Even though it had been over an hour since the incident at the Tianqin Stadium, the online fervor had not diminished in the slightest; rather, it had intensified.
All platforms and media were reporting on the matter.
Such is the information age.
"The Opening Battle Incident" had spread across the globe; no matter in which country or region, as soon as one accessed the internet, they would immediately be bombarded with this explosive news.
Out of a global population of over 42 billion, at least half had already heard about this incident.
The remaining half were either sleeping or had poor information access, but within a few hours, they too would be bombarded by the news. News programs, live streams, forums, virtual worlds—almost everyone was discussing it, as if it was omnipresent.
The related videos from the Opening Battle had already surpassed a hundred billion in total views!
People watched the videos over and over, analyzing the strengths of the fighting parties, their professional templates, equipment, and speculating about the underlying reasons, etc.
Countless independent media outlets, with the utmost efficiency, capitalized on the trend to analyze the videos.
With various analyses coming out, a series of questions surfaced, of which everyone was most curious about Ji Xinghuo’s identity.
"The Opening Battle Incident" ranked first in terms of heat.
Ranked second was "Who is he?"
This "he" referred to Ji Xinghuo, who was also called by many other names such as "Mysterious Mutant," "Gunman," "Opening Battle Victim," "Stabbed One," etc.
Initially, everyone was just speculating, and no one could provide an answer.
But just over half an hour ago, an article had been pushed to third place in the trending search: "Exclusive Reveal: The Identity of the Person Involved in the Opening Battle Incident!"
Ji Xinghuo hadn’t even opened the article when he had already guessed the result.
Because his classmates’ group chats had exploded—from elementary to middle school and then to university, classmates in each group were incessantly tagging him, the number of group messages rapidly increasing, never ceasing for even a second; classmates and friends were all sending him private messages, his phone ringing off the hook.
Fortunately, he had set up a whitelist so only family and a few friends could call him, otherwise his phone would have been overwhelmed by now.
Ji Xinghuo didn’t check the messages and opened the article first.
The opening sentence was: His name is Ji Xinghuo, born in 2201, from Chang’an, a graduate of Fengming Language University, a public child, an advanced mutant, ranked tenth thousandth on the Ladder!
Ji Xinghuo blurted out a Chinese curse.
Who wrote this? It was simple, blunt, yet precisely exposed his identity.
Glancing at the article’s author, it was by an independent media called "Secrets and Interests," specialized in revealing strange and unusual news from all walks of life. It previously had a following of only about two million—not very famous, but in the past half hour, the follower count had skyrocketed to over thirty million!
Ji Xinghuo continued to read, and the content took him by surprise.
The point of entry for this article was a screenshot from the broadcast of a previous match, specifically during the second set, where the live camera had just swept past his seating area.
The process lasted less than a second.
But it was this one second that allowed "Secrets and Interests" to find a clue.
In the frame, a family of five were sitting in a row, with him seated in the middle, conversing closely with Liangqiu Feiyan sitting on his left, clearly suggesting a close relationship.
A floating camera next to her was streaming live.
The host was a public figure, whose appearance would not be altered, showing her true face on the internet.
The article’s author found Liangqiu Feiyan’s live stream.
Then, by looking through several years’ worth of recordings, they confirmed that Liangqiu Feiyan and he were siblings, and heard the name "Xinghuo" mentioned by other family members.
After that, it was easy.
Although "Xinghuo" is a common name in the Asia-Pacific Community, with several hundred thousand people sharing it, there was only one mutant with such strength who had recently emerged as a new master—it was the last ranked Ji Xinghuo on the Ladder, with all the information in his Ladder profile matching.
Moreover, in the past few months, Liangqiu Feiyan had mentioned a few times in her live streams that her third brother was a peerless genius and very powerful.
During today’s match, audience members sitting nearby had also inadvertently captured him in their videos.
Key words could be heard in these videos.
The entire article was logically tight, the information was credible and well-supported, with plenty of videos, screenshots, and photos as proof; anyone who read it would have no doubts, knowing it was indeed true.
At this moment, the reading count of the article was skyrocketing by hundreds of thousands per second.
Millions of people were leaving comments under the article.
Ji Xinghuo saw his classmates and friends; their comments were pinned to the top, some confirming his identity, others providing more details about him.
Age, birthday, academic background, past incidents at school, etc., much had been revealed.
Countless people were flooding his social media accounts!
The follower count had already exceeded fifty million; each refresh increased the followers by tens of thousands, and the number of comments was also exploding.
Then, a post about Zhao Manying that he had made years ago was being wildly shared.
People were ruthlessly mocking him as they shared it.
"Though you’re strong, dreaming of dating the Sword Immortal is still just a pipe dream!"
"You’re too late, what a pity."
"The Sword Immortal already has a boyfriend, you’re famous too late, now what a fool you must feel like!"
"So, geniuses can dream too."
This content was captured and paired with AI-generated images to create memes, shared joyously everywhere like a virus spreading across the internet. Some even went to Zhao Manying’s social media to leave comments, hoping for her reaction, reveling in schadenfreude.