Chapter 76: Not Even a Shred of Deterrent Power

Zhu Yuan's heart skipped a beat.

Instinctively, she curled her body up and closed her eyes in fear.

Watching her subconscious reaction, the man's clenched fist suddenly relaxed, though the coldness in his brows and eyes deepened as he stared at her.

The sound of the door being slammed shut made Zhu Yuan tremble all over.

She opened her eyes, still shaken.

The bottle containing the medicinal liquor sat quietly on the table, with a cigarette case and a lighter beside it.

The air was filled with a faint scent of tobacco and medicinal liquor.

Sheng Yu had left.

It was unclear when it had started drizzling outside.

Sheng Yu walked out of the stairwell, his shadow stretched long by the light behind him, extending all the way from his feet.

He irritably reached into his pocket, but did not find his cigarettes or lighter.

—I think you must have been very brave at that time.

The woman's soft, gentle voice seemed to still be lingering in his ears.

The motion-sensor light in the stairwell behind him went out.

In the darkness, the man gave a mocking laugh, the coldness flooding his entire being wrapping around his beating heart as well.

Brave?

It was also that year that he had exhausted all his strength to rush into the sea of fire; he had been only a step away, yet he had failed to save his own mother.

The rain did not intensify, but the drizzle dampened the road surface.

The car was driving steadily along the road when Situ suddenly stepped on the brakes.

He subconsciously glanced at the rearview mirror at the man with the gloomy expression, "Sorry, Young Master Yu, a little dog suddenly ran out."

A milky-white puppy had suddenly run out from the bushes nearby; it looked very small, and since Situ had never raised a dog, he guessed it was only a month or two old.

After the puppy ran out, it lay down on the ground in front of the car and refused to leave.

Situ honked the horn once.

Logically, a dog should be frightened away by the sound of a horn.

However, that puppy was incredibly bold; after lifting its eyes to glance at him, it just hung its head and remained motionless.

Situ was just about to drive around the puppy when he suddenly heard the rear car door open.

The puppy was closing its eyes, drowsy and content under the illumination of the car lights, its tiny nose twitching, unaware of the tall, slender figure looming over it.

Suddenly, its body was lifted into the air.

The puppy let out a startled yelp, struggling with its paws flailing.

Vehicles were passing by not far away, and the people in them saw a man in a long black coat, with cold brows and a noble air, bullying a little puppy in the middle of the street.

The puppy's milky, high-pitched yelps had absolutely no deterrent power at all.

Sheng Yu held it by the scruff of its neck with one hand, watching it yelp with a cold face.

After making eye contact with him, the puppy yelped even more vigorously, baring its teeth and snarling, though it was unclear who it was trying to scare.

This dog's temper...

A face stubborn to the point of death flashed through Sheng Yu's mind, and he tossed the puppy to Situ behind him, "Take it away."

"This..." Situ was unsure if the dog had an owner.

"If it has an owner, buy it."

Daring to provoke him.

Zhu Yuan had just arrived at the theater's dressing room when Ning Chu blocked her path.

She was wearing a high-fashion suit, and a cold sneer rose on her exquisitely made-up face.

"I don't know what methods you used to coax the troupe leader into removing me as the lead, but don't be too delusional about using this kind of online voting to cast the role; you won't be able to beat me."

Public voting?

As long as the Ning Family spent a little money, they could make her vote count far surpass Zhu Yuan's.

She really didn't know what the point of such a superfluous method was.

Zhu Yuan looked at her coldly and indifferently, "If I could coax him, would there even be any room for you?"

Still sharp-tongued even at a time like this?

Ning Chu smiled, confident of victory, "Then just wait and see; don't end up making a fool of yourself again."

At ten-thirty, the Jingdu Drama Troupe opened the voting channel on their official social media account.

The official account simultaneously released the dance videos of the five competitors.

Voting method: Each user has only one chance per day to vote for their favorite actor; after five days, the voting ends, and the one with the highest votes will be selected as the female lead for *Human Wind and Moon*.

Once the voting channel opened, Ning Chu's vote count was far ahead of the other four, showing a crushing, landslide lead.

"Second Miss Ning, look quickly, your vote count is the highest."

The makeup artist handed her phone to Ning Chu.

Ning Chu didn't even look at it, "A foregone conclusion, what's there to look at."

With the Ning Family taking action, including those wealthy socialites who usually fawned over Ning Chu, they all called their good sisters, and had their family drivers, servants, and Bodyguards all vote for her—wasn't winning simple?

Ji Xiang hid in a corner, constantly refreshing the voting page, watching Zhu Yuan's vote count rise steadily, and kept whispering "come on" to herself.

Soon, she left the vote counts of the other three actors behind.

In just half a day, it had almost become a confrontation between Zhu Yuan and Ning Chu.

But as soon as she saw Ning Chu's votes climbing at a visible speed, the gap between Zhu Yuan's votes and hers was more than half.

Ji Xiang stomped her feet in anger.

Clearly, the person who danced the best was Zhu Yuan; were these people all blind?

Damn it, Ning Chu must have bought internet trolls!

Zhu Family Villa.

Zhu An'an called Ling Bing: "Organize the people from the Ling Family and the Lou Family to vote for Ning Chu; you absolutely cannot let Zhu Yuan win!"

Who knew that Ling Bing would suddenly say with a sobbing, aggrieved tone: "Lou Yi secretly voted for Zhu Yuan!"

Just now, she had taken advantage of Lou Yi's nap to sneakily take his phone, thinking that as a grown man, he surely wouldn't pay attention to these things, and she could just use his phone to vote for Ning Chu.

But who would have thought that as soon as she opened Lou Yi's phone, she saw that he had voted for Zhu Yuan, and the phone even had an alarm set for midnight!

This meant he intended to vote for Zhu Yuan on time every single day.

It made her so angry!

Hearing Ling Bing's crying, Zhu An'an felt annoyed and wanted to scold her for not even being able to keep an eye on her own husband; what was there to cry about?

But she still needed Ling Bing to organize people to vote, so she had to patiently coax her: "I don't know what kind of love potion Zhu Yuan fed him to make him so persistent even now, so you must not let Zhu Yuan win even more; if she gets the lead role, won't Lou Yi go to watch the play every day?"

Her words made Ling Bing wake up as if from a dream: "That's right, I can't let Zhu Yuan win! I will call people to vote for Ning Chu immediately; even if I have to spend money, I will make Ning Chu win!"

After hanging up the phone, Zhu An'an curled her lips into a smile, feeling excellent.

But when her gaze landed on her bandaged little finger, the smile on her face froze, and the mirror reflected her ferocious and sinister face.

She left the room and went to Feng Mingyue's room, wanting to use Feng Mingyue's phone to vote for Ning Chu.

Her parents were not interested in plays and had never paid attention to that circle.

"Mom." Zhu An'an called out.

Feng Mingyue's voice came from the bathroom: "What is it, An'an? Mommy is in the restroom."

"It's nothing." Zhu An'an walked in, picked up Feng Mingyue's phone from the nightstand, skillfully entered the password, and the moment she opened the social media platform, the expression on her face froze.

There was no need to click on the voting link at all, because the page was already sitting right there.

Furthermore, it had just been refreshed.

This meant the owner of the phone had been constantly monitoring the vote count.

Next to Zhu Yuan's name, it displayed "Voted."

In the evening, Zhu Chaoqin returned, and Zhu An'an took his phone to open it while he went to take a shower; she suddenly gripped the phone tightly, her fingers trembling uncontrollably.

They had all voted for Zhu Yuan!