Trainee Ch.93

Chapter 93: Finals (4)

Although the “toilet chat” of ship-teasing complaints was filled with blood and tears, Lai Yudong could only wish Li Xu well. He and Xu An were powerless to help.

Their group only ever passionately debated whether it was fate or overthinking, whether it was Cupid or the Matchmaker.

The sorrows and joys of Team Aurora and Team White Rose did not intersect.

Thanks to Huayu’s guidance.

In the days that followed, aside from occasionally listening to Li Xu’s tormented rants about what he’d seen and heard, Lai Yudong spent most of his time holed up in the practice room, following a three-stage schedule.

He woke up at eleven at noon, and during the digestion time after meals, he would do a bit of personal stage practice.

From 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. was fixed group stage practice.

After breaking up for the day, he would practice again until three or four in the morning, dividing his time among personal stage, group stage, and theme song review depending on that day’s progress.

Although his schedule was more tightly packed than before, this was actually the most relaxed round.

The theme song had been chaos, like a headless fly.

The first performance — a teammate crisis.

The second performance — dance hell.

The third performance — an entirely new challenge.

This time, it felt like going from hell-level difficulty back to normal difficulty.

Even so, “most relaxed” didn’t mean there were no hardships. This time, the torment came from the personal stage.

“Lose Heart” was just too hard to sing.

Ever since downloading the song onto his MP3, Lai Yudong had listened to it countless times. Building on that, combined with meticulous practice these past few days, he had overcome most of the difficult parts.

Pronunciation, rhythm, tempo — those oft-repeated fundamentals — were things he was already more than familiar with.

But as Xu An had said, vocal range was indeed his weak point.

Most of the songs Xu An wrote belonged to the type that sounded good but were hard to sing. This one was no exception. That was why he held a bunch of niche tracks—aside from popularity issues that allowed bad money to drive out the good, another reason was that the difficulty kept them from being widely sung.

Lai Yudong’s natural condition was more suited to singing in the mid-to-low range. Broadcast hosting didn’t require a wide vocal span, so the high notes in “Lose Heart” felt to him like standing on the ground, looking up at a UFO flying overhead.

The whole song had two nightmare high notes: one he sometimes managed, sometimes cracked—completely up to fate; the other was guaranteed to crack every time.

He felt like he was working a bellows.

Luckily, the dedicated practice room didn’t have a livestream camera, otherwise he’d have to turn off the barrage comments just to ensure practice quality.

“If you keep cracking like that, you’ll have to switch songs,” Li Xu said, absently twirling a pen. He’d gone half-mad writing rap lyrics and slipped out to clear his head by dropping in on practice.

As the rap line, the advice he could give was meager: “Xu An said before, the key to hitting high notes is breath support and vocal cord closure. Why don’t you try practicing that?”

“I know.” Lai Yudong put down the lyric sheet, his eyes vacant. “But do you know what my major was?”

“What?” Li Xu hadn’t seen this trivia while surfing online. “Crawfish major? E-sports major? Don’t tell me it was postpartum sow care?”

“…There are majors like that?”

“Of course. Don’t believe me, go look it up.”

Lai Yudong had to admit his own knowledge was limited.

“I studied broadcast hosting.”

Li Xu laughed boldly: “No wonder when you first rapped, it sounded like a poetry recital.”

“Yes, thank you, Brother Xu, for saving me from dire straits.”

Seeing the other about to explode, Lai Yudong quickly pulled the topic back: “Breath support and vocal cord closure in vocal training—what a coincidence, it’s actually something in common with broadcast hosting.”

“So the reason you can’t hit the notes is purely because you’re beyond saving?”

“More or less, though the way you put it sounds a bit cruel.”

“I’ve been sitting here listening to you crack notes for half the day—that’s crueler to my ears,” Li Xu retorted. “The first high note you can probably manage if you push hard enough. The second one’s hopeless, but maybe falsetto could carry you through.”

Lai Yudong pondered aloud: “I can do falsetto, but how do I carry it through?”

Li Xu gave him a sidelong look: “Do I look like someone who’d know that?”

Lai Yudong froze: “I thought you came to help me.”

“You don’t rap—what exactly can I help you with?” Li Xu shoved the pen he’d been fiddling with into its cap. “Tell you what, I’ll go call Xu An over and let him diagnose you.”

“Wouldn’t that bother him too much? He might still be practicing dance,” Lai Yudong hesitated. “Actually, I was planning to go to Teacher Jiang.”

Unlike the group stage, which only got inspected once, the personal stages each had a dedicated professional instructor by category. Trainees could go ask for guidance every day, but only during fixed office hours, and only in one-on-one sessions.

His plan was to first practice the whole song until he was fully familiar with it, then sum up all the issues, and finally go to the vocal teacher in one shot to solve them.

“Nah, he’d be more than happy. He’s probably muttering to himself every day, ‘Why hasn’t Yuki come to me yet? Isn’t he supposed to sing my song?’” Li Xu had a sharp read on idols’ psychology. “Besides, the vocal line has so many people—by the time it’s your turn, you’ll barely get any teaching time. And Xu An will definitely sing it better anyway.”

Lai Yudong thought it over. “What you’re saying makes sense.”

Li Xu instantly felt in high spirits. “Right? I’ll go call him over.”

“I’ll go.”

“You just sit here.” Li Xu shoved Lai Yudong back down into his seat. “I’ll call him and head right back. It’s on the way.”

“Then I’ll trouble you.” Lai Yudong sighed helplessly.

It was rare to see Li Xu so enthusiastic about volunteering for something—might as well let him.

Not long after, the vocal teacher Li Xu had personally appointed pushed open the practice room door.

Strands of black hair stuck up in messy angles, lacking the smoothness a neat fringe should have. The collar of his shirt was wrinkled, clear evidence he had only just escaped the clutches of dance practice.

Half his body hidden behind the door, Xu An cautiously poked his head out. “Yuki, Li Xu said you desperately need me to come teach you personally. Is that true?”

Lai Yudong: “…”

He hadn’t said a single word.

But faced with his roommate’s eyes—expectant, tinged with unease—Lai Yudong couldn’t possibly be heartless enough to expose Li Xu’s exaggeration.

Besides, he really did need Xu An’s help.

So, Lai Yudong gave a warm smile. “Of course it’s true. I really need your help. But it might take up some of your time—will it affect your dance practice?”

“No problem.” Xu An stepped fully into the room. “Today’s practice is already finished. Jin Xiheng said at our current pace, we’ll be ready before the evaluation class. The next few days are just for reinforcement.”

He came closer and sat down. “So, what’s the issue?”

“Cracking.” Lai Yudong pointed it out on the lyric sheet. “Here—when I sing this word, it sometimes cracks. And here—this explosive high note, I can’t hit it at all. Not once. It cracks every time.”

“Just as I imagined,” Xu An unconsciously twisted the knife. “Sing it for me first.”

“Okay.”

Maybe it was nerves from showing off his clumsy skills before an expert, but Lai Yudong unfortunately cracked on both high notes, his voice splitting in the air like doing the splits.

Surprisingly, he didn’t feel too ashamed. Maybe because he’d sung versions far worse before—at least this time you could tell what song it was.

Lai Yudong used the lyric sheet to cover the lower half of his face. “Am I salvageable?”

“The first one definitely is,” Xu An answered honestly.

The unspoken implication was clear.

Even though he had already guessed the outcome, Lai Yudong couldn’t help but feel dejected. Still, clinging to the mindset of saving whatever could be saved, he humbly seized the last straw: “Why is that one note so easy to crack?”

“Wrong vocal placement—you’re squeezing your throat.”

“But I wasn’t even singing with my throat, was I?”

“Transitioning from chest voice to head voice.” Xu An worried that a beginner might not understand the technical terms, so he started to explain, “Head voice is—”

“I know.” Lai Yudong cut him off in time. No need to waste time explaining a field he already understood.

“That’s great, then I’ll teach you how to use your head voice.”

“I already know.”

“…Then why don’t you try again?”

With Xu An’s guidance, Lai Yudong repeated that line several times. At first he struggled with the transition point, but soon grew more accustomed to it. After a few tries in a row, not a single crack.

With one hurdle cleared, it was time for the next.

Lai Yudong mentioned what he’d heard earlier: “Li Xu said I could probably use falsetto to get through it, but I don’t know how.”

“Falsetto is indeed higher than chest voice, but maybe… why don’t you try singing it in falsetto first?”

“Alright.”

What followed confirmed the rest of Xu An’s unspoken thought.

Falsetto didn’t make it easier for Lai Yudong to hit the high notes. Its breathy, weak quality made it hard for him to control pitch at the start, and that final explosive note still followed the same old path—cracking apart.

“Looks like I’m beyond saving.” Lai Yudong hung his head. “Should I just lower the key? Stop forcing my range.”

“I think there’s still hope. That last high note—you did reach it. But because the falsetto was too airy, you couldn’t support it upward, so it still cracked.” Xu An thought for a moment. “If you strengthen the closure, it won’t be airy anymore. But pharyngeal voice is a bit hard to learn.”

“I can do pharyngeal voice.”

Lai Yudong tried producing it. As a pure pharyngeal sound without combining it into song, it was grating to the ear—like the long-nosed witch from a fairy tale speaking.

He asked, “Like this?”

Xu An froze for a second. “Yes… Your vocal production and breath control are very solid. You even know how to use some of the trickier techniques. But it seems like you don’t apply them to singing. Are you a broadcasting major?”

Lai Yudong nodded. “That’s right.”

As expected of a professional singer—one guess and he nailed it. Unlike a certain someone who had asked if he was a crawfish major.

“That makes things a lot easier. I’ll teach you how to combine the two.”

Since it’s not easy to keep pitch steady while singing with pharyngeal voice, Xu An brought Lai Yudong to the practice room with a piano for scale exercises. From low notes they gradually moved upward, then incorporated pharyngeal voice into the song.

The structured practice showed early results. Several times, Lai Yudong almost made it through—like going from an airball in basketball to at least hitting the rim.

“That’s enough for today.” Xu An lifted his hands off the keys. “Keep practicing the same way over the next few days. If you can’t find the right pitch while using pharyngeal voice, you can come to me like today and I’ll play the notes for you on the piano.”

He made a special reminder: “Vocal training isn’t the same as dance. You shouldn’t practice singing and vocal exercises for more than two hours, or it’ll damage your voice. Since you studied broadcasting, you should understand this.”

“I know.”

Lai Yudong was well aware of the importance of using his voice scientifically. Since this was his real body that had crossed over, he had to take extra care of his throat—he couldn’t risk ruining his future career just for a stint on a talent show.

That was why, whenever he practiced all night, he only drilled dance. He never stayed up until three or four in the morning belting out songs.

Besides, his lines in the group performance barely amounted to a few lyrics, so there was no need to practice vocals into the dead of night anyway.

When vocal training ended, the rest of his time was reserved for the group stage and the theme song. Xu An also had his own stage to prepare for, so he didn’t linger.

Before leaving, Lai Yudong spread his arms and hugged Xu An. Thanks to him, his progress had leapt forward: “Thank you for being willing to practice with me for so long. I’ll definitely give my all to perform this song.”

“No need to thank me. Just the fact that you’re willing to sing it already makes me really happy.” Xu An gave a shy smile. “This was the last song I wrote before deciding to sign up for Stardom. It was right after I released it that I met the turning point of my life. And it’s also the first time someone has chosen to perform one of my new songs on this show. So I believe this song holds both luck and energy.”

He gently returned the hug. “I hope your life, too, will enter a more brilliant stage from here.”

It was the first time Lai Yudong realized how much the song meant to him. “Then what are you singing in the finals?”

“A new, unreleased song. I wrote it right before recording the show,” Xu An said softly. “It doesn’t matter what I sing.”

The cryptic murmur left Lai Yudong in silence.

He silently tightened his embrace, many words left unsaid, able only to pour all he could into offering comfort:

“It doesn’t matter what you sing, because the one standing on that stage is you. Whatever song you sing will sound beautiful—not for any other reason.”

“…Mm, I understand.” Xu An pressed his lips together. “Thank you—for every time.”

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