service had received nearly unanimous support. The keyword "Elder welfare" was appearing with sharply increased frequency. Terms like "how to handle female prisoners" and "Lingao's Ziming House" had begun to emerge. "Female prisoner disposition" in particular had spawned several threads with over a thousand comments each—even hotter than the institutional reform debate.
"Damn it—everyone's just looking out for their own patch. What a bunch of baboons!" Lu Xuan swore. But curiously, although Cheng Yongxin had been typing away furiously lately, no long essays by her had appeared on the BBS—just some comments and replies, all related to "institutional reform." Aside from questioning the current system, she had written a lot about "media oversight"—nothing surprising, since this had always been her soapbox. During the Maid Case, she had written plenty of similar articles, even getting published in The Morning Star—and it had amounted to nothing. Lu Xuan's public opinion analysis at the time had shown: her ideas had few supporters.
Since her efforts hadn't achieved much and she hadn't written any major essays, what exactly was she typing so intently these days? Lu Xuan guessed she was probably preparing an important article, most likely for publication in the "two journals and one newspaper"—the heavyweight print media.
What kind of article could it be? Lu Xuan was quite curious. But based on current hot topics, it was probably about either institutional reform or the Youth League—followed by "female prisoner disposition," "Elder rights and benefits," and the Xiaocang incident.
The Youth League debate was heating up fastest. As an Elder civil-military proposal, the main thread had over a thousand comments, and related threads had also sprouted up. Lu Xuan made a hot-topic trend chart: overall, institutional reform still led the Youth League by more than ten percentage points—but it had peaked and was trending downward, while the latter was on the rise.
"Wei Aiwen's proposal—not coming earlier, not coming later, but right now. The timing is a bit suspicious," Lu Xuan said, looking at the pile of statistics on his desk. "Is this about creating a new hot topic? That's not very clever..."
If the goal were to create a new hot topic to divert Elders' attention, the "female prisoner" issue would be more suitable: first, the general Elder population cared about it; second, it was directly related to the terrorism case. By comparison, "Youth League" felt a bit forced. Lu Xuan sensed there was more to this.
"Chief, the internal publications!" The classified-documents courier appeared at the office door.
Lu Xuan signed the receipt ledger and accepted a thick envelope. Today was Saturday; inside were the two journals of the "two journals and one newspaper": Weekly Digest and The Morning Star.
"What about today's Lingao Times?" he asked. For him, the print media articles were more significant than the BBS for gauging the Elder Council's direction.
"Chief, it's all together."
Lu Xuan nodded, opened the newspaper, and saw the front-page news: Anti-Terrorism Activist Commendation Assembly Held in Lingao. The content was standard officialese; Lu Xuan skimmed quickly past the event summary, significance, medals, and titles, and fixed his gaze on the commendation details.
He promptly took out a red-and-blue pencil and began circling names.
Over twenty individuals were commended in the article. Only six received individual write-ups: aside from three naturalized citizen cadres from the powerful agencies and Elder Dongfang who had reported a potential danger, one was the Nanbao Elementary School student who had escaped and reported the hideout of Zhuo Yifan and Sima Qiudao, and the other was Qian Duoduo.
The other "Women's Crew" members who had been with her were also commended, but their deeds were summarized collectively—they had no separate paragraphs, nor did the article include any dialogue with Wen Desi when they received their medals on stage.
Lu Xuan silently tore open the seal of the classified envelope, pulled out the journals, and began flipping through. His eyes landed on the One-Week Commentary section of Weekly Digest.
The title was: Infusing the Fresh Blood of Young Elders. At first glance, there was nothing remarkable—it was about the "Elder succession" issue. Much of it discussed problems in educating underage Elders at the current Academy, calling the education "rote"—"no exposure to the wider world, no real social or work experience"—"pure bookworm education." At the end, the article called for "letting young Elders go out into the wider world to be tempered and to learn."
These arguments were no longer fresh—he had seen similar opinions on the BBS many times. But appearing in Weekly Digest carried a completely different weight.
Lu Xuan looked at the byline: Fengqing. Who was that? It was obviously a pen name. According to the Elder Council Propaganda sector's usual practice, the more important the article, the more likely it was to use a pseudonym. This article was clearly hinting at something.
"Fengqing... Fengqing..." he muttered repeatedly. "...Fengqing—A fledgling phoenix cries clearer than the old phoenix's song?!"
In a flash, he understood completely: This was a campaign to prepare public opinion for underage Elders to take up official posts! Lu Xuan immediately connected the rising interest in the Youth League with the recent "prominent coverage" of Qian Duoduo.