Chapter 77: The Third Performance (13)
Maybe because the practice short film emphasized the behind-the-scenes story, the Brownie group, which everyone thought would flop, turned out better than expected.
Among them, the C-position Su Junzhe and the main vocalist Qin Xu contributed the most.
Su Junzhe handles the “cute” style with ease, and his stage presence was as steady as ever. If anything, this little sweet song of low difficulty somewhat buried the true capability of a top dance ace.
As for Qin Xu, a Chinese-Thai mixed-blood overseas contestant, his Chinese still needs improvement. But in this song, his accent actually became an advantage—like a Taiwanese or Cantonese-inflected Mandarin, which naturally carried a sweet feeling.
The others weren’t worth much commentary. Especially two of the slackers—if nothing went wrong, it was already something to burn incense over.
Then came the voting appeal segment, starting with the C-position.
Su Junzhe smiled, returning to the familiar image everyone knew. There was no trace of how certain teammates had driven him to the brink during practice.
“I’m very happy to perform the song chosen for me by the Starseekers. Without your support, I wouldn’t be standing here today. Our group’s average ranking isn’t very high, so we really cherish this opportunity. Many people are treating this as their last stage. I hope you’ll vote for our group. Thank you!”
[That kid really has a talent for talking nonsense with a straight face]
[If I hadn’t watched the practice short film, I might’ve believed him]
[Su Junzhe is very classy]
[No no no, Xiao Su said ‘many people,’ not ‘everyone.’ A sneaky little jab, hahaha]
[At least he didn’t pull a Yuzu and say something like ‘transcending the stage’]
Fu Hanyu continued and called the next trainee: “Qin Xu.”
“Here.”
“As the only overseas contestant in Climbing to Stardom, your journey hasn’t been easy. Many overseas fans came today just to support you…”
Lai Yudong didn’t hear a single word after that.
He only picked up on one keyword.
—the only overseas contestant.
Lai Yudong thought doubtfully, ‘Wasn’t it supposed to be two? Did Fu Hanyu slip up?’
But no one in the barrage corrected it.
Don’t scare him.
Lai Yudong felt a bad premonition. All the confusing clues from before strung themselves together, leading to a conclusion that overturned everything he thought he knew. But deeply ingrained beliefs weren’t so easy to break.
After much consideration, he tentatively asked the system:
Lai Yudong: [How many overseas contestants are there in Stardom?]
System: [One.]
Lai Yudong: […And who is that?]
System: [Qin Xu. Host, haven’t you been watching the broadcast carefully?]
Lai Yudong: […]
It was precisely because he had been watching so carefully that he needed to ask!
If there was only one overseas contestant, then what did that make him?
An illegal immigrant who had snuck into the country just to join a talent show?
Or was it that Chinese culture was so broad and profound that the system had interpreted his question differently? Since under the skin he was pure-blooded Chinese, the system didn’t classify him as an overseas contestant?
No—he had to get this clear.
Lai Yudong: [I’m not an overseas contestant?]
System: [Host, you are not a foreigner.]
Lai Yudong: […Of course I know I’m not a foreigner. What I mean is, isn’t the identity of “Miura Yuki” considered an overseas contestant?]
System: [“Miura Yuki” is not a foreigner.]
Lai Yudong: […]
System: [“Miura Yuki” is just a foreign-sounding name.]
Lai Yudong: […]
His silence was deafening.
They were already at week eight of recording, with only a week or two left until the finals—yet now he was suddenly being told his persona had changed.
Other people’s hardships when chasing idols were about their idol’s persona collapsing. Why was it that in his case, it was his own persona collapsing?
He had carefully maintained this for over half a season. Even when he let himself go a bit in the later stages, he still kept some restraint. And now he found out he’d been performing a one-man show all along?
How was that reasonable?
At the beginning, Lai Yudong had wished so badly that the “overseas contestant” persona was fake. Now, he wished just as badly that it was real. It wasn’t that he wanted to be a foreigner—it was just that he wanted to reclaim the dignity he had worked hard to uphold for eight weeks.
Otherwise, wouldn’t he just look like a complete fool!?
He was fired up now. Time to defend his rights.
It wasn’t about the bun, it was about pride!
—or rather, he just wanted to figure out where exactly the problem had come from.
[Lai Yudong: Wasn’t it a technical error during data import?]
[System: Yes.]
[Lai Yudong: Wasn’t an identity created in a parallel world?]
[System: Yes.]
[Lai Yudong: And wasn’t it supposed to copy all my experiences except for nationality?]
[System: Not nationality, the name.]
[Lai Yudong: …The name’s already Miura Yuki! You could barely explain away calling Marx a Chinese man surnamed Ma, but Miura Yuki being a Chinese guy surnamed San? That’s impossible, right!?]
Lai Yudong was completely baffled.
Could it be that “Miura Yuki” was a mixed-blood Chinese citizen?
Or maybe “Miura Yuki” was a foreign child adopted by Chinese parents, the kind where the foreign name was already written on the cradle tag?
Both of these scenarios were logically possible.
But there was no way two Chinese people could give birth to a foreigner, right?
[System: Theoretically, your hypothesis could hold true, since there does exist the surname ‘San.’]
[Lai Yudong: …]
Don’t push him into cursing.
What kind of parent would name their kid “San Puyu” [San-Pu-Yu = Miura Yuki in Chinese characters]!?
Wouldn’t “Three Squirrels” or “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” be more plausible names at that point!!
[System: But that is not the case for your identity.]
[Lai Yudong: Please don’t pause dramatically when you talk, thank you.]
The system accepted the host’s advice and cut straight to the point, giving a concrete explanation.
[System: The data error refers to the contestant registration information for the talent show. The mistake was in the “Name” field.]
[Lai Yudong: Not the one on the ID card?]
[System: No.]
[Lai Yudong: …And you couldn’t have said that earlier!?]
[System: You didn’t raise any objections. I assumed you understood.]
[Lai Yudong: Don’t push me into going dark.]
In conclusion, the correct interpretation of “Miura Yuki” was that it was a stage name.
This wasn’t entirely Lai Yudong’s fault.
To help the host better understand the situation, the system had once given an example, saying that the parallel world had created a new account, and then copied and pasted Lai Yudong’s data into it.
The unfixable name bug had been mentioned immediately after that.
Relying on his years of experience galloping across Chinese language exams, Lai Yudong had smoothly connected the context and naturally expanded “data error” into “account data error,” with “account” corresponding to the broader meaning of an identity card.
Add to that how misleading the name was, and he had simply assumed it meant “foreigner,” never once bothering to question the system further.
Who could’ve known that his cleverness would backfire!?
This story teaches us: it’s unreliable to judge by appearance, and it’s equally unreliable to judge by name.
To prove it hadn’t deliberately misled him, the system twisted the knife further, pointing out all the details that had been ignored.
[System: Host, didn’t you notice that in every performance, only Qin Xu was given a simultaneous interpreter?]
[Lai Yudong: I was never in the same group as him.]
[System: You also weren’t given an interpreter during your individual livestreams.]
[Lai Yudong: …But Qin Xu never did livestreams. I had no basis for comparison!]
[System: On every performance poster, “Miura Yuki” is written in pinyin, not in romanized Japanese. You never noticed?]
[Lai Yudong: And where exactly am I supposed to see my own performance posters?]
[System: Li Xu privately showed you the stage cuts.]
[Lai Yudong: …How is that the same thing? What, should I just say, ‘Hey, let’s look at the posters together’ for no reason?]
[System: Then that time when you caught Li Xu using his phone, you didn’t realize there was something off about what he was looking at?]
[Lai Yudong: He only asked me if I’d mistaken this for a scam group.]
[System: Based on my understanding of humans, a normal person would never directly ask, “Are you Chinese?” But back then, when I suggested you admit to the scam group thing, you should have picked up on it.]
[Lai Yudong: …I thought too many bugs would cause the world to collapse.]
Whether or not the world was collapsing, Lai Yudong himself was about to collapse.
Turns out it wasn’t the system that had a bug—it was his brain.
Just because logic holds together doesn’t mean it’s always a good thing.
The only consolation was that he had never told an outright lie he couldn’t walk back from. Instead, he had wisely chosen to be vague or change the subject. Otherwise, with his “enterprise-level” interpretation skills, he definitely would’ve been torn apart by now.
Humans really do possess an instinct to avoid risks in critical moments.
Thank you, ancestors. Thank you, upright apes.
And while we’re at it, please bury this damn system under the Sky HQ building, thanks.
“—What’s wrong with you?”
Li Xu glanced curiously at the boy with light blond hair sitting beside him. The other suddenly swayed, as if he couldn’t sit steadily, on the verge of toppling over. Then he propped one hand against his knee and held his forehead, clearly not in good shape.
Lai Yudong let out a weak sigh. “I feel a little dizzy…”
“Dizzy!?” Li Xu immediately grew tense. “You’re not sick, are you?”
Before the other could answer, he clicked his tongue impatiently. “Tsk, I told you to give up that screwed-up schedule of yours. At least owls go out every night at a set time. But you? Sometimes a daytime schedule, sometimes a nighttime schedule—you sleep less than a guinea pig.”
“I’m not sick.” In his haze, Lai Yudong seemed to see the spirit of Liang Zhisheng. “But it’s worse than being sick.”
Li Xu frowned. “What exactly is it then?”
Lai Yudong sighed with melancholy. “I suspect I might be intellectually deficient.”
Li Xu: “…”
Li Xu: “Yeah, you’re not very smart.”
Lai Yudong: “?”
Not even going to deny it?
Since the system had mentioned Li Xu’s phone incident, Lai Yudong adjusted his mood, leaned in closer, and lowered his voice so only the two of them could hear: “You know I’m not an overseas contestant, right?”
Li Xu shot him a sideways glance. “I’m not the one with low intelligence.”
“You only found out that time too, didn’t you?” Lai Yudong exposed the truth.
Li Xu refused to admit it. “Nonsense. I knew from the start.”
“Do the others know?”
“With that many people, how would I know what they’re thinking?” Li Xu gave him an annoyed look. “Why don’t I just send out a survey and ask them for you?”
“Oh… true.”
Seeing his roommate looking so dejected, Li Xu rubbed his temples. “The sharp ones probably figured it out earlier. The slower ones stayed clueless. But there are exceptions. Take Liang Zhisheng—I thought he knew, but it turned out he had no idea the whole time. Good thing it got revealed before he left.”
He shifted his gaze away, a little awkwardly. “Don’t worry too much. A few times when I overheard people gossiping in private, I cleared things up for you. Word should’ve spread gradually among them by now.”
Lai Yudong was dumbfounded. “C–cleared things up?”
“Yeah, I told them you weren’t a foreigner.” Li Xu muttered in irritation, “Don’t know what’s so fun about gossiping. If they feel cheated, they can just change their names too. Make it Yi-Pu Yuki, Er-Pu Yuki… a hundred and one of them, everyone gets a Pu Yuki.”
Well. That certainly broadened the perspective.
Lai Yudong let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”
He was grateful that Li Xu had already contributed to his great “identity clarification” efforts. Otherwise, he’d have had to run around like a paperboy, announcing his real identity to the whole world.
Then something occurred to him. “Oh right—what about online?”
“They already dug it up ages ago. People with internet are way sharper than people without.”
True enough—Li Xu was living proof.
Lai Yudong thought to himself, so he was the only one in the entire world who didn’t know he wasn’t a foreign contestant?
The truth was always too cruel.
To lighten the mood, Lai Yudong decided to laugh through the pain:
“You didn’t happen to make me one of those giant public clarification statements, did you?”
“Clarify your head.” Li Xu finally lost his patience and shoved aside that head of his, with bangs that flipped up like peeling a tangerine. “You talk too much, and you’re annoying as hell. So irritating.”
“Sorry. I’ll continue next time.”
“?”
[What on earth are Pomelo Black Tea talking about? How can they keep it up for so long?]
[The secret-chat ratio is way too high.]
[XuYu, if you’re gonna whisper secrets, at least do it off-camera! Making us watch but not hear a thing—infuriating!]
[I’m begging you, just let us hear one sentence. Just one.]
Lai Yudong: smile.jpg
The truth that only he was kept in the dark about—well, it was just as well the audience didn’t hear it either.
**TN
San-Pu-Yu = Miura Yuki in Chinese characters] San (三) means 3. So Li Xu jokingly said others can be Yipu or Erpu… Yi means 1, and Er means 2.
Li Xu’s nickname – Li Hong (Red Li) and Black Tea (Hongcha)
