Theme Song (Two-in-One)

He hadn't been poisoned into silence.

"Speaking of which—"

At those four words, Lai Yudong's eyelid twitched. He already had a feeling what was coming next.

"Why aren't you usually as talkative as you are when you've just woken up?"

Lai Yudong: "..."

See? You could dodge the first day, but not the fifteenth.

Fortunately, he had already come up with a countermeasure.

"Because I'm..." Lai Yudong paused, then forced out the words with difficulty. "Shy around strangers."

[Holy shit, Yuzu really does have social anxiety?]

[The man himself confirmed it, hahahaha]

[The aloof faction has suffered a crushing defeat]

He could only personally certify his social anxiety persona.

Chapter 21: Theme Song (Two-in-One)

On the way back to the dorm, Liang Zhisheng mentioned Mo Li, who was still practicing, to Lai Yudong. It was merely a topic to keep the conversation going, though; he had no intention of heading to the Class A classroom.

Leaving aside the fact that the three of them had no connection, showing up under his nose again a few minutes after he'd declined their invitation would be rather tactless.

"Mo Li? He's still there?"

Lai Yudong looked surprised. When he and Zhou Rui had shamelessly gone to Class A that evening to sit in on the lesson, Mo Li had not only been there the whole time, but also seemed to have already practiced for quite a while.

Even their three-man team took a five-minute break after practicing for a while, but Mo Li hadn't stopped for a moment except to drink water, as if he couldn't feel fatigue.

"Yeah. He said he'd practice until four, so he should be almost done," Liang Zhisheng said. "Good thing Class A doesn't have morning lessons, but he still won't get much sleep."

Lai Yudong said nothing. He guessed that the dance teacher's words had spurred Mo Li on. For a recycled trainee who had already debuted, getting such a terrible assessment on the theme song was no small blow, but it also showed, in its own way, how much thought Cao Yan had put into it.

Though it sounded quite inspiring at first, his feelings were incomparably complicated.

Even Mo Li from Class A was working that hard, yet he, a Class F trainee, had fallen asleep in the practice room.

How could he possibly compete?

The slow bird flying first depended on one condition: the other birds had to be lying in their dorms, resting and recuperating.

"He's pushing himself so hard," Liang Zhisheng remarked beside him. "At your age, I could lie around for three days after a mountain hike."

"He really is." Lai Yudong replied absentmindedly, lowering his head and murmuring, "I'm still not working hard enough."

Liang Zhisheng: "?"

Liang Zhisheng: "Huh? Are you too sleepy to think straight?"

If the walk there and back hadn't left him with barely any sleepiness, Liang Zhisheng would almost have suspected that he was the one too sleepy to think straight. He looked incredulously at his downcast roommate, suspecting that his foundations were so poor that practice had left him withdrawn.

That was indeed the case.

Judging by that one day alone, if Lai Yudong dared call himself the second-hardest-working trainee on Ascend to Stardom, no one would dare claim first. Perhaps only Su Junzhe could match him, but the two directed their efforts somewhat differently. In terms of practice intensity alone, Lai Yudong left everyone else in the dust.

"Don't worry." Liang Zhisheng patted Lai Yudong on the shoulder. "No matter how hard you work or how talented you are, you can't possibly surpass trainees who've practiced for years in three days—uh, except the ones who don't take it seriously."

Lai Yudong: "..."

Was he speaking so freely because there were so few people around at this hour?

"But hard work will definitely pay off, especially in dance. As long as you practice seriously today, you'll see improvement tomorrow." Liang Zhisheng took the opportunity to ruffle his milky-platinum hair, encouraging him in a gentle tone as if coaxing a child. "Didn't Teacher Cao Yan praise you in class? He said you picked up the moves quickly. That's an incredible talent—you can achieve the same results in less time than others."

Lai Yudong suddenly felt that Liang Zhisheng would make a good preschool teacher.

The urgency of time slipping away left him somewhat frustrated and impatient. It was as if a group of people were running along a cliff that was crumbling behind them, and one careless step would send them plunging into the abyss. But he wasn't a fool ignorant of his situation. He had already noticed what things were like among the trainees: not everyone was as diligent as Mo Li or Su Junzhe.

He was neither the winner who would last until the end nor among the first to fall.

That was roughly his situation.

Yet a discouraged remark he had made offhand had been met with earnest reassurance.

Lai Yudong turned his head. Under the corridor lights, the brown-haired young man wore the expression of an adult who had seen all the ways of the world... benevolent?

What a kind, good person.

Perhaps he had dimly sensed that his roommate was about to thank him, for Liang Zhisheng changed the subject first. "By the way, your handwriting is really nice. Have you practiced?"

Lai Yudong's eyelid twitched. "What handwriting?"

"Your lyric notebook. I happened to catch a glimpse when I called you earlier, and your writing was so good I couldn't help looking a few more times."

[So that was Yuzu's lyric notebook? I thought it was a diary]

[Who in their right mind keeps a diary?]

Lai Yudong: "..."

Damn, he'd miscalculated again.

Hadn't there been too many shocks and scares tonight!?

He had indeed practiced calligraphy, but could he say that?

Wait, the situation now was different from when he'd been writing down the lyrics in the practice room. He'd hidden from the camera to keep anyone from discovering how smoothly he could write from dictation, but Liang Zhisheng was asking about handwriting practice. Japanese had borrowed many Chinese characters—including calligraphy, which had evolved into shodō—so having practiced it was a logical answer. Tracing them back to their roots, they were all Chinese characters.

Having sorted out his thoughts, Lai Yudong quickly calmed down and admitted frankly, "Yeah, I've practiced since I was little."

"No wonder you have so much perseverance. I was sent to calligraphy classes when I was little too, but I couldn't sit still at all, so I stopped learning later." Liang Zhisheng sighed dramatically. "Ah, the differences between people are so obvious from childhood. I was just as inconsistent when I learned to dance, fishing for three days and drying the nets for two. It wasn't until I became a blogger that I started going to the dance studio regularly."

Liang Zhisheng's account confirmed what the bullet comments had explained during the initial stage. Lai Yudong lowered his gaze to the slightly shorter brown-haired young man and said from the bottom of his heart, "You're amazing."