Chapter 33: What a Coincidence

Guangnan City – Wu’s Building Materials Co., Ltd. – President’s Office

Wu Li lay sprawled on the small sofa, staring at the soaring score and ever-increasing vote count on her phone, unable to suppress the grin tugging at her lips.

In C Country, where the entertainment industry is ridiculously developed, kids with dreams of stardom and a passion for singing are everywhere. She was one of them.

With decent talent and a wealthy family that could support every form of training, she had always been unmatched among her peers—
until high school.

From the very start of freshman year, she had been crushed under Xia Jinnian’s shadow.
No matter how hard she tried, no matter how many celebrity vocal coaches or producers she paid for, she was always just a little worse.

Frustrated, she had even thought about using less-than-honorable methods to vent her anger, but the high-school singing competition, while not prestigious, was run under national supervision—she couldn’t touch it.

So she could only watch Xia Jinnian take first place three years in a row, while she herself became a three-time runner-up…
earning the nickname “Miss Second Place.”

No one remembers second place—
unless she’s always second place.

Finally, an opportunity.
The “Voice of the Future” competition hosted by PigPig Music was her chance to stomp on Xia Jinnian and get her revenge.

To do so, she begged her father to buy the rights to a B-tier song, hired a competent mid-tier singer—someone with a voice similar to hers—to perform it, then spent a fortune on bot farms to mass-vote for her.

In total, she had already thrown several million at this. All just to vent her resentment—
which had clearly grown to the point of madness.

“Are you satisfied now?”
The middle-aged man in the office chair sighed.
“You’ve vented your anger. After this, don’t get worked up over Xia Jinnian anymore. Go your separate ways—”

“No way. This isn’t enough!”
Wu Li scowled.
“What’s so great about Xia Jinnian anyway? She even got signed to an entertainment company! And she’s debuting with her little bestie too. If she becomes some big star and I have to see her face everywhere, won’t I die of anger?!”

“I need to think of something else. I’m going to ruin her reputation!”

“No need for that. Leave her a way out.”

“Dad—am I even your biological daughter?! You’re really just going to watch me get tormented by Xia Jinnian and be fine with it?!”

“You… ugh, forget it. I don’t want to argue with you.”

******************

Lin Entertainment

After sulking for a while, Lin Xiyue began to relax.
There was no need to obsess over it for the moment.

Of course she couldn’t let Wu Li get away with this so easily—but that didn’t mean the first-place ranking itself was worth stressing over.

Honestly, the botters Wu Li hired were hilariously amateurish.
They couldn’t even imitate a realistic voting curve—they just brute-forced votes nonstop.

Botting this sloppy…
In a few years, clients would probably demand refunds for work this bad.

But the upside was: those flaws gave her angles to investigate.
She needed solid evidence before she could blow things up online.

“Ding-dong.”

Ran Zhu sent her a message.
Lin Xiyue opened her phone.

【I’m hanging out nearby. Passing by your company. You inside?】

【Yeah. Want to come in?】

【Sure. I wanna see what the great Miss Lin’s company looks like. Also—how you planning to treat your bro today? Got any Coke for me?】

【Got it. 1982 vintage.】

【?】

Putting down her phone, Lin Xiyue couldn’t help but smile—Ran Zhu’s cheerful personality was contagious.

A few minutes later, Ran Zhu entered the building, marveling at everything around him.

Lin Entertainment’s building was far grander than typical B-tier companies.
Back when Lin Cheng was ambitious and the company flourished, he had constructed this headquarters according to A-tier entertainment company standards…
Too bad he placed his trust in the wrong person.

“Here, your Coke. Even chilled.”

Lin Xiyue handed him a can, pulled straight from the company snack cabinet.

Ran Zhu turned it over suspiciously, checking the printed date twice before opening it.
That made Lin Xiyue laugh.

“You really think I can conjure up an actual Coke from 1982?”

“Hehehe…”

Ran Zhu scratched his head.

“I listened to the song you and Jinnian made. It’s great.”

“You’re not just flattering me?”

“Hey—am I that fake? I mean it! It’s really good. And your duo works really well together.”

He sounded mildly offended.

“Oh right, exam results come out in a few days. Let me know which school you apply to, yeah? Your bro will keep taking care of you.”

Only then did Lin Xiyue remember—
She had literally just finished the college entrance exam.
Guangnan usually released scores by the end of the month.
She’d been so caught up in work that she had nearly forgotten.

At that moment, Xia Jinnian walked out of the recording studio and greeted Ran Zhu.

Unlike Lin Xiyue, Xia Jinnian wasn’t great at emotional self-regulation.
She was still frowning over the Wu Li situation, and of course Ran Zhu noticed.

“What’s wrong? Someone bullying you?”

Jinnian stayed silent.
So Lin Xiyue explained everything, making Ran Zhu explode in anger.

“People actually do this?! Can’t win normally so they turn to dirty tricks? No wonder she’s born to be second place!”

“But there’s nothing we can do…”
Lin Xiyue sighed.
“At most we can accuse her of botting votes. But the singing isn’t as easy to expose—we have no samples for comparison. And she has no obligation to cooperate. The organizers won’t intervene either…”

Audience votes barely mattered; they were mostly for show.
Even if Wu Li’s votes were reset to zero, Lin Xiyue still might not win.
And the organizers were clearly pretending nothing was wrong.
So exposing the vote-botting alone would accomplish nothing.

As for the ghost singer…
Unless they could find enough of Wu Li’s actual singing samples and send everything to an official lab for voiceprint analysis, it was almost impossible.

“Hold up—didn’t Wu Li compete with Jinnian for years? She should have dozens of recordings from those competitions.”

“But we don’t have the audio archives.”

“🤓☝️ Aha—what a coincidence. I happen to know a friend whose mom was one of the judges for that competition. Her family probably kept the archives. Don’t underestimate my information network.”

“Oooooh my god, Bro Zhu—you’re my real brother!”