167: Give a great gift

On the seventh day of the National Competition team finals, Nanya faced off against Chongbei Military Academy.

He Zhichen stepped onto the ring and conceded without saying a word.

Are you kidding? With that row of Nanya's transformed pet beasts, only Huaqing would blindly rush in.

Plus, with West River and An Huai, Nanya winning would mean a perfect victory and first place.

Gu Xiaoyue arrived at the official office building and saw Duan Yao outside, peering into the room.

The people from Yongle Shopping Mall were still cooperating with the investigation, but the officials hadn't found anything yet.

She wanted to see when the people from Yongle would be released; she wanted to terminate the contract immediately!

Duan Yao's eyes were a bit red and swollen; it seemed she hadn't had a moment of peace these past few days.

The competition was going smoothly, but the pressure from public opinion remained.

As long as the truth wasn't uncovered, she would have to keep taking the blame!

Duan Yao inadvertently caught Gu Xiaoyue looking at her.

What was originally Gu Xiaoyue's harmless gaze turned into gloating in Duan Yao's eyes!

"What are you looking at!"

Duan Yao yelled at Gu Xiaoyue and then ran off like a flash.

She wanted to prove her innocence, but she couldn't. If Gu Xiaoyue used the beverage incident to taunt her, she would have no way to defend herself.

Better to run away first!

Anyway, the officials would get to the bottom of things sooner or later.

Gu Xiaoyue was left puzzled by Duan Yao's series of actions; she clearly hadn't done anything.

She entered the office building and knocked on Director Wu's office door.

Director Wu was worrying; although the scope of the beverage incident wasn't very large, the impact was extremely bad.

Some contestants had lost their matches because they drank the beverages, and not only were the contestants demanding an explanation, but the academies were also pressuring the officials.

The solution Director Wu provided was that the academies affected that day could have a chance for a rematch.

Although it wasn't very fair to the teams that had already won, there weren't many objections, as it was to appease the defeated academies.

After all, winning unfairly wasn't honorable; if one was strong enough, they naturally wouldn't fear a rematch.

As for the many academies demanding the expulsion of the Yongle Shopping Mall staff, the investigation hadn't yielded results yet.

If they were all expelled from Huaqing, the investigation would become even more impossible to conduct.

"Come in."

Director Wu had a splitting headache and pressed his temples, allowing the person knocking to enter the office.

"Oh, Gu Xiaoyue, it's you. What is the matter?"

Gu Xiaoyue bowed to Director Wu, "Director, I would like to borrow some projection equipment from Huaqing."

"I don't know any of the mentors at Huaqing, so I wanted to ask the officials to help make the connection."

"Borrowing equipment? That's a small matter."

Director Wu made a phone call right away and arranged for a staff member to take Gu Xiaoyue to retrieve the equipment.

On the way, the staff member casually asked her what she needed it for.

Gu Xiaoyue simply replied that she had a few short clips to share with her classmates.

After borrowing the equipment, Gu Xiaoyue returned to the dormitory and sent a group message to everyone.

"We face off against West River tomorrow, everyone prepare well."

The others didn't think much of it, but only Chu Li fell into deep thought.

The first match of the second day was the battle between Nanya and West River.

Everyone knew that Nanya's strength crushed West River's, so there weren't many people there to watch.

Because Su Anxi had a good relationship with Min Rui, she also dragged Lv Hao along to watch.

"Drink some water first."

Chu Li handed a bottle of water to Gu Xiaoyue, "Zhuang Yanxin prepared this for everyone."

He gave Gu Xiaoyue a wink.

Gu Xiaoyue took it and took a sip.

Min Rui, leading the West River team members, was already standing on the ring.

Miss Elsa and Miss Charlotte also greeted Charlie and Harry, then took their seats in the audience.

"Can we begin?"

The referee asked the captains of both sides.

Min Rui indicated that they needed to wait a little longer.

Gu Xiaoyue knew she was waiting for the drug to take effect.

Since Min Rui and Harry had gone to such great lengths to plot against her, she would naturally have to deliver a big gift to them in return.

"I also need to wait a moment; I have some gossip to share with everyone."

After saying this, Gu Xiaoyue drew a summoning circle.

A full set of projection equipment appeared on the ring.

"Huh? This—student, the ring is for matches; what are you going to show?"

The referee wanted to stop her, but he couldn't resist the audience below; as soon as they heard there was gossip, they were all incredibly expectant.

"Anyway, the West River side also said to wait; sharing some gossip is quite interesting, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes! Thank goodness I came to watch today, otherwise I would have missed it!"

Gu Xiaoyue asked Chu Li to plug in the power; the Nanya teammates also had no idea what was going on.

"What gossip? Xiao Yue, how come I don't know about it?"

Ye Wanrou secretly tugged at Gu Xiaoyue's sleeve and asked in a low voice.

"You'll know in a moment."

Gu Xiaoyue gave her a wink and revealed a mysterious smile.

"The projector's power will take two minutes to connect; let everyone first listen to an audio clip."

Gu Xiaoyue opened her brain, aimed it at the loudspeaker, and played an audio clip.

It was the conversation between Min Rui, Harry, and Brown after she had treated Min Rui.

Of course, she removed her own part; it only contained their plan to drug the drinks at Duan Yao's fan tea party, as well as Harry promising Min Rui the title of Duchess, and the sweet nothings that followed.

Gu Xiaoyue saw Min Rui and Harry's paper-white complexions, then glanced at Su Anxi.

At this point, how could Su Anxi not understand that Min Rui had been plotting against her all along!

Min Rui was enraged by shame and immediately lunged towards Gu Xiaoyue, claws bared.

She roared: "Bitch, you are framing me! This audio is synthesized, it's fake! Malicious editing!"

Gu Xiaoyue stepped back a few paces, and Min Rui was blocked by the referee, "Since it's fake, why are you so agitated?"

The power for the projector on Chu Li's side was already set up.

Gu Xiaoyue connected her brain, "You can say the audio is fake, then let me invite everyone to watch a few videos."

The first clip was of Brown sneaking into the back room where the supplies were kept at Yongle Shopping Mall in the dark.

He put some unknown powder into the drink mixes.

Because of the lighting, the video wasn't very clear, but when Brown was drugging the drinks, he needed light.

His face was illuminated clearly.

The video also carried the timestamp: it was the middle of the night before Duan Yao held her tea party!

"Isn't this the butler for the West River exchange students?"

"Oh, yes, yes! I was wondering why he looked familiar, but I couldn't place him!"

"Wait, hold on, the Country of the Setting Sun did the exchange student activity with us just to drug our contestants? The people from the Sun Never Sets are too vicious!"

The audience below could no longer restrain themselves and began cursing at Harry, and some even started throwing water bottles, fruit, and snacks at him.

"This is also a frame-up, a frame-up! Ah—"

Min Rui rushed to Harry's side in distress, shielding him from the items the audience was throwing onto the ring.

A glass bottle filled with beverage was thrown onto the stage, hitting Min Rui squarely on the head, leaving her bloodied.

"Still saying it's a frame-up? No problem, let's watch the next part—"