Chapter 32: Cutting In Line

Talent is an incredibly important thing.
Especially in artistic creation—sometimes lacking just a little talent means you’ll never surpass others, and no matter how hard you try, all you can do is sigh.

Fortunately, Lin Xiyue wasn’t lacking talent.
All she needed now was effort and time to grow.

So over the next week, Lin Xiyue focused entirely on studying music production, trying to make her workflow more proper and standardized, instead of the “wild path” she used before.

Xia Jinnian kept practicing her vocals as well.
Her determination was in no way inferior to Lin Xiyue’s—possibly even stronger.
Even Xu Wei had rarely seen an artist work this hard in all her years.

And many of the efforts Xia Jinnian had made in the past weren’t wasted.
She simply needed professional guidance to correct things.
So this period became her rapid improvement phase.

Xu Wei could clearly see progress in the girl every single day.
She knew this feeling very well—she used to feel the same when she watched Lin Ziyu back then.

As for the Piggy Music contest, the entry submitted by Xia Jinnian and Lin Xiyue was still dominating first place with a high score of 87.5, and their user vote count was far ahead as well.

But just when the two of them thought it’d soon be time to pop champagne, the top spot suddenly changed, which took them by surprise.

Another strong competitor?

The new top song scored 89 points.
It narrowly surpassed their “Meteor Shower.”

“Eh?
The singer is Wu Li~”

Xia Jinnian muttered from the side, and Lin Xiyue blinked in confusion.

“She’s that girl from Second High School—the one who kept ranking right behind me in the middle school singing competition and won three consecutive second places.”

Xia Jinnian explained.
But it was mostly just the surprise of recognizing someone.
She didn’t think there was anything wrong with the outcome.
After all, even if someone placed second for three years, that didn’t mean she’d be second forever and never allowed to win, right?

“Oh~ it’s fine.
Small issue.”

Lin Xiyue didn’t think much of it.
Including the user votes, this small gap was entirely manageable—they could catch up or even surpass.

Professionally, maybe the other song had a slight edge.
But they were simply more popular.
If someone said that was due to marketing—well, then why couldn’t the other person market themselves too?
Was it because they didn’t feel like it?
Were they above worldly gain?

But soon, Lin Xiyue sensed something wrong.

The other person’s vote count was rising at a shocking speed.
Not only rising—skyrocketing.

Normally, vote increases fluctuate: mornings low, afternoons minimal, evenings the highest—following normal human schedules.

But the new top song’s votes were rising nonstop, like a rocket.
Even in the middle of the night, the votes were increasing rapidly.
Who in the world had so much free time?

Although she suspected vote manipulation, Lin Xiyue had no direct evidence.
And she knew very well that once you start arguing about these things, you may not settle it even after the event ends.

As the company president, Xu Wei naturally noticed as well.
But her attention was on the song itself.

She listened to the other entry repeatedly and couldn’t help frowning.

Because clearly, the quality of the song itself was about the same as “Meteor Shower.”
At best, slightly better.
It was worth maybe 3500 points at most.

But the singer’s voice and style didn’t match the song at all—it felt abrupt and immersion-breaking.

The problem was that the singer’s technique and vocal ability were too professional—two whole levels above Lin Xiyue and Xia Jinnian.
She forced the song to work through sheer skill.
Pure brute-force performance.

It wasn’t that the scoring rules were wrong.
What bothered Xu Wei was that it made no sense for a complete newcomer to possess such overwhelming skill.

“This guy is definitely vote-buying and using a ghost singer!”

Lin Xiyue slammed the table, her expression full of anger.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t accept losing.
She just couldn’t accept losing like this.

She had worked so hard, poured so much thought into this, even used her mom’s treasured resources—just to fight for that first-place debut promotion.

Then suddenly some random contestant jumps in to steal it.
If it were genuine superiority, she’d accept it.
But this kind of trickery was intolerable.

“But… it seems like we can’t do anything…”

Xia Jinnian looked dejected as well.
After working so hard, someone else swooping in at the last moment felt awful.

“The organizers definitely know the voting is suspicious.
But they don’t say anything, probably because they don’t want trouble.”

Which was understandable.
Maybe the organizers thought that a battle between two “monsters” would make the event seem more valuable.
The buzz would surpass the scenario where Lin Xiyue and Xia Jinnian crushed everyone else easily.

They might even use this “best rookie in the history of YanZhiNet” to bolster the contest’s prestige.

“We absolutely cannot let this happen!”

Lin Xiyue felt her head throbbing.
She had just played one round of online marketing and now she had become a pawn in someone else’s marketing stunt.
They needed a solution.

Since the organizers wouldn’t act, they could expose the matter.
As long as they stirred enough public pressure, the organizers would be forced to investigate.

But before that, she needed to gather enough evidence.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to move public opinion.

As expected, the entertainment industry really was a giant cesspool.
She hadn’t even debuted for a week and already ran into this mess.

Bai Family

Bai Lulu had already noticed the issue.
With her years of experience, she knew the vote manipulation was unquestionable.

On her computer screen, numbers and a graph were updating constantly.
She had already been recording the vote changes for Wu Li’s entry.

Just from the graph alone, it was obvious:
The votes increased at an extremely stable rate—morning to night, the growth curve never changed at all.
This was completely unnatural.

“A few more days of data collection, and I’ll hand everything over to Lady Xiyue.”

Bai Lulu rubbed her hands together.
Looked like it was time to farm some favorability again.

With very little academic pressure and an excellent family background, Miss Bai had plenty of time and resources to dive into all sorts of hobbies.

Aside from being a doujin artist, she was also half a network engineer.
She even ran a fairly popular doujin website of her own.
So writing a small crawler to grab data like this was no big deal.

After thinking for a moment, Bai Lulu pulled out her phone, scrolling through her contacts before making a call.

“Hello, Uncle Liao?
It’s me, Xiaolu.
Um… my dad asked me to trouble you with something.
Could you check the traffic source for the votes in the ‘Sound of the Future’ contest on Piggy Music?”

“Yes, yes, it’s my dad’s request.
How could I deceive you, right?”

“Mm-hmm~ thank you, Uncle Liao~”

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