Chapter 142: Half of This Thesis is Plagiarized, Isn't It?

In the video, Shen Lei brewed her emotions for a moment, then lowered her head, wearing a aggrieved expression.

"Back then... back then that boss told me to go collect a debt, and even said he would give me an extra half a point commission. At that time, I was just thinking that debts must be paid, so I went over."

"When I arrived, I was a bit scared being by myself, so I called a few other people... wanting them to help me build up my courage..."

[This is amazing, is she even rewriting the script?]

[Big sister, you went to collect a debt, what the hell are you scared of? Build up your courage?]

[Has she even watched the movie? This person had already been caught by this point, and the evidence gathered was enough to sentence him to death. She is confessing to past crimes here.]

[Who knew they would just go up and hit that uncle and auntie...]

[You have to believe me, I really didn't do anything! Sob...]

As soon as Shen Lei finished this line, she burst into tears right on the spot.

Covering her face with her handcuffed hands, she sat there sobbing alone.

"They did it all, I didn't kill anyone!"

As the woman said this, she still covertly glanced at the situation across from her.

"We already have conclusive evidence!" A voiceover rang out at this moment.

Shen Lei froze at that, then began to shake her head, showing a look of utter disbelief.

"No, impossible!"

"You're bluffing me!"

Then a hand reached out from off-screen, tossing the evidence onto her desk.

Shen Lei picked up the evidence and froze again. It wasn't until this moment that she slumped entirely across the desk and wailed bitterly.

The audience watching outside felt their scalps tingle with secondhand embarrassment so intense they wanted to run around the block twice.

Since she wanted to prove herself, shouldn't she at least watch the movie once, or understand the previous plotline?

What on earth is this?

Is this the epitome of humiliating oneself?

The viewers curled their toes in agonizing embarrassment and quickly backed out, not wanting to watch even another second of what followed.

Opening the comment section, they originally planned to express their thoughts.

To their surprise, right at the very top of the comments was another judge.

Song Mingchun: "..."

Immediately after, the next one was Lin Ze.

Lin Ze: "..."

The audience, who had been dying of embarrassment just a moment ago, suddenly burst out laughing.

That's right, if anyone said anything else, the esteemed professor would probably have thought they were smearing her.

At a time like this, silence truly speaks louder than words.

Before long, everyone discovered that even the actor from the original version had silently posted an ellipsis down below.

Right at that moment, a recommended notification popped up.

"Family, guess what I found? #ShenLeiProvingHerActingSkills."

With this title tag, quite a few people clicked through.

This was a blogger with a decent following who usually gave advice on graduate and doctoral entrance examinations.

Today, the blogger sat in front of the camera holding a plagiarism-checking report.

"As everyone knows, the recent drama between Lin Ze and Shen Lei has been creating a huge uproar online. I really like Lin Ze as a singer, but I originally planned to just be a spectator eating melon seeds, because I'm not an actor myself and it's not my place to say much."

"However, recently I also looked into the works she performed in and the works her students performed in, and recalling what she said on the show about what her thesis was, I went and searched for it..."

"《The Application of Cry Scenes in Dramatic Performance》."

Everyone suddenly seemed to understand what was about to happen next, and instantly grew excited.

The feeling of witnessing such a massive scandal firsthand was truly thrilling.

The blogger flicked his finger against the manuscript of her thesis in his hand.

"I read this thesis carefully from start to finish. Aside from some rather chaotic narrative logic, it didn't seem to have any major issues. So, I... ran it through a plagiarism checker."

The blogger picked up the aforementioned plagiarism report from beside him, used his hand to cover the similarity percentage at the top, and flipped the page to show everyone.

"Some students who haven't graduated yet might not know what this is. Let me explain: all the red text here represents duplication with other people's papers, and those other papers came first."

As he turned page after page, everyone saw that in this thesis, many large blocks of text were red, and one page was even almost entirely red.

"Ahem, have you guys already guessed something? Next, I will show you..."

The blogger slowly moved his finger away, revealing the similarity percentage column.

"42%"

The bright red font was striking to the eyes.

[Holy shit? This sister used someone else's paper for a whole half of her own?]

[You can graduate with this kind of similarity rate? How powerful must her connections be?]

[Shen Lei: Everyone can go search my thesis, because my thesis contains other people's outstanding papers.]

However, everyone quickly noticed that the video's progress bar was not yet finished.

Right now, both Lin Ze and Su Zitan were staring in dumbfounded shock.

With such a high plagiarism rate, how on earth did she dare bring it up?

"Wow, stinky junior, you really are a jinx. Donghuang Entertainment got involved with you and collapsed; now Shen Lei cursed you, and she's about to be finished too."

"..." Lin Ze glanced sideways at Su Zitan. "Collapse away! Zitan Chronicles is going to be finished too!"

The blogger continued immediately, "Don't worry, everyone, this paper wasn't her graduation thesis. Next, I'll show you her doctoral graduation thesis."

A doctoral graduation thesis?

Su Zitan smacked her lips. "Well, now it's not just her anymore; I guess even the university is going to be finished."

The blogger mysteriously produced another plagiarism report.

This time, he didn't play games like the last time; he directly exposed the number at the top.

"60%!"

Even the live chat went quiet for a moment.

"I mean, with a thesis like this, I have no idea how she graduated."

The blogger casually flipped through the thesis for everyone to see. "You guys need to pay attention to this title. Take a look and see who has written about this topic before—you better hurry and check to make sure your own thesis isn't about to end up on television."

The video was shocking enough right up to this point.

It was simply too outrageous.

Lin Ze paused in silence. "No, Sister Zitan, have you ever thought that perhaps I've literally done nothing all along, and they just turn into self-detonating suicide trucks on their own..."

"Yeah, right, the Star of Misfortune."

"..."

After this news broke, the entire internet was in an even greater uproar.

A thesis with a plagiarism similarity rate reaching sixty percent had somehow successfully graduated.

A heavyweight figure in the arts academy was even tagged, as large chunks of that thesis had apparently been copied directly from this prominent figure.

The show's director was going crazy. There were only a day or two left before recording, and you pull this kind of stunt?

Where on earth was he supposed to find a third judge now?

Doesn't anyone capable of being a judge need to be some sort of half-step master artist status?

Right at that moment, a phone call came into the director's production office.

"Has the panel of judges been finalized yet? Can I participate?"