Being a gigolo was too much for him, so he had to become a music superstar.

The choruses of the two songs are overlapped, and the melodies do indeed overlap in several places. A layman would definitely think they are the same.

But Su Nianwei wasn't a musician, so she couldn't judge the technical aspects. She only knew one thing—the timing was too coincidental.

Lin Buyi had just narrowly escaped defeat by a mere 0.5 points in the competition when, shortly after the scores were announced, accusations of plagiarism surfaced.

This is no coincidence.

"Cheng Yi," she began, her voice flat, "can you find the posting history of that account? When exactly was that song 'Drowning Sorrow' uploaded to various platforms?"

"I've asked the tech team to investigate, but it will take some time."

"Hurry up. Give me the results by today."

Su Nianwei hung up the phone, pushed her chair back, and leaned against the backrest.

She opened Weibo and searched for Lin Buyi's name.

A new topic has appeared on the trending searches: Lin Buyi plagiarized. It's ranked seventh and is still rising.

The comments section was divided into two camps. One camp echoed the accusations: "I told you this song was too good to be true. How could an amateur have such skill? It turns out it was plagiarized." The other camp refuted the accusations: "Comparing the two songs in the video, there aren't many similarities. It's just a few chord progressions. Which pop song doesn't have similar chord progressions?"

Regardless of which side it is, the focus of public opinion has shifted from whether Lin Buyi sang well to whether Lin Buyi plagiarized.

That's the most fatal thing.

Su Nianwei understood the patterns of public opinion. Once someone is labeled as a plagiarist, even if they are eventually cleared of the charges, that label will remain in the minds of some people. Even if they win, they win with wounds.

She picked up her phone and called the head of the public relations team.

The phone was answered.

"President Su."

"Did you see the plagiarism?"

"I just received a message from your assistant; we're already following up."

"I need two things," Su Nianwei said in a low voice. "First, dig up all the account registration records, posting times, and all the technical information you can find for that song 'DrowingSorrow,' the more detailed the better. Second, before I give you a definite answer, don't take any initiative in the public discourse, don't issue any statements, don't refute, and don't get any influential figures to speak out."

The other person paused for a moment: "Not going to refute it? The accusations are getting louder and louder—"

"I know," Su Nianwei interrupted him. "Rushing to refute is the stupidest thing to do. When we don't have solid evidence, coming out to explain will only make people think you're guilty. Once I have something, I'll shut them down completely and not give them a second chance."

The other party paused for a second before explaining.

Su Nianwei hung up the phone and placed it on the table.

She sat in the study for a long time, one thing on her mind—

She had absolutely no recollection of the name DerekMills. It wasn't a mainstream domestic platform, but rather an international streaming service like Spotify, which is largely unknown to ordinary Chinese users. The fact that someone specifically chose an account on such a platform to frame her shows that they knew exactly how to make the situation as difficult to clarify as possible.

Check the play count: 2,000 views.

Published three years ago.

Su Nianwei's intuition told her that what happened three years ago was a lie.

A song released three years ago has only 2,000 plays, with no comments and no interaction.

On any normal platform, even the most niche independent musician would accumulate some organic traffic over three years. Two thousand plays is far too few. Abnormally low.

However, this judgment requires technical data to support it; it's not something she can decide on a whim.

Before long, Su Nianwei received initial feedback from the technical side.

Cheng Yi mentioned a crucial detail over the phone—although the release date of the song "Drowning Sorrow" on Spotify was listed as three years ago, the earliest active record of the account "DerekMills" could only be traced back to less than a week ago.

"What do you mean?" Su Nianwei pressed.

"That means this account may have been registered recently, but the posting time has been manipulated. Spotify's review process has loopholes, and some distribution channels can use technical means to modify the song's upload timestamp."

After hearing this, Su Nianwei paused on the table for three seconds.

Her first reaction wasn't anger, it was coldness.

A bone-chilling cold.

She had seen all sorts of underhanded tactics in the business world, but creating a fake song to frame someone for plagiarism was not cheap. It required someone to reverse-engineer the song, rearrange it, find someone to record it, register accounts on overseas platforms, forge timestamps, and finally, use a matrix of marketing accounts to go viral at the right time.

The entire chain of transactions would cost at least several hundred thousand yuan.

To kill an ordinary person, they spent hundreds of thousands of yuan.

This is no ordinary competition. This is an attempt to eradicate Lin Buyi from the root.

"Cheng Yi".

"exist."

"Did you find the account registration information for that song? Email, phone number, IP address?"

"The email address is a temporary Gmail address, and basically no useful information can be found. The phone number is not linked. Our technicians are checking the IP address, but Spotify data is not easy to access, and we may need to go through some... unconventional channels."

"Let's go." Su Nianwei said without hesitation, "No matter what channel we use or how much it costs, get me that IP address."

"clear."

Su Nianwei hung up the phone and leaned back in her chair.

At that moment, new message notifications kept popping up on her phone screen. Discussions on Weibo, WeChat, and various other social media platforms were scrolling wildly. She casually clicked on a Weibo post.

That comparison video has been shared tens of thousands of times.

The video is very well-made. The screen is divided into two columns, with the left column showing the chorus of "Xiao Chou" and the right column showing the chorus of "Drowning Sorrow." The two songs play in sync, with overlapping melodies marked with red wavy lines.

The accompanying text is quite sentimental—Lin Buyi, hailed as a genius creator, is his signature song an original work or a plagiarized piece? After listening to this comparison, you can judge for yourself.

The comments section is in complete chaos.

The top-rated comment was: "I knew it! How could a poor 21-year-old student write a song like this? Fang Yizhou was fooled."

When Su Nianwei saw this comment, she gritted her teeth.

She turned off Weibo, stood up, and walked to the window in the study.

The blinds were half open, and sunlight squeezed in through the gaps, shining on her face.

She was quickly calculating one thing in her mind—should she retaliate now or continue to wait?

Releasing the information about the suspicious account registration time now could quell public opinion to some extent.

The problem is, her chain of evidence is incomplete. There's only one active record that goes back a week, no IP address, no registration information, and no complete chain of evidence linking the DerekMills account to the mastermind.

Presenting such incomplete evidence would allow the other party to easily counter with, "How can you prove that the activity record is complete? Maybe they just haven't logged in for a long time?"