The dating reality show host just wanted to give up, but the rich girl fell for him.

The atmosphere in the backstage control room was extremely tense, as if even the air itself was on fire.

"Faster! Faster! Haven't you eaten?!"

The chief director, Fatty Wang, was like a mad boar, sprawled on the back of the technician's chair, roaring hysterically, spitting all over the technician's head.

The technician was drenched in cold sweat, his hands frantically typing on the keyboard, leaving afterimages in his mind.

"Director Wang, this is no good! The server can't handle it!"

The technician's voice was choked with sobs.

"Ever since those few national-level official verified accounts stepped in, Weibo and all the major forums have exploded!"

"Right now, netizens across the internet are frantically sharing this, and even tagging other official media outlets to see this 'living national treasure'!"

"The instantaneous traffic to the live stream has already exceeded 30 million, and our server CPUs are practically smoking!"

Fatty Wang's legs went weak, and he almost knelt down again.

"I don't care what method you use, even if it means burning out all the backup servers, you must restore Lin Mo's data within ten seconds!"

"If we delay the national team's recruitment efforts, our entire production crew will have to go plant trees in Northwest China tomorrow!"

at the same time.

The stage in the studio remained eerily silent, suffocatingly so.

The large screen is currently in a blackout and frozen state due to the extreme chaos of the background data.

No one knew what the assistant director had just shouted into the earpiece, and they could only look at each other in bewilderment.

Zhao Kuo took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the inexplicable panic in his heart.

He stared intently at the blacked-out screen, his facial muscles twitching violently twice before he let out another cold laugh filled with jealousy and malice.

"Playing tricks!"

Zhao Kuo straightened his expensive suit jacket, then suddenly turned his head and pointed at Lin Mo, who was sitting on the edge.

"Don't be fooled by him! What intangible cultural heritage inheritor? What national team involvement?"

"Those were all high-level hackers he hired, or marketing accounts he bribed!"

Zhao Kuo's voice echoed in the empty studio, carrying a kind of hysterical stubbornness.

"He's just a penniless bastard who owes five million in high-interest loans! A low-life loser who repairs locks at the end of an alley!"

"He doesn't even have enough money to buy a decent set of clothes, how could he possibly possess those lost skills? Use your brains, is that even possible?!"

To prove his guess, Zhao Kuo arrogantly pulled out his latest folding screen phone.

"You won't shed a tear until you see the coffin, huh? Fine!"

"I'm logging into my main account right now and personally debunking this scam in the live stream!"

"I'm going to show the whole internet just how ridiculous these fake screenshots you've put together under the guise of official credentials really are!"

Zhao Kuo's fingers flew across the phone screen, quickly entering the official live stream room of "Heart Signal".

At this moment, the chat room was completely in an uproar.

[I can't believe it! I actually saw the national team (government-sponsored teams) vying for players on a dating reality show!]

[What is prestige? This is prestige! Lin Mo's move was a complete subversion of expectations, utterly crushing these capitalists!]

[I knew it! He seemed so relaxed every day. Turns out he's a true master, living a life of quiet solitude!]

Zhao Kuo looked at the comments praising Lin Mo to the skies and was so jealous his eyes almost bled.

He gritted his teeth and typed a line of extremely vicious text into the input box:

[It's all a lie! Lin Mo is a complete deadbeat and a liar! These so-called official accounts are all fake data that has been hacked! Don't believe this locksmith idiot!]

After typing this line, Zhao Kuo curled his lips into a sinister smile and pressed the "send" button heavily.

He couldn't wait to see how his earth-shattering "truth" would unleash a storm of reversals in the comments section.

however.

A second passed.

Two seconds passed.

The comment Zhao Kuo sent did not appear on the public screen as he had expected.

Instead, a very eye-catching system pop-up window with a bright red warning sign suddenly appeared in the center of the screen.

[Dear user "Zhao Gongzi", your account has triggered the platform's highest-level red alert for suspected "spreading rumors and defaming national-level official certification institutions" and "disrupting major network order".]

Your account has been permanently banned across the entire network, and evidence of your statements has been preserved.

Please be mindful of your words and actions; the internet is not a lawless zone.

"Clatter."

Zhao Kuo's latest folding screen phone slipped from his hand without warning and crashed heavily onto the polished marble floor.

The screen shattered into spiderweb-like cracks.

Zhao Kuo was frozen in place as if he had been struck by a spell.

His eyes were wide open, and his lips were trembling violently, devoid of any color.

Your account was banned?!

And it's a permanent ban across the entire internet?!

In this era where traffic is king, how could they ban the account of a super-rich second-generation with millions of followers without even a warning, going straight to the point?!

Is it...

Were all those comments in the live chat... real?!

Zhao Kuo finally realized that he had kicked a really hard iron plate!

An unprecedented, deep-seated fear instantly engulfed his entire body, making him feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

Meanwhile, Lin Mo, sitting in the corner, raised an eyebrow in satisfaction as he looked at Zhao Kuo's expression of utter despair, as if he had swallowed a dead fly.

"Young Master Zhao, why are you not saying anything?"

Lin Mo maintained his extremely annoying old-fashioned sitting posture, and even picked up his thermos and took a sip of cola.

"Weren't you supposed to be exposing counterfeits? Why did you drop your phone?"

Lin Mo sighed and shook his head in a very Versailles-like manner.

"Hey, I told you I'm just a locksmith, but you guys have to make a big deal out of it. Just let the host announce my elimination already, my family back home can't wait any longer."

Just as Lin Mo was extremely eager to grab his bag and leave.

"Buzz—!!!"

Suddenly, the sound system of the entire studio emitted an extremely high-pitched, engine-like roar!

Followed by.

The giant LED holographic projection screen, which had been frozen for a full three minutes, suddenly flashed out a blinding white light!

The backend data has been repaired!

Under the almost suffocating gaze of all the guests and 30 million viewers across the internet.

The colored data bars on the screen reappeared.

On the far left is Zhao Kuo's blue bar chart, which was generated by online trolls and has over three million views; it still looks very tall.

On the far right is the red bar representing Lin Mo, which was originally reduced to 8,000 votes.

Moved.

At first, it only crawled upwards very slowly.

But then, just like a supervolcano that had been dormant for hundreds of millions of years, it finally erupted in a cataclysmic event!

"Whoosh—!!!"

Accompanied by extremely exciting and constantly rising electronic sound effects.

Lin Mo's red bar chart rose from the ground at a terrifying speed that completely defied visual logic and mathematical common sense!

100,000! 500,000! 1 million!

In the blink of an eye, the red pillar had easily caught up with Zhao Kuo's three million votes!

But this is just the beginning!

Supported by the "cash power" of tens of thousands of employees in the Jiang Group.

With tens of millions of netizens across the internet having their rebellious and patriotic sentiments ignited by the frenzied clicks, the situation became a hot topic.

Lin Mo's votes have completely spiraled out of control!

Five million!

Ten million!

Thirty million!!!

"Bang--!!!"

The data was simply too massive, and the rate of increase was simply too rapid.

That red bar actually broke through the highest scale line of the UI interface that the production team spent millions to customize!

It was like a blood-red sword tearing through the sky, piercing the very top of the screen!

Even though there was no physical space left to display at the top of the screen, the Arabic numeral representing the total number of votes was still jumping wildly at a rate of hundreds of thousands per second.

Ultimately, that number remained firmly at a terrifying level, enough to be recorded in the history of Chinese variety shows.

[58,760,000 votes]!

Fifty-eight million seven hundred and sixty thousand votes!!!

The entire studio was so quiet that you could even hear the faint hissing sound of the spotlights above the stage.

This is no longer a complete rout.

This is a one-sided massacre on par with nuclear bombing!

Lin Mo's vote count was not only overwhelmingly in first place.

He even received more votes than all the male and female guests following him, including Zhao Kuo, combined.

That's ten times more!!!

This isn't a vote; it's clearly a frenzied, collective pilgrimage of the entire internet to him!

Faced with this absolute data...

Zhao Kuo's three million votes, which he was so proud of, were like a drop of snot in the ocean—laughable, pathetic, and not even worth mentioning.

"Gulp."

In the center of the stage, the host holding the microphone swallowed hard.

He felt his legs going weak, and his hand holding the card was shaking as if he had Parkinson's disease.

In his more than ten years as a host, he had never seen such a terrifying scene that was comparable to a miracle!

He glanced at the latest instructions coming from the backstage control room.

I took a deep breath.

The host raised the microphone, his voice trembling noticeably, even cracking.

"Dear viewers... the final results of this week's elimination night for 'Heart Signal' are in!

"No vote rigging! No violations whatsoever!"

"Let's give a warm round of applause to congratulate the winner of this online heart-fluttering vote..."

The host suddenly pointed to the red bar chart that pierced the sky on the screen and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"First place!"

"An unprecedented runner-up ranking—Lin Mo!!!"

"boom--!!!"

As the host roared, dozens of ceremonial fireworks above the studio went off simultaneously!

Gold leaf and colorful paper scraps fell from the dome like a blizzard, scattering across the entire stage.

At the same time, the extremely exciting and glorious champion's exclusive background music, "We Are The Champions," resounded deafeningly in the studio!

On stage, everyone was stunned by this sudden reversal.

Zhao Kuo slumped on the sofa like a lump of mud, his eyes vacant, completely becoming a backdrop to this battle for the gods.

And at this very moment.

Lin Mo was sitting on the very edge of the sofa, carrying a military green backpack, full of anticipation, ready to sprint home as soon as he heard the word "elimination".

He froze completely.

Colorful ribbons rained down on his head and shoulders, and one ribbon even caught precisely on the large scallion sticking out of his backpack.

First place?!

Didn't we agree to reset the data?!

Didn't we agree that we'd be able to retire and go home to harvest wheat soon?!

Where the hell did these 58 million votes come from?!

The bright smile that Lin Mo had been wearing because he was about to leave work froze completely in that instant.

His pupils trembled violently, his eyes filled with disbelief and utter despair.

"Smack."

Lin Mo's fingers loosened weakly.

That worn-out backpack, filled with changes of clothes and carrying all his dreams of freedom.

It fell heavily onto the cold marble floor.