Chapter 19: Trending

"Su Xin did not cheat!"

"I am his classmate, I know him, he absolutely did not cheat!"

Li Tongtian stood up to explain to the agitated audience nearby, and also left comments online, but these words were quickly drowned out by a chorus of reprimands.

At the judges' table, the five judges learned of the various online comments from the staff and finally understood the reason for this misunderstanding.

"Everyone, please be quiet for a moment!"

Lv Huaiyuan spoke loudly into the microphone several times before the venue gradually quieted down.

"Everyone, I only just learned why you all say there is a cover-up. To be honest, when I heard you say that just now, I was completely bewildered."

"After listening to the staff's explanation, I realized that my ability to express myself was too poor, and the words I said caused everyone to misunderstand. This is my problem, so I apologize to everyone, and at the same time, I apologize to student Su Xin."

"Here, I solemnly reiterate once again: student Su Xin's score is not problematic, and there is absolutely no cover-up in this competition. He simply got a perfect score!"

"To avoid any further questioning from you all, I will briefly explain the selection process for the main competition topics here."

"As everyone knows, the five judges for the main competition stage, which is the five of us, come from five top universities, with one person from each school."

"As for the competition software used during the main competition, two days before the start of the competition, the organizing committee selected twenty pieces of software from various channels as backups. Then, on the day before the main competition started, which was yesterday morning, they were sent to us. We five then used a random selection method to pick one of them as the competition software. Finally, we five spent an entire day reviewing the code, finding bugs, and jointly formulating the so-called standard answer."

"During this period, we had to stay in the hotel designated by the organizers for the whole day, unable to contact anyone from the outside world. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for the competition topics to have been leaked, unless someone has the ability to bribe the organizing committee, obtain the twenty backup software programs, and arrange for people to quickly find all the standard answers."

"But this is completely impossible."

"First of all, the organizing committee is jointly established by the five major universities, and the twenty backup software programs were also selected by different people separately. Furthermore, there is dedicated personnel from Longwei Group in the organizing committee responsible for supervision."

"To obtain all twenty backup software programs, one would have to bribe every single party."

"I am afraid no one can do this. Even if someone could, it would mean the power behind this person is too terrifying, and there would be absolutely no need to cheat to participate in a Programming Competition."

"Secondly, even if someone really obtained all the backup software, it is unlikely that they could produce the standard answers for these twenty programs."

"You must know that in order to produce this standard answer, the five of us spent more than half a day together. We had to ensure that we didn't miss any bugs as much as possible, and also ensure that the solutions were as perfect and diverse as possible."

"So, in just over a day, how powerful a technical expert would one have to hire to produce all the standard answers for twenty backup software programs? How much would it cost? After all, the answer Su Xin just gave was even more perfect than our standard answer; he definitely put a great deal of thought into it, and an ordinary person wouldn't have the ability to do that."

"I don't think anyone would mobilize such great power and spend such a high price just to win a high school competition."

"Oh! Right, this is just the main competition. No matter how high the score is, it only qualifies one for the finals. The real champion depends on the score in the finals."

"Do you think it is necessary to go to such great lengths to cheat just to get a qualification for the finals? Is it even possible?"

"Finally, I solemnly declare to everyone here that the 'Qianlong Cup' National High School Programming Competition is a competition that the five major universities attach great importance to. We treat it with the same importance as the college entrance examination, and there will absolutely be no cover-up of advance leaks."

Once Lv Huaiyuan's words were out, the talk of a cover-up immediately decreased significantly, but it still could not dispel the doubts in the hearts of some people.

The scene fell into a debate for a time.

The internet was still filled with noise.

Regarding all of this, Su Xin remained calm and composed.

The talk of a cover-up was indeed a bit beyond his expectations, but the more they argued, the more it meant this matter had topicality, which was only to his benefit.

Amidst the discussions of the crowd, the competition time finally ended, and everyone submitted their answers, waiting for the five judges to grade them.

Of course, everyone knew that the highest score would inevitably be Su Xin, who submitted his answer first; after all, he had achieved an unprecedented perfect score.

Even if this score was controversial, it did not affect the current score and ranking.

In the end, everyone's scores were out.

Five people, including Su Xin and Xie Wenbin, successfully entered the finals.

However, it was already almost noon. The finals between the five would not take place until the afternoon, and the noon time, according to the competition process, was left for everyone to eat. In reality, it was even more so to leave a little buffer time between the main competition and the finals, allowing netizens to discuss and maintain the heat.

On the internet, comments about Su Xin spread widely, and the talk of a cover-up became rampant.

Even on the blog trending searches, entries related to the Programming Competition appeared—

"Unprecedented perfect score in the Qianlong Cup main competition"

"Qianlong Cup cover-up"

Although the popularity ranking of these two entries was relatively low, they still caused a sensation across the entire internet and sparked discussions among many netizens.

The key was that putting these two trending search entries together made many people who hadn't paid much attention to the competition think preconceived that—

The Qianlong Cup competition indeed had a cover-up.

Especially after the competition times and main competition scores of contestants from previous years were exposed online, it made the vast majority of people firmly believe this point. After all, Su Xin's competition time was truly exaggeratedly short, and his final score was an unprecedented perfect score, which was so different from the performance of others that it made people dare not believe he truly had such exaggerated strength.

Consequently, everyone began to attack the competition organizers, and even the sponsor, Longwei Group.

For a time, public opinion was surging.

The five major universities and Longwei Group expressed their concern immediately, jointly established an investigation team, began internal audits, and also called the five judges to understand the situation.

Yet Su Xin paid no attention to all of this.

He and his mother sat in the family area and even called Li Tongtian over to eat the food prepared by the organizers.

"Hmm! The organizers' food is prepared quite exquisitely, the taste is not bad!"

Li Tongtian ate happily for a while, then asked: "By the way, Su Xin, have you seen those rumors on the internet?"

"What rumors?"

"Some people say you cheated, that there is a cover-up."

"I haven't seen them, but it doesn't matter whether I see them or not; the truth will naturally come to light."

Seeing that Su Xin had a good mindset, Zhang Chunhua felt relieved and said: "Don't worry about the gossip outside. As long as you know you didn't cheat, time will naturally tell everyone the truth."

Li Tongtian also nodded: "That's right, I believe you didn't cheat."

Actually, he originally wanted to ask how Su Xin learned this powerful programming skill, but asking such a question at this time was easy to cause misunderstanding, so he simply shut his mouth and didn't talk about it.

Not long after the few finished their lunch, the finals of the Programming Competition were about to begin.