Tokyo: The evil god doesn't want to be the top star

Chapter 318: Wasted Tickets
"Speaking of which, have you seen the number of votes at the closing time, Xia Jun?"

The ranking of the second round of survival battle is about to be announced, and the topic of discussion among several people will inevitably turn to the popularity ranking.

"I didn't pick a particular time to watch it, but I remember that I was the first one, right?"

When the votes were counted, Xia Fan was still at the Osaka Hospital watching the cat Ksitigarbha "saving all living beings" and had no time to pay attention to the rankings.

"Damn it, is this the first feeling of relaxation in ten thousand years..."

"I'm not talking about you, but the people behind you..."

"The votes of several guys increased significantly on the last day, and the gap between them and you narrowed down a lot."

The other three sighed enviously and started discussing with each other.

A few hours before the vote count was closed, the votes for five-star trainees such as Takahashi Yu, Nagase Kaito, and Hirano Yuta suddenly began to soar...

The few people who were originally left behind by Xia Fan with a lead of several million votes gradually narrowed the gap in votes to within two million votes.

While Xia Fan and his roommates were gossiping together, the other trainees also gathered together to "share intelligence".

No matter what topic they were discussing or how they looked at each other, they would unconsciously focus on Xia Fan...

After all, when the statistics were closed, Xia Fan occupied the first place in popularity with 17 million votes, which seemed so desperate.

After a while, Goro Kimura, dressed in a gorgeous suit and adjusting his tie, stood on the stage and began to record the "Thank You Speech for the Title Sponsor".

The chief director Manjiro Akimoto, wearing a baseball cap, also waited next to the camera with an expressionless face.

In the mentor seats, Yayoi Tsuki, Oda Masaru and Hirai Shota also took their seats with serious expressions.

"It's just the order of distribution. Are these instructors here too?"

"It seems that today's recording content is different from the past."

When the first round of survival rankings were announced, several mentors who were not present caused uneasy discussions among the trainees as soon as they showed up.

"Producer representatives, mentors, please take your positions..."

"Dear trainees, please line up at the designated positions. The official recording will begin in five minutes."

The executive director on the sidelines quickly took out the loudspeaker and made a loud announcement.

"Dear trainees, welcome back to the fifth episode of "Idol Birth Festival".

"Today, the first thing we are going to do is the long-awaited "Announcement of the Second Survival Battle Ranking". This also means that 20 companions will bid farewell to this stage after the results are announced..."

Five minutes later, the lights, camera, stage and crew were all in place, and Goro Kimura picked up the microphone and began his opening remarks.

"Well, time is running out, let's start announcing the ranking results right away..."

Amid the tense background music, Goro Kimura began to announce the rankings with a long tail and a heavy breathing tone.

"At the closing date of the vote count, the first place is..."

When he read out "first place", countless eyes in the audience were focused on Xia Fan standing in the first row.

Regardless of envy, jealousy or dissatisfaction, the trainees believed that Xia Fan was the most popular player without any suspense.

"... Yuta Hirano, 15.2 million votes!"

But the name that came out of Kimura Goro's mouth was not the name that everyone had in mind.

"what?!"

"Hiraye? Not Xia Fan?!"

"Fifteen million votes? I can't be mistaken. Xia Fan exceeded seventeen million a day ago!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the trainees were so surprised that they forgot that they were recording a program and started discussing it enthusiastically. This result declared that the "big devil" Xia Fan had fallen from the first place for the first time since the program started.

"Me? First?"

Even Yuta Hirano himself, who was being given a close-up shot by the cameraman, looked surprised.

"Eh, Hirano has more than me? Did I see it wrong before?"

Xia Fan tilted his head in confusion, subconsciously felt for his cell phone in his trouser pocket, then remembered that he had already handed it in.

He has always attributed his performance to Tianyu Shen from the bottom of his heart and has never cared much about the ranking, but he is still a little confused about the gap between the real-time votes and the ranking.

"Cough cough cough..."

"Everyone, please be patient."

Facing the boiling studio, Goro Kimura clenched his fist and coughed, attracting everyone's attention.

"When checking and counting the votes, the program team and the notary office found that for some of the votes generated by the support activities, the user's operation records and time intervals were exactly the same, and it was determined that the support activities were automatically completed by some kind of software..."

"We have determined that the votes generated by the software are invalid."

"Here, the production team also solemnly calls on all the producers in front of the screen to support the trainees with genuine love from the heart, rather than relying on cold, mechanical software to do it for you."

He was obviously prepared for this situation and gave a high-sounding explanation that he had prepared long ago.

“Supporting software…”

"Hey, first place, is this how you get it?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the trainees all looked at Xia Fan with contempt, ridicule, and disdain.

Although no names were mentioned, after the "software ticket" was abolished, Xia Fan lost the first place...

In other words, Xia Fan had at least two million votes that were judged to be generated by software.

However, after losing these huge amounts of "software tickets", Xia Fan was worried about what place he would fall to, which became the next question in everyone's mind.

"So that's how it is. It's normal for the tickets generated by the software to be invalidated."

"Oh, there's actually such a thing as a cheering app. The idol industry is also taking off with the Internet."

In the mentor's seat, Oda Masaru and Hirai Shota looked at each other and nodded as if they had realized something.

"Second place, Nagase Kaito, 14.15 million votes..."

"Third place, Takahashi Yuu, 13.46 million votes..."

"Fourth place, Xia Fan, 1,316 votes..."

Kimura Goro continued to announce the names of the fourth place winners, and finally everyone heard Xia Fan's name...

"With four million votes, the ruling was scrapped with just one sentence: 'generated by software'... Have the production team really lost their minds to this extent?"

"How ridiculous! Xia Fan's ticket was 'machine-printed', but the extra tickets that the guys in the back suddenly got were 'handmade'?"

Yayoi Tsukki, sitting in the instructor's seat, held her chin with one hand and smiled coldly.

"The number of votes is only one aspect. This kind of negative public opinion that 'Xia Fan's fans used software to cheat the votes' is what the production team wants most, right?"

"To be able to come up with such a good plan to kill two birds with one stone, it seems that the production team has burned a lot of brain cells during the days when the recording was suspended."

She could imagine how big a whirlpool this news would cause in online public opinion alone.

(End of this chapter)