Chapter 24

The streetlight had been built by Huixin Welfare Institute itself. Its pole was an old wooden one to begin with, and after being badly scorched by fire yesterday and drenched with water today, its entire base had tilted!

"Where are the forest protection people?" Zhao Jun forced the words through clenched teeth. "Call them over, quick—"

Before he could finish, Zhao Jun's eyes widened in shock.

Star Radiance's twelve trainees had charged over without a word. Bracing their shoulders against the pole and holding it up with their hands, they each did everything they could to support it!

Zhao Jun swallowed the rest of his words along with the rainwater and let out a forceful grunt through his nose.

They might as well treat a dead horse as though it were still alive. He had been busy all night and could barely hold on anymore.

Yet setting aside the soft soil at its base, the wooden pole alone had soaked up so much water that it was absurdly heavy.

Everyone's strength had already been sapped by the downpour, and Zhao Jun was growing weaker by the moment. The pole gradually began to fall!

"Yah—" Zhuo Yang exerted all his brute strength, veins bulging on his forearms. "We absolutely can't let go! Hold it up!"

"I can't..." Zhao Jun's hands were covered in blood. Unable to hold on any longer, he staggered backward and fell to the ground.

Beside him, a small, slender figure also retreated half a step.

It was probably another young entertainer who couldn't hold on, right?

Never mind. It was already good of them to volunteer their help.

A wave of sadness swept over him. He closed his eyes in pain, unable to bear watching—

But after a long while, the tremendous crash of the wooden pole falling still hadn't come.

Apart from the patter of rain, there was only the young men's panting.

Zhao Jun opened his eyes and found the scene before him unbelievable.

The trainee who had retreated with him was Bai Jike. He knew that although he was fairly agile, he wasn't particularly strong when it came to physical exertion, so he had simply stepped back to make room for the people beside him.

But he hadn't been idle. He quickly assessed the entire pole and its surroundings, mentally calculating several load-bearing points.

He then worked out the most suitable positions for several trainees based on their heights and told Qiao Huan.

Qiao Huan immediately moved three or four trainees who had been clustered together into more effective positions, preventing them from wasting their strength.

Ye Yiwei also told the trainees beside him about better postures and ways to exert their strength, directing everyone to shift the pole sideways in small, orderly steps.

Zhuo Yang, meanwhile, was the pillar holding everything together. With his feet planted at the base and his hands braced against the wooden pole, he was like the eye of a formation.

And so, through the cooperation of all twelve, the pole not only stayed up but gradually moved clear of the tent area!

Finally, Zhao Jun saw the pole fall with a bang onto the deserted square!

The young men had no strength left and collapsed to the ground one after another.

After finishing his calculations, Bai Jike had hurried off to wake the elderly people and children in the tent area and get them to safety. They had all come out by now, and seeing the scene before them, they could more or less guess what had happened. They all began to applaud.

Everyone felt a little embarrassed. Ye Yiwei paid the applause no mind, however, and simply went over to Zhao Jun and used clean clothing and his fingers to give his injured hands a simple bandaging.

Zhao Jun was deeply moved. He felt that these young men were completely different from the entertainers he had met before.

He asked Ye Yiwei in a trembling voice, "What are your names? I'll get my daughter to... be your fan too! She's really good at being a fan!"

The strange inflections the old man put on "be your fan" and "being a fan" made everyone from Star Radiance burst out laughing.

Li Xun wiped the rain from his face and said in unison with Hu Bin, "Uncle, we do good deeds without leaving our names!"

Zhuo Yang added, "What we did was really insignificant compared with the people actually on the front lines repairing roads, carrying supplies, and evacuating people. Uncle, if you keep praising us, you'll turn into one of our anti-fans!"

Zhao Jun let out an "Aiyo," tears in his eyes. He couldn't manage a single word, and could only pat their hands repeatedly, as though giving final reminders to his own children before a long journey.

People from the other teams gradually returned to camp to help. Since they had professional training, they handled everything in an orderly manner, and the Star Radiance trainees would only get in the way if they stayed. So, while Zhao Jun wasn't looking, they slipped away together.

Their raincoats and the like had long since been torn to shreds. They were in no hurry to run now, and slowly exchanged glances in the pouring rain, each looking a little surprised.

If they had each been somewhat eager to win during their run that day, then pushing the pole over together today had been genuine cooperation.

They looked at one another, unable for a moment to remember how they had become like this.

And when had their physical strength and team spirit become powerful enough to carry them through all this?

In the distance.

Pei Dahai and Jiang Ji had the cameraman hurry to record the scene, and were in no rush to go over and disturb them.

The memory of the twelve of them looking resentful after being urgently assembled in the middle of the night two weeks ago seemed to have been washed clean by the downpour as well.

In a farmhouse inn room on the outskirts of City A, smoke hung thick in the air and liquor bottles littered the floor.

Jiang Renbao had been wallowing there for many days.

Had it been half a month? He couldn't remember himself.

Ever since Qiao Huan and the others had gone to "Deserted Island," his father, who was abroad, had summoned him home. It had been so urgent that even someone as insensitive as him had sensed a storm brewing.

Then Shi Xingzhou had exposed himself on the livestream, Between Life and Death had been swept away, and his father, the deputy manager of Qiancheng Capital's industry division, had actually held a stake in it too.

His father had fled to some unknown country, and he had been taken away for several days of questioning. Although he had walked out of the police station without trouble, he couldn't walk out of this predicament.

He could no longer appear in the public eye.

But ever since he was little, the thing he had wanted most was to be a star.

To stand onstage, stand beneath the spotlight, hear tens of thousands of people shouting his name, and watch their fan lights form a sea of stars across the ground...

Now that was impossible.

Knock, knock—

Someone knocked on the door.

Jiang Renbao didn't even have to think to know it was his childhood friends.

These rich second-generation kids had all been afraid he might do something drastic lately, taking turns coming over to urge him to cherish his life.

"Baobao, it's us," his childhood friends said as they pushed the door open. "We brought your favorite crab roe soup dumplings. Come eat something!"

"Mm." Jiang Renbao obediently sat up, but he wasn't in high spirits.

"Do you want to watch a variety show?" Tang Yue asked tentatively.

She was the childhood friend closest to Jiang Renbao. She was also a big-name fan account herself, with hundreds of thousands of followers, and was well known in the fandom for her sharp tongue.

"Watch what?" Jiang Renbao asked with a miserable expression. "I don't want to watch those Battle Royale shows that are so popular lately. I went on that kind of show too, boo-hoo-hoo..."

"Let's watch one a friend recommended. She heard about it from her dad, which feels kind of strange," Tang Yue said as she started screen casting. "Oh, oh, oh! I didn't look closely just now. It's Starlight Entertainment's internal survival show! I've wanted to roast them for ages!"

"Ugh!" Jiang Renbao turned his head away in anguish. "No, no, it's all painful memories..."

"Your favorite big brother Qiao Huan is in it!"

"He's still there?" Jiang Renbao started and wiped away his tears. "Then I guess I can watch."

Since Jiang Renbao really couldn't stand Shi Xingzhou, Tang Yue and the others skipped the first episode and started directly with the military training in episode two.

Tang Yue even set up her phone, planning to record a reaction video. It was the kind of content her followers loved most.

As soon as she saw the words "military training," Tang Yue sneered, "You can tell it's just a gimmick. It's like those endurance training variety shows, just an excuse to mess with entertainers under another name!"

Tang Yue was a seasoned variety-show connoisseur, confident that she knew every kind of formula inside out.

Although the other childhood friends didn't watch many variety shows, they had heard a little about them and all voiced their agreement.

Sure enough, it opened with the twelve of them hurrying to assemble in the middle of the night. The post-production team had even added captions specifically pointing out how each person's attire failed to meet the standard, along with enlarged close-ups of several of their sleepy faces.

A childhood friend beside her burst out laughing. "I knew it! They're making these guys embarrass themselves to generate buzz. Training these pampered trainees like that—isn't that ridiculous?"

The editing wasn't in chronological order, though. The scene then shifted to the trainees being punished for their attire, doing push-ups while competing in song.

Tang Yue and the others were even more delighted. Watching the trainees desperately trying to show off and scheming against one another, only to be defeated by their own lack of stamina, they all burst into laughter.

Tang Yue told the camera, "They're trainees. It's good enough if they can be pretty flower vases, so quit with all this pointless stuff!"

The interviews interspersed throughout undoubtedly confirmed their opinion. Li Xun spoke frankly to the camera:

"I also thought, we're entertainers, so is there really any need to train our stamina and all that?"

Next came the peak battle between Dorm 404 and Dorm 403. Tang Yue still wore a mocking expression at first, but gradually began to feel that things weren't quite as she'd thought.

The two groups seemed to have locked horns! They were all putting real effort into singing!

"Baobao, weren't you hanging around with the guys from Dorm 404 before?" Tang Yue asked as she ate her snacks. "They're pretty strong!"

"Yeah!" Jiang Renbao felt his trainee soul blazing. "They're really amazing!"

Dorm 403 ultimately lost, and the editing deliberately gave Li Xun's unyielding gaze a close-up.

Although she was a little shocked, Tang Yue figured she had a rough idea of where the script was going. "I'll bet ten packs of spicy strips that they're going to make a conflict between 404 and the others!"

They were trainees, after all. Too many monks and not enough porridge—they were bound to fight!

"All that sincere friendship between partners on those shows has to be scripted. Look how popular Battle Royale shows have been lately. Don't they all get popular by tearing into each other?"

But as the later segments played, Tang Yue and her friends immediately lost their appetite for snacks.

This script had something to it!

"Holy crap, I thought Li Xun was definitely going to trip up the 404 guys!"

"Right, right! Or 404 would stick together and refuse to tell Li Xun how to train!"

"But Li Xun asks, and Qiao Huan and the others just teach him whatever he wants to know? That's way too straightforward!"

"Come to think of it, isn't Qiao Huan and the others' biggest advantage their stamina? Once they've taught Li Xun and Hu Bin everything, how are they going to stand out?"

Clearly, the story hadn't developed as they had imagined. Combined with Li Xun's interview, the standing-at-attention segment seemed more like the process of a fanboy gradually coming to a realization.

"Brother Qiao Huan and the others are really good people. They're not like 'beep beep—' before. Even though they treated you well on the surface, they tripped you up openly and behind your back."

"At first, I also thought Qiao Huan and the others were putting on an act. After all, they got a little popular from going on the 'beep beep—' variety show, so it would be normal for them to be a little proud. But they didn't use their good stamina to put us down. Instead, they very earnestly told us how to train!"

"Especially that time we stood at attention. I don't know if you could tell, but I was watching them the whole time. Whether they were swaying or falling down at the end, they were actually faking it. They just didn't want to stand out too much!"

Tang Yue was gradually won over too, and offered the spicy strips to Jiang Renbao:

"Have I watched too many variety shows full of scheming before? Watching these guys, I actually feel a little like... I'm raising sons?"

"Come on, it's obviously because those guys from 404 have good personalities," Jiang Renbao said, hitting the nail on the head. "That's just how they are. I couldn't get a song right before, so I asked Brother Qiao Huan and Brother Yiwei about it, and they taught me really patiently... It even felt like they were desperately stuffing knowledge into my mouth. They'd rather let me debut than debut themselves."

Tang Yue and the others laughed, taking Jiang Renbao's words for an exaggeration.

How could that be? Not fighting to debut themselves, and handing the chance to someone else instead—would they still be trainees?

But though they didn't believe it, watching the other ten voluntarily accompany Qiao Huan and Bai Jike in their punishment still gave Tang Yue and the others a feeling of being moved that they hadn't felt in a long time.

Young people helping one another was moving even if you saw it ten thousand times in a youth movie!

Then the screen went black.

The subtitle contained only two Chinese characters: downpour.

"Here it comes!" Tang Yue said excitedly. "Look, after all that buildup, they're definitely going to start tearing into each other here!"

Most variety shows followed that pattern, especially lately. Without people tearing into each other, where would the traffic come from?

But as the rest of the footage played, Tang Yue was dumbfounded.

Because she was crying! The eternally sharp-tongued woman had shed tears at last!

"Damn it, what kind of immortals are these guys?!"

"Seriously, I thought the punishment run earlier was scripted, but this part is real, right?!"

"I already saw the news report! It really was them!"

"Most entertainers only give back to society after they become famous, but they went while they were still trainees. Amazing!"

Especially when it came to the part where they moved the pole together.

The young men were all exerting every last ounce of strength. Even though the camera was blurred by the rain, their tensed muscles and clenched teeth could still be seen.

Of course, they didn't look particularly attractive like that. Ordinarily, such images would have been tossed onto Weibo as "unflattering photos of entertainers failing at expression management" and mocked by everyone.

But Starlight Entertainment had openly included the footage in the episode, without even editing it. There was just one long shot, gliding past each of their faces from a distance.

The footage cut off abruptly.

Lastly came Li Xun's interview in voice-over. Though accompanied by the sound of rain, his words could be heard clearly:

"It's not just a change in my physical strength and team awareness. More than that, it's my mindset. I no longer think about those dark, obscure things and all the scheming. I'm not jealous or resentful. Of course, I still won't admit defeat. I just want to work hard myself, work hard alongside my companions, and give back to society."

"If it weren't for this military training project, and if it weren't for those four, I couldn't have done it."

"I think I really have grown."

Tang Yue's eyes brimmed with tears. "Yes, of course you've grown!"

Although the variety show wasn't long, from everyone's hostility at the beginning to their friendship at the end!

Everyone was growing!

"Boo-hoo-hoo," the girl beside her couldn't hold it in either. "When are they debuting?! If they aren't idols, what is an idol?!"

Jiang Renbao stood up too. It seemed as though something that had long been blocked inside him had finally been cleared.

"I'm going back to Starlight Entertainment to help them!"

One of the boys among the childhood friends had always been the clearheaded type. He asked in surprise, "But your father..."

Jiang Renbao wiped away his snot. "My dad's out of the picture, and I can't debut either, but even if I have to work as their coordinator or executive manager, I'm going back to their side!"

"But..."

"Besides, my mom still has money!"

Everyone fell silent at that.

That was true enough. Jiang Renbao's mother was one of City A's top ten businesswomen and the leading woman in the film industry.

"Uh," the boy said, pursing his lips. "Is it really necessary? Since they're going to be a boy group, I think things like singing and dancing are more important. Is all this growth and transformation really necessary?"

Tang Yue rolled her eyes. "Of course! What do we fangirls value? The days when we shine together with our idols!"

Still feeling that wasn't enough after saying it, she skipped the editing and immediately posted the reaction video to her official Weibo account.

In less than ten minutes, her followers had watched the whole thing, and the comments section had gone wild:

"Oh my god! I didn't want to watch this internal survival show at first because I thought it would be boring, but after watching Yueyue's reaction, I'm going to rewatch it!!!"

"I'm sorry. I saw the news saying the people from Starlight Entertainment had gone to help Huixin and thought they were putting on a show. I apologize to them!"

"Seriously, please, can you debut soon?"

"+1. I'm tired of watching all those people tearing into each other and dropping gossip bombs. I want something refreshing!"

"Boo-hoo, seriously, Xiu Si is worth it!! OSOK is worth it!"

Tang Yue looked at the comments, planted her hands on her hips, and said, "Well?"

The boy pursed his lips. "Put that way, I guess it's not impossible, but I still think that for a boy group, the stage and things like that should be more important..."

Quite a few people in the comments were being tactless too: "Didn't they just do some volunteer work? Who knows if it's even real?" "Yeah, they're a boy group, not social workers!" "What else could I be watching them for? Isn't it just their faces? What am I even watching here..."

Feeling he had regained the upper hand, the boy shrugged. "See? I told you..."

"Wait!" Jiang Renbao was scrolling through his phone when his eyes suddenly lit up. "Wait a week, and you won't have a word to say!"

He held out his phone. The message Starlight Entertainment's official Weibo account had posted just a minute ago was truly shocking—

@Starlight Entertainment: The OSOK boy group internal survival project is approaching its conclusion. Its first public performance will take place one week from now, with a live audience and a simultaneous livestream. Please look forward to it.

After watching, the boy still stubbornly turned his face away. "Hmph, them? They've barely been practicing. What kind of performance could they possibly put on?"

Jiang Renbao already considered himself a member of Xiu Si and shot back, "If they perform well, what do you say we bet?"

The boy thought for a moment.

"If they perform well and don't get mocked by everyone, I'll have my mom give them opportunities on a new variety show!"

The others all began clamoring.

None of Jiang Renbao's childhood friends were poor. Most of their parents held some standing in the entertainment industry, and they all added something to the stakes.

Jiang Renbao did the math in his head. With the opportunities his childhood friends had put up, there would be enough to get a new boy group off the ground!

For Xiu Si, for his Brother Huan, he had to hurry to Qinglong!