Theme Song (Continued)

[No way, hahahaha]

[Come out and clear this up, @production team]

"You Shu! Over here!" Liu Qichu waved at Lai Yudong, who was looking around in confusion, like an energetic husky wagging its tail nonstop.

Zeng Kai, a Class F trainee standing beside him, gave him a curious look. "You know him?"

Liu Qichu looked bewildered. "You don't?"

"...I mean before filming."

"Nope, he's a new friend I made."

Zeng Kai gave him an admiring thumbs-up. "You're a real social butterfly."

While the two were talking, a pale blond teenager with the name tag "Miura Yuki" on his clothes strode over.

Like the vast majority of the trainees, he hadn't had his hair or makeup done. His hair fell naturally, lying smoothly against his cheeks. He easily pulled off a light hair color that would have made an ordinary person look washed out without makeup, thanks to his fair complexion and flawless skin.

Of course, the most important thing was his impeccable features.

In terms of looks, he certainly couldn't compare to his carefully styled appearance for yesterday's First Stage, but taking off his makeup was far from changing his face. Even barefaced, he still stood out in a crowd; the bigger change was in his aura.

He was a little less exquisitely sharp and a little more gentle and well-behaved.

His natural eyes, free of colored contacts, swept briefly over the camera. It was like a delicate drop of ink falling onto rice paper by accident and slowly spreading outward. An unintentional gesture, yet breathtakingly beautiful, it appeared on screen for only a second before immediately stirring up a thousand waves with a single stone.

[Holy shit, that flash of beauty purified my screen]

[Your Miura Yuki suddenly appeared.jpg]

[He stands out even without makeup]

[I believe those leaked photos I saw this morning came straight from the camera, unedited]

[Why did you only show him to me for one second!!!]

[It's your loss if you don't stick the camera right in You Shu's face, production team]

Lai Yudong was startled by the barrage of enthusiastic comments.

As far as he could tell, he hadn't done anything except instinctively glance at one of the omnipresent cameras he still wasn't used to. He almost began to wonder if he'd gotten breakfast on his mouth and failed to wipe it off.

Fortunately, that wasn't it.

He'd already had enough socially disastrous experiences onstage; he couldn't let his image collapse in everyday life too.

With some time left before eleven, Lai Yudong craned his neck, looking for his roommates.

There were only seven people in Class A, and it was easy to find the only bowl cut among all the short hair. He spotted Xu An standing toward the back without any trouble.

Liang Zhisheng was harder to find. Class C had the second-highest number of trainees after Class F, and he had no particularly distinguishing features. Lai Yudong had to scan face after face before finding him swallowed up by the crowd right in the middle.

Li Xu, who should have been the most conspicuous, was nowhere to be found in Class B. Lai Yudong couldn't spot that dazzling red no matter how hard he looked.

Lai Yudong thought his roommates were rather peculiar.

It was as if they were terrified of being caught on camera: one stood off to the side, one squeezed into the crowd, and one hadn't even arrived.

Thinking back carefully, it seemed he wasn't imagining things.

Xu An had told the mentors outright that he hadn't come here to debut. Liang Zhisheng's attitude of never scoring 61 when 60 would do didn't suggest he wanted to debut either. Lai Yudong wasn't sure about Li Xu, but if he wasn't forcing a "keep real" rapper persona, then he might have preferred staying true to his individuality and being himself over debuting.

Lai Yudong couldn't help wondering: was he the only person in Dorm 707 who wanted to debut?

If he had to say, he didn't want to debut either. He just wanted even less to enter the next instance and start a new mission that might be harder and more dangerous.

Before long, Li Xu walked into the hall, yawning, his red hair unmistakable. His unhurried manner made it obvious he was a veteran master of arriving just on time, not on the same level as the trainees who were so flustered they hadn't even tucked in their clothes properly.

At eleven o'clock sharp, all 101 trainees were present.

The initiator, Fu Hanyu, appeared at the filming site on time. Wearing a smile as welcoming as a spring breeze, he spoke in a gentle voice, saying words that set the trainees' nerves on edge:

"Next, I will unveil the theme song for Ascend to Stardom."

As soon as he finished speaking, the screen in the center of the hall lit up. Fu Hanyu stood in the middle of the video, with three backup dancers on either side.

The theme song was called "To The Stars." At first glance, Fu Hanyu's performance flowed like clouds and water, looking effortless. In reality, though, the song was dense with lyrics, the choreography was complex, and there were many changes in rhythm and small details.

Leaving aside how long it would take to memorize all the lyrics and moves, singing and dancing through the whole song was a tremendous challenge in itself. It wasn't very friendly to trainees who excelled in only one area or had weak fundamentals.

[Is this considered hard?]

[Yes, it's top-tier difficulty in the domestic entertainment industry's idol survival shows]

[Teacher Jin is already following the moves]

[Zhao Yifeng looks like he's in pain]

[Vocal hell]

"Why is it so hard!" Liu Qichu cried, frantically clawing at his hair with a miserable expression. "Normally, learning the dance alone would take at least a week. Add learning the song and memorizing the lyrics, and it'll take even longer. What if I still haven't learned it by fancam day?"

Zeng Kai said in surprise, "A week? No matter how hard it is, it shouldn't take that long, right?"

Liu Qichu retorted indignantly, "Slow work makes fine work!"

"Wake up, you're in Class F." Zeng Kai mercilessly exposed the truth.

"...That's so mean!"

Lai Yudong's face went blank. He hadn't been able to tell whether it was difficult or not to begin with; everything was hard when he had no foundation. But after hearing the comments and the two people beside him, the more he watched the demonstration video, the more he felt something was wrong.

Before he could make out one move, it had already switched to the next. He couldn't learn the pose held on a particular beat, nor could he figure out the transitions between moves.

How should he put it?

It was probably...

Fu Hanyu danced very well, with a kind of beauty that left his heart like dead ashes.

In his grief, Lai Yudong suddenly remembered the beginner's tutorial for the First Stage.

Although he had been somewhat dismissive of the simulated dance machine in dance mode before, that was because rhythm games relied on repetition to build muscle memory, while the First Stage only required one performance, so it hadn't been much help. A theme song that required repeated practice, however, was an entirely different matter.