Chapter 76: This is a Cover-up!

Seto Mie had her own intentions behind these words.

In her original expectations, her competitor for the Grand Prize was undoubtedly Akiwara Yuto, but to her surprise, he hadn't even received the Gold Prize.

She suspected he had been caught up in internal power struggles at the publishing house, which led to this upset result, but this also made her feel genuinely angry from the bottom of her heart.

She believed this was an insult!

It was so for Akiwara, and it was so for herself and everyone who loved literary writing.

Having gone from a convenience store clerk to a well-known writer today, Seto Tamae had a heartfelt love for literature and could not tolerate it being tarnished by other things.

Therefore, in her view, the Mantan Society judging committee's failure to award the Gold Prize to Akiwara undoubtedly violated her literary faith, something she could never tolerate!

Moreover, if the decision not to award the Gold Prize to Akiwara was due to reasons outside of literature, then was her own Grand Prize also obtained for other reasons?

That was why, when delivering her acceptance speech, she risked offending the Mantan Society to say such words that left everyone stunned.

However, she had her own confidence; with the seniority and connections she had accumulated in the literary world over 20 years, even after saying such things, the Mantan Society would not do anything to her, and might even send someone to explain to her.

Akiwara Yuto did not know Seto Tamae's intentions, and after hearing these words, he could not help but feel a bit moved.

He had just been angry about the unfair treatment he received, and then this "senior" he viewed as his greatest competitor stood up to cheer him on in such a way.

This was far beyond his expectations!

After all, although the other party had always shown appreciation for him, he had only met her once, and he could not think of any reason why she would help him.

Could it be that she truly appreciated his "talent" that much?

Equally unexpected were all the media present; they had come at the invitation of the Mantan Society, expecting to film another boring award ceremony, but they did not expect such a scene to occur.

Everyone became excited on the spot, and many even thought of their news headlines—"A Cover-up? The Grand Prize Winner of the Mantan Society Literary Award Publicly Questions the Judging Committee!"

For a moment, these journalists could not care about maintaining order in the venue and swarmed forward with their cameras and microphones, instantly packing the area below the stage.

"Teacher Seto, why do you think the Grand Prize winner should have been Teacher Akiwara? Do you think your own work is inferior to his?"

"Teacher Seto, do you believe there is unfairness in the competition's judging committee?!"

"Teacher Seto, could you talk about this in detail?"

"Teacher Seto..."

While Seto Mie was busy dealing with the media, Kihara Daigo off-stage was trembling with rage. As the General Manager, he was the executor of this award ceremony and the Chairman of the judging committee, directly responsible for the results.

Once the award ceremony was exposed as a scandal, it would undoubtedly deal a huge blow to the publishing house's public image and be extremely detrimental to his own career prospects.

He took a deep breath and immediately called the head of the Public Relations Bureau, demanding that they communicate with all the media present today and threaten to suspend advertising to ensure all reports must be reviewed by the Mantan Society before publication.

After making this call, he had his subordinate call the relevant venue manager to demand an end to this farce as soon as possible.

As for the subsequent speeches by the Gold Prize winner and the Silver and Bronze Prize winners, there was no time for that; they would just be announced in the internal publication later.

After giving these orders, Kihara Daigo directly interrogated Takei Kohei beside him: "You bastard, didn't you say Akiwara had no foundation? Why did Seto Tamae come out and say that!"

Seto Tamae had been cooperating with the Mantan Society for nearly 20 years and had always presented a "kind and amiable" image.

He could not imagine from the bottom of his heart that Seto Tamae would say such things at this critical juncture.

He could only guess that there might be a connection between Seto Tamae and Akiwara Yuto that he did not know about.

In the Japanese workplace, the superior is always right, and all faults must be borne by the subordinates. Therefore, when a superior blames them, the subordinate must immediately come forward to admit their mistake.

Takei Kohei naturally understood this principle deeply, so the moment he heard the questioning, he immediately bowed deeply and apologized: "I am sorry, it was my negligence for not investigating the relationship between the two!"

In fact, he himself was also confused.

After all, one was a veteran writer from *Tokyo Literature*, and the other was a newcomer from *New Fiction*; there was no reason for them to have such a deep friendship.

Originally, according to the plan, because of the award, Akiwara would be deeply disappointed with *New Fiction* at this moment, and the next step would be for him to go and appease the other party.

Kihara Daigo also gave up on reprimanding him at this time; after all, there would be plenty of opportunities later. What needed to be done now was to try his best to compensate for the impact of this award ceremony incident on himself.

Damn it, if he had known it would turn out like this, he shouldn't have been soft-hearted at the time and agreed to his daughter's request to give the Gold Prize to Kadowaki Yuma!

Soon, at Kihara Daigo's request, staff members responsible for venue reception and setup swarmed around the stage, saying "Excuse me" while blocking the reporters.

The female host also hurriedly walked onto the stage, took the microphone, and said with a polite "smile": "Today's award ceremony is temporarily over. We apologize, but guests please leave the venue."

The reporters off-stage were still relentless; it wasn't easy to get a big scoop, so they wouldn't let it go that easily—someone had to say something.

Some reporters, seeing they couldn't get a chance to question Seto Mie, turned their eyes to the stage to find the other party involved, Akiwara Yuto.

However, Akiwara Yuto had already sensed that things were going wrong and had hidden to the side with Imamura Yuto.

He had to confirm which part had gone wrong—whether someone was targeting him or if there was some other accident—before he could make his own statement to the outside world.

Otherwise, if he spoke rashly, it would only provide material for the reporters on the scene; who knew what his original words would become after their processing.

To be honest, although he didn't show it on the outside, his heart was actually in chaos. Everything that happened today had completely disrupted his plans.

He sighed, then raised his head to look around, trying to find Asano Aiko.

But no matter how he looked, he could not find her.

Where on earth had Asano gone?