I Married the President

Many people were stunned to hear Sheryl Drake’s name.

This was undoubtedly a great publicity opportunity, and the host seized it, asking Cecily Taylor, "Professor Taylor, what did you think of that last performance?"

Cecily Taylor’s face darkened. ’I’ve already cursed Claire Sinclair a thousand times over in my head,’ she thought.

’She knew perfectly well that Sheryl Drake is my arch-nemesis, yet she deliberately got that woman to help. Isn’t it obvious she’s just trying to spite me?’

Cecily Taylor did her best to suppress her inner fury. With a solemn expression, she said, "I thought it was a bit chaotic. It wasn’t very smooth, and it fell a little short compared to the other teams."

"Are you telling a blatant lie, Professor Taylor?" Claire Sinclair retorted bluntly. "It’s not that hard to admit when someone else is outstanding. You should give it a try. Go on, praise them."

Cecily Taylor’s expression instantly soured. "Perhaps you have a misunderstanding of the word ’outstanding’."

"Of course, what we say doesn’t count. Let’s leave it to the lovely ladies in the audience to decide."

Claire Sinclair didn’t want to argue, so she put an end to the conversation. Next up was the voting.

After a long wait, the production team finally handed the tabulated results to the host.

The host started by announcing the second and third place winners. In second place was Mimi Fisher’s team, and in third was Master.

That meant first and fourth place would be decided between Claire Sinclair’s team and Cecily Taylor’s team.

Needless to say, the suspense was killing the audience.

The host dragged out the announcement as long as possible before finally revealing the results. "Tonight’s first-place winner earned a total of 850 votes, while fourth place received 580 votes. Congratulations to Leonard Bishop and his teammates for winning first place in tonight’s challenge! Congratulations!"

"What..." Cecily Taylor was shocked, completely dumbfounded.

’How could the gap be that huge?!’

’This has to be fake, right???’

The host continued, "Furthermore, Leonard Bishop and his teammates will each receive one million votes to be added to their overall scores! Let’s give them a huge round of applause!"

Screams erupted from the audience.

Cecily Taylor couldn’t take it anymore and interrupted, "Excuse me. I’d like to know if these votes were cast entirely by the audience judges, or if they include the mentors’ votes as well."

The host explained, "They were all cast by the audience judges."

Cecily Taylor’s face darkened. She abruptly stood up, threw down her microphone, and stormed off.

Seeing this, the director had no choice but to halt the recording and hurriedly sent someone to go talk to Cecily Taylor.

Backstage in the contestants’ lounge, the other performers felt uneasy seeing Cecily Taylor storm off the stage.

Liam Linden frowned. "That wasn’t right of Professor Taylor."

His other teammates chimed in, "Yeah, I mean, we lost fair and square. Leonard Bishop’s group was incredible. I thought their performance was flawless."

"To me, Leonard Bishop has always been a legend."

"Go, Leonard Bishop!"

Leonard Bishop let out a soft sigh. There was no joy of victory on his face; his expression was somber, and he remained silent.

-

「Backstage」

Cecily Taylor stormed angrily down the hallway. Her mind was filled with the image of Claire Sinclair’s smug, smiling face, and the more she thought about it, the more her resentment grew.

As she neared the door of a room, she vaguely heard someone inside say, "Young Master Quincy, Elias Riley called. He wants to schedule a meeting with you."

"We’ll deal with it tomorrow."

"Understood."

Adrian Quincy stood up abruptly, ready to go meet his darling, who had just finished recording, and take her out to dinner.

Just as he reached the door, something soft and delicate suddenly bumped into him, accompanied by an overpowering cloud of perfume.

With nimble agility, Adrian Quincy dodged to the side. The flailing figure couldn’t stop in time and crashed headfirst into Aiden Howkins, who was just stepping out of the room.