After Reborn, I Became the Bigshots' Beloved-Chapter 326: Professor Peng Gets Scolded Severely

——What?

Lu Sheng, upon hearing Lan Yu’s words, subconsciously froze for a moment.

Bowing his head, he followed the direction she pointed and couldn’t help but his pupils contracted, his expression also grew solemn.

The first photo in this Weibo post, or rather not just the first photo—the first three photos were obviously taken from a sneaky angle.

Lu Sheng could tell at a glance that these photos were taken yesterday at noon when he and three professors went out for lunch, and were snapped while he and Peng Hongyuan were talking on the side of the road.

The first photo showed Professor Peng handing over a bank card and a beautifully wrapped blue gift box to her.

The second photo captured her opening the gift box and lifting a blue crystal star to inspect under the sunlight.

The third photo was of Professor Peng standing very close in front of her, touching her head with a smile on his face.

The person who took these photos must have been not far from them, and the equipment used was clearly professional.

Even after enlarging it several times, the images in the photos were still very clear. So clear, in fact, that one could tell at a glance which bank the card was from.

In the three photos, she was wearing Shengjing school uniform, clearly dressed as a high school student. However, her face was pixelated, so it was impossible to tell who she was.

The following six photos were of anonymous screenshots, forum posts, chat logs, and the like.

They were intended as evidence to support accusations that Peng Hongyuan was suppressing fellow professors at Beijing University, exploiting students to do his work, and treating others with malicious verbal abuse.

"... The person in the first three photos is indeed me," Lu Sheng took a deep breath, raising his head, "It was taken outside the restaurant yesterday noon with Professor Peng."

"So it was you, Shengsheng," Lan Yu immediately said, "Although your face is completely blocked by the mosaic in this report, I knew the person in the photos must be you as soon as I saw they were from yesterday."

"After all, yesterday morning, Professor Peng, Wu Anmin, and Weiyan came to the school to look for you. If Professor Peng met any girl from our school alone at noon, it couldn’t have been anyone other than you."

"But Shengsheng, what’s with this bank card and gift?" Lan Yu couldn’t help asking, "And Professor Peng, he actually touched your head—"

"It’s not that he can’t touch it, I just thought it was your first time meeting Professor Peng at school yesterday, I didn’t realize you were so familiar with each other."

"I am quite close with Professor Peng, we have met several times before."

Lu Sheng said, "The bank card and the gift were originally mine, Professor Peng was just bringing them to me."

"As for touching my head, it’s because Professor Peng saw me smiling and felt very pleased, hoping I would smile more in the future, it’s entirely out of an elder’s care and closeness toward a younger person."

"So that’s the case," Lan Yu inhaled, somewhat helplessly said, "But the problem now is that netizens don’t know the truth, nor do they see it that way."

"The angle of this photo was perhaps deliberately chosen to make Professor Peng’s smile look somewhat lecherous."

"You have been pixelated and are in a vulnerable position as the victim, the netizens are all standing on the side of protecting you and criticizing on your behalf, no one is looking into who you are or saying anything about you, and even those who want to find out who you are get scolded."

"But as for Professor Peng, ever since this report came out, he’s really being almost cursed to death."

Speaking of which, Lan Yu opened the comments section under this Weibo post.

Just the first few top comments have already received tens of thousands of likes.

The first top comment: [Seducing an underage girl? Never mind if he’s a professor or not, my suggestion is physical castration!]

Liked 18,000 times, with several hundred replies below.

The second top comment: [Peng Hongyuan? The Peng Hongyuan who researched the NVE vaccine earlier this year?? I thought he was a highly respected professor in the scientific community, but turns out he’s a beast in human skin??]

Liked 15,000 times, with over a hundred replies below.

The third top comment: [So is this what they call the most fair admissions process of Beijing University, having professors directly exploit their recommendation quotas to seduce underage girls? If Beijing University doesn’t remove Peng Hongyuan from their faculty, the university’s reputation will eventually stink!]

Liked 13,000 times, with over two hundred replies below.

The fourth hottest comment: [The professors at the same institute are so pitiful, being oppressed and verbally abused. And that high school girl is also pitiful. Being underage, she probably didn’t understand the evil intentions of people. Could it be that Peng Hongyuan, holding the special admission quota, tempted her with money and gifts, and she just agreed?]

Liked 8 thousand times, with over two hundred replies below.

Among them, someone said he works at the recruitment office of Beijing University, saying Peng Hongyuan didn’t submit any recommendation for special admission quota, so that girl must have refused it.

Other netizens were relieved to see this, and they vented even harsher criticisms towards Peng Hongyuan.

[A man over fifty years old who has never married is either impotent or has psychological issues, or maybe Peng Hongyuan has both.] frёeωebɳovel.com

[I remember the last time this Peng Hongyuan said in a report that he never married because he was so dedicated to scientific research and too busy with work, that’s why he didn’t want to get married or have kids.]

[I remember that too! I was quite moved when I read that report back then, but now I’m just laughing. Not interested in marriage, but interested in underage girls, disgusting—]

[Exactly. A disgusting old man at over fifty wanting to ruin a seventeen or eighteen-year-old girl in her prime, he’ll rot in hell sooner or later!!]

There were even more vile abuses, all sorts of filthy words were used.

It seems that as soon as this report came out, all the good reputation and goodwill that Professor Peng had accumulated online suddenly collapsed completely.

Even the bystanders who were just watching couldn’t help but spit a few times and stomp a few feet, as if only by doing so would it show that their moral values are upright.

After reading those hot comments, Lu Sheng couldn’t help but take a deep breath, her fingers unconsciously gripping her phone tightly.

Some netizens nowadays just love to blindly follow the bandwagon.

Every time such news breaks out in society, even if it is only marked as ’suspected’, these people rush to accuse like they are the messengers of justice.

A rumor can spread across every corner overnight. For those who start rumors, it’s just a matter of speaking out, but those who debunk get exhausted running around. Or perhaps, these people never care about what the truth is.

Anyway, tapping a few characters to leave a comment doesn’t cost them anything, nobody knows their identity on the internet, they can say whatever they please.

They pick up their keyboards and, placing themselves on a moral high ground, judge others, gaining a sense of achievement from the attention and agreement of others.

"The situation isn’t at all like they described."

Lu Sheng clutched her phone and said, "My case isn’t what they claim it is, nor are the other accusations against Professor Peng, based on my understanding of him over the years, it’s all groundless."

"I’m going to register a Weibo account now, at least to clear up the matter of using the special admission quota to lure the underage girl for Professor Peng."

Saying this, Lu Sheng was about to download Weibo on her phone. However, Lan Yu, her mind racing, immediately stopped her.

"Wait Shengsheng, if you talk about this anonymously, netizens might not believe you, and they might even think you’re hired by Professor Peng to whitewash for him."

"But if you openly reveal your identity, isn’t it true that Professor Peng was indeed planning to give his recommendation quota to you this year?"

"Even if you refused the quota, and said the bank card and gifts Professor Peng gave you yesterday were yours initially, it still doesn’t prove that Professor Peng didn’t use the quota to lure you."

"Given the current malice of those netizens, who were initially speaking for you, if you stand up for Professor Peng now, they might turn against you and start insulting you instead."

Hearing this, Lu Sheng paused the movement of her hand holding the phone.

She had to admit, Lan Yu’s concerns were very far-sighted, and indeed such a scenario was likely to happen.

Lu Sheng didn’t mind being insulted herself, but Lan Yu’s point was very valid.

Her coming forward and saying the photo was a misunderstanding couldn’t prove that Peng Hongyuan didn’t use the quota to lure her.

Since Professor Peng indeed wanted to give her the quota.

If she was to prove that giving her the quota was legitimate and not an exploit, such explanations would have to come from Professor Peng himself.

"... I’ll call Professor Peng first to see how things are over there." Lu Sheng calmed herself and dialed Peng Hongyuan’s number.