Theme Song (continued)

Su Junzhe picked up a piece of chicken breast with his chopsticks. "I've been trying to lose weight lately. I ate too well after returning home and put on some pounds."

Lai Yudong was even more surprised. "Lose weight?"

No matter how he looked at it, Su Junzhe's slender figure had nothing to do with being fat. If he got any thinner, he would turn into a paper cutout.

"I have a round face with a bit of baby fat, so I look chubby on camera. I also gain weight easily and tend to get puffy. If I don't watch what I eat, I'll see a steamed bun face on the screen," Su Junzhe explained. "It doesn't matter for ordinary people, but idols have to manage their figures. That's why I envy people who can eat without gaining weight."

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Mm, I'm okay, I guess? It's not a big deal." Su Junzhe held up his iced Americano and shook it, making the ice cubes clatter against one another. "It's a miracle cure for puffiness, and it suppresses your appetite too. A must-have for losing weight."

He pointed at his vegetable salad. "This salad even has Thousand Island dressing. When I was a trainee in Korea, they wouldn't give us any dressing at all. Too many calories."

Lai Yudong: "..."

He was really worried Su Junzhe would end up with stomach problems.

[I thought Miura ate too little, but compared to this, his meal was pretty generous]

[You Shu: the ribs in my hand tremble slightly]

[This would make you feel guilty about eating, hahaha]

Though Su Junzhe's diet made Lai Yudong worry about his health, there wasn't much he could say beyond expressing admiration. Having the willpower to stick to it was a skill in itself. At least, he didn't have what it took.

He couldn't compete when it came to eating habits, so he could only work harder in other areas.

Lai Yudong opened his notebook on the dining table. Forceful handwriting filled both pages.

His goal was to memorize all the lyrics before class.

It wasn't until class began at one that afternoon that Lai Yudong clearly felt just how much it had helped for a clumsy bird like him to start flapping his wings early.

Class was held in the largest practice room on the third floor. Although

the space

was roomy enough to hold over a hundred people without feeling crowded, there was only one teacher for the group class. He couldn't possibly attend to every student, much less slow down for one who couldn't keep up.

To put it in the words nearly every teacher from their school days had used to guilt-trip them, if one person wasted one minute, then a hundred and one people wasted a hundred and one minutes.

In other words, that was two whole class periods wasted.

So if their foundations were too weak and they fell behind, they could either watch what the others were doing or leave the problem until after class. But for those in Class F, the latter was most likely the only option.

That was where the advantage of preparing in advance came in.

Although he couldn't compare to the main dancers, whose learning speed was like riding a rocket, Lai Yudong was a little more at ease among the flustered Class F trainees. His dancing was still some way from the standard, yet some desperate trainees grasping at straws even used him as a model to imitate. People stole glances at him from time to time, and a small study group formed around him.

The sudden treatment reserved for a top student left Lai Yudong nervous and apprehensive. He wanted to warn these carefree trainees that copying just anything would only hurt them.

He could already see the bullet comments making fun of the mass-produced robots!

But Lai Yudong soon discovered that the biggest problem wasn't whether his movements were correct, but that he couldn't keep up with the beat at normal speed.

Dancing slowly had been easy, giving him the illusion that the original speed would be no problem either. But when he actually tried it, he found that wasn't the case at all.

Once he sped up, his arms and legs stopped obeying him, as if their steering had failed. Either his arms stopped moving while only his feet kept going, or his hands and feet were on different beats, or his limbs gradually went from half a beat behind to a full beat behind until he slowed down to his comfort zone.

Whichever of those happened, the moment he tried to correct it, he only made his dreadful rhythm go from bad to worse. The result of upsetting his precarious balance was that he froze on the spot, at a loss as though his brain had crashed, left with nothing but the frustration of being unable to do what he wanted.

A classic case of the brain remembering, but the limbs failing to follow.

This torment went on for a long time. The dance teacher led everyone through the entire theme song, and the long lesson finally neared its end.

Hours of intense exercise had left many of them exhausted. As soon as Xu An finished dancing, he collapsed into a dazed heap on the floor. Song Yanxi leaned weakly against the wall, staring into space, while Liu Qichu tugged at his collar and fanned himself nonstop.

Some had gone so far as to abandon all concern for their image, lying spread-eagled on the floor like gingerbread men on a baking tray.

Lai Yudong wiped a bead of sweat that had rolled down his cheek with the back of his hand. He panted lightly as he steadied his breathing. Fortunately, he exercised regularly, and practice at this intensity was within what he could handle. Otherwise, he would surely wake up tomorrow too sore to move his legs.

Just when he thought he had finally endured the painful dance class, reality mercilessly dealt him a blow to the head.

"—Thanks for your hard work, everyone, but we're not done yet."

Dance teacher Cao Yan's voice reached every corner of the practice room through the microphone as he announced the chilling news. "Let's see what you've learned. Each class will take turns dancing the theme song once. Class will be dismissed when you're done."

"Now...?"

"No way!? I still don't know the dance!"

"Has anyone learned it? Can you stand in front of me in a minute?"

The lifeless practice room was instantly filled with overlapping wails. The people lying on the floor shakily reached toward the ceiling, looking remarkably like

zombies

coming back to life.

[Resident Evil (lol)]

[The smart ones have already started clinging to the experts' thighs hhhh]

[Who's clinging to an expert's thigh?]

[It's our main vocal Zhao Yifeng~]

[Pointing out that he's the main vocal at a time like this makes it sound like you're gloating...]

Cao Yan continued, "Class A, come show everyone how it's done."

At those words, two Class A members' expressions were each a sight to behold: one's face was twisted, while the other's was deathly pale, both displaying utter despair at their core.

Among the other Class A members brimming with confidence, the two of them stood out.

Zhao Yifeng and Xu An were two top students with uneven skills who couldn't dance. At that moment, they seemed like fellow sufferers who understood each other better than anyone else in the world.

[Help! The main vocal line's expressions are too funny hahahahaha]