Chapter Sixty-Six: The Chaotic Opening Ceremony (2/2)

The final evaluation was a points-accumulation system. It consisted of fifty corporate works and twenty individual works among the qualifiers. There were ten guests and every one of them would present a final score. Lastly, the ranking would be decided based on the final points accumulated.

The qualifying round began very quickly, instantly increasing the tension in the atmosphere. The total score was a point deduction process starting from a hundred points, with the corporate works starting first. Most of the designs’ evaluation were revealed very quickly. The scores were announced live and the first half of the ranking became very apparent.

Yan Jin sighed.

It was depressing knowing that after working their best for two whole months, they did not earn any good results.

What made Yan Jin more frustrated was that the majority of the failure was because of himself.

The Nan family had even used such a treacherous method, almost forcing him to choose between fighting against the Nan family or marrying Nan Chan.

Among the dark audience seats, nobody saw Yan Jin’s dangerous smile.

He had never feared threats, much less a challenge.

Moreover, he was far from getting forced to that state yet. He wondered if the Nan family would still have the guts to challenge him after tonight.

“Chairman Yan…” Secretary Fang complexion was pale as she spoke with a slightly trembling voice: “We’re in tenth place now. But there’s still City H’s two biggest companies in the second half round, and SI has yet to appear.”

Yan Jin asked: “What do you think about the individual work?”

It was obvious that Secretary Fang had not thought that Yan Jin would ask that question. When she caught on to the question, she replied: “Are you referring to buying the exhibition booth rights for the individual work? It would be a little difficult. I just heard that several companies with abundant financial resources were all aiming for that Best Design award and the Most Creative award.”

“Oh, the Best Design award.” Yan Jin nodded his head: “Good choice.”

Secretary Fang did not get it.

“Do you think it can get into the top five?”

“Well…” Although she did not get what Yan Jin was trying to say, she began to follow his train of thought: “I don’t think it’s possible. Mainly because of the evaluation team and the opponents from the corporate works. The individual works have a lower chance of getting a high placing, much less getting into the top ten.”

Along with that, Secretary Fang added: “I did not pay attention to the individual work segment, but… this is a competition based on original designs after all. Its principle was to be fair to everyone. If the work does have high standards, then it would be worth giving it a good placing.”

It’s just that the word ‘fair’ was probably the hardest thing to do and the most difficult thing to promise under the influence of the bad elements of a business-associated conference.

The second half of the evaluation promptly began. Very quickly, all of the corporate works had gotten their placing. YL’s final placing was fifteenth place. SI had better luck and was placed tenth.

Zhou Jinrong was instantly surrounded by several entrepreneurs who act pragmatically. In comparison, Yan Jin’s surroundings were visibly quieter.

“Chairman Zhou’s company is simply too outstanding.”

“Such fierce competition and yet you still have not fallen behind. You fully deserve City S’s number one title.”

“Oh, come on, you’re too flattering. Chairman Zhu’s placing is pretty good too.”

Zhou Jinrong, who was surrounded like a revered leader casually turned to look at Yan Jin. The provocation in his gaze almost bled out.

Yan Jin avoided Zhou Jinrong’s gaze and nodded. That reaction made Chairman Zhou even more proud of himself.

There was a small break before the individual work evaluation started. As the youngest female among the invited guests, Nan Chan could not avoid having people strike up conversations with her.

“To have Miss Nan gracing our audience today, it makes us old men feel inferior.”

“Don’t mention it, Chairman Chen.” Nan Chan smoothly deflected.

“This must be the first time for Miss Nan to attend such an evaluation segment. Has Miss Nan taken a fancy to any of the works in the individual segment?”

“Oh, individual work. I don’t really fancy them…” Nan Chan paused for a moment, looked up and took a glance at the audience: “But there is something I found quite interesting.”

Upon hearing Nan Chan’s words, the surrounding guests became interested in the topic.

“And which work was it?”

“That’s the one, the Best Design award. I think… many ladies like myself would like that work.”

Nan Chan’s sentence had three pauses. The guests who had listened well would have understood the message.

The guests’ conversation on the stage was broadcasted publicly.

When Yan Jin heard Nan Chan’s words, he suddenly had a bad feeling.

The scores for the individual works were generally lower than the corporate works. Even if the scores were slightly higher, it would not affect those corporate works’ placing.

The majority of the guests had received benefits from one or multiple companies. They would carefully evaluate all of the corporate works that were qualified. However, there was less consideration when it came to evaluating individual works.

Several guests that were planning to curry favor with the Nan family started to get restless.

Even if they did not succeed in currying the Nan family, with a big beauty like Nan Chan sitting there, even if it was just giving face to her, there would not be any problem.

That thought was not an issue.

The issue was eight of the invited guests all had such thoughts.

Ten invited guests, eight of them – not even including Nan Chan herself.

The last invited guest was quite interesting. He was a man with upright morals and plainspoken. He did not even bother about what others were thinking. He was a well-known design master who had solid capabilities and talent in the design circle. This design master did not care whether it was corporate or individual work and had given his evaluation based on his own set of standards.

Then, the accident happened.

The evaluation scores were announced live. At the moment, the highest score for the corporate work was 88.3, placed number one at the big billboard.

And the work placed third from backwards, the work that had won the Best Design award, without anyone paying attention –

The scores announced was 88.9!

The audience immediately went wild.