Trainee Ch.56

Chapter 56: Second Performance (11)

The dance group’s stage ended with Jiang Yangfan winning first place in individual votes, and the Bloody group returned to the waiting room to continue watching the following performances.

Next up was the vocal group.

The highlight of the first team, Candy House, was the love-hate relationship that CP fans and bystanders had been eagerly waiting for—the inseparable pair of Qu Junwei and Cheng Jinghao, who had been entangled with each other ever since the initial evaluation. Their storyline ran through the practice clips, while their teammates were basically reduced to background characters, leading the livestream comments to complain that the two were filming a dating show instead of competing.

The second team, Encountering You on a Rainy Night, was relatively average. Overall strength was so-so, and the only popular member was Song Yanxi. It ended up being a near-copy of the situation that Lai Yudong had once worried about: either they couldn’t compose, or they were half-baked in skills. In the end, they had no choice but to seek help from Xu An and others in the neighboring team just to barely make it through.

The most exciting, however, was the third team, Embrace.

If the highlight of the dance category’s Bloody team lay in its gathering of popular contestants, then the vocal category’s Embrace team was all about powerhouse singers building chemistry.

Xu An, Zhao Yifeng, Lin Xiao, Qin Xu, and others—the trainees with top-tier vocal skills were almost all gathered here. On top of that, there was also the complicated love-triangle dynamic among the vocalists.

The only regret was that a few of them were too unpopular—no matter how well they sang, they couldn’t get many votes.

The final vote tally was surprising. Xu An’s personal votes didn’t even reach two hundred, and the team’s first place went to Zhao Yifeng.

The overall first place in the vocal category was Qu Junwei.

[The vocal group’s votes are so confusing]

[Why isn’t Xu An first? Didn’t he get the highest votes overall in the first performance?]

[Xu An has a strong general audience base, but few of them came to the live show]

[In the first performance, he got lucky without vote-splitting. In the second, almost all the audience members already had fan affiliations.]

[Feng fans went crazy after getting stomped last time—the votes didn’t even beat Yuki from the same team, so they definitely went all out this round.]

[Compared with the dance group, I don’t really get it. Isn’t it all vote-splitting? How come the Bloody group’s vote count is that terrifying?]

[It’s different. The 1st,3rd, and 5th fandoms are fighting each other. Sure, it’s a bloodbath, but it also boosts their own fans’ morale and keeps them hyped. The unlucky ones are the other fandoms/smaller fanbases.]

[Got it. It also depends on which fandom spends the most and has more adults.]

Lai Yudong couldn’t help but sigh—survival shows really were a field of study. He had picked up all sorts of trivia from the livestream comments that he’d never even heard of before.

He used to think all it took was just casting votes. Who would’ve thought popularity was divided into online and offline, and that it even came down to fans’ spending power and age distribution?

But thinking it over, it did make sense.

Public performance recordings usually took place on weekday evenings. Most of the audience were either college students with lenient schedules, or office workers who didn’t have to work overtime. If fans traveled in from out of town, there was also the cost of transportation, which wasn’t a small sum when added up.

Lai Yudong having more votes than Mo Li didn’t mean his ranking would surpass him—it only proved there were lots of Yuzu fans in the live audience.

Thinking back, he did recall that the cheers during his commutes to and from work were indeed louder than Mo Li’s.

It was a strange phenomenon, one he couldn’t quite figure out.

What Lai Yudong didn’t yet realize was that he had been dubbed the sole “god of fan engagement” in Climbing to Stardom.

His fan-service ability left the others in the dust, so naturally, he attracted more fans who were willing to chase him offline.

With that, the second round of performances came to an end.

After finishing his post-show interview, Lai Yudong walked out with a sigh of relief.

This time, the questions had been much milder. Whether that was because his team’s atmosphere during the second performance was so good there was no room to stir up drama, or because the production team’s attitude toward him had shifted, he had no way of knowing.

In any case, as long as they didn’t dig a pit for him to fall into, it was already a good thing.

On the bus ride back, Su Junzhe suggested there was no time like the present—why not just get the overdue late-arrival punishment done today?

“Besides, we’ve already got our styling done,” he added with great conviction as justification.

Lai Yudong: “…”

So that’s what you mean by making the most of everything, huh.

“Won’t it be too tiring?” Zhang Mingche looked worried. “Our dorm rooms are scattered across different floors. Mo Li’s on the fourth, I’m on the fifth, Bai Xuanhe’s on the sixth, and only Jin Xiheng and Yuki are both on the seventh. That means we’d have to dance the theme song eight times in total.”

[True, eight times is a bit much. If it’s repeated too often, it stops being fun.]

[“Theme Song Full-Building Tour.”]

[Just realized the best dancer and the worst dancer live on the same floor.]

[Can’t decide if it’s more embarrassing to dance alone, or even more embarrassing to have someone with you 233.]

[It feels so surreal, like vampires finishing their evil deeds and then heading off to dance in the public square.]

“How about this,” Mo Li suggested, offering a compromise. “Each of us dances it once, then we all finish with a relay together.”

As the one with the final say, Su Junzhe agreed readily: “Sounds good.”

Choosing this day to finally carry out the punishment was practically perfect timing—the styling from the second performance was still fresh, and Su Junzhe still hadn’t returned the GoPro to the production team.

Even if the main broadcast didn’t include the footage, the production team wouldn’t be so cruel as to cut it entirely from the vlog.

Not to mention, with the livestream going, fans were bound to upload clips.

The original plan was for Su Junzhe to borrow a Bluetooth speaker from his roommate Liu Qichu, then rely on his social skills to ask staff for the audio file, and go floor by floor blasting the song while they danced.

But unexpectedly, the director team made a grand gesture—they simply broadcast it over the dorm speakers.

From top to bottom of the building, the nightmare-inducing theme song rang out:

“In the darkness, I hear your call…”

The moment the music started playing, Bai Xuanhe instantly perked up: “Quick, quick! Who lives on the fourth floor? Didn’t you hear the call in the darkness? Get up here already!”

[Let me see who got summoned.]

[And now, the first unlucky victim enters.]

[The first one to dance has it the worst, hahaha.]

Mo Li was still hesitating, trying to brace himself mentally, when the next second he was suddenly shoved out of the line.

He was so startled that he completely lost control of his expression: “Who pushed me!?”

Bai Xuanhe laughed so hard he slapped his thigh: “It must’ve been Yuki!”

“No, it wasn’t, I just pointed,” Lai Yudong defended himself pitifully. He was only being a helpful soul reminding everyone of the order, and never laid a finger on anyone.

The real culprit, Su Junzhe, tilted his head innocently: “Hm? I thought you were signaling Mo Li, so I kindly gave him a little push~”

Lai Yudong: “…”

Like hell anyone’s going to believe that!

Mo Li stood all alone in the middle of the hallway. Unaware trainees passed by him, but he clenched his teeth in tragic resolve. Muscle memory triumphed over shame, and his arms and legs moved to the music like they were remote-controlled—though lacking the composure and confidence of the theme song’s MV.

“Hahaha! Mo Li, why do you look like you never even learned the theme song? Don’t tell me you forgot how to dance it?”

“Then come here and teach me yourself!”

While Bai Xuanhe was laughing so hard he could barely breathe, Lai Yudong’s mood could best be described as “joy turning into sorrow.” The moment he remembered that in just a few minutes, he too would have to perform the theme song in front of everyone, his eyes already carried the tragic bleakness of a man going to his death.

The most despair-inducing part was that he had already used up the daily limit of turning off the livestream comments.

Who could’ve guessed that once a day wouldn’t be nearly enough!?

But the expected seventh-floor duo dance never happened. News that the Bloody group was dancing the theme song in the hallway spread quickly, and plenty of trainees came over to join the fun.

By the time they danced their way up to the seventh floor, the group had swelled to more than thirty people, the scene unexpectedly spectacular.

“Aiya, it’s even livelier than I imagined. Looks like the excitement from the public performance recording hasn’t worn off yet.”

Lai Yudong tilted his head to glance at the chattering Su Junzhe. On the surface, he seemed to be marveling at how hyped the atmosphere was, but Lai Yudong faintly sensed that behind that smiling expression lay a touch of displeasure.

And of course there was.

The punishment was supposed to be their team’s exclusive little event, something they had half-jokingly justified under the birthday boy’s name as a “late-arrival penalty.” Yet now, out of nowhere, a whole bunch of outsiders had muscled in.

The ones who were just there to liven things up were fine—they were clearly only there to play. But some people obviously had ulterior motives.

Not that such behavior was “wrong.” Anyone hoping to debut would naturally try to seize every chance to get extra screen time. It wasn’t even scheming, strictly speaking.

But it was still irritating, and with the cameras rolling, it wasn’t something they could show on their faces.

After some thought, Lai Yudong decided to let himself loose for once. “Lend me the GoPro.”

“What for?” Su Junzhe asked while handing it over with a puzzled look.

Without answering, Lai Yudong raised the GoPro high and squeezed into the hallway that now looked no different from a nightclub dance floor. Using the selfie stick’s length advantage, he made it poke out above the crowd, like a flag at a tourist attraction pointing the way forward.

Amid the noise, his cool-toned voice cut through with striking clarity—

“Bloody group, gather up!”

[Look, even the shy one got pushed to the limit.]

[Such a good kid…]

[Aaaahhh I’m fuming! Finally someone stood up!]

[This is Bloody group’s team moment! Everyone else, scram! If you want clout, make your own content—crashing in here just makes you flop harder than ever!]

[Bloody group, gather up!]

With just one shout, Lai Yudong cleared out a vacuum of space around him. Seeing this, his teammates quickly clustered over, one head after another poking out from behind him.

“One!” Su Junzhe shouted loudly.

“Huh? We’re doing roll call?” Bai Xuanhe followed in confusion, “Two!”

Mo Li: “Three!”

Jin Xiheng: “Here! Four!”

Zhang Mingche: “Five!”

As Lai Yudong called out “Six,” he adjusted the angle of the selfie stick, barely managing to squeeze all six of them into the tiny screen.

He brought up the original plan: “Theme song relay?”

Everyone shouted in unison: “Let’s go!”

The punishment finally returned to its intended track, and this time even Su Junzhe joined in—on the grounds that since Lai Yudong had called for a Bloody group gathering, they couldn’t possibly leave out their first-place member.

Su Junzhe emphasized “first place” with smug pride, a far cry from the calm composure he’d shown earlier when he actually learned he’d ranked first.

“Let’s have our number one lead the charge!” Bai Xuanhe egged him on.

Right then, the theme song started from the beginning. Su Junzhe stepped forward without hesitation, and Lai Yudong, holding the GoPro, immediately shifted the camera to focus solely on him, carefully keeping himself—the cameraman—out of the shot.

Though Su Junzhe’s performance wasn’t as polished or serious as on the MV stage, his easy, playful energy gave off a joyful sense of enjoying the music, making viewers smile without even realizing it.

After finishing the opening segment, he skipped cheerfully to the side, waving as he stepped out of frame.

Bai Xuanhe immediately followed, jumping in to pick up the next part of the dance.

When it came to the fourth dancer, Jin Xiheng, he finished his part and then volunteered to take the selfie stick, letting Lai Yudong quickly line up behind Zhang Mingche.

After Zhang Mingche finished, Lai Yudong stepped forward.

Though it had been a long time since he last practiced the theme song, it didn’t affect his performance at all. As the very first dance he had formally learned, the theme song for him was like the English word “abandon”—once memorized, never forgotten.

[Yuki makes a shining entrance!]

[Praise our angel Yuzu!]

[Angel? Today he’s a baby vampire!]

The atmosphere hit its peak. The Bloody group no longer cared about location or about other people’s stares. They sang loudly while bouncing around like cheerleaders on the sidelines.

It just so happened to be the chorus part.

“To the stars! To the stars! Never back down, charge with all your might to the peak!”

Judging by volume alone, there was no way to tell they’d ever back down.

Lai Yudong crossed his fists, then spread his fingers open—the movements were ones he knew by heart.

Just then, the door to dorm 707 suddenly swung open. Li Xu walked out, his face full of confusion.

Keeping close to the wall, he gave his roommate—who looked like he’d gone completely insane—a once-over, then shook his head and walked off.

The very next second, the Bloody group belted out the final line of the chorus with fiery conviction:

“I’m your only star!!”

Lai Yudong: “…”

Help. The delayed embarrassment just hit.

[Why did Yuzu suddenly crouch down holding his head?]

[Stomachache?]

[Was it because his roommate caught him? Hahahaha.]

[Li Xu: disgusted.jpg]

[Thin-skinned red-hearted Yuzu, come let mama give you a kiss~]

When the music ended, Jin Xiheng held up the GoPro, squatted beside Lai Yudong, and whispered, “Didn’t the two of us… miss a round?”

Lai Yudong, looking utterly done with life, covered his face.

“No.”

Jin Xiheng hesitated.

“Uh, but we only did the relay…”

Lai Yudong cut him off, firm and decisive.

“No. We. Did. Not.”

Jin Xiheng: “……”

“…Right, my bad. I must’ve remembered wrong.”

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