Trainee Ch.46

Chapter 46: Second Performance (1)

Although the requirements for the mid-broadcast advertisements were all over the place, things fortunately went smoothly. The two of them took a bus to the dorm building before filming and had more than enough time—so much so that after lunch, they still had a big chunk of free time left.

At three in the afternoon, the trainees once again gathered in the large practice room on the third floor.

With nearly half the contestants eliminated, the venue for the second performance’s song selection felt much emptier.

Lai Yudong stood in the first row—this time, positions were arranged in order of ranking.

Unlike last time’s song selection, there were now three boards at the front, each covered by a curtain. Behind each board was a staggered two-row setup that obscured the view inside.

In other words, just as he’d guessed, they wouldn’t know in advance who their teammates were.

The show’s host, Fu Hanyu, stood in the center:

“The assessment theme for the second performance is Position Evaluation.”

“For this performance, there are eight songs in total, divided into three categories: vocal, dance, and rap. Trainees must create their own arrangements, choreography, or rewritten rap lyrics. The top vote-getter in each group will receive an extra 100,000 votes, and the first place overall in each position category will receive an additional 50,000 votes.”

“In this second stage, only the top 35 will advance. The rest will be eliminated.”

“Now, we will reveal the Position Evaluation song list.”

[Yay! Finally we get to choose songs ourselves—no more forced grouping!]

[Hahaha I don’t think I can survive to the next round, but at least I’m not losing my mind]

[Praying Yuzu gets into a good group]

[Why is Sky Entertainment being so stingy? Those bonus votes are tiny]

[It’s just so they can make us vote more]

[If the vocal category has a Xu An song, I swear I’ll blow up Sky Entertainment headquarters]

[No way they’d recycle the same script twice, right?]

[Who knows—last time Sky Video’s team got a taste of success]

The curtains fell, revealing all eight songs at once.

The vocal group had three songs, the dance group also had three, and the rap group had two.

Aside from Bloody in the dance group, which had a full six-member lineup, all other songs would have seven members per team.

Lai Yudong first looked over at the vocal group’s songs. Over the past few days, he had been cramming Xu An’s songs, so with one glance, he could tell that—for once—Sky Video had played fair and hadn’t repeated their old trick.

Next came the announcement of the song selection rules.

“After entering the passage, trainees will take a song card from the table and stand in line under that song’s board. You’ll only know your teammates after making your choice, so you can’t deliberately team up with someone you want, nor can you avoid anyone you don’t.”

“The selection order will follow the ranking from the first stage. Since each song has a fixed number of members, trainees with lower rankings might not get their preferred choice.”

This was where being ranked fifth had its perks—Lai Yudong had the freedom to choose.

His headache, however, was that he didn’t know which group to go for. After all eight demos had been played, he still had no clear idea.

Well, there was one thing he was sure about—

He had to avoid the rap group.

Choosing between the vocal and dance groups was tricky. Unlike the first performance, where they just followed a set standard, the second performance required the team to recreate and adapt the song from scratch.

And this time, he had no idea who his teammates would be. If he got “lucky” and ended up with people just as inexperienced as him in arranging or choreography, he couldn’t even imagine how they’d pull it off.

At least in the vocal group, it was just rearranging the song; in the dance group, they would be creating from nothing.

Barring extreme situations, he leaned toward the dance group—grinding through intensive practice could solve 80% of the problem, and it matched the focus of his recent training.

Still, he had a nagging feeling that if he kept going like this, he might just end up turning himself into the team’s dance ace.

As the top four ranked trainees went up one after another, Lai Yudong was still staring blankly at the three dance group songs.

Dance Group —

Bloody, Stealing Fire, Riddle.

Once again, all three were songs he had never heard before.

From the demos, he couldn’t even tell their styles—only whether they were fast or slow.

Lai Yudong quietly eavesdropped on the other trainees’ conversations and, combined with the barrage of livestream comments and explanations, finally got a rough idea.

Bloody—the name alone gave away a bit. It was vampire-themed, with a “seductive evil” style—at least, that’s how the livestream comments described it. The lyrics were entirely in English, the melody had a slightly eerie vibe, and from the sound of it, it was a song that would really test one’s expressiveness.

Stealing Fire was inspired by the Greek myth of Prometheus stealing the flame, using the myth as a metaphor to praise heroism. The stage style emphasized grandeur—soft, limp, or messy dancing would absolutely not work here.

Riddle was a strong-groove hip-hop track. The demo didn’t have a single melodic line—likely the entire thing was rap. In short: just be cool and it works.

Since there were no dance videos available, it was impossible to gauge difficulty for now, so they could only choose based on style.

But Lai Yudong had no idea which style would suit him best.

It was so hard to choose… should he just go with “two short ones and one long one” and pick the longest?

…That seemed a bit too haphazard.

“—Fifth place, Miura Yuki. Please make your choice.”

Dragging his feet, Lai Yudong walked up to the stage. He rounded the board and stepped into the concealed selection area, where a table held cards for all eight songs—like being invited to pick the t*rture device of his choice.

Time for the almighty livestream comments to give him some wisdom.

[I wanna see Yuzu pick the rap group]

[Do some rap! Break out of your comfort zone!]

Lai Yudong: …

That’s a bit too much breaking out.

Silently, he moved over to the dance group’s cards, making his intentions clear.

[Yuzu’s getting addicted to dancing, huh lol]

[707’s dance ace]

[Yuzu, pick Bloody!]

[If I don’t see Yuzu dance Bloody, I’ll die]

[I’m betting on Bloody or Stealing Fire]

A quick glance showed that the six-member Bloody was mentioned the most.

Lai Yudong stopped hesitating and decisively took that card.

Since he didn’t know which song to pick, he might as well go with what the Starseekers wanted.

[He really picked the creepy song!?]

[I thought Yuzu would choose Riddle—just a regular “cool” performance is less difficult than the other two]

[Yuzu’s “regular” isn’t quite the same as other people’s “regular”]

[If the kid likes it, let him do it—Mama will support him unconditionally!]

[Bloody can easily become a god-tier stage]

[But if it’s done badly, it’s just a cringey, greasy wannabe-villain…]

[Please, that applies to any song—if it’s good, it’s god-tier. Riddle too]

…What? Riddle is easier?

Why didn’t anyone say that earlier?!

Unfortunately, there was no going back—Lai Yudong was already holding the card and walking toward the back to finalize his song choice, ready to meet his second performance teammates… or possibly to find that no one else had picked the song yet.

Of the top four who had already chosen, only Xu An had picked a vocal group song—the other three had all gone for dance.

Su Junzhe poked his head out from behind Mo Li.

“Yuki, what’d you pick?”

Lai Yudong flipped his card around so they could see: “Bloody.”

“Wow, we’re teammates!” Su Junzhe patted the song selection board standing on the floor. “Just now, Mo Li and I were guessing you’d pick Riddle and team up with Jiang Yangfan, but honestly, all three dance songs suit you.”

Lai Yudong walked over to his team’s lineup and greeted the two politely.

“Please take care of me—I’ll do my best.”

[135 in one group? Yep, here comes the hot team]

[Another vote-splitting bloodbath]

[The bonus votes for the Bloody group are probably going down the drain]

[They don’t care about those extra votes]

[Don’t panic, Yuzu—enjoy a god-tier lineup unlike the first performance!]

[I remember Peppermint B’s team vibes were really good]

The atmosphere really was good—especially compared to their group, Peppermint B felt like a peaceful utopia.

It was precisely because there were already two powerhouse teammates that Lai Yudong felt even more anxious, worried he’d drag the group down. Before stepping in, he hadn’t expected both Mo Li and Su Junzhe to pick this song.

But as more teammates joined, he began to think maybe he’d panicked too soon.

“Wow, I ended up in the hot group!” Fourteenth-ranked Bai Xuanhe came over, swinging his song card, and casually patted the three of them on the shoulder. “Let’s have a great collaboration.”

Dance ace +1

Next was twenty-fifth-ranked Zhang Mingche. Although he, like Bai Xuanhe, didn’t know anyone in this group, he carried himself more reservedly—his initial grading had required a dance retest.

Dance ace +2

The last was twenty-eighth-ranked Jin Xiheng, who cheerfully hugged his roommate Su Junzhe, then gave big hugs to his former teammate Bai Xuanhe and temporary dance classmate Lai Yudong.

“How’d you end up in this group? Doesn’t seem like your usual style,” Su Junzhe asked curiously.

Jin Xiheng shrugged.

“Wang Yiwen’s been praying nonstop in the back to get Riddle. I don’t really care which group I’m in, so I figured I’d free up a spot for him. No idea if he’ll actually get it.”

Dance ace +3

Dance teacher +1

Bloody group—now full with six members.

[Yuzu just went from hell to heaven]

[Send Yuzu here for advanced training]

Standing in the middle of the lineup, Lai Yudong slowly turned 180 degrees, scanning his teammates from front to back—then stood there in silence, looking troubled.

A dance group being filled with dance aces wasn’t surprising. A group full of vocal or rap aces would be the real shocker. But in this six-member team, five people were not just above average—they were near top-tier level.

It felt like being the struggling student dropped into an elite class and told to catch up in a week.

At this rate, his greatest contribution to the Bloody group might be… quitting.

—Kidding. He wasn’t about to give up that easily.

If anything, having five amazing teammates was a blessing. He could shamelessly ask different people for help, so no single person would feel pressured. If he still couldn’t improve under those conditions, the problem would clearly be on him.

Besides, it was still better than having five Zeng Kais messing with his head.

Su Junzhe glanced at the absent-minded, light-blond-haired boy and immediately understood his worry.

He tiptoed to peek at the lineups of the other two dance groups—an absolute mixed bag. The first round had only eliminated part of the trainees; it didn’t mean all those lacking both skill and attitude had been weeded out. A few “lucky survivors” were bound to slip through.

Compared to the other dance groups, their team’s lineup was basically “five carrying one”—and the “one” happened to be a hardworking, high-popularity visual center.

The difference was like heaven and earth.

Su Junzhe didn’t care about vote-splitting caused by having a popular member in the group. Only someone short-sighted would fuss over a few extra bonus votes.

What he did dislike were deadweight members who didn’t take the stage seriously.

So, showing a rare bit of kindness, he grabbed Lai Yudong’s shoulders like he was playing with a kitten and gave them a shake.

“It’s fine! If you could pull it off under the brutal conditions of the first performance, then for the second one—all you need to do is dance on stage. I promise I can teach you.”

Mo Li chimed in, “That’s right. If Xiao Su can’t manage it, I’ll teach you. If I can’t manage it, we still have Teacher Jin. We’ll take turns until you’re completely transformed.”

“What do you mean I can’t manage it? It’s not like I haven’t taught him before!”

Su Junzhe protested, shaking his teammate even harder—as if shaking him enough would make the “correct” answer fall out of his mouth.

“Isn’t that right, Yuki?”

Dizzy from the shaking, Lai Yudong stammered, “Y-Yes…”

He only had one thought in his head—

Su Junzhe was surprisingly skilled in the art of phrasing.

Low EQ: “Deadweight teammate.”

High EQ: “Harsh conditions.”

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