There was no need to mention the D-Class and F-Class contestants. They stood at the edge of a cliff, liable to fall at any moment and become the first victims to permanently lose their idol status and be denied the stage for the rest of their lives.
In this situation, it was hard to imagine what kind of storm or chemical reaction would result if it came out that A-Class contestants could share their permissions without restrictions.
And that was probably exactly the kind of scene the Program Group wanted to see.
Chu Yuanqing had a bit of a headache.
This was a cruel competition where elimination meant losing your idol status.
All that talk of unity and helping each other was absurd and foolish here. It would only make things harder for your future self.
If they had already set the exact number of people in the winning group, that would be one thing. Maybe some A-Class contestants could afford to share their permissions with less competitive opponents.
But Shining Stage still hadn't announced the exact number of Debut Spots.
It was practically Schrödinger's cat: you wouldn't get an answer until the final round.
The most outrageous part was that this was a Global Project, with an enormous number of wild cards and an outcome that was impossible to predict.
In theory, Shining Stage could choose only two contestants from the two projects in the Great Xia region, then combine them with the other winners from across the Donghuang Federation to form a girl group.
So it was entirely possible there'd be only one Debut Spot.
Of course, you could bet there'd be more. You could bet on four, eight, or even thirteen Debut Spots.
But as long as they hadn't announced the answer, everyone except the contestant in first place was in danger—even the one in second.
That forced everyone in the upper ranks to go all out.
Chu Yuanqing had thought that was cruel enough, but she hadn't expected the show to go even further and come up with such a dehumanizing way to torment the contestants.
At that moment,
Liang Xiaoxiao seemed to read her mind and complained indignantly:
"So this Elimination Mechanism is ridiculous no matter how you look at it."
"How did you manage to be so bold? You joined without even hesitating."
Chu Yuanqing felt a little guilty. She stared at the salad in her bowl, trying to look composed, and casually changed the subject:
"After all that, you still joined, didn't you?"
Liang Xiaoxiao gazed enviously at her naturally beautiful face, as if blessed by the heavens, and sighed wistfully:
"I had no choice. I don't have your kind of universally appealing looks, and staying at that little company wouldn't get me anywhere. I could only take a gamble."
"Shining Stage is the only Talent Show in the industry that doesn't accept contestants pushed in through connections. It only takes people through open auditions."
"Getting through the auditions was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It'd be a waste not to seize it. And honestly, as outrageous as the rules are, they're definitely a big draw. After the first round airs live, the buzz will probably be even bigger than expected."
Liang Xiaoxiao ate the last bite of her salad. With her eyes lowered, her expression was hard to read. After a moment of silence, she pressed her lips together, then looked up with a sunny smile:
"Even if I get eliminated and never become an idol, I can still ride the wave and gain followers. If I get enough attention, I'll switch to acting. If I don't, I'll become an influencer."
"Haha, I bet all those D-Class and F-Class contestants are thinking the same thing. It's not such a bad deal, right? Nothing wrong with that."
After hearing those realistic yet cruel words, Chu Yuanqing caught the sadness and disappointment hidden in her eyes. But she didn't say anything more. She simply slid half her strawberries over to Liang Xiaoxiao.
That was how reality worked. When some people rose to the clouds, others fell into the mire.
Just how much did being an idol mean to these girls?
After they finished eating, they went their separate ways.
Chu Yuanqing was heavyhearted, and even more determined to get eliminated in the first round.
She had no interest in being an idol, no faith in the stage, and no dream of debuting.
For someone like her to compete with other girls, who were chasing their dreams, for a limited number of spots would be utterly despicable.
Besides...
A person who was about to die had no right to become an idol.
Time passed.
Shining Stage had become a global sensation, and even within Great Xia alone, the excitement was sweeping the nation.
There was no need to mention the Weibo trending lists. Any contestant with a Memorable Point had their Initial Evaluation performance clipped and spread across the major short-video platforms, earning them a huge share of the attention.
Many contestants had gained fan groups with thousands of members overnight. Weibo supertopics sprang up like mushrooms after rain, discussions surged, and they became the hottest topics around.
Even Chu Yuanqing's Weibo account, which she'd barely used, now had more than a hundred thousand followers.
That astonishing number of new followers was utterly absurd for a Talent Show that hadn't even released its first episode.
And thanks to the enormous attention, the traces left behind by the corrections to her karmic threads—though faint—were still painstakingly dug up.
They included her orphan background, her school ID photo, and pictures of her working as a cashier at a supermarket, as a server at a coffee shop, and at a maid café, working expressionlessly... among other things.
Most intriguingly, Chu Yuanqing's classmates barely remembered her. They recalled her as a gloomy girl who kept to herself, skipped school to work, and was so forgettable that they couldn't even remember what she looked like. It was enough to make people joke that she was the real-life version of Kato Megumi.
These were all parts of her real history, corrected to fit Chu Yuanqing's behavior. They couldn't help but marvel at the terrifying power of magic.
Well, even if Chu Yuanqing herself might not know about it, scattered fragments of her history were indeed lying around, waiting to be discovered.
At the same time, several thousand members of Chu Yuanqing's newly established fan group were already piecing all this information together and letting their imaginations run wild.
In Sea Capital, inside an apartment.
"Whew, Yayoi! Qing Bao!"
Xu Ling lay on a soft bed, holding her phone as she secretly lurked in Chu Yuanqing's fan group.
She'd taken off her exquisite makeup. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and the corners of her lips were turned up high. She looked especially silly, all the more so with the generous affection and girlish lust of a college student.
This little fan, who was a solo fan of Kiriwake Yayoi, had rushed home as soon as she finished taking those few photos and watched every last second of the eight-hour livestream.
During that time, she'd set up Kiriwake Yayoi's fan group and supertopic, dumped all the carefully prepared promotional materials into various platforms and fan groups, and even edited together clips of Kiriwake Yayoi and Chu Yuanqing's performances. Her ability to get things done was terrifying.
She'd even set up the Chu Yuanqing fan group she was lurking in now, out of a fondness for all things related to Yayoi, alongside Kiriwake Yayoi's fan group.
However, because of the rules in fan circles,
Xu Ling, as a Kiriwake Yayoi fan, had handed over the group-owner position to avoid any suspicion when a big name she recognized joined the group. She hadn't even asked to be an admin, quietly acting like an ordinary group member and joining everyone in their excited babbling.
Messages poured into the group by the dozens every minute. The fans were incredibly active.
"Uh-oh, did Qing Bao max out her assassin passive? No wonder she sat in the farthest corner of the Waiting Room."
"That setup is straight out of an anime. Someone who looks like that would stand out even with a mask on, wouldn't she?"
"Whew, whew! Why is there only one photo of her in a maid outfit? It's nowhere near enough!"
"Can't be helped. The photo we dug up was on the employee photo wall at the shop, put there by the manager. Let's hope for some fanservice! Qing Bao in a maid outfit is the GOAT!"
The group members chatted freely about topics that would make the person they were talking about want to black out if she saw them. After repeating "GOAT" dozens of times, they started letting their imaginations run wild again:
"I can't believe Qing Bao had it so rough. No wonder she talked to Chu Wangshu like a little hedgehog."
"Waaah, thinking about her living all alone when she was so young, and having to work hard to support herself, breaks Mom's heart!"
"Exactly! With that kind of background, how could she have any dance experience? The fact that she held up under pressure and finished her performance onstage is enough to make me cry."
"My verdict: Dream Weaver Rabbit deserves to die!"
Xu Ling gave a cold laugh and typed in agreement:
"Heh. If that mysterious reward turns out to be all hype and no substance, I'll rip off its rabbit ears myself!"
After discussing spicy rabbit head recipes at length, the group members finally got back to business:
"Seriously, I can imagine why Qing Bao chose to compete so decisively. With her circumstances, if she wanted to chase her dream despite reality, Shining Stage was probably her only chance."
"Yeah. Who in the Chinese Entertainment Industry gets on a Talent Show without connections?"
"If Qing Bao missed this chance, she'd lose her dream. That's why she made up her mind and joined!"
"Qing Bao is so brave! A twenty-three-year-old fossil like me has to show my respect."
At that moment, a group member who was clearly a CP fan spoke up:
"Now that I think about it, isn't Little Wangshu in the same boat? She's an ordinary girl from a single-parent family with difficult circumstances. No wonder she and Qing Bao became friends."
A solo fan immediately went on the attack:
"Ugh. I know Little Wangshu is Qingqing's friend, and I like her too, but out of respect, could you not bring her up in Qingqing's fan group?"
"Didn't the previous group owner cut ties with the group because she was a Sakura Girl solo fan?"
After a bout of chaos and arguing, the conversation finally veered back on track:
"They're choosing the theme song on the official website today. Which one do you think would suit Qing Bao best?"
"Objectively speaking, Qing Bao's dance skills really are poor. I think we should choose the one with the simplest choreography."
"Then how about Candy? It's a sweet song, and the choreography is simple. Just imagine Qing Bao dancing in a little dress—she'd be so sweet I'd die!"
The group owner chimed in:
"That one is definitely the easiest of the eight. But to be safe and make sure we're all on the same page, let's take a poll in the group first, then post an announcement."
Chu Yuanqing's fans knew perfectly well that with their current numbers, it would be hard to sway the fans of the other popular contestants. But they had to take action first if they wanted to see how things would turn out.
Similar discussions were happening in the other fan groups and supertopics as they gradually sprang up.
Obviously, thanks to Shining Stage's terrifying popularity,
even though Chu Yuanqing had only just appeared in the public eye, some viewers had already become her fans. They genuinely looked forward to seeing her debut and were even putting their support into action.
"Candy, huh?" Xu Ling mused.
Kiriwake Yayoi suited sweet songs too.
Or rather, she was the only contestant who had proven onstage that she could pull off a sweet song.
If Candy became Shining Stage's theme song, Kiriwake Yayoi would gain a buff and have the chance to compete head-on with Xie Qingxuan for the theme song's Center position.
So the fans in this Sakura Girl's fan group had also decided to vote for that song.
On the other hand, Xie Qingxuan and the other contestants thought to be unsuited to sweet songs would likely have fans who avoided Candy, choosing a song based on the contestant they supported instead.
In other words, it was a tug-of-war between all sorts of fans and even casual viewers.
—The decisive vote would last only twenty-four hours!
Shining Stage had once again made its commitment to survival of the fittest clear.
The theme song vote might look ordinary, but the contestant most likely to win would inevitably be the one who'd gained the most fans during the livestream!
Of course, nothing was certain.
Whether it was Ji Shuzhu, Xie Qingxuan, or even Tang Liuli, who was only B-Class, those contestants already had plenty of loyal supporters and potential fans before the show began. Their foundations were far stronger than that of an overnight sensation like Chu Yuanqing.
And that was without even mentioning the difference in efficiency when it came to organized fan voting.
There had also been similar votes in the past where the fans voted for something that didn't match their idol's preference, leading to a blunder that backfired on the idol.
All you could say was that there were a lot of variables.
Shining Stage might champion survival of the fittest, but luck was still an unavoidable factor.
As Xu Ling thought about it, a flash of inspiration struck. She opened a folder she'd saved on her computer.
Inside were hundreds of photos exported from her camera. Most were unedited, with only a few given a soft-focus filter. They were treasures she'd taken during that rainstorm when she'd happened to be there.
Xu Ling logged into her Weibo account and murmured to herself:
"If I post these, the new CP fans might help boost her popularity and push Candy higher, right?"
..
..
..
Waaah, the trial-period results are a little disappointing. Please send in more votes.
Time passed.
Before you continue