Chapter 34: Likes to Steal?

The three of them sat together chatting for quite a while—talking about the competition, the college entrance exam, funny stories from school—and they even dragged Ran Zhu to the company cafeteria for a meal before finally parting ways.

“Bro Zhu, come hang out more often~”

“Don’t worry, even if you didn’t say it, I’d still come. Your company cafeteria is way too good—makes me wanna sign a contract and work here, hahahahaha—”

“If you really want to, it’s not impossible. Worst case, I’ll pay your salary out of my own pocket.”

Lin Xiyue had originally wanted to joke that she could just dock her own salary to pay him—but then she remembered her monthly pay was a majestic 30 yuan, and she swallowed the joke.

Watching Ran Zhu’s figure fade in the distance, Lin Xiyue thought about their earlier banter.

Honestly, having Ran Zhu join the company wasn’t impossible. She understood her well.

Ran Zhu’s singing talent was decent, but her real strength was dance.

She had always been energetic since she was little, which gave her exceptional body control and flexibility.

However, the entertainment industry in C Country at this time didn’t place much importance on dance.
Dance only mattered for live performances, and dancing messed with breathing technique, making it harder to sing. Singing and dancing simultaneously required extremely high levels of professional skill and physical fitness.

But Lin Xiyue had lived through the era a few years later.
By then, aside from the traditional stand-and-sing performers, dancing girl groups had begun to take off—and grew rapidly in popularity.

If she could experiment early, combining the two styles flexibly…
The response might be extraordinary.

But she quickly shook her head.
No need to rush. First, they needed to build a name and earn the company more money.

She dragged Xia Jinnian back to the recording studio to continue vocal practice.
It was always the right time to practice—solid fundamentals were never useless.

“It’ll be fine! I will drag that awful woman into the light!”

She held Xia Jinnian’s hand reassuringly, but Jinnian shook her head.

“I-I don’t actually care that much about the championship… don’t stress yourself too hard.”

The warmth in Lin Xiyue’s heart overflowed.
She knew Jinnian actually did care.
Jinnian was ambitious too—but she didn’t want to burden her, so she pretended not to mind.

“Oh right, about the sales of Meteor Shower—
The contract says we singers get 20% in total, right? So I’d get 10%. Actually… maybe I shouldn’t take it this time. I heard Sister Xiao Li saying the company still needs to gather some kind of ‘retention fee’?”

Jinnian was the type who was easily satisfied and sincerely grateful.
In this alone, she was miles better than Lin Ziyu.

“Take it. It’s yours. The company may be short on money, but missing your 10% won’t make a difference~”

That nearly moved Lin Xiyue to tears again.

“Keep acting like this and I’ll start to wonder if you’re secretly in love with me.”

“What—?! You silly Xixi! Don’t joke like that~”

Jinnian stuck her tongue out playfully.

“If anything, I feel like you’re the one acting super fruity lately.”

While the two girls flirted and teased each other, back in the office, Xu Wei was racking her brain.

“Yes, understood. Once I find enough comparison samples, I’ll send them over immediately.”

She had already contacted an accredited voiceprint analysis institution.
All she needed now were suitable samples.

If ghost-singing for a released single was conclusively proven, it would be an extremely serious offense—
enough for StarNet to designate Wu Li as a disgraced artist, possibly banned from future public events.
The reputational damage alone would be devastating.

As a single mother, Xu Wei had two things she cared about:
the company her husband left behind,
and her daughter.

Wu Li had stepped on both sore spots at once.
There was no way Xu Wei would swallow this.

Three days passed.

During these three days, many netizens—far from stupid—noticed something off about Wu Li’s voting pattern.

But since botting wasn’t very common yet, people weren’t accustomed to assuming the worst. Most just thought Wu Li’s fans were unusually zealous.

By the way, Wu Li’s single sales weren’t great.
Not only worse than Meteor Shower, but even less than one-tenth of her competition vote count.
Quite ironic.

As head judge of the contest, Zhang Zheng immediately recognized the botting.
He’d been in the industry long enough to spot it instantly.

Privately, he really liked Meteor Shower and those two girls—it was classic genius-newcomer material, steady and grounded.
The style and lyrics even reminded him of his own youth.

Wu Li’s song, on the other hand, didn’t match her voice at all—a forced fit.
He disliked it, and it indeed smelled like ghost-singing.

But there was nothing he could do.
He was just a paid judge.
His job was to score whatever was submitted, not question its origins.

“Sigh… hope those two girls get another chance. Bad luck this time.”

Bai Family Residence

Bai Lulu received the analysis report from “Uncle Liao” and began examining it on her computer.

He had a special position—someone able to access all the traffic data for the voting system, including Wu Li’s zombie votes.

After performing a round of clustering analysis, she discovered all of Wu Li’s votes originated from a single highly concentrated IP source.

Looking up the IP’s registration, she saw it belonged to a company named “XX Network Technology Co., Ltd.”

The conclusion was clear.
The analysis proved Wu Li had almost certainly hired this company to manipulate votes.

“Hmph. Stealing Lord Xixi’s championship? You think you’re worthy? Filthy woman.”

Bai Lulu snorted coldly—her sharp aura completely at odds with her cute half-loli appearance.

Since she had taken over part of the Bai family’s business network and influence, she had absolutely no reason to let that botting company off the hook.

Like being a bot farm online?
Then don’t blame her for doxxing them and handling things offline too.

First, she would scare the hell out of the company boss.
Make him produce the contract.
With the contract and her report, they could nail the botting accusation solidly.

“Like to steal?
Diagnosis: needs discipline—”