Chapter 94: The Lip-synching Incident
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
The spotlights on the stage lit up brightly.
The emcee and Xia Yu walked onstage, and from the opposite end, Sister Mai Na also came onstage to stand beside Xia Ling.
“How’s your voice?” Sister Mai Na asked Xia Ling in concern.
After singing her song, Xia Ling had remained quiet not saying an extra word, simply bowing even in the final concluding segment. At this moment, she gave Sister Mai Na a smile and shook her head indicating that she did not need to worry.
An expression of relief flashed across Sister Mai Na’s face.
Seeing this exchange between Sister Mai Na and Xia Ling, Xia Yu was doubly sure that Xia Ling had lip-synched. See, this b.i.t.c.h could not even speak, who was she trying to fool?
“Ye Xingling, your singing isn’t too bad.” Xia Yu said gently. “Can you sing that sentence ‘The wings of the stars is the light of the G.o.ds’ for me again? It was really good.”
Xia Ling gave her a cynical look. Who was she to order her to sing?
Sister Mai Na responded in an icy voice, “Thank you for appreciating the song. However, we said in the opening that Xiao Ling’s throat isn’t very good today and singing the entire song once is already a big burden for her. She will not be using her vocal cords anymore to avoid excessive burden today.”
“That’s just too bad,” said Xia Yu with a tinge of malice. “Ye Xingling, you really kept very quiet today. Other than the song just now we haven’t heard a single sentence from you. It looks like your throat is indeed in a bad condition.”
“Xiao Ling already sang her song, we should be getting the audience to vote on who they prefer now.” Sister Mai Na apparently did not want to spend more time dwelling on the topic of Xia Ling’s voice with Xia Yu.
Xia Yu inconspicuously glanced towards someone offstage.
From the audience, a loud male voice rang out — “Ye Xingling cheated! Ye Xingling lip-synched!”
The man who had shouted out was extremely close to the stage. Just as he finished his sentence, the emcee raised the microphone to her mouth and said loudly in shock. “That gentleman over there, what did you say? Ye Xingling lip-synched?” Her voice was transmitted through the speakers in the stadium, and the entire stadium started to buzz with commotion.
“Ye Xingling lip-synched! I have evidence!” That man continued shouting.
“Evidence?” The emcee continued to speak into the microphone. “This gentleman, you can’t just run your mouth like that. Please come up onstage to show us what evidence you have! We will not let off any singer that lip-synchs, and will not let you accuse any singer of lip-synching if they haven’t!” The emcee seemed like she was trying to play it fair, but in actual fact, she was simply guiding the situation to a point where Ye Xingling’s lip-synching evidence would have to be laid bare in front of the entire audience! This would make it such that Ye Xingling would not be able to get out of it at all!
Xia Yu was very satisfied. This emcee, as well as the man who was acting as the “informer” about the lip-synching, had been planted by Imperial Entertainment beforehand. Since that b.i.t.c.h, Ye Xingling, wanted to fake it, then she could not blame Imperial Entertainment for making use of it!
That man came up onstage very quickly.
Sister Mai Na was furious. “This gentleman over here! Xiao Ling doesn’t know you at all and has not offended you in any way! Why would you accuse her of lip-synching?!”
“Whether or not I am accusing her, you at Skyart Entertainment should know best.” That man said loudly. “I used to be Ye Xingling’s fan and had snuck backstage just now wanting to wait for Ye Xingling to come offstage to get her signature. Who would have thought that I would see a Skyart Entertainment staff chasing away the audio mixer and other staff? I was curious and went closer to eavesdrop on their conversation — I heard them say that they were going to play audio that had been pre-recorded! Ye Xingling would only need to lip-synch on stage!”
He looked at Xia Ling with a pained expression on his face. “I’m so disappointed for considering you to be my idol. How could you do such a thing?”
Xia Ling secretly gave 32 Likes in her heart for this man’s performance, he could almost match Xia Yu as the best actor. She felt like she was watching a court jester. She remained quiet.
Sister Mai Na opened her mouth to speak. “Don’t speak rubbish. What evidence do you have? Take it out for us to see.”
That man took out his handphone and handed it to the emcee. “I was too shocked and could not resist but record a short video. In the music mixing room backstage there is only Skyart Entertainment staff and no other outsiders. This is the evidence. However, I was afraid of being found out by Skyart Entertainment when I was filming this, so I did not dare to get too close. As such, I was unable to record their conversation.”
“A video is already able to say a lot.” The emcee responded, clearly hinting that there was a problem. She brought up the video recorded in the phone and projected it on the big screen. As expected, the mixing room was only occupied by Skyart Entertainment staff, and the surroundings were heavily guarded by Skyart Entertainment staff as well.
The entire stadium buzzed with commotion again. It couldn’t be, that voice that they had been so riveted by earlier was lip-synched?!
“I was just saying that Ye Xingling couldn’t possibly sing so well. No wonder, she lip-synched.” Some said.
“Exactly, what rubbish about her voice being in bad condition. I think she just could not beat Xia Yu with her voice, so she found an excuse to lip-synch.”
“Where is Ye Xingling’s career ethic?!”
Many were criticizing her angrily. She had cheated them of their feelings!
“Skyart Entertainment staff did indeed use the mixing room.” Sister Mai Na’s icy voice rang out clearly. “This is because Xiao Ling’s song is very unique, and she needs to be accompanied by the audio mixing master that had worked with her for a long time. This gentleman over here, you claim to have overhead staff discussing lip-synching, but I can tell you now that that is impossible. If you insist, point out the few staff that you saw right now!”
“I… ” That man did not expect Sister Mai Na to press him like that and did not know what to say. “It was too messy. I didn’t manage to see them clearly.”
Sister Mai Na gave a cold laugh. “If you accuse someone falsely, and cause a negative impact to them, you could be sued.”
“Sister Mai Na, please do not threaten the audience.” The emcee stood forward to defend the man speedily.
Sister Mai Na laugh became even colder. “Threaten? Who is being a threat right now?! Someone is slandering Xiao Ling of lip-synching, and I, as her manager, cannot even defend her?”
The emcee was speechless.
Xiao Yu softly said, “Sister Mai Na, don’t be angry, I’m sure anyone that was in such a situation would be unhappy. However, Ye Xingling has not spoken a single word till now, it is inevitable that there could be a misunderstanding. Perhaps everyone thought that since her throat was in bad condition, she had no choice but to lip-synch today, that’s all.”
She had an innocent smile on her face as she continued, “Sister Mai Na, isn’t it really simple to prove Ye Xingling’s innocence? She just needs to open her mouth and say something now. If she can produce a sound it would prove that she did not need to lip-synch, right?”
Ye Xingling, if you can’t make a sound now, it will just prove that you have indeed lip-synched!
“Exactly! She just needs to say something, how much burden can that put on her voice?” The emcee fanned the flames from the side.
Sister Mai Na frowned to show her displeasure. “Even if Xiao Ling opened her mouth to speak right now, you would still come up with other reasons to throw shade at her and say that she lip-synched.”
“No, no, we definitely won’t.” Xia Yu was in a very good mood. “Sister Mai Na, don’t say anything more, just get Ye Xingling to open her mouth and speak. I will definitely believe that she sang the song live. It’s only suspicious because she hasn’t said anything.”
“Does she really need to speak?”
“Yes, she does!”