Zhang Xuefeng (张雪峰) died suddenly from cardiac arrest at just 41 years old.

Within days...

1 billion posts on Weibo...

5 billion on Douyin...

80,000 articles on WeChat...

And tens of thousands of people turning up in person at his funeral to pay their respects in Suzhou — images which were quickly censored.

How does someone who came from nowhere, and was so divisive, generate such a huge outpouring?

That's what we're getting into in this week's RealTime Mandarin.