Chapter 130 Almost Knocked off The Roof
"You..." Belinda was completely dumbfounded.
She looked at Lloyd incredulously, her whole face almost distorted.
"You... like her?"
The hall with hundreds of people was as quiet as if there was no one there.
The production team had given up.
Countless people were staring in Lloyd's direction, stunned and surprised.
They were recalling what they had just heard.
They were checking if they had heard it wrong.
They had not heard it wrong. Lloyd just said...
This was what he liked about Ebony.
Oh God...
Ebony was speechless.
She picked up her microphone, looked at Belinda, and said unceremoniously, "You only listen to half of what you're listening to? Can't you focus on the point?"
Belinda was stunned and stared at her with wide eyes.
Ebony sneered, "He said that anything that is unfair should be voiced out, and I voiced it out. It means that I'm factual and truthful, and I'm an excellent youth with righteous virtue and reliable honesty, and he likes my morality, don't you understand?"
Belinda, the audience and Lloyd were all silent.
After Ebony had mocked Belinda, she said to the production team on the other side, "Don't delete this part. Record it for me. I will take the military academy exam next year. I will show this clip to the chief examiner. If I prove that I'm virtuous, I will get extra points for my conduct."
The production team was speechless.
After that, Ebony whispered to Lloyd, "You should complement me more in the future, and make it more straightforward. They can't understand it if you put it so subtle, because not everyone understands you as well as I do to realize the brilliant point in your words."
Lloyd was speechless.
He looked at Ebony without any expression.
He did not know where did she get the confidence to think that she understood him.
After whispering to Lloyd, Ebony looked at Belinda, "So, Miss Bowman, is this what you want to say? Regarding my questioning you of favoritism and nepotism, all you want to say is to insist that I bullied you? Do you have any misunderstanding with the word bullying?"
Belinda squeezed the microphone tightly and said coldly, "Miss Gibson, you speaks so eloquently that I admit I can't argue with you, so I'm not bothered to argue with you. Anyway, people can tell right from wrong."
Ebony clapped for her and said, "Well, what an upright person you are. You know that the production team will definitely delete this part, so you don't even bother to explain it. You're amazingly thick-skinned."
"You..." Belinda was at a loss for words.
Ebony took out her recommendation card at this moment, on which was the word "CHALLENGE" in a large font.
Waving the sign, Ebony said smilingly, "Team Ebony challenges Team Victor. Stella versus Tina."
Belinda clenched her fists with hatred, but then she slowly released them.
She was challenged, so what? Success came with ability. Would Stella be eliminated?
"Stella?" Lloyd whispered the name, frowning slowly.
Ebony did not notice Lloyd's reaction.
Looking at Belinda's proud expression, she said to the host, "I would like to check the votes for the second public performance."
All the audience fell silent at these words.
Belinda was dumbfounded.
Victor was dumbfounded as well.
Even the production team and the host were dumbfounded!
The audience could vote for every public performance by the participants in addition to the ratings from the four mentors.
Generally speaking, after the audience had cast their votes, the crew would count the all the votes and announced the total in the end.
That was what happened for the voting of the first public performance.
But now, Ebony was proposing to check the votes.
If her proposal was agreed, it would mean that the vote of every audience would be shown directly on the screen.
The audience would be able to watch the process of the crew counting the votes.
In other words, the votes could not be faked if they were being checked.
The audience would find out immediately if the votes were faked.
For example, if someone had voted for a certain team but it was shown that they did not vote, or someone had not voted for a certain team but it was shown that the team had gotten their vote.
The production team started to sweat.
The host froze for a while.
Belinda and Victor immediately became shaky.
Ebony was still smiling. She looked slowly at Belinda, her mouth corners lifted slightly, "Miss Bowman is fair and square and there's nothing to fear, isn't it?"
Belinda looked at Ebony. Her eyes were about to cry!
Someone in the audience suddenly shouted, "Check the votes!"
Since someone had shouted, more people followed immediately and shouted.
"Check the votes!"
"Check the votes!!"
The audience's shouting voices almost knocked off the roof of the hall.
Lloyd picked up his microphone and said leisurely to appease the audience, "Please calm down. Do trust the fairness of the show."
Ebony nodded, "Mr. Vasquez is right. What bad intentions could the production team have? They couldn't have faked the votes, could they? They're not such people."
The production team and the chief director was speechless.
Finally, the chief director urgently contacted the director.
It was a full five or six minutes before the host received his instructions.
He stammered and announced, "Due...due to the enthusiastic demand of the audience, we'll check the votes openly for all the performances that follow."
"Yay!" the audience cheered at once.
Belinda was so annoyed that she got up from her seat.
Victor restrained her immediately, "Belinda..."
Belinda pushed him away, "What the hell is the production team doing? How can they agree to checking the votes? They promised me, and they broke their promise. Are they not afraid of offending Mr. Quinn?"
Victor said hurriedly, "Belinda, you've said that you belonged to Mr. Quinn. How dare the production team offend Mr. Quinn? It seems that their superiors are sucking up to Lloyd, but so what? The voting for Tina has ended, and it's certain that her score will be among the top three, so it doesn't matter even if Ebony and her team check their votes openly. Anyway, they won't succeed in the challenge."
Belinda frowned, "Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure," Victor said confidently. "The main dance teacher said during song selection that the most difficult song was assigned to their team. The song was very fast and there were many dance moves, so it was impossible for someone without dancing skills to master it in a week."
"No one in Ebony's team except Stella has the ability to master the dance for that song. If they want the final performance to look good, they will definitely reduce some dance moves. We will talk about this then!"
Belinda was less uneasy after hearing this and she said, "Okay."
Fifteen minutes later, Stella's team finished performing.
After Belinda had given some negative comments, she glared fiercely at Victor.
Victor quickly gave a low score.
The two other mentors followed suit and gave low scores.
Then, the audience began to vote.
Belinda looked at the continuously increasing number of votes on the screen, and her expression was so gloomy that it seemed ink would soon drip from her face.
According to the rule of the show, each mentor held ten votes, and each audience held one vote.
The scores for the two teams were calculated.
Tina's team got forty points from the mentors (all full points), and four hundred and eleven points from the audience, which made the total score four hundred and fifty one points.
Stella's team got seventeen points from the mentors, and four hundred and ninety four points from the audience, which made the total score five hundred and eleven points.
At present, Stella's team had the highest score among all the teams that had performed.
At the same time, Stella's team had successfully challenged Tina's team and all its members were automatically resurrected!
Tina's team was defeated in the challenge and all its members were eliminated. They entered the ranks of candidates to be chosen by the recommenders!