Trainee Ch.14

Chapter 14: Theme Song (1)

When Lai Yudong stepped into the hall, there were still three minutes left until eleven o’clock.

The closer it got to assembly time, the more trainees came rushing in. Just within moments of his arrival, four others had entered nearly simultaneously.

With a quick glance, he estimated that about two-thirds of the 101 trainees had arrived. Most of them had bare faces or just a base layer of makeup. Some hadn’t even brushed their hair, standing in the crowd with messy, bedhead-like nests, looking no different from people who had just been dragged out of bed.

This time, the positions were arranged by class. The four classes—A, B, C, and F—each had a different uniform color: red, yellow, blue, and black respectively, forming large color blocks at a glance.

From a visual standpoint, the blue and black areas were the largest, representing the most trainees.

[So many of them look just like regular people after removing their makeup]

[Just realized the class uniforms are the three primary colors + black]

[What’s that supposed to mean? Officially acknowledging Class F is a mixed bag?]

[That’s a bit harsh lolol]

[Come out and clarify, @ProductionTeam]

“Yuki! Over here!” Liu Qichu waved and called out to the confused-looking Lai Yudong, wagging like an energetic husky.

Standing nearby, Class F trainee Zeng Kai looked over curiously. “You know him?”

Liu Qichu looked puzzled. “You don’t?”

“…I meant before the show.”

“Nope, I just met him. He’s my new friend.”

Zeng Kai gave him a thumbs-up, clearly impressed. “You’re a true social king.”

As the two chatted, the light-blond-haired boy with the name tag Miura Yuki on his chest strode confidently toward them.

Just like the vast majority of trainees, he hadn’t put on any makeup or done his hair. His strands fell naturally, smooth and resting against his cheeks. Most people with light-colored hair would look washed-out and spiritless without makeup, but he wore it effortlessly—thanks to his fair skin and flawless complexion.

Of course, the most crucial factor was his impeccable facial features.

In terms of looks, it couldn’t compare to the carefully styled image from yesterday’s first stage, but this wasn’t one of those “take off makeup, change face” situations either. Even barefaced, he stood out among the crowd—not because of makeup, but because of a shift in aura.

He was now less sharp and refined, and more soft and well-behaved.

When those natural, unadorned eyes—without colored contacts—briefly swept past the camera, it was like a drop of elegant ink falling on rice paper, slowly blooming outward. An unintentional moment, yet breathtakingly beautiful. That single second on screen caused a wave of explosive reactions.

[Holy crap, that split-second beauty just purified my screen]

[Your Miura Yuki has suddenly appeared.jpg]

[Even barefaced, he’s so striking]

[I believe the candid shots I saw this morning were all unedited]

[Why did they only show him for one second!!!]

[Not filming Yuki’s face in close-up is the production team’s biggest loss]

Lai Yudong was startled by the barrage of enthusiastic comments.

He tried to recall—aside from instinctively glancing at a camera he still wasn’t used to, he hadn’t done anything. He almost wondered if he’d accidentally left some breakfast on his mouth.

Thankfully, no.

He’d already had enough socially mortifying moments on stage—he couldn’t afford to let his everyday image fall apart too.

With time still left before eleven, Lai Yudong stretched his neck to look around for his roommates.

There were only seven people in Class A. Amid the sea of short haircuts, it was easy to spot the only one with a bob—he quickly spotted Xu An standing near the back.

It was harder to spot Liang Zhisheng. Class C had the second-largest number of members after Class F, and he didn’t have any distinctive features. Lai Yudong had to scan face after face before finally locating him in the center, nearly swallowed by the crowd.

The most eye-catching one, Li Xu, was unexpectedly nowhere to be found in Class B. No matter how hard he looked, that striking splash of red was missing.

Lai Yudong found his roommates a bit baffling.

It was as if they were trying not to be seen on camera—one stood off to the side, another buried himself in the crowd, and one hadn’t even shown up yet.

Thinking back on it, maybe it wasn’t just his imagination.

Xu An had told the mentors outright that he wasn’t here to debut. Liang Zhisheng’s “if 60 is enough, don’t get a 61” attitude didn’t exactly scream debut material either. As for Li Xu, it was hard to say. But if he wasn’t just forcing a “keep it real” rapper persona, then maybe—rather than aiming to debut—he simply preferred to stay true to himself.

Lai Yudong couldn’t help but wonder: Am I the only one in dorm 707 who actually wants to debut?

Strictly speaking, he didn’t want to debut either. He just really didn’t want to start another quest in some new, possibly even harder and more dangerous scenario.

Not long after, Li Xu strolled into the hall yawning, his bright red hair unmistakable. He looked utterly unbothered—clearly a seasoned master of just-in-time arrivals—completely different from the trainees who were still scrambling to fix their clothes in a panic.

At exactly eleven o’clock, all 101 trainees were present.

The show’s host, Fu Hanyu, appeared right on time at the filming site, wearing his usual spring-breeze smile. His gentle voice delivered a line that immediately put all the trainees on edge:

“Next, I will announce the theme song of Climbing to Stardom.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the screen in the center of the hall lit up. In the video, Fu Hanyu stood in the middle, with three backup dancers on each side.

The theme song was titled To The Stars. At first glance, Fu Hanyu’s performance appeared smooth and effortless—like water flowing without resistance. But in reality, the song was packed with dense lyrics, complex choreography, rapid tempo changes, and a multitude of intricate details.

Never mind how long it would take to memorize the lyrics and choreography—being able to sing and dance the entire piece from start to finish was a major challenge. For trainees who struggled in one area or had weak foundations, it was especially unfriendly.

[Is this considered hard?]

[Definitely—it’s one of the most difficult in Chinese idol survival shows.]

[Teacher Jin is already mirroring the moves.]

[Zhao Yifeng looks like he’s in pain.]

[Vocal hell.]

“Why is it so hard?!” Liu Qichu groaned, furiously scratching his head. “This kind of choreography alone usually takes me at least a week to learn, and that’s not even counting the song and lyrics. What if I still haven’t got it down by the day of the solo cam shoot?”

Zeng Kai looked surprised. “A week? Even if it’s hard, that’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

Liu Qichu shot back indignantly, “I call it ‘slow work makes fine work!’”

“Wake up, you’re in Class F,” Zeng Kai replied mercilessly.

“…That’s so mean!”

With a blank face, Lai Yudong stared at the screen. At first, he hadn’t been sure what counted as “hard” or “not hard”—from a beginner’s point of view, everything was hard. But after hearing the barrage of commentary from the livestream and the two people beside him, the more he watched the demonstration video, the more wrong it started to feel.

He hadn’t even managed to catch one move before it jumped to the next. He didn’t get the pose of a single beat right, nor did he understand the transitions between moves.

How to describe it?

It was probably something like this—

Fu Hanyu danced so well that it left him in utter despair.

There was a kind of hopeless beauty to it.

In the midst of his sorrow, Lai Yudong suddenly remembered the beginner tutorial from the first stage.

Although Lai Yudong had previously been somewhat dismissive of the dance mode in the beginner tutorial—a simulated rhythm game—it was because rhythm games rely on muscle memory developed through repetition. The first stage only needed to be performed once, so it hadn’t helped much. But now, facing a theme song that required constant practice, the value of the tutorial was entirely different.

The vocal mode was the same. Memorizing lyrics wasn’t a problem for him, but the pitch tuner had proven extremely useful.

Just to be safe, he double-checked.

Lai Yudong: [The theme song assessment provides a beginner tutorial, right?]

System: [Host, you are no longer a beginner.]

Lai Yudong: […Huh???]

The sudden blow hit Lai Yudong like a ton of bricks. If he hadn’t had the foresight to eat breakfast, he might’ve passed out from low blood sugar.

Not a beginner?

Since when? No one told him that!

System: [To use a metaphor: A Level 1 hero receives a newbie quest to defeat slimes. After completing the quest and leveling up to Level 2, they can’t defeat dragons, but they also can’t accept newbie quests anymore—thus, they’re no longer a beginner.]

Lai Yudong: [And you think that’s a valid reason to send a Level 2 to slay a dragon?]

System: [More new features await your discovery. Thank you for your inquiry. Have a pleasant day.]

…He really wanted to file a complaint.

What a cursed system.

Just then, a faint sigh reached his ears. Liu Qichu, assuming it was Zeng Kai finally accepting reality and conceding that he’d need a week, turned his head to tease him—only to realize the sigh came from someone else entirely.

It was that quiet, pale blond-haired boy, Miura Yuki, whose perfectly sculpted face now showed an expression other than its usual cold indifference—something difficult to describe… indignation? Despair?

“Yuki, what’s wrong? Is it too hard?”

“…Mm.” Miura Yuki quickly withdrew the expression from his face like a startled bird, mumbling vaguely, “A little, yeah.”

“Don’t be scared—it’s just a theme song! So many people in Class F will suffer through it with you!” Liu Qichu said cheerfully in an attempt to comfort him.

What he got in return was a polite but distant: “Thank you.”

Liu Qichu couldn’t help sneaking another glance. The boy’s reactions made him start to wonder—was Miura Yuki’s company crafting an aloof, untouchable persona for him?

In the idol world, building a persona wasn’t exactly a secret—in fact, not having one was the real rarity. But that didn’t necessarily mean personas were fake.

More often than not, a persona was just the exaggeration of a real trait—turned into a snappy, memorable label. Common ones included the foodie, the genius student, the otaku, the old-soul grandpa type, or the “refreshingly realistic” type.

Liu Qichu’s own “extroverted social butterfly” image was a good example. It worked because he was genuinely outgoing. Forcing someone like Xu An—who was shy and reserved—into the role of mood-maker would be like teaching a fish to ride a bicycle: painful for the fish, and even more painful for the audience. Only an incompetent management team would make that kind of mistake.

Miura Yuki, on the other hand—his styling was cold, his aura was cold, his expressions were cold, even his voice was cold. At first glance, he seemed impossible to approach. But once you interacted with him… something felt off. There was this faint sense that the surface and the substance didn’t match.

It didn’t feel like a language barrier.

It felt more like… he was doing it on purpose.

Still, Liu Qichu didn’t dwell on it. Even if the company had built a persona that didn’t reflect the real Miura Yuki at all, that wasn’t any of his business to comment on.

He was just a regular trainee—what did he know about all that behind-the-scenes stuff?

The video ended, and the trainees dutifully offered applause. Their expressions varied—some covered their faces in despair, some stared into the void, some frowned in concentration, some still looked confidently unfazed… and a few were clearly nodding off.

“—That concludes all the content for the theme song To The Stars.”

Fu Hanyu picked up the cue cards prepared by the production team and announced a rule even more brutal than the difficulty of the theme song itself.

“The theme song evaluation will be conducted in two stages.

In the first stage, trainees will be reassigned to new classes based on their performance, and from the new Class A, one person will be selected to stand at the center of the MV as the initial ‘center’—the first C-position.

The second stage will be the solo cam recording and MV shoot, which will be uploaded to the official platform.”

“Important: trainees rated F will not be eligible to appear on stage for the recording.”

“The first stage is in three days, the second stage in five days. I hope all of you seize this opportunity.”

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