Rich Side Character Goes Viral for Gossiping on a Laid-Back Reality Show Ch. 35

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Then came the fourth place—
Yu Qianxia's eyes paused.

It was her.

She had 2.34 million votes.

That was honestly better than she'd expected. She kept scrolling.

Fifth place: Lu Jianchen.

He had 2.33 million.

Just a 10k vote difference. Basically neck and neck.

Sister Rong got more and more anxious.
"Oh my god! This is way too close! Heaven, please don't let my Xia Xia get eliminated..."

She was out here praying to every deity she could think of.

Meanwhile, Xiao Ke was frantically pinging every contact they had to help vote—but it wasn't looking great.

Some people didn't even use the Pineapple app, hadn't signed in, didn't do any system tasks... meaning:
No votes to give.

Every single vote became precious.

Lu Jianchen's votes were closing in fast—he was now just ten votes behind.

Sister Rong was practically holding her breath. Xiao Ke looked at the clock and shrieked,
"HELP! THERE'S ONLY ONE MINUTE LEFT! AHHHHHH!"

Under their wild pressure, Qianxia's fingers kept refreshing the page nonstop.

Xiao Ke's eyes were glued to the screen, counting every single increase.
"AHHHHH 2,543,361! 2,543,362...!"

Fourth place and fifth place were trading spots over and over, switching so fast it was making Qianxia dizzy.

At one point, they even tied exactly.

In just the blink of an eye, the clock struck midnight right on the dot. The voting page closed, and the vote count froze on the final numbers.

At the same time, in another city, a beam of soft moonlight spilled into a spacious bedroom. It cast a hazy, silvery glow over the side of a man's face, making his expression hard to read in the dim light.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling window was a patchy view of A City's nighttime skyline. The man leaned against the bar counter, watching as the words "Vote Submitted Successfully" popped up on his phone screen.

He lowered his eyes. Once he confirmed that Yu Qianxia had made it through, he locked his phone and headed into the bathroom.

"What? Just one vote short?!" Lu Jianchen, fuming, hurled his phone off the table. It hit the ground with a loud crack, the screen shattering instantly.

His manager honestly never understood why he even joined this variety show. Lu Jianchen had nearly tanked a few times on it already. Now that he was finally eliminated, the manager actually felt a bit relieved. But Lu Jianchen clearly wasn't ready to let it go.

"We can still join other shows," the manager tried to reason with him. "No point clinging to this one so hard..."

Without the need to keep up his cool-guy persona in front of the camera, Lu Jianchen dropped the act. His face darkened, and he yanked off his tie in frustration. "But it was just one vote! That's insane! I can't let this go! No way! I have to get back on this show. Think of something—anything!"

The manager frowned in defeat. He's already eliminated... what else can we even do?

After a pause, the manager hesitated, then offered a suggestion. "How about... we buy our way into the Popularity House?"

The Popularity House had opened during the last episode and stayed up on the platform ever since. After a whole week of hype, competition for a spot in it had gotten super intense.

The vote count for the top three was neck and neck.

Unlike regular popularity voting, the Popularity House didn't have a time limit. It was all about getting fans to spend money, and the monitoring wasn't nearly as strict. For people in the industry, it basically came down to buying a few bot accounts and throwing enough cash at it.

Lu Jianchen pulled out a bank card from his pocket and gritted his teeth. "Do it. Burn the money!"

Yu Qianxia checked out the Popularity House situation the next day.

Now that Lu Jianchen had been eliminated, there were still two open spots left in the show.

The Popularity House was even wilder than the regular popularity voting. After a whole night of chaos, the final two who made it in were Ruan Zhiyao and Song Mubai.

Yu Qianxia's eyes caught on the name sitting in third place — and it was someone familiar: Lu Jianchen.

Looked like he had a very busy night.

But still, tough luck. He just barely missed second place by a few votes and lost his chance.

Yu Qianxia's gaze lingered on one name.

Ruan Zhiyao.

Something about that name felt weirdly familiar.

Who was that again? For a moment, Yu Qianxia couldn't remember.

It wasn't until Xiao Ke reminded her that it finally clicked.

"Ruan Zhiyao?" Xiao Ke muttered the name under her breath, then said, "Wasn't she your last assistant, Qianxia?"

Yu Qianxia suddenly remembered—yeah, her last assistant was Xiao Ruan.

She'd hired her through an online post, but the girl quit after only two months. Yu Qianxia vaguely remembered hearing later that she went to join some girl group talent show.

As for how that turned out, Yu Qianxia had never paid much attention.

But judging by now, she probably made it.

Yu Qianxia didn't really care. Right then, Xiao Ke hesitated before saying, "Sister Qianxia, do you still remember that thing?"

"What thing?" Yu Qianxia asked.

Xiao Ke glanced at Sister Rong, who quickly caught on and said, "You mean that rumor?"

Xiao Ke nodded. "Yeah, when Ruan Zhiyao first joined that girl group show, someone dug up the fact that she used to be Sister Qianxia's assistant. Somehow the internet just blew up with talk about how Sister Qianxia mistreated her assistant, saying Ruan Zhiyao had a really rough time and only quit because she couldn't take it anymore."

But in reality, Yu Qianxia had never treated her unfairly. She gave her all the standard perks a celeb assistant should get. The pay was better than average for an intern in the industry, and she even helped her find a staff dorm with great conditions.

Xiao Ke had only joined Yu Qianxia later, but she always felt her Sister Qianxia was the best actress out there—and also the best boss.

Yu Qianxia couldn't remember much about Ruan Zhiyao anymore. She just vaguely recalled her being a girl who loved looking pretty. No matter where she went, she always had her makeup done and wore stylish, eye-catching outfits.

All credit goes to the original author
Feel free to pinpoint us if there are any grammar error or typos
Please don't use Guazi's translations to re-translate in other languages

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