My Dreamy Old Husband

Chapter 248

Xyla strode toward Sophia deliberately. She said in a sweet voice, “Sophia, what a coincidence! You’re here for the competition too?”

Sophia turned around with her head lowered. “Yeah.”

“Good luck then. Richard and I will be watching you from below the stage.” Xyla walked away elegantly.

The competition began. Xyla used her sweet and pleasant voice to host the competition. “I hereby announce that the cash-counting competition begins now! Contestants, please take your place and get ready with your props!”

Over a few dozen people participated in the cash-counting competition. Since the stage could only fit in more than ten people at a time, the competition had to be divided into several batches. The preliminary and intermediary rounds were to be conducted in the morning, while the final round was in the afternoon.

All the contestants took out their practice notes and placed them stack by stack on the table before getting ready to start the competition. Sophia opened her backpack and was about to take out her practice notes too, but the moment she opened her bag, she froze in shock. She didn’t take out the practice notes and simply sat there dumbstruck for a long while.

Noticing Sophia’s peculiar behavior, Xyla asked her in a ‘concerned’ manner. “Sophia, what’s the matter? The competition is about to begin. Hurry and take out your practice notes, or else you’ll be disqualified.”

Sophia kept staring into her own backpack for a long time. Finally, she decided to reach inside her bag, then she took out several stacks of notes and placed them on the table.

The moment she took out those notes, the whole place became silent. After a few seconds, waves of snickering could be heard coming from the audience, for the other contestants had taken out fake practice notes, while Sophia had taken out stacks of real banknotes!

The stacks of real cash were very eye-catching among the rest of the stacks of practice notes.

Sophia felt so embarrassed that she couldn’t bring herself to show her face in front of the audience. Because of the incident with Michael’s defamation, she had been out of sorts for the whole day. She started reading news when she woke up in the morning, so she mistakenly took the real cash stacks, which she used for training at home. She had placed them in her bag and ended up bringing them here.

She remained calm and unflustered by the situation while waiting for the competition to begin quietly.

This caught a group of supervising professors by surprise too. They had never seen someone actually use real banknotes as props to participate in the competition before! However, there were no rules that prohibited the usage of real cash, so after a round of discussion, the professors eventually decided that Sophia wasn’t going against the rules and the competition was to be continued as normal.

Xyla was dazed too before she let out a snicker.

The competition then officially began. In the cash-counting competition, the contestants competed against each other in terms of their cash-counting techniques, speed and skill. Whoever could count the fastest, had the most precise count and looked the best when they counted would get the highest score in the competition.

Sophia turned her embarrassment into motivation to do her best in the competition. She counted the cash as fast as lightning. All the judge professors nodded at her simultaneously too, impressed by her skill and composure.

After the first round was over, Sophia kept her money properly, then she lowered her head and dashed down the stage quickly, feeling really embarrassed.

She automatically ran toward Michael and sat down beside him with her head still hanging. I embarrassed myself again in front of my idol! What an idiot I am!

Michael patted her on the shoulder and said, “It’s okay. It’s okay. Everything’s okay now. You did really well.”

Sophia hid her face in Michael’s arms, feeling too embarrassed to see anyone.

Richard, who was not far from them, noticed their intimate interaction. Almost immediately, he could guess their relationship.

That’s Sophia’s new boyfriend? He was overwhelmed with fury all of a sudden. She’s so promiscuous and shameless! She just dated Joel and Stanley before this! And now, she has another new boyfriend?! It seems Joel had dumped Sophia! NôvelDrama.Org copyrighted © content.

Sophia kept hiding her face in Michael’s arms, being too ashamed to see anyone. She finally moved a little and slightly showed her face after the competition was over.

The result was out and Sophia had gotten the first place in the preliminary round of the competition. So, she would compete with the contestants from other groups in the afternoon for the following intermediary round and the finals.

It was time for lunch when the preliminary round ended. Michael took the initiative to suggest a place for lunch. “Let’s have lunch in the school cafeteria. I haven’t come back to Bayside University and have lunch here ever since I graduated.”

Sophia nodded quietly. When both of them stood up and were about to leave, a voice was suddenly heard from behind them.

“Sophia, who’s this? Why don’t you introduce him to us?”

Sophia, who was holding Michael’s hand, turned around and saw Richard and Xyla.

Xyla beamed and looked delighted, while Richard just let out a cold snort, looking rather disdainful. To him, Sophia was worthless anymore since she was just a useless pawn abandoned by Joel. Yet, for some reason, there was a fire of fury raging within him when he saw her holding hands with another man.

Sophia, who didn’t want to talk to them, yanked Michael quietly and signaled him to leave, but to her surprise, Richard actually stood in front of them and blocked their way. “Sophia, this is your new boyfriend?”

Before Sophia could say anything, Michael introduced himself first. “Hello, I’m Sophia’s current boyfriend.” Or husband, rather. He then added, “We met before in a basketball match last time.”

Richard snorted with a rather grim expression on his face. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a name card. “Hi, my name is Richard Harper. This is my name card.”

A gold-plated business card was passed into Michael’s hand. Michael took a glance at the card and pretended to be surprised by it. He acted like he was honored to meet Richard. “You’re the Young Master of Harper Group? It’s really an honor to meet you.”

Michael removed his sunglasses, revealing his well-maintained, beautiful and young-looking face. Richard couldn’t help but praise him when he saw his face clearly. “You look like Taylor Murray very much.” He looks exactly like Taylor Murray!

A faint smile crossed Michael’s face. “I had a slight alteration.”

Richard understood his meaning. It turns out he had plastic surgery. No wonder he looks like Taylor so much. Richard studied Michael’s face carefully and he actually couldn’t find the slightest flaw on it. There

wasn’t any trace on his face at all that suggested he had undergone a plastic surgery before. This made Richard feel even more determined to sign Michael as an artist under his company.

He suggested frankly, “You have quite the potential to become a superstar. Would you like to get into the entertainment business and be an artist?”

Michael touched his chin and nodded. “Well, actually, I’m kind of interested in becoming an artist.”

Richard smiled. “Well then, perhaps we should have lunch together and discuss the contract in detail. The Harper Group is one of the largest shareholders of Glory Entertainment. So, I’m managing some of the business in Glory Entertainment. If you agree to sign an agreement with us, we’ll train you and get you to debut as soon as possible. I’m sure you know that Glory Entertainment is currently the largest celebrity-training agency in Cethos, right?”

Michael seemed like he was looking forward to it very much. “Alright then.”

Both of them left happily.

Sophia was completely speechless at the back. Her expression darkened, and she didn’t know what to say. She noticed for the first time that Michael was a drama king who could put on such a convincing act.

While Xyla wrapped her arms around Richard’s arm to leave, she turned around and spoke to Sophia, who remained standing on the spot motionlessly. “Sophia, why are you standing there? Not coming?”

Sophia followed them reluctantly.

Xyla took great pleasure in seeing how pathetic Sophia was now. In the end, Sophia couldn’t win against her. Without Joel’s care, even if she found herself a handsome new boyfriend, he was about to work for their company, the Harper Group. That’s really ironic!

Richard had treated them to lunch on this day. He was so generous that he invited Sophia and Michael to have lunch in the most expensive Western restaurant in Bayside University.

Michael walked while pushing his shabby old bike along with him. Beside him, Sophia looked unhappy in her uniform dress.

On the way, Michael chatted ‘happily’ with Richard. They got along so ‘well’ with each other, as if they should have met each other and became ‘friends’ earlier.

Richard commented, “You have such an outstanding appearance. It’ll truly be a waste if you leave your talent undiscovered like that. If you agree to sign a contract with us, Glory Entertainment, and be our artist, I promise that I’ll make you popular and you shall become the second Taylor Murray.”

Michael replied, “Yeah. I heard that Taylor’s reputation is completely ruined now. The market desperately needs someone like me to replace him. Not only do I want to replace him, I want to surpass him as well!”

Richard praised, “You’re very ambitious. I like that!”