Someone Kicked a Steel Plate!

"How much!?"

With a swish, Shen Miaomiao pulled her leg back from the desk.

She looked at Chu Qingzhou in surprise.

"428th place."

Chu Qingzhou repeated herself.

Shen Miaomiao was stunned.

No, wait a minute?

"I remember there were less than six hundred entries in total, right?" Shen Miaomiao asked.

Chu Qingzhou nodded. "There were 582 games participating in the event."

"And we're ranked 428th?" Shen Miaomiao found it unbelievable.

But Chu Qingzhou nodded again, very certain.

Hiss—

Shen Miaomiao couldn't help but gasp.

Actually, logically speaking, upon hearing such 'pleasing' terrible results, her first reaction should have been "Hooray!"

Because the voting results are theoretically directly linked to future sales.

Such a dismal ranking meant that their future sales would inevitably face a Waterloo.

However!

Shen Miaomiao instinctively felt something was wrong.

You have to understand.

During this period, she had been closely monitoring the popularity of Vampire Survivors among players.

Given the current situation, with the influence of streamers and recommendations from organic players, their game's first round of votes should definitely not be this low.

To say they would definitely take first place might be a bit exaggerated.

But in Shen Miaomiao's opinion, getting into the top ten for votes was not a problem at all.

"Over four hundred..."

Shen Miaomiao frowned slightly and looked at Chu Qingzhou.

"Is this data correct?"

"It's hard to say, boss."

Chu Qingzhou shook her head.

"The backend system we have doesn't show daily vote summaries, so we can't check."

"However..."

Then, Chu Qingzhou's tone shifted.

"There is another issue that we have evidence for."

"Go on."

Shen Miaomiao said seriously, waving her hand for Chu Qingzhou to sit down and explain slowly.

Here, it must be said that Chu Qingzhou, as a mature and top-tier assistant, possessed extremely high professional standards.

During this period, she compiled data statistics for Vampire Survivors every day.

This included the number of reports from major gaming media, the frequency of player mentions of the game on forums, and how often it appeared on the front page of the Yiyou Platform's random rankings at different times.

"There's an issue with the Yiyou random rankings refresh," Chu Qingzhou said.

"According to the official announcement from the Yiyou Platform,"

"the game rankings for this Development Festival use a pseudo-random format, with 50 games per page, refreshing randomly once every hour."

"The goal is to ensure that every game receives equal exposure,"

"thereby guaranteeing fairness in game promotion."

Hearing this, Shen Miaomiao nodded. "I know that."

She had actually considered causing trouble before, thinking about whether she could contact people at the Yiyou Platform and ask them to hide their game.

To deliberately play hide-and-seek with players, reduce exposure, and lower sales.

However, that thought only flashed through her mind.

After all, the Yiyou Platform's determination to ensure fairness seemed resolute.

Shen Miaomiao was afraid of backfiring.

"But,"

As she said this, Chu Qingzhou's tone shifted. She opened her laptop.

"According to my statistics, over the past week,"

"Our game, Vampire Survivors, appeared in the top ten of the random charts' first page zero times,"

"Entries on the first page numbered zero,"

"Entries within the first five pages numbered zero,"

"Entries on the ninth page numbered 130,"

"Entries on the tenth page numbered 30,"

"Entries on the very last page numbered 6."

With that, Chu Qingzhou looked at Shen Miaomiao.

"It refreshes every hour, 24 times a day, so 168 refreshes a week,"

Shen Miaomiao's expression visibly darkened.

"Meaning, out of those 168 refreshes, we didn't even make the first page, let alone the first five. Is that right?"

Gulp.

Seeing Shen Miaomiao's grim face, Chu Qingzhou couldn't help but swallow.

She had never seen the young lady look so upset!

She nodded. "Uh... yes."

"Heh."

Shen Miaomiao nodded.

She opened her desk drawer, unwrapped a lollipop, and popped it into her mouth, seemingly trying hard to suppress her emotions.

"Let's assume for a moment that the random chart system has a bug. Fine."

"Then how do you explain the 428 votes in the ranking? Is that a bug too?"

"I've been paying attention to the discussion around our game these past few days."

"One out of every ten posts discusses it, nearly half the streamers on the three major platforms are playing it, and we have a 98% positive review rate."

"Are they openly messing with me right under my nose?"

That's right!

Shen Miaomiao might be a slacker, and her lifelong ambition was to be the ultimate slacker.

But that just meant she was lazy!

It didn't mean she was stupid!

With a finance engineering degree from a top university and a father whose conglomerate spanned over a dozen industries, she had been exposed to business since childhood. How could she be foolish!

She immediately concluded that the rankings were definitely problematic!

Shen Miaomiao's anger flared up instantly!

They dare to mess with me?!

Are they still asleep?!

Not only are they deliberately suppressing my random chart ranking, but they also dare to steal my votes?

Yes, I want to be a slacker, a hands-off boss, and my goal is to intentionally fail investments.

But that's my choice!

Shen Miaomiao's life motto was: I can choose to be useless, but you can't actually treat me as useless and think I'm easy to bully!

You think I'm a pushover?

Are you tired of living?!

"Damn it all..."

With a crunch, Shen Miaomiao bit down on the lollipop.

"You really don't know the might of the heavens."

As she spoke, Shen Miaomiao waved her hand. "Book me a train ticket. We're going to Zhongjing. I want to ask Yiyou Platform directly what they're trying to pull."

Binjiang and Zhongjing weren't far apart; it was only a forty-minute high-speed train ride.

"But..."

Seeing the young lady truly angry, Chu Qingzhou grimaced and cautiously reminded her, "CEO Shen, the random chart issue is one thing, but that voting chart..."

"We don't have any concrete evidence to prove they're rigging the votes."

Chu Qingzhou's concern was understandable.

Logically speaking, if you're accusing the organizers of a lack of transparency, you need to present solid proof.

However, Shen Miaomiao let out a scoff upon hearing this.

She pulled the lollipop stick from her mouth, flicked it with her fingertip, and tossed it into the trash can. A sharp glint flashed in her eyes!

"I'm Shen Wanlin's daughter. If I say they're cheating, do I need evidence?"

At these words, Chu Qingzhou couldn't help but tremble!

Right.

Before, Shen Miaomiao always put on the act of a slacker girl, lazy all day long, always smiling kindly at everyone she met.

She seemed like just a cute girl with a bit of a willful streak.

It made people forget that besides being a slacker girl, she was also the daughter of Shen Wanlin, who commanded the business world, possessed astronomical capital, and wielded a strong hand with sharp tactics.

To outsiders, Shen Miaomiao's statement might sound outrageously arrogant.

But Chu Qingzhou, who was personally dispatched by Old Shen, knew better.

Let alone the Yiyou Platform, even its parent company would have a new board of directors tomorrow if they truly angered Old Shen!

"Book the tickets!"

Shen Miaomiao stopped wasting words and tossed Chu Qingzhou a lollipop.

Chu Qingzhou took the lollipop and gave an OK gesture:

"Right away!"

Tsk tsk, Chu Qingzhou muttered to herself as she booked the tickets.

Someone's about to hit a brick wall!