Trainee Ch.11

Chapter 11: Dorm Assignment (1)

The sharp-tongued one who fired back was named Li Xu, a trainee from Class B and the group’s designated rapper—one of the few trainees Lai Yudong could currently match a name to a face.

There wasn’t any particular reason Li Xu had left a strong impression, other than his bold red hair, which made him especially eye-catching in a crowd. Now, with his brutally sarcastic comment, it was almost impossible not to notice him.

Unfortunately, that moment wasn’t captured on camera. Otherwise, this hot-tempered guy would’ve definitely gained some popularity points.

An awkward silence lingered for a few seconds.

Soon enough, everyone resumed chatting and laughing like nothing had happened, as if that biting remark had been a shared hallucination.

Lai Yudong followed the staff out to the bus waiting outside the filming site. Just before boarding, he noticed Zhao Yifeng by the other two buses waving to some fans in the distance. He immediately caught on and quickly smiled and waved in the same direction to say goodbye.

That was close—he had almost missed it just because he was too sleepy.

Basic manners mustn’t be forgotten.

Lai Yudong was among the last to get on the bus, and most of the seats were already filled. He picked an empty spot in the back, which happened to be next to Li Xu.

Just as he was hesitating over how to politely and succinctly ask if the seat was taken, the red-haired boy glanced up at him and said coolly, “Sit down. Why are you just standing there like an idiot?”

Lai Yudong sat down right away. He turned slightly, planning to introduce himself in a friendly way, but the other boy leaned back and closed his eyes, clearly not in the mood to chat.

With a helpless smile, Lai Yudong gave up and shifted his gaze forward.

The time display on the bus showed 4:40 a.m.

No wonder he felt so tired. Give it a bit longer, and the sun would be up.

On the bus ride back to the dorms, most people were so exhausted they could barely stay upright. The few who were still energetic seemed to realize this and considerately kept quiet. The bus was so silent that the only sound was the gentle hum of the engine.

Lai Yudong, finally able to let go of his flawless posture, collapsed into his seat like he had no bones. The warm air conditioning was set to just the right temperature, gradually thawing out his chilled body.

He stared blankly at the seat in front of him. The view before his eyes blurred, like ink bleeding across paper—like a hazy filter had been applied to reality, gently urging him to close his eyes.

But the bus kept swaying, making Lai Yudong dizzy. Every time he started to drift off, a turn or a bump would rudely jolt him awake. He had no idea how long this miserable cycle lasted, until someone gave him a rough shake.

“Hey, stop sleeping.”

A head of vivid red hair came into view. Lai Yudong rubbed his eyes. Even before the blurry outline in his vision had sharpened into a clear face, he already knew who it was from that distinctive trait.

“Thanks, Li Xu.”

“Huh? You actually remember my name?” Li Xu raised an eyebrow and gave himself a quick once-over. Realizing something, he let out an “ah” of understanding. “Right, I forgot—we’ve got name tags on our clothes.”

“I—”

Li Xu waved him off, completely unbothered. “Yeah yeah, whatever. You planning to spend the night on the bus or what? Move it, let me out.”

Yep, definitely the impatient type.

Lai Yudong sighed inwardly at the thought, then obediently followed the others off the bus.

The program team had sent everyone’s luggage ahead of time to the dorm building for pickup. Lai Yudong slipped nervously into the crowd, and to his surprise, actually managed to find a suitcase labeled “Miura Yuki.”

He let out a deep sigh of relief. Thank goodness the system hadn’t screwed him over—otherwise, wouldn’t he have looked like the one sad kid on a school field trip who only brought a backpack and forgot to pack snacks?

Lai Yudong lifted his suitcase slightly to gauge its weight. The unexpectedly light feel made him pause for a moment, then he quickly set it back down, pretending nothing was wrong—his lousy acting had never been more obvious.

…Hopefully, it wasn’t empty.

Given how shameless that damned system could be, it honestly wouldn’t be surprising.

After claiming their luggage, everyone headed into the first-floor lobby of the trainee dorms. The group that had just been sluggish and half-asleep on the bus suddenly burst into noisy chatter. The living arrangements were a big deal—curiosity and anticipation stirred them into motion as they rushed to check it out.

Of course, it wasn’t just the dorm assignments waking everyone up. The real reason was: the cameras were rolling again.

[First stream!]

[Got a live alert and nearly jumped]

[Unless my phone’s broken, it’s literally 4:52 a.m.]

[I give up, I’ll just wait for the replay…]

[? Took a nap and woke up, and they’re STILL filming]

Lai Yudong jolted at the sight of the barrage of comments once more flooding the screen.

“Quiet, quiet—everyone listen up.”

A staff member stood in the middle of the lobby, holding up a small loudspeaker to keep order. “Please gather here again at 11 a.m. today. The details and rules for the theme song evaluation will be announced then.”

As soon as the bomb dropped, the trainees let out a collective groan—

“We don’t even get a day to rest? It starts today?”

“If we’re working this hard on the first day, I’m gonna die by the end!”

“How are we supposed to get up for that?!”

“Eleven o’clock? In the morning??”

Liu Qichu had somehow popped up beside Lai Yudong. He raised his watch and looked devastated.

“It’s already almost five!”

In stark contrast stood Su Junzhe, who had coincidentally sat next to them on the bus. The curly-haired boy in a beret let out a lazy yawn.

“Not bad, we still get six hours of sleep.”

“What six hours? After the dorm assignments, we still have to remove makeup and shower—by the time we hit the bed, it’ll be six! The sun’ll be up!”

“Five hours is still quite a bit though.”

Liu Qichu stared at him, wide-eyed. “Quite a bit!?”

Lai Yudong stayed silent, but inwardly, he strongly agreed with Su Junzhe. As a broadcasting student who had to get up early for vocal warm-ups and often pulled all-nighters writing scripts and pitches, five hours of sleep might not be luxurious, but it was enough to get through the day without crashing.

Come to think of it—

He probably wouldn’t be able to do his usual morning vocal training anymore.

…Right.

What about his academic coursework?

He’d worked so hard to get into university. He couldn’t just throw away his education over something this absurd, could he!?

Lai Yudong: [Is time in the real world passing at the same rate? I’m not going to get marked absent or held back, am I?]

System: [Please don’t worry, Host. A humane and considerate solution will absolutely be provided. All you need to do is focus wholeheartedly on your tasks.]

Lai Yudong: [You’d better actually understand what ‘humane’ means.]

Just then, a gloved hand covered in bunny-ear knit fabric was raised high in the crowd. Jiang Yangfan smiled with his eyes curved gently, voice as soft and pleasant as spring breeze brushing against one’s cheek.

“Excuse me, will we need to do hair and makeup again before the next gathering?”

The staff replied in an official tone: “The production team won’t be providing that separately.”

“Got it. Thank you.”

[Bunny ears! So cute!]

[Can’t believe Jiang Yangfan’s private style is actually the cutesy type, LOL]

[I thought he was the gentle, boy-next-door type]

[I fully support gentle boy-next-door types wearing bunny-ear gloves!]

“One through three are common areas. From the fourth floor up are the dorms,” a staff member explained. “Rooms come in doubles, quads, six-person, and ten-person types. Dorms will be selected in the order of Class A, B, C, and F—first come, first served.”

He then stepped aside and gestured toward the elevator. “We’ll begin assigning dorms now. Class A, you’re up first. Don’t forget to stick your name tags on your door.”

Under the envious stares of everyone else, Class A trainees took the lead, dragging their suitcases toward the elevators.

Lai Yudong’s first choice was a four-person room, second was a six-person room.

Double rooms were too intimate—too easy to slip up and reveal something. Ten-person rooms meant too many people, too much exposure, and way more potential for conflicts. With that many roommates, differences in lifestyle, messiness, snoring—any of those could be a nightmare.

So going for something in the middle was the safest bet.

Even though he was in the last group, Class F had a large number of trainees. With so many beds left, he was sure he could still snag a decent one.

Once the first three classes had chosen their rooms, a staff member announced, “Class F, you may go in now.”

Lai Yudong immediately grabbed his suitcase and darted off at full speed, charging to the front of the group.

[Who just sprinted past?? They were so fast I couldn’t see clearly]

[Miura Yuki?]

[Judging by the hair color, yeah, it’s him.]

[Wait, he’s got this kind of energetic personality? I thought he was supposed to be the cool type?]

Lai Yudong quickly scanned the name tags on each door—either the four-person rooms were already full, or only six- and ten-person rooms were left. He wasn’t ready to settle just yet, so he politely declined a few invitations with a smile.

He moved floor by floor, filtering as he went. Eventually, he gave up on waiting for the elevator altogether and started hauling his suitcase up the stairs.

At the very top floor of the dorm area—the 7th floor—there were noticeably more rooms that hadn’t filled up yet. Among them, two four-person rooms still had space: Room 706 and Room 707, both conveniently missing just one person to reach full capacity.

Lai Yudong came to a stop.

He intended to analyze the situation based on the current occupants and pick the room that suited him best. His top priority was finding quiet, introverted roommates. Outgoing personalities weren’t really compatible with the persona he was trying to maintain.

Take Liu Qichu, for example—as enthusiastic and kind as the guy was, he just talked way too much. That was a lot for a so-called “overseas trainee” with supposed language barriers to handle.

Speak of the devil.

Before Lai Yudong could even read the nameplates, a black-haired head suddenly popped out of Room 706—it was none other than the very person he’d just been thinking about: Liu Qichu.

“Yuki!”

Seeing his new friend standing outside, Liu Qichu lit up instantly. His round, puppy-like eyes sparkled with joy.

“You haven’t picked a room yet? Just come join ours! My roommates are super skilled—they even said they’d teach me to dance!”

—Super skilled?

Lai Yudong’s pale golden eyes shifted toward the door of Room 706. Aside from Liu Qichu’s slightly crooked name tag, the other two names were Jin Xiheng and Su Junzhe.

Jin Xiheng was known as the best dancer among the trainees. Liu Qichu had mentioned during the initial stage evaluations that he was actually friends with him—he’d even been taught by him before.

As for Su Junzhe, Lai Yudong had missed his first-stage performance, so he wasn’t sure of his background. He only knew that Liu Qichu had just met him on the bus.

Still, it was impressive how fast Liu Qichu could form connections—already close enough to get dance lessons in that short amount of time.

“If you join us, we’ll have a double A and double F setup!” Liu Qichu said eagerly.

Lai Yudong: “……”

Was there really any need to form such a weird combo?

“Oh? It really is Yuki! I thought I misheard just now.”

Liang Zhisheng emerged from the neighboring dorm room, holding an unopened bottle of makeup remover in one hand. With the other, he casually rested his arm on the name tag by the door, tossing out an olive branch in a half-joking tone:

“By your logic, Yuki should really join Room 707—we’re just missing an F Class to complete the set.”

Lai Yudong turned to glance at Room 707. The name tags stuck on the door, from top to bottom, read Xu An, Li Xu, and Liang Zhisheng—all familiar faces he had a strong impression of.

Just as Liang Zhisheng said, Room 707 already had members from Classes A, B, and C. All they needed was someone from Class F.

Which brought him to an important question:

Was he supposed to pick the Candy Crush-type of obsessive symmetry, or the Spider Solitaire-type of obsessive symmetry?

“Yuki, come to 706! We’ve got two top-level A Class dancers!”

Liu Qichu continued his enthusiastic recruitment pitch—while finally revealing Su Junzhe’s role to the previously absent Lai Yudong.

Liang Zhisheng casually unscrewed the makeup remover bottle and added,

“707’s lineup is more balanced—Xu An is A Class’s top vocal, Li Xu covers rap, I can do some dancing. If you join us, you’d be… hmm… the visual?”

“Come on, join us!” Liu Qichu chimed in again.

“So?” Liang Zhisheng tilted his head. “Which side are you picking?”

“……”

Sandwiched between the two of them, Lai Yudong looked left, then right, utterly confused as to how things had escalated to this point.

Logically speaking, the ones being fought over should be the strong, popular, or well-liked types—

Why was he, a silent trainee with zero singing or dancing ability, the one caught in this tug-of-war?

Had he… done anything to deserve this kind of attention?

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