Page 46

"Thank you, teacher."

Lai Yudong let out a long sigh of relief. The great stone weighing on his heart had finally fallen.

Who would have thought that, two days after being laughed at onstage, he would be praised by the dance teacher?

Class F might have been the lowest-rated class, and ranking in its top group might not have seemed like a big deal. But Class F made up nearly half the total number of trainees, and factoring in the students in other classes who weren't very good at dancing meant his theme song dance was at an average level.

Lai Yudong suddenly remembered what Liang Zhisheng had said to encourage him.

"Hard work will always pay off."

"As long as you practice diligently today, you'll see improvement tomorrow."

His nose tingled a little.

It had been a long time since praise had made him so happy.

Before he'd had a few seconds to enjoy it, Cao Yan suddenly twisted the knife. "But your movements are still too stiff."

Lai Yudong: "..."

Sorry, please allow him to go deaf for three seconds.

If Lai Yudong had a little confidence in dance class, then vocal class filled him with anxiety about the unknown.

Just as Xu An had guessed, he rarely sang to a purely instrumental backing track. At KTV, he always chose either the original vocals or a backing singer. Leaving aside his initial stage, which had shaken heaven and earth and made ghosts and gods weep, his actual singing ability... was probably just so-so.

It was listenable, but best not listened to unless necessary.

And then the system had ruthlessly confiscated his Pitch Corrector, leaving him no way out.

Utterly despicable. He strongly condemned it.

Still, if he was honest, using his own assistive tool was unfair, aside from the initial stage, when he'd been like a duck forced onto a perch. The other trainees had spent enormous amounts of time and sweat finding their way, while he took a shortcut. How was that any different from bringing the answer key into an exam?

So at most, Lai Yudong would use this as a chance to complain about the system he'd resented for so long. He wouldn't dwell on a special exception that, by any standard of reason or fairness, should never have been his.

No wonder he'd ended up with a system that couldn't do a single thing right.

Its sense of morality was too strong. If it gave him some new features with a trendiness value of max, it might even feel guilty about it.

Back to vocal class: Lai Yudong was worried that he couldn't sing well and wouldn't be able to improve through practice, either.

Singing depended more on talent than dancing, and it was harder to fool the audience.

As long as the moves weren't difficult ones like floor work or flips, no matter how poor your foundation was, you could absolutely remember a sequence after practicing it a hundred times. If that didn't work, you could practice it two hundred times, five hundred times, until you remembered it.

That was why Lai Yudong had improved so quickly. If he had to learn another new dance, he'd be knocked right back to his original form.

But singing was different. Vocal tone and a sense of pitch were innate. Practicing a song a hundred times wouldn't necessarily improve your pitch, but it might ruin your voice.

There was no question about Lai Yudong's vocal tone. He had the double buff of a broadcasting and hosting major and naturally excellent vocal qualities, making him a walking trap for voice lovers. The problem was that his singing was so bad that even a good vocal tone couldn't save it. Even the most expensive violin could be made to sound like a saw cutting wood.

This worry lasted until vocal class at two that afternoon.

The vocal teacher was a woman of about thirty. Her long, dark brown hair fell to her waist in large waves, and she carried herself with dignified elegance. A faint smile rested on her face.

Seeing her gentle, graceful appearance, some of the less well-informed Class F trainees jumped to the conclusion that she was a teacher with a style completely opposite to Cao Yan's, and their taut nerves relaxed at once.

"Hello, everyone. I'm your vocal teacher, Jiang Xiaoting. You can call me 'Teacher Jiang' or 'Teacher Xiaoting.'"

The vocal teacher's voice was as gentle as the trainees had imagined. Their glass hearts, shattered to pieces by Cao Yan that morning, were healed by an ordinary self-introduction. But her next words left faint cracks in that lovely expectation.

Smiling, Jiang Xiaoting asked in a tone that took it for granted, "You've all memorized the lyrics, right?"

"Teacher Jiang, we didn't get the lyrics." Luo Feiran raised a hand to explain.

Liu Qichu added, "I specifically went to ask, and the staff said they'd hand them out in vocal class."

A flurry of whispers immediately broke out in the classroom—

"No wonder I saw Qu Xincheng from the next dorm memorizing the lyrics. I thought he'd brought a printer."

"Doesn't that make it really unfair? Class A and Class B had vocal class in the morning, so they got the lyrics before us."

"Why did they get the lyrics before us? Just because their grades are higher?"

"Class C has it the worst. Their vocal class is the last one, even later than ours."

[It's over. There's going to be trouble.]

[Teacher Jiang's looks fooled them.]

[Seriously? You were in class too while they were in vocal class.]

[Why not mention that you got a head start on polishing the dance details?]

[If you didn't memorize the lyrics, don't drag the other little brothers in your class down with you...]

Standing at the very edge, Lai Yudong silently glanced at them, keenly scenting trouble.

He had originally wanted to see whether someone else who had memorized the lyrics would step forward first, so he could hitch a ride. But Luo Feiran and Liu Qichu chiming in one after the other had sent things in an unfortunate direction.

Well, that was just great.

He couldn't agree with them, but he couldn't admit he'd memorized the lyrics, either.

He decided to pretend he was a young tree that couldn't speak.

The moment he entered the classroom, a string of bullet comments had spoiled it for Lai Yudong: the vocal teacher before him wasn't as gentle as she looked. Supposedly, she had given many trainees a scolding in the morning's vocal class, making her every bit as strict as Cao Yan.

But even taking ten thousand steps back, he wouldn't have fearlessly answered "We didn't get the lyrics" in this situation, even without the bullet comments' warning.

Although it was true, to a teacher, that answer would undoubtedly sound like an excuse to shirk responsibility. It would have been better to admit outright that they hadn't memorized them.

Sure enough, faced with the complaints coming one after another, Jiang Xiaoting calmly asked, "So you're saying you haven't memorized them?"