Initial Evaluation

Leaving aside the dip in the lineup, the other four members of the group were fairly similar in height, all tall at around 1.85 meters.

Only the black-haired youth standing second from the left was a little over 1.7 meters tall. Among the others, he looked like a dent hammered into the lineup, drawing even more attention than the blond center.

The five had barely taken their places onstage when the barrage of comments exploded.

[Mo Li! I've waited for you all night! /crying]

[The dent in the lineup is way too funny hahahahaha]

[Who's the one on the far right? So handsome!]

[??? How did our darling Zhen end up here?]

[How did someone fall into a hole? 233]

[Mo Li actually came... my heart hurts...]

[Can one of you sisters introduce them to me? Who are they? They look really popular.]

"This group is going to be exciting!" Liu Qichu slapped his thigh. Like a thoughtful sister in the comments, he rattled off all five names from left to right as though reciting a menu. "Qu Junwei, Yin Zizhen, Mo Li, Lin Xiao, Song Yanxi. It's a group of popular contestants! Especially Mo Li! Who'd believe there won't be a battle? No wonder they had them come on as the penultimate act!"

Lai Yudong desperately wanted to play mute until filming ended, but the solid command of language he'd acquired in the broadcasting department made him unable to resist turning into the correction police. "The penultimate act is second to last."

Liu Qichu stared blankly. "Huh?"

[Ahhh, someone finally corrected it! Every time I hear someone misuse 'penultimate act,' I feel uncomfortable all over!]

[What? Doesn't 'penultimate act' mean the very last one?]

[Very precise. I pick him.]

[I'm dying, his Chinese is good. Liu Qichu's completely lost.]

Lai Yudong: "..."

Watch! Your! Words! And! Actions!

Author's note:

#On how many times Lai Yudong needs to remind himself to watch his words and actions on a survival show#

Chapter 8: Initial Evaluation

As Liu Qichu had said, the final group was exciting in every respect.

Someone like Lai Yudong, who didn't pay much attention to the entertainment industry, might not have known much about them. But a veteran survival-show fan or a contestant who had done their homework would have known at least three of the five, and even at worst would have heard something about Mo Li.

Three years ago, Mo Li had taken part in a survival show called Searching for Dream Star. He had debuted with the excellent high ranking of fourth place in the year-and-a-half project group Fir-Nine, where he was the group's only ace and its maknae.

Unfortunately, after that dreamlike, perfect start, the flower path the fans had hoped for never came.

Although the show had been only moderately popular, it hadn't flopped all the way through the earth. Yet the company had been determined to follow the garbage philosophy of "put your heart into the survival show and use your feet to manage the group." Fir-Nine might as well have been shelved. New content was as rare as a corpse rising from the dead, and both the group's popularity and the members' individual popularity had fallen off a cliff.

Meanwhile, the next season of the survival show on the same platform had been put on the schedule, making it clear that they intended to harvest a fresh crop of leeks as quickly as possible.

The fans' efforts to defend their rights came to nothing, and countless fans left over the year and a half. When they finally reached the end, Fir-Nine's disbandment day shot onto the trending searches like a cyber-summoning of the dead, reminding countless survival-show fans of how that summer had moved them, as well as the boy group and former biases they had nearly forgotten.

After the group disbanded, the members went their separate ways. Some switched industries to become actors, some went on nationwide tours as singers, some continued their unfinished studies, and some turned to variety shows. Only Mo Li couldn't let go of his original dream of performing onstage.

They were all equally washed-up celebrities, but singing and dancing was the hardest path to take, especially with a company that left him entirely to his own devices.

To keep his skills from deteriorating, Mo Li had no choice but to pay for vocal and dance teachers out of his own pocket. His fans often joked, in anger and helplessness, that he had been sold to a sweatshop.

Half a year ago, Mo Li could have ridden a brief wave of nostalgia-fueled attention and taken the opportunity to join a survival show on another platform. Even being called twice-cooked pork would have been better than wasting a year and a half as an idol cooped up at home with no chance to perform.

Unfortunately, the contestants on Searching for Dream Star had all signed noncompete agreements barring them from participating in the same type of survival show for two years.

By the time the agreement expired, filming for that show was nearly over.

The attention surrounding the disbandment quickly faded. The fans who missed that summer would eventually welcome new summers, but Fir-Nine alone remained forever frozen in that summer.

Then, this winter, Mo Li signed with a new agency, Sijia Entertainment, and applied to take part in Ascend to Stardom.

Facing the camera, he said openly and confidently:

"At an age when I wasn't mature enough, I muddled through a brief bloom like an epiphyllum, only to plunge straight down afterward. Forgive me, but I can't accept an ending like that. I have to give myself an account, and I have to give the fans one too. That's why I came back."

[This takes me back to the summer two years ago... QAQ]

[If you're going to kill me, don't use the Fir-Nine knife]

[One vote from you, one vote from me, Jasmine will debut again tonight!]

Compared with Mo Li, the other four weren't as well known.

Qu Junwei had been a contestant on Searching for Dream Star who narrowly missed debuting. Yin Zizhen had reached the finals of another platform's rap show last year. Lin Xiao was a newcomer introduced by his company, and Song Yanxi was a fashion blogger with a million followers.

Apart from Lin Xiao, everyone in the group had brought some popularity of their own. Judging by the surge of comments when they came onstage, no other trainees were likely to surpass them in initial popularity. No wonder the production team had made them the final group.

And after the group performance ended, the announcement of their evaluations instantly set the whole venue ablaze—

"Mo Li, Lin Xiao, Qu Junwei, class A. Yin Zizhen, class B. Song Yanxi, class C. Congratulations."

"Three in class A!?"

[Holy shit! Three in class A!?]

At that moment, Liu Qichu and the comments were perfectly in sync.

[Even though I knew Mo Li would definitely get class A, I still can't help it, sob sob sob]

[Sijia's newcomer is pretty impressive]

[To be fair, Qu Junwei has improved so much]

[What a shame, Little Yin dances like a dummy, or he could have made class A too hahahaha]