158 The Valentine's Day Arc (14) : Catching an elaborate plot
Inside the hotel, Xing Bi was hella bored. Without Ai, she felt like she would die. She heavily sighed and thought to head to the washroom to spend the spare time until the break would be over and Ai would be back.
On her way, she heard an excited squeal coming from one of the rooms followed by a sharp hushing sound.
“Sssh!! Don’t get too excited! You will land us in deep trouble!”
Xing Bi paused in her steps. Her brows furrowed with suspicion and confusion, but she shrugged it off.
At first.
Then she heard the broken words of ‘Summit’ and ‘judgment’ which made her sharply turn and snap her head towards that particular room.
There were also other parties held in the hotel tonight, but only the Author Summit was referred to as a Summit and not some banquet or a party.
Xing Bi put two and two together.
Deep trouble plus Summit and judgement words equaled to something fishy!
She squinted her eyes and tiptoed towards the room while hiding her shadow that could be visible from inside the room. She then strained her ears to catch any hints of a conversation but felt frustrated to hear only inaudible whispers..
Damn! What are they talking about? I am getting a bad feeling about this!
Her gaze fell on the keyhole, and she beamed. She looked left and right and when nobody was watching her, she spilled the contents of her purse noiselessly on the floor.
She pretended to kneel down and ‘collect’ her stuff but was actually pining her ear to the keyhole to hear the conversation snippets more clearly.
Good thing that doors still have a keyhole in case of emergencies!
Nowadays, every room was equipped with card locking and unlocking system attached to the door. But a keyhole was still present to unlock any room with a key if the card system failed or crashed.
Xing Bi finally started to hear some broken pieces of a conversation.
“…Are you sure…do this?”
“Idiot! …So much money…”
“That person…lots of money…to do they have said.”
“The final winner…”
She straightened up on hearing winner but couldn’t catch on to the later part. She bit her lip hard in annoyance.
“Cannot…CherryBlossom should be…” the second man whispered.
“But MissImperfectlyFine…”
Xing Bi widened her eyes.
They are talking about Ai!
“…Shut up! Only…ssom can win…”
“Just have to…alter…then we have all the money!”
Xing Bi stared ahead in horror. It wasn’t a conversation she heard without hiccups, but she wasn’t so foolish not to understand what was happening.
Somebody has bribed two judges to alter the results!
She was getting surer and surer that Ai was the real winner of the Author Summit, but somebody was pumping these crooked judges with money to alter the results in Guiying’s favor.
Shit! How dare you take away what belongs to my Ai!?
Her knuckles cracked as her eyes clouded with rage. In the moment of her anger and envisioning strangling the two judges for this corruption, she didn’t notice when the door opened and the two judges stepped out.
It happened so fast and quickly that Xing Bi was still kneeling on the floor, her hands frozen in air. The judges almost crashed into her when they abruptly stopped.
The expressions on their faces stiffened. Initially, they didn’t recognize her. But one of them elbowed the other. “Hey! Isn’t she one of Dream High’s editor?”
The second one took a sharp gasp. “She is MissImperfectlyFine’s editor! They were sharing a table earlier.”
There was a deep, long silence. They exchanged glances, sure of the fact that she must have heard something.
Xing Bi knew it was useless to pretend, so she got up on her feet and gritted her teeth. “You two…you two want CherryBlossom to win, don’t you!? Even though it is my author MissImperfectlyFine who should be winning!”
She looked for the third judge but didn’t see him anywhere. There were only the two of them.
They paled.
“You…this is nonsense!”
“Yeah how dare you accuse us?”
Xing Bi stomped her foot. “I heard your conversation! You were clearly talking about money and altering the winner! You two should be ashamed of yourself. You are esteemed judges who have been invited to make a fair decision. But you are a filthy bunch of corrupted people!”
They broke into a cold sweat deathly afraid that somebody passing by might hear them.
One of them quickly tried to clear the misunderstanding. “You are taking it all wrong. We didn’t talk about any such things.”
Xing Bi sneered. “Save your talk for the officials. You two have been bribed and you dare stomp upon my Ai’s success! I will make you pay for this!”
One of them panicked and grabbed her arm, breathing hard. “You won’t go anywhere-“
He almost collapsed when Xing Bi suddenly jabbed her foot on his precious member. His jaw parted in slow motion as the pain set in.
She smirked. “I have dealt with lots of goons during the days I lived a life of debts my useless father left upon me. I can deal with you two peasants too easily. And don’t touch me you filthy bastard!” She shook her arm off harshly.
The other judge witnessed in horror. He felt as if his own member was in pain watching his partner writhe like that.
It was not only painful but humiliating too.
Xing Bi threw a glance at the remaining one. “Now your turn.”
He already started to shit himself badly. “I-I will…”
She sneered again. “Let me make you a handicap too.”
But she underestimated the first judge a little too soon. He was gasping in pain with tears in his eyes and kneeling on the floor, but the humiliation and resentment was so strong at being hit on his masculinity that it overcame his pain for a few moments.
He grabbed the hem of her dress and laughed. “You bitch will pay…I will fucking tear your dress!”
Xing Bi widened her eyes and tried to shake his hand away, but he held too tightly. The fabric of her dress was about to tear off when a foot suddenly crashed onto his head with a vicious blow.
“You touched the wrong woman you fucker,” Nian snarled, his eyes blazing with danger and rage.