Chapter Ninety-Seven

Li Daoran finished watching the video and fell into a heavy silence.

Afterward, he opened several domestic news sites. Almost all the headlines were about the Daoran World and Li Daoran himself. Skipping the articles, he scrolled straight to the comment sections. His brow furrowed deeper with every passing second. How could things have devolved to this point?

The comments were refreshing rapidly, as administrators were working frantically to delete posts. Any remark criticizing Li Daoran was being scrubbed, yet the flood of dissent was endless.

"A mere child, what does he know? He’s obsessed with petty romance. Is war something you can just jump into? This is a failure of oversight; we must stop him from getting further involved in the conflict."

"I don’t care what you think; I don't want to wake up tomorrow paralyzed or missing limbs. We must stop Li Daoran from entering the battlefield."

"Li Daoran doesn’t necessarily want to be on the front lines. This must be a conspiracy by those foreign groups. We must resist. We need to make Li Daoran hear our voices!"

"Exactly! Chen Ming is a scoundrel. I knew from the start he was no good. Letting a group of special agents and soldiers guide Li Daoran—what do they know besides soldiering? I said it was a mistake from the very beginning. Especially the way Chen Ming dragged us all toward death; he’s too dangerous. He must be kept away from Li Daoran. Otherwise, we might not die in the Daoran World, but right here on Terra. The government owes us an explanation."

"And where is Li Daoran? He shut down his stream the moment he returned to Terra. It must be the government's doing. They’ve put him under house arrest to use him as a hostage against us. Free Li Daoran!"

The sheer variety of these comments gave Li Daoran a splitting headache. The public discourse had been so different just days ago. How could it shift so violently overnight?

Only recently, the prevailing sentiment had been one of support. People praised Li Daoran’s rapid progress and hailed Chen Ming and his team as heroes of humanity. Chen Ming, in particular, had been lauded for keeping foreign agitators in check—a true "King of Soldiers."

The netizens were flipping their allegiances faster than Li Daoran could turn a page.

As his frustration mounted, a single post caught his eye: "Li Daoran, you lack dominance."

Li Daoran clicked on it. The author was not a major influencer, yet the post had garnered significant agreement. Li Daoran found himself drawn into the argument.

"Li Daoran lacks authority in his actions. From the moment Chen Ming first threatened him and he compromised, I felt enraged. He is the most important person in this world; can just anyone threaten him? If it were me, Chen Ming would have been wiped off the face of the earth long ago. If you ask me, Li Daoran should be more imposing. If someone disagrees, silence them; if someone defies you, let them face the consequences. Those who follow me shall prosper; those who oppose me shall perish. He has learned only the restraint passed down through our history, but he has failed to grasp our innate, primal ferocity.

"If someone threatens you, strike them down. If they dare to retaliate, the millions of people who rely on you will never forgive them. If you’re still not satisfied, kill them. If you don't like what someone tells you, slap them across the face. Are you not more noble than the emperors of old?

"These people are forcing you to train—what could they do to you if you refused? What would happen if you simply stayed off the battlefield? Self-preservation is paramount. Whenever you feel threatened, turn on your broadcast. A mere blink or a word from you, and who would dare defy the heavens? If you decreed today that someone must die, they wouldn’t survive the night.

"If you truly wanted world peace, this chaos would have ended long ago. Who would dare challenge you? Look at the world now—I am tired, I am weary. If the world requires an emperor, a true sovereign, you are the only one for the role. What exactly are you thinking? End all of this. Just the honest thoughts of an ordinary person."

Li Daoran remained silent after reading. Could it be that he himself was the root of all this turmoil? He sank into a state of profound self-doubt.