Chapter 867: And the grand prize goes to!
One.
Two.
Three.
The Department 14 staff carried all ten of the latest model of ultrathin touchscreen laptops back to their table box by box. Under the fiery gazes of everyone around them, even those from Department 14 were feeling a little embarrassed and turned a little red. At this moment, the area behind Department 14\'s table was stacked full of prizes. Not even that area could hold all of it and two of the bigger boxes had to be pushed next to the emergency exit.
There were simply too many prizes collected!
It was like they had shifted the entire prize rack from the stage to where they were seated!
"Why! Why!"
"Even replacing the system did not change anything?"
"This…this is too much of an exaggeration!"
"Zhang Ye must have cheated!"
"Yeah, he must have resorted to tricks or something!"
From behind, Ha Qiqi whispered, "Director Zhang, how did you manage to do that?"
Zhang Ye smiled and simply replied, "It was just luck."
Ha Qiqi responded, "Uh…"
Zhang Ye was in fact not lying to her, since he really only depended on luck.
Onstage, the next performance was already ending.
The new round of the lucky draw was starting again.
The big screen focused back to Chen Ye and he was seen reluctantly holding up his microphone to say, "Um, alright, let\'s begin the next round of the lucky draw then. It will be a cash prize this time."
50,000 yuan in cash!
A total of two cash prizes to be won!
Chen Ye said, "Then let\'s begin."
This time, it was the hosts who called to stop the draw sequence.
The male host onstage said, "Stop."
—Zhang Ye!
The female host nervously said, "Stop."
—It was still Zhang Ye!
An uproar from the audience rang out.
"It has happened again!"
"Oh no!"
"Just stop the lucky draw and everyone can go home to bathe and rest!"
"I\'m gonna faint!"
Little Wang coughed and did not wait for Zhang Ye to say anything this time. She directly went up to the stage on behalf of Zhang Ye to collect the prizes and took them back to Department 14\'s table.
Everyone was feeling very listless by now!
The Station Head was expressionless!
One of the station heads was playing with his cell phone silently.
Deputy Station Head Zhou lowered his head and just ate his food, although the chopsticks in his hands were visibly trembling!
Face-smacking!
This was too damn much of a face-smacking!
A perfectly fine annual staff party was plunged into chaos!
The most unpopular fellow in Central TV had become the lead of this party!
Wasn\'t this totally unacceptable? This was totally unacceptable, don\'t you think?
The majority of the people at the annual staff party venue were left gnashing their teeth in hatred of Zhang Ye, but they showed no temper as they could do nothing to stop him!
Next up, two performances were lined up consecutively with the first one being an interactive show, while the other was a singing performance. These were also the last two performances for this year\'s function. After that, the final lucky draw round that had today\'s biggest prize would begin. However, at this point in time, no one had any expectations left for it.
The shows were no longer interesting as the mood in the audience weighed heavily on the atmosphere of the event.
Finally, the last performance ended and the annual party was about to come to a close as well. But before that, the last lucky draw round would still have to be carried out.
The female host announced, "Next up, it will be the final prize for this year\'s annual staff party. When I found out what it was, I had such a shock! I thought to myself just how wonderful and loving our bosses are, since the prizes this year are much too generous."
The male host said, "What prize is that?"
The female host said, "Please have a look at the big screen!"
An image of the prize was displayed onscreen!
Although there was only one, its value was almost the entire sum of all the prizes before it combined—it was a red packet prize of 288,000 yuan in cash!
Everyone made a ruckus!
"Oh!"
"How generous!"
"Dammit, that\'s worth two years of my salary!"
"The red packet prize this year is worth this much?"
"I remember during last year\'s party that the red packet prize amount was only 80,000 yuan!"
"I could do with that! Awesome!"
"Our Central TV is loaded this year! We can totally feel the benefits of it!"
"With so much money at stake, we gotta fight for it no matter what!"
"And how are you going to compete with Zhang Ye for it?"
"Uh…"
A lot of people got excited when they saw the amount for this year\'s red packet cash prize. But when they remembered Zhang Ye, everyone quickly became dejected again! That\'s right. With Zhang Ye around, would this cash prize still have anything to do with them at all?! If the lucky draw were to go on in the same manner as before, then without a question, Zhang Ye would still definitely win it!
Ha Qiqi said excitedly, "Director Zhang, that is an enormous amount for a red packet prize!"
Little Wang blinked. "If you win it, will you be sharing the prize with us?"
"How do you think it should be shared?" Zhang Ye asked with a laugh.
Little Wang coughed, "Just treat us to a meal of course!"
Zhang Ye threw up his hands. "The draw hasn\'t even started yet. Nobody knows who will win it."
Suddenly, the Spring Festival Gala production team stirred and were not going to have things the way they were!
One of the planners for the Spring Festival Gala suddenly stood up and shouted, "This way of holding the lucky draw is totally unfair! The computer system must have been hacked by someone! No matter how many times the draw is done, it will always pick Zhang Ye! There\'s basically no need to hold the lucky draw since all fairness has already been lost!"
One of the assistant directors echoed, "Right, someone must be cheating!"
Assistant Director Xu Yipeng proposed, "I suggest that we change the method of holding the draw!"
Their words were all insinuated toward Zhang Ye!
Zhang Ye raised his head and looked over to them, "Who did you say was cheating?"
The Spring Festival Gala person looked back at him. "Whoever is winning the most must be the one cheating of course!"
Ha Qiqi got up and shouted back, "Then tell us how he cheated! Let me say this: The Spring Festival period should be a happy occasion, so don\'t start accusing others without proof!"
Should be a happy occasion?
Dog balls!
Other than you all, who is happy around here?!
The people of Department 14 and the Spring Festival Gala production team suddenly had a confrontation!
Those from the Spring Festival Gala production team kept harping about how Zhang Ye must have cheated. "A trojan horse is not something that most people know about, and it is also very difficult to detect but can achieve the effect of ensuring that there is only one winner for every draw. Moreover, it\'s useless even if they changed the system as the trojan horse might have already spread through the network and infected all the other systems!"
When everyone heard that, they latched onto it as though they had smelled blood!
"That\'s right!"
"It must be a trojan horse!"
"All the systems must have been infected!"
"I should have known!"
"So that\'s how it is! Otherwise, why would changing the system still prove ineffective!"
"But when did it get planted into the system?"
"Department 14\'s office is also connected to the local network, so how hard would it be to propagate the trojan horse?" said a person from Central TV Department 1\'s Rise to the Dance program team sinisterly with the aim to sow discord.
"Did they really cheat then?"
"Damn, then the prizes from earlier should all be voided!"
"Right, this is cheating!"
"Return all the prizes!"
The crowd were in a frenzy as those who had a grudge against Zhang Ye jumped out to accuse him!
Meanwhile, the others who did not have a conflict with Zhang Ye just kept quiet and observed.
Little Wang banged the table. "Who\'s cheating!? Say it again if you dare!"
Yan Tianfei\'s secretary could no longer listen to such accusations. "Why don\'t you guys prove it then!"
The argument escalated with the people from both sides getting impatient with each other!
Finally, the Station Head spoke up. He looked at Xu Yipeng and said, "Old Xu, did you mention that we should change the method of holding the lucky draw? How do you suggest we do that? How should we hold the lucky draw?"
Those words undoubtedly set the tone!
The people from Spring Festival Gala were jolted by it and understood clearly what the station\'s attitude regarding this matter was!
Xu Yipeng immediately explained, "I suggest that we do away with the computer and carry out the draw manually. That is the fairest way and wouldn\'t be affected by whatever high-tech computer viruses or similar things."
"That sounds good!"
"Right!"
"Let\'s do it the manual way then!"
"Without a computer, we won\'t have to worry about anyone cheating again!"
"They should have done that from the beginning!"
Everyone from the Spring Festival Gala production team agreed to it.
After hearing that suggestion, the station heads also visibly became happier. So there was still such a way to do it, why didn\'t they think in this direction earlier? Therefore, after the several of them discussed it, they finally nodded in agreement. Without seeking the views of others, they simply said, "Alright, it\'s approved!"
Deputy Station Head Zhou said, "Everyone, take off your employee passcard lanyards and remove the card with your name on it, then place that card into a large box. We will directly do the draw from it!"
Chen Ye also smiled and thought that this was a good idea!
By now, even a fool could sense that there was something wrong with the lucky draw segment. There must have been some tricks in the computer program, and even if there was no proof of this, it was a fact that needed no verification since it was impossible that someone could keep getting picked from among several hundred people and win so many prizes in a row! Now that the lucky draw method was changed, this problem would naturally be solved. A trojan horse? A virus? A bug in the computer program? All of that didn\'t matter anymore! Even if the manual draw method were to have a problem, it would be a problem with the person responsible for doing the draw and not any other factors!
Some staff in the audience were going around collecting all the employee passcards from people.
One…
Ten…
One hundred…
As they collected the cards, the staff did a verification before putting it into the large box. Someone had found this box and decided to use it temporarily for the lucky draw.
When they reached Department 14\'s table, Little Wang and the others were visibly unhappy at the beginning. They felt that the station heads and everyone else were obviously picking on them, even if they themselves knew that the lucky draw was definitely problematic as well. However, it was the station\'s attitude towards them that left their hearts turning cold!
But Zhang Ye appeared indifferent as he took off his pass to remove the card with his name on it before throwing it to the staff member who was collecting it. "There."
When Little Wang saw this, she did not say another word.
Ha Qiqi also took off her pass.
Zhang Zuo, Tong Fu, Huang Dandan, and the others followed suit.
After several hundred cards with names on it were collected, the function staff hurriedly nodded at the station heads.
The lucky draw was going to begin again!
"It\'s goddamn 288,000 yuan!"
"This time, it\'s going to be fair!"
"Right, it\'s finally going to depend only on our luck!"
"Haha, if I were to win, I wouldn\'t have to work for two years!"
"I\'m willing to bet that all the other TV stations\' annual staff parties would not have a higher value red packet prize than ours!"
"It\'s gonna be mine, it\'s gonna be mine!"
"Abracadabra!"
"This time, it should finally be my turn to win it!"
"I\'m so looking forward to it! Ahhhh!"
Little Wang seethed, "Look at them getting all excited!"
Huang Dandan snorted.
The people of Department 14 knew very well that if the lucky draw were shifted from being computer aided to a manual mode, it would really depend on each person\'s luck and that there would be no more loopholes that could be taken advantage of!
The lucky draw box was checked very carefully, with Chen Ye going through it once, and a few of the staff also taking turns to check. Finally, a station head also went up to ensure that everything was in order.
After it was all confirmed!
The entries were mixed up in the box!
Chen Ye and the other male host held up the box to rock it back and forth, shuffling all the staff cards placed inside it. To tantalize everyone even more, they spent a full three minutes doing that!
"Alright, we can start now!" The female host also came over to join them after the lucky draw box had been placed back onto the table. Everyone could see the entire process very clearly and knew that there was no possibility of cheating this time.
"Who will come forward to take charge of the lucky draw?"
"Station Head?"
"Station Head, only you have the authority to take charge of this."
"Right, it\'s better if you take charge!"
The hosts looked at the Station Head all smiles.
The Station Head could not refuse them and walked up on stage with a laugh. "OK."
Chen Ye suddenly remembered, "Oh yes, are we also allowed to place our staff cards into the mix?"
"Of course you can." The Station Head said, "Everyone can participate in the draw."
The female host quickly said, "Oh, I nearly forget. I will put my card in as well!"
The three hosts proceeded to throw their staff cards into the box and rocked it again to shuffle the cards inside.
Not mentioning the hosts, even the station heads and department directors in the audience paid great attention to this prize. A cash prize worth close to 300,000 yuan wasn\'t a small sum to them either. Much less to those general employees who ranked below them!
Some people were not blinking at all!
While others were staring so hard that their eyes almost popped out as they waited!
"Hurry up!"
"Let\'s get the draw started!"
"I\'m not afraid of anyone if it\'s down to a competition of luck!"
Under the anticipated gazes of everyone, the Station Head gave a slight smile and raised his hand to put it into the box. Then, he started stirring the contents of the box and randomly grabbed a card inside.
Jiang Naixiong watched with a pleasant smile on his face.
Xu Yipeng\'s eyes narrowed as he watched on anxiously.
As the Spring Festival Gala production team\'s staff were anticipating this draw for the grand prize, some of them were already planning to bring up something after the draw was done. They wanted to emphasize their point about how Zhang Ye could not win once they had switched over to the manual drawing method! That would mean that the claims of him cheating in those earlier rounds would undoubtedly be reinforced and they would then suggest to the heads for Zhang Ye to return all the prizes he had won before the lucky draw switched to the manual draw method!
If they got their faces smacked hard by Zhang Ye?
Then they must return the favor slap by slap!
It was utterly silent in the audience.
Only the sound of the cards colliding inside the box could be heard throughout the venue!
Rustle.
Rustle.
Suddenly, the Station Head\'s hand stopped.
Chen Ye laughed loudly and said, "It\'s done! Looks like the results have been decided!"
The female host smiled with delight and said, "Station Head, could you please announce the grand prize winner?"
The Station Head chuckled as everyone at the venue kept their eyes on him. He withdrew his hand from out of the box slowly, holding a card between his index finger and thumb before flipping it into the palm of his hand. Then, he lowered his head to have a look at the name written on the employee passcard.
One second…
Two seconds…
The Station Head suddenly went quiet and did not move a muscle!
The female host said, "Station Head?"
Chen Ye was also wondering what had happened, so he went up to take a look as well, curious. But the next moment, Chen Ye\'s jaw dropped when he saw the name on the card!
"What\'s the matter?"
"Who\'s the winner?"
"Why are you not saying anything?"
"I\'m so nervous that I could die!"
The Station Head did not say anything but just turned the card around to the cameras.
The big screen was showing the entire front of the card to everyone!
Jiang Naixiong nearly fell off his chair!
Deputy Station Head Zhou was seemingly startled!
The people of the Spring Festival Gala production team were shocked!
Yan Tianfei, Ha Qiqi, and the rest of Department 14\'s staff also passed out in unison!
The name written on the card was displayed very clearly.
A Zhang!
And a Ye!
At this moment, everyone\'s hair stood on end and they felt a chill pass through them. Then, as if they had discussed it beforehand, everyone turned to look at Zhang Ye who was at the last row with their mouths agape!
Holy shit!
Fuck!
Why?!
Why did you still get picked even though we switched to the manual draw now?!
What is happening here? Just what on earth is happening here!?
If they claimed that the draw results using the computer could have been dictated by a trojan horse and aided someone to cheat, then this spontaneously implemented manual draw method was surely not supposed to lead to such a result!
As such, each and every person in the crowd was now feeling somewhat dumbstruck!
Restart the system?
Change the parameters?
Change the computer system?
Change the personnel?
It didn\'t fucking matter what they changed!
Whatever they changed to, it was still that damned Zhang Ye!
All the prizes in this year\'s Central TV annual staff party had been won by Zhang Ye alone!