Chapter 35 The Online Battle

The attacks keep coming. Charlie still won't respond.

When Clara saw that Evan's Weibo account had been overrun, she hurried to make a call.

The practitioners who had joked about Evan's Fire Spirit-school antics quietly deleted their comments. They couldn't argue with that many Chinese medicine bashers, but they knew better than to make things worse.^[1]

Charlie, meanwhile, made no move at all.

In a residential complex outside Jiang Medical University, he calmly watched Weibo and the numbers.

“Charlie, can't we fight back yet?” Max asked anxiously beside him. Max's roommate scratched his head and fidgeted, just as impatient.

Charlie calmly shook his head. “Not yet. The topic isn't getting enough attention.”

Max rubbed his head. “But… but so many people are attacking Dr. Xu. Isn't this… a bit much?”

Charlie gave him an amused look. “You seem pretty concerned about him. Didn't you two have some bad blood?”

“I wouldn't call it bad blood,” Max said, embarrassed. “Besides, he really does know his stuff, and he has integrity. Is this fair to him?”

Charlie shook his head slightly. “What do you know? I'm helping him. Hire a few more teams of paid commenters to push the topic. Have you made a list of the big accounts that have attacked Chinese medicine?”^[2]

Max's roommate nodded quickly. “We've got it.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Charlie raised his voice. “Send the paid commenters into their comment sections. Get those accounts to attack Dr. Xu too. Bring them all in. I want this topic on the trending-search list before ten!”^[3]

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Both hurried to do as he said.

Charlie watched the screen intently, silently praying that all his work wouldn't be for nothing.

Things went exactly as he had expected. More and more major accounts hostile to Chinese medicine joined in, and attention to the topic quickly grew.

By 9:30 p.m., it finally reached the trending-search list. Near the bottom, and soon pushed off again—but it had trended, hadn't it?

By then, Charlie's and Evan's accounts had both been overrun. Evan had it especially bad. He had only a thousand followers, all bought, yet every one of his few posts had more than five thousand comments. The medicine-drinking video had eight thousand.

Plenty of popular stars didn't get that many. That should tell you how much abuse Evan was getting.

A phone rang.

Charlie picked it up. “Hello?”

A woman's voice came down the line. “Well, Charlie, it's made the list. Isn't it time to release the video?”

A smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Of course. I keep my promises. It's an honor to be of service, Clara.”

It was Clara on the other end, standing on her balcony at home. Her smile had no warmth in it. “Save it. You'll get a whole new crop of followers out of this, won't you?”

“It's mutually beneficial. We both get what we want. I should be thanking you. I'd never have thought of such a good plan myself.”

“Enough talk. Post the video. I'll start getting things ready here too.”

“Right.”

Charlie hung up and turned to Max and his roommate. “It's time. Release the video, then start promoting it.”

He smiled. The more noise those big accounts made now, the more humiliating the slap in the face would be.

After hanging up, Clara gave a soft sigh. She looked up at the stars, filled with guilt.

“Evan, I'm sorry…”

Soon, Charlie uploaded a video. It began with him speaking to the camera.

Hello, everyone. I'm Charlie Chen, JiangMed Senior. Chinese medicine has always been an integral part of our country's medical system, practiced here for thousands of years. But now, more and more people are questioning it.

When we saw Dr. Xu's Weibo posts from Mingxin Clinic, we had our doubts too. Medicine is an objective discipline. Only actual treatment results can validate it.^[4]

To put those doubts to the test, some of my junior fellow students and I made a special trip to Wen County for consultations and treatment with Dr. Xu at Mingxin Clinic. Here is the whole process in detail!

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

The video had been edited and polished, with captions and a few memes added.

The happy moments were full of cheers and excitement.

The serious moments were careful and earnest.

Most of the controversial remarks in Evan's final interview had been cut, leaving only his heartfelt wish: “May the world be free of illness and suffering; I'd rather the medicines gathered dust on the shelves.”

Charlie had originally intended to use Evan's controversial remarks to stir up attention. But Clara had called him back after he'd already stepped out. They exchanged contact details, and she explained this approach. That was how tonight's little sting had come about.

He thought it was better than his own plan, so he'd agreed.

As soon as the video appeared, public opinion reversed.

Charlie immediately paid for more exposure and promotion.

Where there were Chinese medicine bashers, there were Chinese medicine fans. Besides both groups, there was a large crowd of undecided onlookers. Charlie had plenty of followers himself, too.

Weibo came alive all over again.

The keyboard warriors attacking Chinese medicine were left speechless.

Its supporters saw the evidence, took heart, and immediately fought back.

It was clear which way the onlookers were leaning, too.

Chinese medicine bloggers posted their support!

“A Real Chinese Medicine Doctor” soon reached the trending-search list.

Charlie struck while the iron was hot and posted again.

Don't tell me Chinese medicine is useless. What else has looked after our people for thousands of years? I'm so glad to have met a genuine practitioner. Dr. Xu's skill and integrity have deeply inspired me!

I don't want certain big accounts attacking a good, skilled, ethical doctor just to bring more traffic to themselves!

With opinion swinging the other way, those accounts were buried in abuse.

What could you say in the face of evidence like that?

He'd cured the patients!

Only now did the major accounts realize something was wrong. But it was too late. Of course, they wouldn't admit defeat, much less admit they'd been wrong. Instead, they sourly insisted that the cures were luck, and Chinese medical theory had no scientific basis.

The comments underneath were less than polite.

Screw you. Let's see you get that lucky!

He can cure people. Can you?

Go running to your American daddy!

Trash.

Half the commenters were Chinese medicine fans fighting back. The other half were Charlie's hired posters. The same people who had been swearing at Evan and Charlie earlier were now swearing at the big accounts.

A glimpse of the lively world of the internet.

The frenzy only began to subside at 11:30 p.m., when the topic dropped off the trending-search list.

The results, though, were plain enough.

Charlie had started with over three hundred thousand followers. Now he had three hundred and fifty thousand. He could keep the story going for another couple of days; he might pass four hundred thousand.

It had done wonders for his image, too. His female fans felt terribly sorry for him, convinced he'd suffered a dreadful injustice at the hands of all those unscrupulous bloggers.

He'd also established himself as a conscientious investigator. He'd gone there to see for himself, after all! And he'd spoken up for what was right. When everyone was attacking Evan, he hadn't protected himself by keeping quiet. He'd stood up and helped set the record straight.

Charlie had spent a good deal of money, but he'd come out well ahead.

Evan's account, meanwhile, had rapidly grown from a thousand fake followers to more than ten thousand.

He'd acquired an image too: a real doctor of Chinese medicine, with skill and integrity. At least the people following him now knew he could treat illness!

Around midnight, DrXuChineseMedicine posted.

No doctor can cure every disease. That goes for Western medicine and Chinese medicine alike. The two have fundamentally different theories, but isn't it our differences that make the world interesting?

I want to make the case for Chinese medicine through its own theories and treatment results, and answer the doubts about it. I hope you'll join me in discovering what it has to offer.

I'm Dr. Xu, practicing at Mingxin Clinic in Wen County. I specialize in diagnosis and treatment in Chinese internal medicine, especially… women's conditions.^[5]

Reader Notes

1. ↩︎ The Fire Spirit school. This tradition within Chinese medicine, discussed in earlier chapters, emphasizes yang and is known for its use of fuzi, an aconite medicine. The name does not refer to a religion or a supernatural power. Here other practitioners have applied the label to Evan because of his medicine-drinking video. Their jokes do not establish that he belongs to the school, and deleting their comments does not mean that they have settled their clinical disagreements. Source: Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine — A lecture on the Fire Spirit school (in Chinese).
2. ↩︎ Paid commenters. Shuijun, literally “water army,” refers here to people hired to flood online discussions with posts and comments that serve a client's purposes. They can make a campaign look like spontaneous public opinion. The term does not necessarily mean automated bots, and buying followers is a separate activity from paying people to comment. Charlie's instructions distinguish his organized campaign from the ordinary users who join the argument. Source: Chen and colleagues — Battling the Internet Water Army: Detection of Hidden Paid Posters, abstract.
3. ↩︎ Trending searches and influential accounts. Weibo is a Chinese social-media platform with public posts, reposts, and comments. Its hot-search list ranks topics by search activity, making a brief appearance valuable for exposure. The “big accounts,” called da V in Chinese, are influential accounts; the V is associated with verification, not medical expertise. The novel describes Charlie trying to drive attention and later paying for promotion, without specifying a ranking formula or an official advertising product. Source: Weibo Corporation — 2017 annual report, “Search,” “Trends,” and “Individual Page,” printed pp. 48–49.
4. ↩︎ Results and proof. Charlie presents the visit as a test of his doubts. His claim that results validate medicine is part of that appeal. Reports of individual results and a controlled clinical study answer different questions. Clinical research specifies participants, outcomes, and methods for limiting bias before assessing a treatment's benefits. The translation preserves the speaker's confidence without turning his video into a research protocol or supplying the characters with additional findings. Source for research design: FDA — Step 3: Clinical Research, “Designing Clinical Trials”.
5. ↩︎ Chinese internal medicine and women's conditions. Neike and furen bing name areas of practice within Chinese medicine. The latter corresponds broadly to gynecological conditions, rather than every illness that a woman might have. Modern Chinese medicine services likewise distinguish internal medicine from gynecology. Evan's post describes the work he offers at the clinic; it does not announce a separate biomedical specialist qualification. The pause before “women's conditions” is retained from the Chinese. Source for the specialty categories: Hong Kong Baptist University — Chinese medicine hospital services.