Normally, a company’s PR response time was twelve to twenty-four hours after public opinion surfaced. If the company had an in-house PR and marketing team, that timeframe would be slightly shorter.
In the case of the online backlash against Forrest Quinn, Titan Engine had detected and addressed the issue merely hours after it emerged. However, Titan Engine’s PR handling at the time had been catastrophic. What started as a small spark quickly escalated into a raging inferno that consumed nearly half the internet. Instead of quelling the uproar, their PR measures had manufactured a massive social trending topic.
Wendy Lynch stared at the information on her screen, her brows knitted together. She wasn’t an insider in the beauty industry. The email contained very little actionable information; deducing exactly what had happened based on it would be extremely difficult. Furthermore, the subsequent formal investigation launched by the Silverport FDA was highly suspicious. Anyone could file a report, but launching an official investigation required concrete evidence. This meant Verdant had definitely committed some form of violation, though the specifics remained unclear.
Early the next morning, Wendy Lynch stepped into the Titan Engine office as usual. Returning to her cubicle, she turned on her computer and began her daily tasks. While working, she covertly ran intensive searches using various keywords.
Time ticked by, minute by minute. The only sounds in the office were the clacking of keyboards and the occasional ringing of telephones.
At exactly ten o’clock in the morning, Wendy Lynch typed in a new set of keywords. This time, a recently published forum post appeared in the search results.
[Desperate plea for help! My mom used Verdant serum and got diagnosed with skin cancer. Where is the justice?!]
Seeing the title, Wendy Lynch raised an eyebrow. She thought, "Here we go!"
She clicked on the post and skimmed it quickly. The poster called herself "A Desperate Daughter." The post was earnestly worded, bleeding with anguish. It detailed how her mother had become a loyal user of Verdant products. In particular, her mother swore by the whitening serum that claimed to "reverse skin aging," applying it religiously every single day. Yet, just last week, a dark spot on her mother’s face suddenly worsened. A trip to the hospital revealed it was skin cancer. The post included a blurred-out medical diagnosis certificate and a photo of a vanity table littered with Verdant products. The poster claimed that after inquiring about her mother’s lifestyle habits, the doctor suspected the long-term use of cosmetics was the likely culprit behind the illness.
"I’m not here to extort money! I just want justice for my mom!
"How can a massive brand like Verdant sell such harmful garbage?!"
The post concluded with this angry, helpless interrogation. The comment section already had a scattering of replies.
"Holy shit? Is this real? I’m using this exact serum right now!"
"Let’s wait and see. Could this be a smear campaign by a rival brand?"
"Pics or it didn’t happen—and they literally posted the diagnosis. How could it be fake?"
"No wonder it’s cheaper than other brands yet works so well. They must have sneaked some banned ingredients into it!"
"Don’t scare me, I use the entire Verdant product line!"
...
Wendy Lynch narrowed her eyes slightly. This was a domestic beauty forum with a highly active user base. But... the traction on this specific post was glaringly abnormal. It had been published by an ordinary user a mere four minutes ago, yet it already had over a dozen comments. Clearly, these comments were the work of paid trolls fanning the flames. They had likely even bribed the forum administrators to boost visibility.
Their methods were highly professional. Choosing to launch on a forum rather than a trending video platform helped them avoid immediate detection by the brand’s PR team. The post was richly illustrated and emotionally charged, expertly designed to elicit readers’ sympathy. Most importantly, the poster hadn’t made an absolute conclusion. By using ambiguous phrasing like "the doctor suspected," she had perfectly circumvented any legal risks.
The next two hours seemed to validate her suspicions. A premeditated storm of public outrage was officially unfolding.
Wendy Lynch opened X and typed "Verdant causes cancer" into the search bar. The latest post popped up, published just a minute ago. The content was largely identical, except this time the "victim" was a sister instead of a mother. The product in question was still the whitening serum.
Immediately after, similar posts began sprouting across Instagram, QueryHub, Reddit... As if by prior agreement, analogous posts cropped up in rapid succession across various social media platforms.
[Run, girls! I used Verdant’s whitening serum, got contact dermatitis, and my face is ruined!]
[A deep dive into Verdant: Are these ingredients truly safe? The concerns of a Ph.D. in Chemistry.]
[I went through five bottles of Verdant serum in a year. When my medical report came back, I was stunned: abnormal liver function...]
Wendy Lynch opened a blank document, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she logged the links, publication times, platforms, and the specific symptoms claimed by these "victims."
In just two short hours, she had tallied at least fifteen independent "victim" cases. These cases were scattered across seven different online platforms. The posters’ IP addresses spanned the globe, completely unrelated to one another. Yet, out of all these instances, twelve explicitly targeted the exact same product—the Verdant Luminous Radiance Serum.
The target was overwhelmingly clear. The perpetrators were going for a one-hit kill, intending to permanently nail Verdant’s flagship product to the pillar of shame.
Wendy Lynch’s brows furrowed tightly. The level of organization and precision behind this attack far exceeded her expectations. This wasn’t just a spontaneous PR crisis. This was a long-premeditated commercial assassination.
She navigated to Verdant’s official flagship store and found the sales page for the Luminous Radiance Serum. Monthly sales: 100,000+. The comment section was a sea of unanimous five-star reviews. She scrutinized the product description and ingredient list, finding only standard industry components like niacinamide, tranexamic acid, and licorice root extract... On the surface, there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.
This left her even more bewildered. If the product itself was flawless, where did the attackers get their confidence? Simply fabricating stories wouldn’t withstand official testing or basic scrutiny. Once proven to be rumors, Verdant could even countersue for commercial defamation. Whoever orchestrated this attack couldn’t possibly be blind to that fact.
Unless... the product actually had a problem.
Wendy Lynch’s heart skipped a beat. Changing her approach, she moved away from e-commerce platforms and social media, opening Google instead. She typed "Verdant Luminous Radiance Serum ingredients" into the search bar. The top search results were all advertisements and reviews from beauty influencers. She patiently scrolled further down.
Suddenly, a Wikipedia entry caught her eye.
[Verdant Luminous Radiance Serum]
She clicked on it. The entry was extremely detailed, covering everything from brand history and R&D philosophy to a comprehensive breakdown of ingredients.
Wendy Lynch’s eyes swept line by line over the chemical terms. When she saw one specific ingredient, she froze.
[Morning Glory Extract (Pharbitis Nil Extract)]
The name of this ingredient had been highlighted in bold red by the Wikipedia system.
This was highly unusual.