"Alexander, what brings you back here today? Weren't you living with your girlfriend Mia recently?" Blake asked. Standing at 6 feet 2 inches tall, he was very handsome.

Blake always claimed to be very wealthy, yet he wore the cheapest clothes and used the same phone for five years without upgrading, earning him the nickname "Beggar Billionaire" among their peers.

"I broke up with Mia," Alexander said plainly.

"Blake, that's really tactless of you. Asking like that could make Alexander feel upset again," said Chase, who was shorter but the most academically accomplished among them.

"Alexander, please don't blame Blake. I'm sure he didn't mean it," Aidan, the dorm leader and a fitness enthusiast with a muscular build, tried to ease the situation.

"It's fine. I'm not that upset anymore. Mia's loyalty was too cheap. She's not worth being loved," Alexander stated.

He showed no sign of sadness or anger, skillfully registering two songs on the computer.

As Alexander was about to shut down the computer, Chase suddenly said, "Wait, don't close it yet. Can you check if the campus network has uploaded the video of the evening party? I want to see Robert's performance."

These three roommates went fishing tonight, so they didn't watch the evening party.

"Robert didn't come tonight," Alexander replied.

"What? Impossible!"

Not just Chase, but Aidan and Blake were also surprised.

"I heard he took a commercial gig, so he couldn't make it," Alexander shrugged.

Chase paused for a moment before continuing, "But Robert was the main act, right? How did they adjust the performance tonight?"

"They had to do a live interaction instead. I ended up being chosen and sang two songs. The audience reaction was pretty good," Alexander said calmly.

What?

The roommates were more shocked than before.

"You sang? Instead of Robert? And the audience liked it? Alexander, I admit you're good at guitar, but this lie is too far-fetched for us to believe," Chase said bluntly.

Aidan and Blake nodded in agreement, clearly sharing Chase's view. In their eyes, Alexander was not on the same level as Robert.

In terms of looks... well, Alexander wasn't worse than Robert. But when it came to singing and street dancing, there was a big gap between him and Robert.

As for popularity, Robert was leagues ahead of Alexander. Him replacing Robert and receiving praise? Unthinkable.

Alexander didn't expect them to believe him. Without the system's help, he might have been booed off the stage.

Alexander opened the browser and skillfully accessed the campus network. For some reason, despite it being late at night, the forum showed over three thousand people online.

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"So many people?" Alexander was somewhat surprised.

He remembered that on regular days, the forum usually had around a thousand people online. But now it was late at night, and the online number was even higher than usual.

This situation was too strange. What exactly happened?

He quickly clicked into the forum section.

The top post was a pinned thread titled "2023 Oak Tree University Graduation Ceremony, Full Video Coverage."

The post was published at 11:25 PM, and it was now 11:45 PM. In just twenty minutes, the post had already reached 4,681 views and 750 replies.

Such high popularity!

"I remember last year's graduation ceremony video post, in the end, it only had just over 8,000 views, right? It's not even half an hour yet, and this year's views have already reached half of last year's?"

"Why is this year's ceremony more popular when Robert didn't perform?"

"Probably everyone is here to criticize the organizers of the event. Without Robert, what's the point of the ceremony?"

"That's very possible."

"Alexander, hurry up and check it out."

His three roommates behind him were full of exclamations.

However, Alexander didn't hear their conversation. His eyes were on the second pinned post.

The topic of the post was: "2023 Oak Tree University Graduation Ceremony Highlights, Please Vote for Your Favorite Performance."

He checked the post's information: 3,685 views, about a thousand less than the first pinned post, but it had an astonishing 1,896 replies.

An average of one reply for every two views? That reply rate was incredibly high!

Curious, Alexander clicked on the post. He immediately noticed that the view count had risen to 3,916 and the number of replies had reached 1,938.

"In less than a minute, the number of replies increased by dozens? Nearly one reply per second! This is..."

He suppressed his shock and began to read the post.

"Alexander, you clicked the wrong one. This is the second post," Chase pointed out.

"Don't interrupt, look at the view and reply count of this post," Aidan noticed something unusual.

"What's so interesting about a voting thread?" Chase was puzzled, but after a closer look, he was shocked.

"Holy shit, almost 4,000 views in half an hour and nearly 2,000 replies? Is this for real?"

Blake quickly took out his phone to log into the campus network and went to his bedroom to browse. He always had a mysterious air about him, and everyone was used to it.

Alexander scrolled through the forum post with the mouse.

The voting post was straightforward.

It listed the twenty performances from the evening ceremony in chronological order.

Each ID had one vote, with a maximum of three choices per person, and the results were displayed in real time after voting. To prevent spam, only officially registered university students were allowed to vote.

Alexander's two songs were listed as separate performances, at the end:

Option 19: Guitar and Vocals, "Shadows of Goodbye," performed by Alexander.

Option 20: Guitar and Vocals, "Pages of Tomorrow," performed by Alexander.

The votes for the songs were:

"Shadows of Goodbye," 3,037 votes.

"Pages of Tomorrow," 3,419 votes.

He was startled by the number of votes. With just under 4,000 views, his songs had each received over 3,000 votes, especially "Pages of Tomorrow," which had over 3,400. This meant that nearly 85% of the viewers voted for this song.

Alexander had expected his songs to have a high number of votes, but not this high.

The third-ranked performance was a classical ballet dance by a sophomore. Her dance had won awards and was highly applauded, but it only had 396 votes, not even close to the number of votes for "Pages of Tomorrow."

The overwhelming number of votes made Alexander indifferent about voting for himself.

He continued scrolling to see the comments.

"Clearly, 'Shadows of Goodbye' must be the best."

"I cried so much tonight, I only voted for 'Pages of Tomorrow,' and abstained from the rest."

"I was moved to tears, supporting Alexander."

"Thank you, 'Shadows of Goodbye,' for moving me tonight."

"Apart from the last two performances, the others weren't worth voting for."

Almost every comment praised the two songs. However, there were some naysayers.

"How are these vote numbers possible? It looks blatantly rigged."

"Where's Robert's performance? Why can't I see Robert? And who is this Alexander?"

Alexander wasn't bothered by some of the baseless accusations. Once they understood the truth, everything would become clear.

It was late, so Alexander decisively shut down the computer.

He stood up and noticed his three roommates standing behind him, looking at him strangely.

"Hey, why are you guys looking at me like that?" Alexander instinctively stepped back.