Chapter 23: A New Announcement
Xie Xizhao left after saying those words, leaving Jing Jin standing alone in place.
The killing intent in her eyes completely faded into confusion. She walked back with a head full of questions. Just as she was about to reach the stairs, her phone suddenly vibrated.
She picked it up and tapped on the screen, discovering a new notification about the latest promotional material for Super Rookie.
Her pupils contracted slightly, and she hurriedly clicked on it with trembling hands.
“Please, please,” she muttered to herself. “The first center position has to be my favorite…”
She still held onto a sliver of hope that the show’s production team was just stirring up fake rumors.
As the video loaded, the first thing that appeared—just like always—was Super Rookie’s overly flashy watermark logo.
Immediately after, the screen was engulfed in a burst of vibrant, dazzling colors.
Back when the third season of Super Rookie had just aired, people had already complained that despite running for three seasons, the show’s aesthetic had not improved at all. From the stage design to the uniforms, everything was outrageously ugly.
The theme song stage was no exception.
In the darkness, Jing Jin felt like her eyes had been brutally assaulted by the blinding disco lights. Fighting the urge to tear up, she forced herself to keep them open and watched as the lights flickered to life one by one.
The first person she saw was Ai Qingyuan, standing on the second tier.
The boy’s face still carried the same defiant expression as always, but the sky-blue uniform he wore finally gave him a hint of youthful vibrance.
Jing Jin silently shed tears in her heart.
She had no time to dwell on it and quickly shifted her gaze to the person in the center.
As the first center, the round platform in the very middle was, of course, the last to be illuminated.
Light and star-like sparkles rippled outward from beneath his feet. The first thing that caught her eye was a pair of long, straight legs wrapped tightly in uniform pants.
The boy had an exceptionally tall and slender frame.
As a trainee, maintaining a well-managed physique was usually a given. At the very least, Ai Qingyuan, standing beside him, also looked tall and handsome.
However, this boy gave off a noticeably slimmer impression from his shoulders to his waist and down to his legs.
Despite that, his posture remained upright like a young bamboo, with an excellent physique.
This reminded Jing Jin of her cousin.
Back when she was still an innocent elementary schooler, Xie Xizhao had already been the school heartthrob of the neighboring high school. After school, the girls who came to watch him play basketball could line up from the classroom door all the way to the school gate.
At that time, he would often bring Jing Jin home on his way, and as she walked behind him, she enjoyed the envious gazes of her classmates. It was a completely useless but incredibly satisfying sense of pride.
Shaking her head, she quickly dismissed her inexplicable thoughts.
“He does look pretty handsome,” she muttered.
Calming herself, she continued watching. By now, the melodious prelude of the theme song had already begun.
Jing Jin had listened to this song so many times that she was utterly sick of it. Ignoring the music, she impatiently searched for the boy’s face.
His features were delicate, his brows and eyes gentle—he had the kind of strikingly beautiful face that naturally drew every camera toward him.
His dark hair slightly veiled his brows, but it couldn’t hide his clear, softly curved eyes, as if they held tiny stars within them.
The moment their gazes met, Jing Jin’s hand trembled, nearly flinging her phone across the room.
The next second, the door swung open. Her mother’s voice rang out, confused. “I told you to see your cousin off. Why are you just standing here staring at the door like an idiot?”
Jing Jin slowly lifted her head, her expression dazed. “…Mom.”
Her mother: ?
“I have a question,” Jing Jin’s voice wavered. “If Dad and I both fell into the water, who would you save first?”
—
When Xie Xizhao returned to the dormitory, he was already aware that the production team had released the video.
Dropping it the night before the theme song re-evaluation episode aired—this season’s theme song truly pushed the deadline to its absolute limit.
Technically, no one was supposed to have their phones, which led to an unusual sight that evening: every dorm’s bathroom was suddenly packed to capacity.
Xie Xizhao was a bit curious as well. His condition hadn’t been great on the day of the recording, so he wasn’t sure how he looked on camera. But curiosity aside, he didn’t need to check for himself.
If he wanted to know how he performed, all he had to do was look at his roommate’s face.
That night, Ai Qingyuan didn’t meet his eyes even once. His expression shifted like a turbulent sky, caught between pain, self-doubt, unwillingness, and envy—as if he were acting out an entire emotional drama.
Later, Guan Heng quietly told him, “I lost sleep again.”
Xie Xizhao cleared his throat. “Uh.”
“It was perfect.” Guan Heng kept it brief, then patted his shoulder. “Xizhao, you really belong on stage.”
He paused for a moment before adding, his voice carrying a hard-to-define emotion, “There are many shining stars, but you’re the one meant to be surrounded by them.”
His tone was unwavering.
Xie Xizhao: “…”
For the first time, Xie Xizhao experienced the fundamental gap between humanities and science students.
As someone completely devoid of romantic sentiment, he felt goosebumps rising all over.
In the end, he still got pulled into watching the three-minute-long video by Ji Yan.
After finishing it, he let out a breath of relief.
Thankfully, he hadn’t messed up a single camera angle, and at least he didn’t look like someone who had just crawled back from the brink of death.
Ji Yan, who had been watching expectantly, twitched the corner of his mouth. “That’s it?”
Xie Xizhao thought for a moment. “You looked pretty handsome too.”
Ji Yan: “…”
“…Thanks, I guess.”
Ji Yan asked, “Brother, do you really not care about what people say about you?”
“I mean,” he continued, “like the stuff online—the comments from fans and random people. Honestly, the reason everyone secretly hides their phones is because of this.”
He was genuinely curious.
No one disliked hearing praise.
For celebrities—especially idols—the love from fans was what lifted them onto that dazzling stage.
Every one of them understood this.
This was an industry that sold dreams while simultaneously being wrapped in them. Sure, there were plenty of harsh realities behind the scenes, but that didn’t take away the fairytale-like nature of the profession itself.
Ji Yan was actually a very easygoing and cheerful person.
He didn’t need to debut, so hateful comments about him were just something to laugh off. He could check stats and rankings without getting anxious. But Xie Xizhao was different. Xie Xizhao came here to debut.
If he had to make a comparison, acting for him was like Super Rookie was for Xie Xizhao.
When he acted, he cared about audience feedback. But Xie Xizhao seemed like he genuinely didn’t care.
However, Xie Xizhao corrected him. “Of course I care. How could I not?”
He smiled and said, “But just caring isn’t enough.”
Ji Yan was stunned.
Xie Xizhao thought for a moment before explaining, “What do you think determines whether someone debuts?”
Ji Yan immediately had an answer for this.
“The company, the production team, audience appeal, song choice, and stage performance,” he listed. “That’s about it.”
Debuting was all about votes. And those were the factors that influenced the numbers.
At this point, Ji Yan was starting to get annoyed.
The production team not only kept delaying the release of the theme song, but when they finally uploaded it, they barely promoted it. As the center, Xie Xizhao’s screen time was given out sparingly—just enough to avoid backlash, but not a second more.
It was suppression taken to the extreme.
Xie Xizhao asked Ji Yan, “Then what parts do you think we can control?”
Ji Yan was about to answer immediately, but then he suddenly understood what Xie Xizhao meant.
Public opinion changed based on countless factors, and 90% of those were beyond their control. The only thing left—the remaining 10%—was the stage. That was the one thing they could control.
It wasn’t that Xie Xizhao didn’t care about external opinions.
It was precisely because he cared that he obsessed over every detail of his stage performance, down to whether he hit the right camera angles.
He had taken it to the extreme.
So that when all was said and done, he had no regrets.
That way, no matter what the outcome was, he could accept it with a clear conscience.
—
The buzz around the theme song only lasted a day or two within the program.
Compared to the outside world, for them, this was already old news. Aside from the center position, there wasn’t much value in dwelling on it, and even the center himself had no interest in reminiscing.
Lately, they had started practicing for their first public performance. The schedule was packed, making it a serious challenge.
So when Ai Qingyuan suggested splitting the center position with him, Xie Xizhao gave a wry smile. “Spare me, Young Master. I barely have enough time to sleep as it is.”
It wasn’t that it was too hard—it was just too much.
As someone who needed a fixed routine to get enough sleep, Xie Xizhao found this especially painful.
But Ai Qingyuan was still insistent.
Xie Xizhao changed tactics.
“Even if I don’t take center, I’ll still get more votes than you in group vote. Believe it or not?”
Ai Qingyuan’s expression changed instantly.
Fu Wenze walked by and couldn’t hold back a sneer.
Ai Qingyuan didn’t notice at all.
The remaining parts were quickly assigned. Most of the trainees in Ai Qingyuan’s group ranked within the top 40, so none of them were complete beginners. The practice sessions went smoothly.
However, after just two days of practice, the production team suddenly released a new announcement.
—
When the new announcement was made, Xie Xizhao was in the practice room correcting a teammate’s movements. Ji Yan burst in, panting. “Brother, brother, brother, brother!”
Xie Xizhao: “……”
He turned back to his teammate. “This part is tricky to sync, but just keep practicing.”
His teammate thanked him.
Only then did he turn to Ji Yan. “What’s up?”
“What else?” Ai Qingyuan said lazily, sipping his water. “That little lackey only ever has trivial news. I bet the cafeteria’s serving braised pork chops again.”
One time, Ji Yan had rushed over to find Xie Xizhao because the cafeteria’s limited-edition braised pork chops were almost sold out—he knew his brother loved them.
Ai Qingyuan had remembered that moment ever since.
Because that day, he had finally swallowed his pride to ask for help with a move, only to have Xie Xizhao dragged away.
Ji Yan had long since learned to ignore him. He announced, “They’re holding a fan meeting!”
The moment those words dropped, everyone turned to look, even Ai Qingyuan, who quietly stood up.
A fan meeting, as the name suggested, was a small event where trainees interacted with their fans face-to-face.
There were usually no formal performances—just mini-games, fan interactions, and casual talks. This had been a tradition in the first two seasons of Super Rookie.
But traditions weren’t guarantees. Until the official announcement, no one had been sure if this season would have one.
Now, the matter was finally settled.
The fan meeting was scheduled for Friday, while the first public performance recording would take place over the weekend. These were two different types of exposure, but both were equally valuable—especially the fan meeting.
For trainees with good personalities, this was practically a golden opportunity to gain fans.
With such a huge opportunity placed in front of them, everyone was a little dizzy with excitement—everyone except Xie Xizhao, who seemed deep in thought.
He said, “I remember that past fan meetings had a limited number of spots. Usually, they were based on the real-time midweek rankings.”
“Oh, right,” someone responded. “I think it was… thirty?”
“The first and second seasons both had a limit of thirty,” Ji Yan also realized, and with that, he bolted out of the room.
Ai Qingyuan frowned, suddenly catching on. He turned to Xie Xizhao and asked, “What was your ranking last week?”
That was the ranking revealed at the end of the episode during the initial evaluation.
“Forty-two,” Xie Xizhao answered.
His performance had aired in the first episode, but he hadn’t appeared at all in the second. Even so, within a week, he had managed to climb from 56th to 42nd. That kind of progress was already a result of his fans working incredibly hard.
Considering he had started as a complete unknown, he had undoubtedly gained a massive number of new supporters.
Ai Qingyuan’s expression shifted subtly for a moment, but soon, he refocused on the issue at hand.
Ai Qingyuan didn’t relax his furrowed brows as he carefully calculated. “After the broadcast, the increase should be even faster. Getting into the top thirty by Friday shouldn’t be a problem.”
Once he finished his calculations, he finally let out a breath of relief.
Then, he looked up—only to see Xie Xizhao wearing an odd expression.
Ai Qingyuan: “…”
He was just about to say, ‘Why are you looking at me like that? I just want fair competition! I wasn’t worried about you making it to the fan meeting, don’t flatter yourself!’—but before he could, Xie Xizhao simply smiled and said, “Thanks for the analysis.”
Ai Qingyuan’s face stiffened.
Before he could respond, Xie Xizhao’s lips curved slightly. “But I’m afraid just making it into the top thirty won’t be enough.”
Ai Qingyuan froze.
Xie Xizhao didn’t explain directly. Instead, he asked, “You just said getting into the top thirty shouldn’t be a problem. So tell me…”
“After the re-evaluation, what do you think my ranking will be?”
