123: A stunning reversal!

Backstage at Dream Song, several singers looked at Wang Tong with trepidation; it seemed like he was in real danger this time.

But Qi Mingze's expression was even uglier than Wang Tong's. If Wang Tong was in danger, then he was a sure goner, destined to be eliminated.

On stage, Zhang Xinyu closed his eyes and sang with deep emotion, completely forgetting about the competition in his own world.

When the song ended and he opened his eyes again, his ears were filled with the screams and cheers of the audience, his eyes met the approving applause of the judges, and he saw Lu Qingyu's calm smile.

At this moment, Zhang Xinyu's heart began to race. This was the scene he had dreamed of. He thought he would have to struggle for a long time to achieve it, but he hadn't expected happiness to come so suddenly.

The Host invited all the singers back onto the stage once more. Zhang Xinyu, Wang Tong, and Qi Mingze stood in front of the others.

Qi Mingze had 31 points, and Wang Tong had 37 from the previous round. Everyone was excited and curious, desperate to know what Zhang Xinyu's score was.

The Host held the tallied results and began to announce them.

The three people on stage held their breath.

Host: "The scores given to Zhang Xinyu by the four judges are 10, 10, 9, and 10. Therefore, his total score is 39. Congratulations to Zhang Xinyu for successfully defending his position."

The audience erupted into a burst of screams. This challenge match was spectacular; it had been a long time since they had seen such an underdog reversal, and it was truly blood-pumping.

Zhang Xinyu's fans were truly crying this time.

[Waaaah, our Gege really hasn't had it easy.]

[To those who looked down on us, open your dog eyes! You got slapped in the face this time, didn't you?]

[Zhang Xinyu has proven to everyone that he has talent.]

[So what if we're well-connected? So what if we used the back door? We have the talent.]

Wang Tong's face turned pale instantly. Zhang Xinyu had two more votes than him; he was actually the one being eliminated.

As for Qi Mingze, there was no need to say anything; this was an expected result for him.

Zhang Xinyu's eyes reddened as he looked at Lu Qingyu with eyes full of gratitude.

Lu Qingyu applauded him from below the stage.

Host: "Then, according to the rules of this round, those eliminated will be Qi Mingze and Wang Tong. Congratulations to the remaining eight contestants for successfully advancing to the next episode."

Sun Yuan was originally applauding along, but he froze after hearing the Host's words.

???

The other eight all entered the next episode?

Holy shit, I won by doing nothing!

Because there was a rule in the competition that only two people would be eliminated in each round.

Since the two had already been determined, the others wouldn't be eliminated.

As the person in last place, Sun Yuan was deliriously happy; this was truly a windfall from the heavens.

Who could understand this? Winning without doing anything at all—it really was an effortless victory.

Thank you, Zhang Xinyu! You've given me a second life!

The director looked at Sun Yuan's silly expression from below; he felt a bit pained to have swapped the show's number one for the show's last place.

Lu Qingyu happily finished participating in the episode. Even happier than Lu Qingyu was Wang Ning. In the future plan he designed for Zhang Xinyu, to reach this level of popularity, besides participating in more shows, he would have had to spend over 5 million to help boost his popularity and topics. In the end, as soon as his boss took action, Zhang Xinyu directly soared.

The other artists in the same company couldn't help but feel jealous.

However, while some were happy, others were worried. While Qingcheng Entertainment was flourishing, Black Pearl's recent business hadn't been very good.

Chen Ting was a generous boss. Since he wasn't a professional himself, he was used to delegating power to the professionals under him.

Originally, this model was very good, allowing the company to develop rapidly and operate smoothly. But it was also prone to problems—specifically, holding too little power allowed some people's ambitions to grow too large to be reined back in.

From the moment Meng Wei decided to acquire Black Pearl Entertainment, he had been constantly having people investigate them.

If Black Pearl's development was good, the acquisition price would be high. But if Black Pearl developed poorly, or if internal turmoil occurred, they could acquire it at an extremely low price.

So, they bribed Yang He, a project manager at Black Pearl.

As a result, Manager Yang He took more than half of Black Pearl's profitable projects and jumped ship directly to Xiangwan Entertainment.

That wasn't all; there were also the singers Black Pearl had spent a fortune training.

The sudden turn of events seemed like it was going to hollow out Black Pearl.

Su Jixing had been busy helping Chen Ting handle company matters these past two days. After arranging Lu Qingyu's work, he had an assistant pick him up and drop him off instead.

There wasn't much work these past two days anyway, so Lu Qingyu took the opportunity to hold meetings with Qi Fei and the others.

However, having Su Jixing by his side for so long, the sudden separation made Lu Qingyu feel a bit unadjusted.

It was just that Su Jixing really had no time to look after Lu Qingyu right now.

He was currently in the company accompanying Chen Ting in a meeting because Meng Wei had come to see Chen Ting.

In the conference room, Meng Wei had arrived with two assistants.

"President Chen, I know your company has encountered some financial difficulties recently. Our company is willing to provide you with some assistance."

Chen Ting couldn't help but roll his eyes as he looked at Meng Wei's posturing.

Although he didn't love working, it didn't mean he was stupid. Wasn't the culprit behind Black Pearl's current situation their Xiangwan Entertainment?

Why play the part of the crocodile crying over the mouse now?

However, Chen Ting also wanted to know what Xiangwan Entertainment actually meant.

"What does President Meng mean?"

Meng Wei got straight to the point: "Black Pearl has been in the industry for so many years and has always been in a second-tier position. Surely you must be troubled by this lack of progress."

Chen Ting: Not at all, I just didn't want to develop further.

Meng Wei continued:

"Recently, your project manager left and took many of your projects with him. I know many of them were already underway and had been prepaid by you. Now that he's gone, these projects are ruined. Your company's cash flow should be having problems now, right?"

This financial issue was indeed a headache for Chen Ting. The projects Yang He took were all very important major projects for the company, and the ones already underway had caused them significant losses.

If it only required tens of millions or even a hundred million for turnover, Chen Ting wouldn't be so anxious.

At worst, he could sell his cars and houses and work hard for a few years to earn it back.

But these projects added up to seven or eight hundred million. Most importantly, now that these projects were gone, his channels were gone too.

The larger a company is, the more it is constrained by its capital chain.

In all his years of running the company, this was the first time Chen Ting felt overwhelmed.

Meng Wei:

"You know Xiangwan Entertainment's status in the circle. We are willing to give Black Pearl a chance. We can acquire Black Pearl and help you resolve your current debt issues."