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After discussing it, the two decided to drop in on classes: wherever the pace suited their needs, they would attend for a while.

And so they joined in here for a bit and there for a bit, making several rounds of the practice rooms.

[In a corner no one noticed, two little boys were quietly traveling around the world.]

[You Shu and Zhou Rui? When did those two meet?]

[Is Zhou Rui that unlucky guy who got bumped into during the in-class assessment?]

[Trash Sky, swallowing my boy's storyline]

[What storyline do they have? Aren't they just dance buddies?]

"Dance buddies" was a pretty accurate description.

Lai Yudong thought back: first there was Xu An, whom he had met by accident on the initial stage, then Zeng Kai, who had given him the cold shoulder off camera. Of all the trainees he had met so far, Zhou Rui was the one with the least drama or story to him, yet somehow the two had ended up together.

Fate really was a curious thing.

Take now, for example. After wandering around, they had found Su Junzhe again.

With nowhere to escape, Su Junzhe was once again forced to serve as a teacher—or, more precisely, as a top student leading the dance.

He had merely found a quiet place to practice, but before he knew it, dozens of people had gathered around him.

Apart from suddenly calling out the counts, he had offered no help with the dance from beginning to end, much less taught anyone individually. Yet every trainee silently stood behind him and followed his moves as though they had all agreed to do so, while the few who couldn't keep up quietly withdrew.

A word occurred to Lai Yudong—

Phototaxis.

Everyone had been drawn to Su Junzhe.

"I heard from my roommate that Su Junzhe was teaching people to dance in Class F before the lesson. I was in the Class C practice room and didn't know, or I would've gone too." Zhou Rui couldn't help feeling envious. "He's amazing. He can teach others as soon as he gets the dance, and I can't even figure out the choreography."

Su Junzhe had sharp ears. Even in the noisy room, he could hear people talking about him. He turned his head and joined the conversation. "That's because I've been a trainee for four years, and my position is main dancer. It'd be strange if I couldn't even do that."

Noticing that Lai Yudong was there too, he flashed a cute little fang. "I told you you had talent, didn't I~"

His pride in his own excellent eye was like a corner of his cute mask being torn away, revealing a little more of the real Su Junzhe.

Lai Yudong was a little surprised by this childish side of him, but on second thought, Su Junzhe looked young, like a high schooler who hadn't come of age. It was perfectly normal for him to be a little immature.

—Su Junzhe was actually already an adult.

"Thank you, Teacher Su," Lai Yudong said, half joking.

Su Junzhe immediately played along. "Then hurry back into formation, my future star pupil."

[How do you two know each other too?]

[Yuzu is the first student of the Su-brand tutoring institute]

[Feels like I missed a lot of the story without watching the main episode]

[Maybe it was all cut from the main episode]

[? The one who said it was cut, are you a devil?]

The bullet comments reminded Lai Yudong that there was also an edited recording. He remembered the system saying it would air on the weekend.

So what day was it today?

System: [Sunday, the same as the time in the original world.]

Lai Yudong: [Does it air next week?]

System: [Yes, next Saturday. The first-stage rankings will be released at the same time.]

Next Saturday—that was the day after they finished recording the theme song stage.

Things were moving at such a hectic, thrilling pace.

Lai Yudong had no idea how popular he was.

Although the amount of discussion in the bullet comments proved he wasn't a complete nobody on the show, he couldn't put too much faith in comments filtered by the system. It was entirely possible that more people were criticizing him than praising him.

Besides, the recorded broadcast was bound to have more viewers than the livestream. The livestream audience could roughly be divided into people joining the excitement early on, people looking for entertainment in their spare time, and die-hard fans, so it wasn't an accurate enough gauge.

Until the actual rankings came out, he had to keep his expectations low and steadfastly treat it all as a false boom.

People trickled out of the practice room, the sound of the doors opening and closing coming one after another. Gradually, he could make out different voices calling the counts.

Lai Yudong wiped away the beads of sweat running down his hair, picked up his water cup, and gulped down a large mouthful. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that fewer than two-thirds of the trainees remained in the practice room, and only a handful of those were still dancing.

That included Su Junzhe's group, whose numbers had dropped to single digits.

"Let's go to one of the small classrooms," Su Junzhe proposed out of the blue. "There are mirrors there, so it'll be easier to correct our moves."

Lai Yudong and Zhou Rui looked at each other, seeing the same bewilderment on each other's faces.

Uh, did that mean we passed the test?

Or had he practiced enough and had energy to spare for helping others?

Whatever Su Junzhe was thinking, an opportunity like this was hard to come by. The six remaining trainees followed him from the large classroom to a smaller one.

Quite a few trainees had left earlier, but not all of them had given up practicing to rest. Some had gone to the small classrooms. Unlike before the lesson, however, the practice room with the fewest people this time belonged to Class C, not Class F.

The difference between then and now wasn't hard to explain.

Besides the fact that Class F had more people than Class C, the makeup of its members was another major factor.

Although Class F ranked last among the four levels, it had the highest proportion of people brought in from other industries for entertainment value and those who had performed disastrously on the initial stage. Among them were quite a few extraordinarily gifted trainees, as well as trainees who wanted to use the theme song to turn the tide against them and prove themselves.

Most importantly, Class F wasn't eligible to go onstage and record the theme song, so their sense of urgency was no less than that of the Class A members who needed to hold on to their precious spots.

Class C, on the other hand, mostly consisted of trainees who had practiced for some time and fell into at least one of two categories: lacking talent or not having practiced enough.

That was the pattern in previous seasons of talent shows.

It was only for reference, though, and wasn't necessarily accurate.

They ultimately chose the Class C practice room. Only three people were practicing inside, and when they saw the teaching team led by a Class A trainee enter, they promptly gave up the very center of the room and asked hopefully if they could join.