Chapter 198 No Plans

Alfie just stared at Tilda like she had grown a second head.

“You’re serious? You weren’t bluffing when you said you didn’t plan anything?”

“I told you already,” Tilda said flatly. “I didn’t. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

She leaned her chin against her palm, looking half-asleep as she stretched and even let out a lazy yawn.

Alfie was baffled.

So… she really had no plan?

Then why was she acting like she had this whole thing in the bag?

The next part was the online vote.

Since this was a national-level event, the organizers made it strict–you had to log in with your ID and phone number. No easy bot-farming like in those cheesy talent shows.

Still, with enough cash, you could bend the rules. It just cost a lot more.

For Preston, money was not even a problem. If blowing a mountain of cash meant crushing Tilda and winning points with Kyla, he would do it in a heartbeat.

At first, the committee did not even want an online voting section. However, the Bells pushed hard, saying art needed to “adapt to the modern era.” Letting people across the country pick their favorite would get art trending and make it accessible to more people. Their argument was airtight, so the judges gave in.

To be fair, the online votes only made up a small fraction of the total score. For example, number four was trailing two votes behind number five. To make that up, they would need over 5,000 online votes.

If the contest was close, maybe that would matter. However, with a huge gap like this? Unless the audience suddenly lost their eyesight, number five was the obvious choice.

The live voting began.

Numbers ticked upward on the giant screen. Entry five surged ahead instantly, climbing so fast it looked unstoppable. Number four trailed right behind. Entries one, two, and three barely registered–nobody even bothered looking their way.

Up in the VIP box, Preston frowned.

“What the heck? Why aren’t we catching up?”

He had already spent a fortune on vote-buying. At the same time, he could not go overboard–too many fake votes would scream “cheating”–but still, number four should have been closer to number five by now.

Frustrated, he texted his contact.

“You guys buying the votes or not?”

“We already started, boss. If we’d waited any longer, we wouldn’t have had enough time to rack up numbers.”

“What?”

Preston’s eyes widened.

“Then why hasn’t number four passed number five yet? At this rate, she’s gonna win!”

“Uh… about that,” came the reply. “Bad news, boss. Number five just went viral on Twitter. People are flooding in to vote for her!”

Panicking, Preston yanked out his phone and opened TikTok.

Right there at the top of the trending page, highlighted in blazing red letters–Trending.

[Nationwide College Art Contest Stuns Everyone with a Masterpiece]

And of course, the star of the video was Tilda’s painting–entry number five. The other four entries got shown too, including number four.

But honestly?

They looked like background props compared to hers.

The comment section was exploding.

“Holy crap, who painted this? My jaw dropped the second I saw it!”

“No way that’s hand-painted. It looks too real!”

“Even if it was a photo, it’s breathtaking. Where is this magical place??”

“Here’s the contest link–National College Art Competition! Voting’s open right now! Go vote number five if you’re as amazed as I am!”

And it was not just TikTok blowing up. Reddit threads, Twitter feeds, even YouTube–every platform was exploding with Tilda’s painting.

People swarmed the contest site so fast that the servers were glitching.

Preston’s shady tricks did not matter anymore as raw talent was unstoppable: Number four’s votes flatlined. Number five’s bar shot straight up, climbing like crazy.

“Preston, what’s happening?” Kyla’s voice cracked with panic. Didn’t Preston promise there was no way Tilda would win?

Yet here she was–not only leading but about to smash every record in sight.

Preston tried to answer, but nothing came out. He just sat there, frozen, while the countdown hit zero.

The results flashed across the screen.

Tilda crushed the competition with 3.65 million votes.

Entry four? Barely scraped past a hundred thousand.

If the voting had stayed open longer than half an hour, nobody could have even guessed how high her votes would have gone.

That was the speed of the internet. When something is that stunning, it spreads like wildfire.

“Hah! Knew it!” someone in the crowd shouted. “Bribe the judges all you want, but you can’t buy millions of real people! I’d love to see the faces of the judges who didn’t pick her. They’ve gotta be kicking themselves right about now!”