Chapter 14: Caught in a Plagiarism Controversy

Just after listening to the message, You Wei’s call came through.

His tone was somewhat cautious. "Ms. Jiang, have you seen the things on the internet?"

"The internet?" Jiang Qin was a bit confused. "I just woke up."

She clearly heard You Wei let out a sigh of relief.

"That’s good. Don't look at the StarNet for now. It seems like a competitor is making a move against us; I will find someone to resolve this matter.

Stay in your apartment and don't worry about work. Wait for my notification before coming back to the office."

Jiang Qin didn't know what had happened, so she could only agree.

After hanging up, she went on the StarNet to check.

It was clearly just some dirt on a small bar on a second-tier planet, yet it had reached the top ten of the national trending topics. One could only imagine how much money the person behind this had spent.

According to You Wei’s guess, he thought it was a bar on the same street playing dirty.

But Jiang Qin had her doubts.

Because she had rejected many companies' offers yesterday, could it be that these people wanted to teach her a lesson?

Furthermore, on the new song chart, "As You Wish" had already climbed to eighth place.

But now, the download data had basically stopped growing; netizens were all questioning whether she had plagiarized.

There was also plenty of disdain regarding her being a female from a low-tier planet, as well as disgust at her "ingrate" behavior.

The Jiang family did not step forward to help her clarify.

This was within her expectations.

She had known it ever since the time the Jiang family avoided others' gazes, secretly taking a private spaceship to pick her up and refusing to announce her existence to the public.

They also looked down on her background, and even more so on the fact that when she first arrived at the Jiang residence, she didn't even know how to use a domestic robot and couldn't recognize all the characters.

The fact that she could read now was only because she had the memories of her previous life after being reborn.

In her past life, she hadn't been able to go to school, but she hadn't given up. She always remembered the words posted on the school wall in her first life

Knowledge changes destiny.

So, unable to go to school, she took online classes on the StarNet, starting from kindergarten-level courses.

Even if she couldn't compare to top students now, calling her illiterate was really an exaggeration.

But no one knew that. Everyone had already decided she was illiterate—a person who didn't know a single character and had never been to school. Where could she have learned so many new songs?

Undoubtedly, they must have been plagiarized.

So now, everyone was calling for the three songs she uploaded to be taken down; otherwise, it would be unfair to other singers.

Jiang Qin fell into deep thought.

She suddenly realized that although she didn't even like to leave the house, she had quite a few enemies.

First were those she had rejected; it was possible someone wanted revenge for being slighted.

Then there were the bar's competitors.

And the new song chart.

"Anonymous Comfort" was about to climb into the top ten. If nothing went wrong, by the end-of-month settlement, she would have at least two songs in the top ten.

If the songs were taken down now, the rankings would shift to the two songs below them...

One had to know that the top ten of the chart was different from the eleventh place and below; it was a dividing line.

Moreover, she was only a C-rank female, an empath with no background, and she occupied two spots—it wasn't strange for someone to make a move against her.

The last object of suspicion was Jiang Rumeng.

Although the Jiang family didn't like her, she was, after all, a female with a blood relation to Jiang Yulian, so no one would actually attack her.

Even Jiang Ruhai could only resort to a few harsh words.

The only one who would deal with her was Jiang Rumeng, but this person acted without logic. Jiang Qin had no idea under what circumstances she would harm her.

Because in her previous life, even though she was already deeply disliked by Jiang Yulian, she still harmed her, and after harming her, she would try to help her.

It was a sense of fragmentation, like someone harming others while simultaneously seeking atonement.

***

What You Wei meant by "finding someone to resolve it" was actually finding people to report the posts incessantly, getting them deleted, and having comments removed.

Then, he hired his lawyer friends to send lawsuits one by one to those marketing accounts, accusing them of cyberbullying a female, spreading a female's private information, and other such charges.

As for spreading rumors, he didn't dare to sue for that.

Although he didn't know Jiang Qin very well, a large portion of what was circulating online was indeed true.

So he wasn't sure if Jiang Qin had actually plagiarized or not.

To be safe, he simply ignored that part; the other charges were enough anyway.

Interstellar citizens were quite concerned about matters involving females.

After some reports, those posts and trending topics had all disappeared by noon.

But the scope of the spread was already very wide, and the questioning regarding plagiarism had not ceased.

Pan Yangxia was a music student at Moka University. Ever since he stumbled upon the video of Jiang Qin playing the piano, he had become a complete fan.

He didn't believe the sudden wave of dirt on the internet; he chose to believe what he had seen with his own eyes.

So, he posted a thread online with the title

"The Piano, One of the Ancient Musical Instruments"

Waking up overnight, my idol's scandals were all over the internet.

She is just an empath at a small bar; I don't understand whose cake she could have possibly moved.

I don't know about the other scandals, but I cannot agree with you questioning her songs.

Let me first give everyone a bit of popular science about the instrument Jiang Qin plays every time she works. It is called a piano, and its origins can be traced back three thousand years.

It is an instrument from the ancient era, now only recorded in some ancient texts, so most people probably don't recognize it.

But Jiang Qin not only recognizes it, she can play it. Doesn't this alone prove her level of skill?

In this era where any sound can be synthesized, doesn't someone who knows how to play an ancient instrument deserve to be called a musician?

Or are you just discriminating against her because she is a female from a barren planet?

Although Pan Yangxia was just an ordinary student, he had quite a few followers because he occasionally livestreamed himself singing.

After all, he was handsome, and even before graduation, many companies had already contacted him, wanting to sign him.

It was just that he wanted to officially debut after graduation, so he hadn't agreed.

As soon as his post was published, his followers received a notification and logged on with anticipation.

Only to see their favorite streamer speaking up for someone else...

[...Speechless. I thought Xiaxia finally remembered his Star-Brain account password, but I didn't expect him to log on just to clarify for someone else.]

[Xiaxia, you should delete the post quickly. In this kind of situation, the one who sticks their neck out gets hit. It's better to play it safe.]

[Yeah, and you don't even know that female. What if it's all true? Everyone will come to scold you then.]

[Sigh, I also really like those two songs, but it's a pity. I guess we won't be able to hear them in the future.]

[I bet they'll be taken down in a bit, right? As long as there are enough reports, it will go into review.]

[That shouldn't happen, right? Even if she plagiarized, there has to be someone she plagiarized from, right? If she really plagiarized, why hasn't the person she plagiarized from come out to speak up?]

[Holy crap, are you a prophet? The person who was plagiarized has come out to speak. Everyone, go take a look!]