Chapter 1425
Chapter 1425:
By now, the audience—both in the venue and online—had utterly detonated. Minutes ago, they’d been Rowena’s most fervent champions. Now, they roared that she was a pathetic, shameless thief.
Unable to breach the barriers, the online viewers drowned the chat in righteous, hateful text. “Someone there, clock her with a shoe for me! She made us fools! I won’t settle until a damn sneaker connects!”
The collective noise soared until the fragile dam of decorum gave way. A spectator, their control shredded, ripped off a running shoe and hurled it at the stage, their scream piercing the air. “Liar! Thief! Get off the stage!”
That solitary shoe became the catalyst. Enraged faces contorted as people tore off their footwear—spiked heels, loafers, tattered boots—and flung them at Rowena, chanting a unified, ugly chorus: “Rowena, out! Get out!”
In the space of a breath, a violent squall of shoes rained down upon the platform.
“Stop, please! Everyone, stand down! Control yourselves!” the host shrieked, trying futilely to command the mob, but his voice was swallowed whole.
Elliana and Adah quickly melted back into the safety of the wings, both of them smirking as they watched the furious debris fly.
Rowena was instantly caked in scuff marks and dust, her immaculate hair reduced to a gnarled knot. She looked less like a performer and more like a scavenger. She ducked, stumbled, and screamed with raw terror, trying to evade the airborne missiles. “Stop! Please! No more throwing!”
She wasn’t swift enough to dodge the flight path of a pointed stiletto. The metallic heel cracked into her face, instantly blooming a fiery red bruise on her cheekbone. She recoiled and slumped, officially crushed.
No one could halt the eruption—not until the crowd had expended their last bit of footwear and emptied their reservoir of rage. Only then did the shoe storm finally die.
By the time silence returned, Rowena lay motionless under a small mountain of debris, her face sealed in her hands. She trembled violently, paralysis of shame keeping her head pinned to the floor.
MⲾ𝓮 𝒹𝑒𝓉𝒶𝒾𝓁𝓼 𝒶𝓉 g𝓪l𝑛ovєls.𝓬0𝓂
Gia, Westley, and Kimberly had already vanished, panicked that the audience’s fury might suddenly shift targets.
With the explosion spent, the sharp edge of the crowd’s anger finally began to recede.
Seizing the sudden, strained quiet, Tristan shot an order to the security detail. “Get her out of here—now!”
The guards immediately converged, gripping Rowena by her limbs, and dragged her off the stage like a bag of refuse.
The Ublento Dance Competition was a global hallmark. It had preserved an immaculate history for years, never once scratched by public scandal—until today. The organizers were now ready to gut Rowena for destroying their flawless brand. She was the poisoned core that threatened to spoil the entire harvest.
Yet, a grim opportunity presented itself. Rowena’s meltdown had instantly mushroomed into a massive headline, yanking a tidal wave of attention toward the competition. Viewership spiked to absurd levels, topping forty million concurrent streams. Facing this terrifying, delicious surge, the organizers were trapped between absolute dread and immense potential.
As the head organizer, Tristan immediately ordered the stage sanitized and then took the mic himself to wrestle the rest of the broadcast into line.
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