Chapter 171 An Embarrassing Thing
Bianca's lips trembled violently, and her face completely drained of color.
Sophia actually... captured everything on camera.
How could this happen?
The truth was out - it was Bianca who had switched Isabella's competition entry. This fact caught everyone off guard.
"So it really was Bianca?!"
"Is she crazy? Why would she do this? What was the point?"
In everyone's eyes, Bianca had it all - good family background, good looks, good figure, good grades, and even a handsome rich boyfriend.
That such a perfect Bianca would do something so disgraceful was simply unthinkable.
It completely shattered everyone's previous impression of her.
"What was the point?" someone said clearly. "What else could it be? She just didn't want Isabella to beat her!"
"In terms of calligraphy, she was the best in the international class, right? But Isabella's calligraphy was even better than hers, so she got jealous."
"That's why she switched Isabella's work - she was afraid Isabella would win the calligraphy competition award..."
"How can someone be so jealous?"
"She kept calling Isabella her sister, but behind her back she did something like this."
"She looked so innocent on the surface, but it was all an act."
"..."
"Bianca, have you lost your mind?" Kellan was both shocked and angry. "Why would you do this? Don't you know this will be a stain on your record forever?"
He had high hopes for Bianca initially.
With her talent, joining the calligraphy association in the future wasn't impossible.
But he never expected Bianca would do something like this!
Bianca was dazed, completely out of it.
She bit her lip, unable to say anything.
Cillian beside her didn't even want to look at Bianca. As expected, like teacher, like student.
"Mr. Hawthorne, call the principal now and tell him about this. Such terrible behavior - not only should our association punish her, but the school as an educational institution should also take disciplinary action."
Kellan nodded and walked aside to make the call.
Cillian announced loudly: "Given Bianca's behavior of switching another student's competition entry, I declare that Bianca is disqualified from the competition and her work will be scored as zero!"
"Furthermore, Bianca will be banned from participating in any future competitions organized by our association!"
More important than writing beautiful calligraphy is a person's character.
Switching entries like this was absolutely shameless.
The calligraphy competition had been livestreamed from the start. From Isabella initially questioning that her work had been replaced to now revealing who stole the competition entry, the dramatic turn of events caused the number of viewers to double.
Even passersby came to watch the excitement. Although most people didn't understand or care much about calligraphy competitions, the topic of a Stellar High School female student stealing someone's competition entry was quite interesting.
[I suggest Stellar High School expel this student directly. So young, yet so malicious.]
[Stealing is no small matter. This time she stole a competition entry, who knows what she'll steal next time?]
[This student looks so quiet and proper, how can she be like this? How did her parents raise her?]
[This student's family background is quite something - she's the daughter of the Taylor family!]
[What, she's just an adopted daughter. It came out long ago that the Taylor family's biological daughter is Isabella - the student whose competition entry was stolen is the Taylor family's real daughter.]
The topic quickly involved the Taylor Group.
Eventually, media outlets came specifically for the story and quickly wrote posts with headlines like "Taylor Group's Daughter Steals Calligraphy Work, Publicly Criticized by Calligraphy Association President."
Below was a video clip from the livestream.
The Taylor Group.
With increasingly fierce industry competition lately, Hayden had been very busy. He had just flown back from abroad and urgently called a meeting with senior management about a three-hundred-million-dollar project.
There were at least forty to fifty companies competing for this project. Setting aside the small companies, the Taylor Group was among the stronger ones, but Zenith Global Group and Apex Technologies Group, both comparable in scale to the Taylor Group, were also interested in the project.
Moreover, Zenith Global Group had been in frequent contact with the client, making it very likely the client would award the project to them.
In recent years, the Taylor Group had been losing money annually. This project was key to turning things around, because the client was financially strong and didn't need them to advance funds - as soon as they won the project, they could start making profits.
The profit from this project collaboration was very substantial, and several top companies in the industry wanted to claim it for themselves.
If the Taylor Group couldn't win this project this year, the company's cash flow would break by year-end, and the Taylor Group would go bankrupt.
But regarding the bidding, time was short and the project was large, so Hayden didn't dare not oversee it personally or give detailed instructions, fearing his subordinates might make mistakes.
This meeting was to emphasize certain details.
Before he knew it, he had been talking for over an hour. Hayden took a sip of water to moisten his throat, planning to take a break.
Just then, his secretary knocked on the door and hurried over. "Mr. Taylor..."
Hayden frowned. "What is it?"
The secretary leaned down and lowered her voice near his ear: "Bianca participated in a calligraphy competition today, and the whole internet is discussing it."
Hayden was somewhat confused.
Bianca was just participating in a competition - why would it get so much attention? Could she have won an award?
The secretary handed him an iPad. "This video's view count keeps rising, and it's tagged with the Taylor Group. Mr. Taylor, I'm afraid if this continues, it might affect the project we're about to bid on..."
Hayden glanced at the iPad. Just seeing the headline made his eyelid twitch heavily.
After watching it, he slammed down his cup and squeezed out through gritted teeth: "Disgraceful!"
"Mr. Taylor, should we get someone to take down the trending topic?" the secretary asked anxiously.
Hayden's face was dark. "What are you waiting for!"
"Yes."
The secretary quickly left.
Hayden was in no mood to continue the meeting and said coldly: "Meeting adjourned!"
With that, he strode out of the conference room.
——
Meanwhile, Bianca returned to the audience area, too ashamed to face anyone, and ran off crying.
Olivia wanted to chase after her, but Cillian announced that the judging process would continue.
Next up was scoring Isabella's calligraphy work.
Olivia hesitated, but ultimately didn't go after Bianca.
She wanted to see if Isabella could win an award.
After all, Isabella was her biological daughter - she couldn't not care about Isabella at all.
The people around discussed Bianca stealing Isabella's competition entry for a while, but as the judging process resumed, they all turned their attention to Isabella's competition work.
"Judges, please score entry 044, Isabella's work."
As soon as the words fell, the judges began writing on their scoring boards.
Alaric had already been removed from the judges' panel. Kellan was temporarily pulled in to replace Alaric's scoring, while Alaric, probably too embarrassed to stay at the scene, had long since disappeared.
A few minutes later, Isabella's score came out.