Chapter 22.2: Theme Song (9)
In the blink of an eye, it was already two in the afternoon—the official start of the theme song evaluation.
All the trainees recorded their assessment videos within their respective classes based on their current ranks. The videos would then be submitted to the mentors for re-evaluation, and the final results would be announced tomorrow.
Before entering the F-class practice room, Lai Yudong happened to spot Liang Zhisheng and Zhou Rui standing in line with the adjacent group. He softly called their names, then gave a smiling gesture of encouragement.
“You got this,” he mouthed.
[“Socially anxious boy bravely takes the first step.”]
[Crying, Yuzu baby made a new friend ]
[Proactive Yuki! Let’s go!]
Lai Yudong: “…”
That’s his real personality, okay!?
Upon entering the F-class practice room, all the trainees sat in three rows along the wall. At the very center sat an action camera surrounded by other equipment, indicating that they would soon be recording their evaluation videos one by one, under the full scrutiny of everyone present.
Lai Yudong felt a stifling pressure creeping in—not just from the nervousness of being evaluated, but even more so from the atmosphere in the room.
One glance across the space revealed everyone wearing tense expressions. The more composed ones were quietly reviewing choreography with subtle hand movements, while others sat frozen like statues, unmoving. Some fidgeted restlessly, scanning the room to observe how others were doing for a shred of reassurance. A few even whispered to their neighbors, asking which moves matched certain lines of the lyrics.
It was hard not to wonder if some of them hadn’t even learned the theme song properly.
[So many people in F-class… This is gonna take hours to film.]
[A class wrapped it up in 30 minutes lol]
[The sooner you go, the sooner you’re free. The later you wait, the more you suffer.]
Lai Yudong thought the same.
A quick estimate told him F-class would take around three hours to finish recording. Waiting too long would only numb the body and mind. The strong performances before you would pile on pressure, while mistakes would sow doubt about your own chances of slipping up.
Once everything was ready, someone from the production team asked, “Who wants to go first?”
“……”
Silence.
Lai Yudong lowered his head. Wanting to finish early didn’t mean volunteering to go first.
The deadlock lasted a few seconds—until someone in the crowd raised a hand.
“I’ll go.”
Pei Lan, a former model, stood up from the last row. He walked toward the camera at the center with unhurried confidence, his height—visually close to 1.9 meters—towering like a tree and casting a shadow over those beside him.
Lai Yudong’s first impression of this person was… complicated.
It wasn’t that Pei Lan had done anything controversial, but his fashionable aura reminded Lai Yudong of those ultra-cool, 3D-rendered characters from dance arcade games—so much so that just a single glance filled him with a sense of awe.
Whenever Pei Lan danced, Lai Yudong instinctively wanted to follow along.
Setting personal bias aside, Pei Lan was one of the few F-class trainees who was regularly praised during class. He had strong intuition, often correcting the instructors’ feedback immediately and getting it right in just one go—a true natural talent.
Even Lai Yudong couldn’t manage that. His strengths lay in memory retention, but his limbs didn’t always obey his brain. It often took multiple—or even dozens—of repetitions to fully grasp a move. The upside was that he didn’t need to waste time on rote memorization.
Pei Lan pressed the record button on the camera. Once the red light began to blink, he took his position in front of the lens.
A few seconds later, the music started. Instantly, countless eyes turned to watch him. Everyone wanted to see how the first performer would do.
At first, Pei Lan’s performance was just as impressive as expected. He had corrected the issue the dance instructor pointed out—his formerly stiff and restrained movements were now executed with full range and precision. His motions were smooth and clean. Though his vocals weren’t the most stable, they were steady enough, and he didn’t sound out of breath. It was hard to believe he’d only been training for three months.
But starting from the dance break, his energy visibly dropped. The force behind his moves weakened, and his singing began to waver. By the final section, the sound of his heavy breathing was clearly audible.
Pei Lan wasn’t the only one whose performance began to falter—the same happened to many others who came after. But at least he danced the entire routine from start to finish. Some others ended up singing only bits and pieces in the latter half… or gave up singing entirely and just danced.
The reason was simple: one, overexerting in the early stages led to exhaustion; two, a lack of stamina made it impossible to sustain a full song.
[Kind of boring… F-class hasn’t had any highlights so far.]
[How is this not exciting? My ears are bleeding.]
[I don’t think that’s the kind of highlight they were hoping for, LOL.]
[OH OH OH! Yuzu’s up next!!]
[Finally—a real highlight!]
[A highlight in the most literal sense, lmao www]
The hyped-up comments floated above the camera like an invisible five-fingered mountain pressing down on Lai Yudong’s back. He took a deep breath and asked the system to turn the comments off.
Sorry, but he hadn’t yet recovered from the trauma of the last surprise evaluation.
Until he had enough confidence in his strength to stay unaffected, he had to eliminate all sources of distraction.
With his head bowed, Lai Yudong froze in the ready position. His pounding heartbeat drowned out the surrounding noise; everything else, like the scrolling comments, faded into silence. It was as if he were the only person left in the practice room.
When the music began, the beat lined up perfectly with the rhythm of his heart. He suddenly lifted his head, eyes glancing upward, and curved his lips into a faint smile—then came the shoulder shimmy he had practiced countless times, his hair swaying with the movement.
His precise timing was like a completely different person from the mid-class quiz.
That simple upward head tilt—something as basic as could be—had been corrected by Su Junzhe no less than twenty times. And that shoulder shake? He’d done it so much he nearly dislocated his shoulder, and only stopped when they were forced to move on due to time constraints.
After completing the intro sequence, Lai Yudong silently counted three beats in his head and began singing the first line:
“In the darkness, I hear your call…”
Even though he had practiced for three days straight, from morning to night, he still didn’t feel confident about the re-evaluation. It wasn’t like he hadn’t watched himself in the mirror—he knew exactly where he stood, and exactly how much ability he did (or didn’t) have.
To complete the performance smoothly and without any major mistakes—that was his only requirement. It was also his only realistic shot at moving up a class.
“…I’m your only star.”
He finished the chorus without a hitch, and the dance break followed immediately. Most people began to falter at this point due to fatigue, but Lai Yudong had decent stamina and breath control—his strongest suit—so he wasn’t affected much and managed to maintain a consistent level throughout.
A consistent level didn’t mean a high level.
Lai Yudong dropped to one knee. After a somewhat rushed sequence of hand movements, he switched legs, spun, and hastily got back to his feet to dive into the next eight-count.
Even he could feel it—it didn’t look like he was dancing. It looked like he was racing against time. The downside of being nervous was that it amplified his weakness with rhythm.
Still, compared to the triple-disaster of his in-class test, this was a huge improvement. But he knew he still had a long way to go.
The four-minute theme song felt as long as four centuries.
Striking the final pose right as the music ended, Lai Yudong held his trembling hands in check, gave a small bow to the camera, then scrambled to press the stop button and rushed back to sit among the others.
—It’s finally over…
Through the fabric of his shirt, Lai Yudong pressed a hand to his chest. His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might burst free and leap into his palm.
He had gone out of his way to control his facial expression during the entire performance, terrified that even the slightest trace of doubt might leave a bad impression on the mentors. Now that it was over, he could finally let go. He kept taking deep breaths, trying to bring himself back down.
“Yuki!” Liu Qichu gave a big thumbs-up from a few seats away and wiggled it encouragingly. “You’ve improved so much! You’re definitely getting promoted!”
“Thanks.” Lai Yudong turned his head and smiled. “Good luck later.”
The polite encouragement was met with a dramatic sigh: “I’m beyond saving. Born in F, die in F.”
“As long as you gave it your all, that’s enough.”
Liu Qichu looked even more distressed. “It’s hard to admit I tried when I’m standing next to you.”
“But I saw it.”
For once, Liu Qichu was speechless. He stared at the soft-spoken, pale blond boy who had kindly tried to comfort him, as if something were stuck in his throat. Then, awkwardly changing the subject, he said, “I’ll go next. I ate too much earlier and kept getting sleepy—perfect time for a little post-meal workout.”
Lai Yudong saw how discouraged he looked and suddenly remembered Liu Qichu once saying he wasn’t cut out for dancing—no matter how much he practiced, it was always twice the effort for half the result.
With a silent sigh, Lai Yudong chose not to continue the disheartening conversation.
…
The next morning, the trainees gathered again in their respective classes. Each class had a mentor or the show’s initiator present to announce the results of the re-evaluation. For F-class, it was none other than sharp-tongued mentor Li Ke.
[Why am I nervous all of a sudden?]
[Pei Lan and Yuzu have to get promoted T_T]
[I wonder if anyone got bumped straight from F to A?]
[Unlikely. A class has a cap—otherwise there’d be a chance.]
[I’m actually more curious if anyone dropped from A to F.]
Lai Yudong sat quietly in a corner, holding his unsealed evaluation notice, dazedly watching the bullet comments floating across the air. He hadn’t reopened the comments after his performance yesterday, but when he woke up this morning, the system had forcefully turned them back on.
You could only disable them once per day. The next day, they’d automatically reactivate—a condition the system hadn’t quite finished explaining last time.
Not surprising, honestly.
“Twelve trainees from F-class will be moving up,” Li Ke announced, holding a list in hand. He then repeated the rule that had every trainee’s nerves stretched taut. “If you’re still rated F this round, you won’t qualify for the theme song stage.”
—Twelve?
Faces of the trainees who might get promoted flashed through Lai Yudong’s mind. He counted on his fingers—conveniently, the number came out to twelve.
But… he hadn’t counted himself among them.
Even if he ended up remaining in F class, Lai Yudong wouldn’t be heartbroken over it. A three-day crash course had always been an empty promise, a near-impossible gamble. It’d be great if he made it—but if not, so be it. He wasn’t someone who let failure negate the value of his effort.
What he did care about, though, was screen time!
Even if he only got one second, he didn’t want to let that go. For all he knew, one second could be enough to shake up his entire ranking.
“Those whose names are called, bring your evaluation notice to the front,” Li Ke said, glancing at the list. Without leaving time for suspense, he started calling names. “Zeng Kai.”
The central figure of the stairwell incident stood up, exhaled deeply, and walked forward to hand in his notice.
Li Ke stamped the official grading seal and returned the document to him.
[Wait, no close-up!?]
[Seriously? We waited a whole day and they’re teasing us now?]
[Zeng Kai should’ve made it up, right?]
[Would be more exciting if they announced the whole class move at once.]
Lai Yudong tilted slightly to the side, but from his angle, he couldn’t see anything—only Zeng Kai’s back as he folded his notice.
“Huang Yeru.”
“Wang Yiwen.”
“Luo Feiran.”
…
Trainees were called up one after another. Some were overjoyed, others visibly crushed. Those who got a good rating looked like they could run laps around the practice room waving their notices in triumph; those who didn’t returned to their seats under a cloud of gloom.
From his corner, Lai Yudong hugged his knees and quietly observed each trainee who got called. Based on their expressions and whispered conversations after sitting back down, he guessed that eight or nine of them had been promoted.
But a few were harder to read—too calm to judge either way—so the actual number could be higher.
“Pei Lan.”
There it was—another spot gone. That one was a sure bet. Pei Lan was definitely one of the twelve.
As more names were called, Lai Yudong grew increasingly anxious. The list he’d estimated was nearly full. If just one more trainee—someone who looked like they’d been promoted—got called, he wouldn’t even need to hear the rest to know he was out of the running.
Sure, he’d analyzed everything like a seasoned strategist, but truthfully—how could someone who had worked this hard not secretly hope for a miracle?
Just then, he felt a gaze land on him.
He looked up—and locked eyes with Mentor Li Ke.
His breath caught in his throat.
The calm heartbeat he’d managed to maintain during the long wait suddenly surged, like a match struck in winter. The flickering flame outlined a scene as delicate and dreamlike as a mirage—he had to get closer to know whether it would hold or shatter at the slightest touch.
“Miura Yuki.”
It was his turn.
WOHOOO YAYAY