Chapter 238: Chapter 238: The Forum Storm

After spending the morning strolling through the shopping mall, Ethan Caldwell took Julian Sterling out for a meal, and then the two of them headed straight to the Caldwell Empire. Even though Nadine Locke had been transferred away on a business trip, Julian Sterling and Ethan Caldwell still could not confirm whether there was anyone else belonging to Gabriel Cole within the Caldwell Empire. Therefore, Julian Sterling was extremely cautious. After using the exclusive elevator to go straight up to Ethan Caldwell’s office, Julian shooed Ethan away to attend his meeting while Julian simply buried himself in the room.

Without someone who knew how to use scents to attack others, Julian Sterling suddenly felt that the air in the room was significantly fresher. It was not like the previous time, when he had felt suffocated the moment he stepped inside. Just as Julian Sterling was leisurely setting up his laptop and tablet on Ethan Caldwell’s desk, Julian’s phone began to ring incessantly.

At first, it was the sound of endless message notifications, flashing continuously on the lock screen. Julian Sterling was just about to pick up the phone to check who was looking for him so urgently during this lunch break, when he saw an incoming call. The caller was Lucas Hill. He conveniently answered the call, tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear. With one hand holding the device and the other continuing to organize the unfinished drawing file on his tablet, his tone was incredibly relaxed: “What is the matter? I saw you sending messages continuously just now, making the phone vibrate vigorously on the table. I did not even have time to check them before you called.”

“Have you checked the forum yet?” Lucas Hill’s voice came from the other end of the line, sounding somewhat tense and urgent, completely different from Lucas’s usual playful demeanor.

“Hmm? Which university’s forum?” Julian Sterling paused his hand movements for a beat. Back when he was still at X University, he was often dragged by Lucas Hill into reading random posts on the university forum, filled with all sorts of chaotic information ranging from romantic affairs to personal conflicts. This time, having transferred to St. Lawrence University, he was busy with many things, so he no longer browsed the forums with Lucas Hill. However, after bumping into Vince Sutton at school the other day, Julian Sterling also intended to browse the St. Lawrence University forum in his free time to see how the current situation was. Mainly, he wanted to see what kind of version his and Aaron Sterling’s story had been spread into by those idle students.

“It is the national joint forum.” Lucas Hill’s voice transmitted from the other end, his breathing quite rapid, proving that Lucas was extremely anxious: “You probably do not know, but the matter is blowing up very fast. Let me send the link directly to your messages right now.”

Julian Sterling gave a hum of agreement, casually logging into his messaging account on his computer, and then clicked on the link that Lucas Hill had just sent over. This forum… how should one put it, it could be considered a form of miniature social network that had been developing strongly recently. Its system had both a mobile application and a desktop website. With a modern interface, it was quite favored by the youth, especially university students. And the post Lucas Hill had just sent him was not an ordinary post. It was an extremely trending thread, pinned right on the homepage. The number of likes had surpassed tens of thousands in just a short amount of time, the number of comments was even multiplied, and furthermore, every time one reloaded to refresh the page, those numbers would skyrocket continuously.

“Is it some new trend? Or is it another drama of some celebrity getting exposed?” Julian Sterling still maintained a calm demeanor, asking the person on the other end of the phone line while casually scrolling his mouse to skim through this post a little to see the title.

“Read the content of the post carefully first.” Lucas Hill on the other side paused for a moment. The clacking sound of typing echoed, perhaps to leave a quiet space for Julian Sterling to read the post, then Lucas lowered his voice to ask, carrying a sense of wariness: “The incident last time that you told me about… is it this matter? Exactly how bad did everything get, why did you not tell me the details?”

By this time, the faint smile on Julian Sterling’s lips had disappeared, and his complexion visibly darkened. His cold gaze swept over every single line of text on the screen.

This was a post published by a completely anonymous account, and its main content was aimed straight at the incident where he had been kidnapped recently. But the thing that the writer of this post emphasized and deliberately focused on was not the core issue of Julian Sterling being kidnapped for ransom or the danger to his life.

Instead, it was clickbaiting and distorting the condition he was in when he was rescued. Julian Sterling furrowed his brows, reflecting on that moment himself. When being held captive, due to external influences, his mind had not been very clear. He was tired and exhausted, but Julian Sterling dared to be one hundred percent certain that he himself would never fall into such a miserable and ridiculous state as the post was deliberately describing.

Broadly speaking, the post fabricated that he himself had been stripped clean, randomly exposing his flesh in front of many other people, and was even humiliated by the kidnappers, then subsequently filmed and photographed by the crowd.

The poster even firmly asserted that rumor had it there was a secretly recorded video clip of that scene which had been uploaded onto some dark hidden websites on the internet. Although nothing overly outrageous that crossed the line was done in the clip, the sensitive skin exposed was not a small amount, completely enough to ruin a person’s reputation.

At the very beginning when reading these slanderous lines of text, Julian Sterling still felt his hot blood rushing to his brain, becoming incredibly furious. But as his eyes read deeper into the structure of the post, recognizing the choice of words carrying a clear intention of directing public opinion, he gradually calmed down.

Finally, Julian Sterling leaned his back against Ethan Caldwell’s leather chair, giving a sneer full of sarcasm, and answered Lucas Hill with a tone that lacked a single trace of panic: “It is indeed about this kidnapping incident. But the truth is absolutely not as terrible as what that trashy post published. At that time, right from the very first second, I realized something was about to happen, so I had promptly contacted Ethan Caldwell’s people. Ethan brought his men over very quickly, controlling the scene immediately. As for me, I only suffered a few minor scratch wounds on my wrists due to friction when trying to untie the binding ropes. It was absolutely not to the unkempt extent as they described… How should I put it, listening to the way that person wrote the post, it makes it seem as though I did not even have a single piece of cloth left covering my body at that time. Truly ridiculous.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep