Hearing this, Wu Lingshan raised her head by reflex to get a glimpse at the big screen.

Her heart skipped a beat and she almost shot up on the spot as she saw the content displayed.

Her vote count really was dropping.

The worst part of it all, her vote count was dropping at a shocking rate… Or rather, it was as good as a nose dive down a cliff!

Wu Lingshan felt like she could get a heart attack from the frightening turn of events!

Her vote count which had initially hit as high as 500 thousand plummeted down rock bottom and had fallen through the 400 thousand mark in the blink of an eye.

The numbers fell on and on…

300 thousand…

200 thousand…

100 thousand…

It actually ended up breaking through the zero threshold!

An uproar instantly arose in the hall. Be it the audience, the media reporters or the staff, they were all stirred into chaos.

Even Sheng Yu had a face full of shock. He immediately made a phone call to question the staff in the backstage about the current situation.

“What's going on back there? Why did the vote count for the second place drop so much all of a sudden? Did something happen to the counting system? How many times have I warned you about the importance of the system? There is absolutely no room for mistakes when handling it! Are you even taking my warnings seriously?”

The poor staff member answered as he trembled in fear, “Chief… Chief Sheng, this really isn't our fault! There is nothing wrong with the counting system. The vote count of the second place plummeted because there was a sudden and ma.s.sive increase in downvotes from the netizens, there are just way too many of them! Our servers are even on the verge of cras.h.i.+ng from the overload!”

“What? Then, what exactly is happening here?” There was no way Sheng Yu could have expected such a turn of events.

A sudden surge of votes like this was normally caused by an army of online trolls abusing the internet loopholes to cast their votes unfairly.

However, this had only happened when the top two partic.i.p.ants were fiercely competing against each other for the first place.

As for the finals this time, the top three partic.i.p.ants were obviously miles apart from each other in terms of vote count, so no amount of votes would do any good to close the gaps between them.

So, why would anyone even bother casting votes illegally now?

The host was also dumbfounded. He was rendered speechless as he stared blankly at the column chart displaying the partic.i.p.ants' vote counts.

Suddenly, his gaze swept to the right side of the screen where the netizens' comments on the live broadcast were displayed, then his eyes lit up.

“Huh? It seems our dear viewers have finally ended their topic on Chen Xiluo and started talking about Wu Lingshan instead! Now, why don't we take a look at what they have to say?”

“Hmm, let's see… Wu Lingshan, you shameless b*tch… Cough, cough! Erm…”

The host randomly picked one of the comments and started reading the first few words of it. Then, he immediately choked and became embarra.s.sed to continue.

This comment was way too harsh.

He finally realized the dire situation that they were in and quickly gestured for the staff to turn off the live broadcast.

However, it was already too late.

The audience in the hall and the netizens had all seen the swarming comments appearing on their screens.

“Wu Lingshan, how shameless do you have to be to pull a trick as dirty as drugging our dear Young Master Shao just so you can get your hands on the grand prize?”

“How can there be such a b*tch like you? You actually resorted to unethical means to make up for your incompetence so that you can get an upper hand at your opponent! The worst part of it all, you even dragged Young Master Shao into this!”

“What a misfortune that befell my poor husband, oh, my heart! Just look at his photos on Weibo, he's been on the drip for an hour!”

“Drop dead, Wu Lingshan! If she wins the grand prize of the Huafeng Compet.i.tion, we should boycott all of SL Corporation's products from now on!”

Shao Mingyi's fans' hearts were filled with righteous indignation as they continuously blurted out nasty curses at Wu Lingshan.

As they did, they also did not forget to keep up the pace of the downvotes.

Even after breaching the zero threshold, there was still no end to the swarming downvotes. Her vote count kept on plummeting to oblivion.

Negative 100,000…

Negative 200,000…

Negative 500,000…

Negative one million…