The Wife He Forgot to Marry (Winona and Yule) novel Chapter 384

Seeing the heavy silence fall over the judges' panel, Cole's team began to shift nervously.

Winona broke the tension, her voice cutting clearly through the microphone. "Cole, the chat is currently accusing your team of plagiarism. However, having personally reviewed your preliminary drafts and your foundational concepts, I firmly believe you absolutely did not cheat."

Unlike his visibly panicked teammates, Cole maintained his composure. "We absolutely did not plagiarize. Please, help us clear our names."

They hadn't even graduated yet. If they were slapped with a plagiarism label now, their entire futures in the industry would be destroyed.

Winona offered a reassuring smile and calmly pulled up Cole's project file. Turning to the camera, she addressed the viewers directly. "Is Locke Group claiming that Cole's team copied Tanner's work word for word?"

The paid trolls immediately flooded the chat with agreement: "Obviously! Cole's team is just a bunch of inexperienced kids. How could they possibly produce work of this caliber?"

Winona didn't miss a beat. "Words are cheap. Since neither company can publicly broadcast the full technical data of the projects, why don't we both publish the project outlines on screen?"

Watching the stream from her own judging panel, Tallulah let out a scornful laugh. She had secretly bribed one of Cole's teammates weeks ago, acquiring their draft long before they ever formally submitted it to Goddard Group. She gave a quick nod to her assistant.

Within seconds, Tanner's project outline was pinned to the screen in Locke's stream. Winona smoothly instructed her own tech team to display Cole's outline side-by-side.

While the general public couldn't decipher the complex biochemical jargon, anyone could see that the two texts were completely identical. Furthermore, the system logs displayed next to the files showed that Tanner's team had submitted their proposal on the 10th of last month—five full days before Cole's team finalized theirs. To the untrained eye, it looked like an open-and-shut case against Cole.

Watching the chat erupt into fresh waves of vitriol against Winona, Cole, and Goddard Group, Tallulah smiled in triumph.

Back at the office, Stefan stepped out of a meeting and checked the livestream link Samantha had sent him.

"Do you need me to bring in an external crisis management team?" Samantha asked.

Tallulah lifted her chin, answering with supreme arrogance. "I believe Tanner's proposal is flawless. The caliber of his work easily guarantees him first place in this competition, and I fully intend to offer him a position at Locke Group once this is over. Therefore, regarding this blatant plagiarism by Goddard Group's contestants, I will be taking it very seriously. We expect a formal explanation."

Winona's lips curled into a razor-sharp smile. "You're getting ahead of yourself, Ms. Shipley. I invite everyone to look closely at the second paragraph of both outlines. There is a very slight discrepancy in the data metrics."

Tallulah frowned, momentarily confused.

Tanner, who actually understood the science, stared at the screen. The color instantly drained from his face.

The trolls scrambled to defend him: "It's literally just two decimal points! Cole probably copied it wrong! He's so dumb he can't even cheat right!"

Without a word, Winona pulled up her tablet, navigated to the latest publication of the OPR journal, and mirrored it directly onto the livestream.