Dad, Please Let Me Be a Solo Fan!

Tang Liuli was a little sleepy. She had always suffered from severe insomnia and anxiety.

Although Chu Yuanqing had somehow thoroughly healed her yesterday, leaving her in rare high spirits for a while, that very absurd healing had made her question the beliefs she had built over her entire life, and she had barely slept all night.

Dream Weaver Rabbit's words hadn't managed to lift her spirits either.

Those provocative remarks might have been like a shot of mental nitrogen for others, but for Tang Liuli, who had no interest in idols and had been forced to join this show, they were meaningless nonsense.

She hated the Entertainment Industry, hated being exposed to the public eye, hated the internet's endless prying and public opinion, hated her former self, once watched by countless people like a puppet on strings, and hated her current self even more—still weak and lowly, forced into this competition by her father.

The girl's emerald eyes were lowered, her expression listless and gloomy. She looked as if a tiny dark rain cloud hung above her head, completely existing in a different world from the energized B-Class contestants around her and their heated atmosphere.

It would be nice if the world ended, or if she simply disappeared.

But as those dark thoughts spread without end, the corners of her memory suddenly replayed Chu Yuanqing's smile.

It was like a world-famous painting forever frozen in time, delivering warmth and comfort across the years and interrupting her sinking thoughts.

Tang Liuli pressed her lips together, feeling irritated.

How strange. Could someone really lose themselves over a single smile, even have their spirit genuinely healed by it?

Could I actually be a lesbian?

The moment that thought crossed her mind, she frantically cursed herself.

What the hell am I thinking? Am I an idiot?

After cursing herself, Tang Liuli still couldn't help secretly Looking Towards where Chu Yuanqing was.

Since they were both hiding in corners, Chu Yuanqing was diagonally below and opposite her, where she could just happen to see that profile that made people want to praise all the beauty in the world.

That was so unfair. She looked this good without makeup? Was she cheating?

Tang Liuli stared for around ten seconds, spacing out.

But soon,

the girl suddenly snapped awake. Like a cat caught in the rain, she shook her head fiercely, immediately buried it in her knees, and a faint blush spread over her cool pale skin. Even the beauty mark at the edge of her eye seemed to carry a touch of allure, making her look rather seductive.

This is bad. Is Chu Yuanqing a succubus? Why did I get charmed again?

Tang Liuli sank into her own world, desperately making excuses for herself. She was even more absent-minded than Chu Yuanqing, who at least pretended to be attentive on the surface.

Among this group of fiercely ambitious, strong-willed contestants, she felt a little like a husky that had wandered into a pack of wolves.

At that moment, onstage.

Dream Weaver Rabbit surveyed the upper ranks, then glanced at the specially watched Chu Yuanqing. It spread its arms dramatically and said in a bewitching tone:

"Among you are losers, and among you are winners."

"But the initial assessment is not the final assessment. The Second Evaluation will be the decisive battle."

"You will have one week to learn the theme song's choreography. Then the mentors will observe how well you have completed it and reassess your rankings."

"In this assessment, those who were originally winners may fall into the abyss, while those who were originally losers may rise from the flames and climb to the top!"

"In short, this is a chance at rebirth."

Dream Weaver Rabbit clapped its hands. The vote counts for each theme song on the screen spun and changed rapidly as though they were being randomly selected, like an exhilarating lottery draw.

"It is now 7:50 p.m. There are still ten minutes before voting for the theme song rankings closes completely."

"The choreography and style of these eight theme songs are all different. One song is certain to suit some of you best, while another will suit some of you least. To some degree, they may even determine the direction and outcome of the following assessments."

"But as I just said, idols are precisely meant to overcome these unfair things, and luck is precisely one of the factors that must be overcome."

"So now, who among you will receive the favor of the goddess of fortune?"

Don't Ship Them! Don't Ship Them!

This was a lie.

The contestants almost immediately noticed the flaw in those words.

No matter how special Flash Dance was, at its core, it was still a variety-show talent competition.

Especially when it came to something as sensitive as voting, there was no way it could be purely based on luck.

The theme song ultimately selected would inevitably be directly connected to the contestants most suited to it.

In other words, this was the only opportunity for trainees trapped in this closed-off environment to gauge their own popularity in the outside world, as well as everyone else's.

Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated.

Only by figuring out who the greatest enemies were could they promptly devise countermeasures.

And just as the contestants began brainstorming,

Dream Weaver Rabbit smiled, raised a hand, snapped its fingers, and said:

"Why not invite our audience to witness this together first?"

The Virtual Reality System received the command and instantly imported the data stream from Flash Dance's official Live Broadcast Room. Countless Bullet Comments flooded the enormous tiered classroom in three-dimensional form like schools of fish, darting wildly like flowing light.

The A-Class contestants were seated at the high place, where their field of vision was the broadest. It was as if they were looking down upon mountains, able to take in countless Bullet Comments at a glance. They even had the authority to grab the Bullet Comments, making the interaction extremely strong.

The B-Class contestants could only watch, while the seating areas below seemed to have been swept into a bizarre and fantastical world, like people who had accidentally wandered into mist-shrouded mountains at dawn, leaving them rather bewildered.

"Hehehe, Flash Dance, I'm coming in!"

"The Program Group really knows how to make good entertainment. This Virtual Reality performance and those crazy surprise attacks on contestants? Nothing else even comes close."

"So this is what it feels like to openly dance right in front of the person involved? So awesome!"

"Dream Weaver Rabbit's lines are beyond edgy. Damn it, I'm getting fired up!"

"Damn, what kind of hot-blooded idol anime is this?"

"Lines like [The stage is war, and victory or defeat determines the future] are seriously... so freaking cool!"

All these Bullet Comments seemed to have been intelligently categorized. Through real-time big-data searches and calculations, they flew in groups toward the contestants they concerned, forcibly turning what had been a passing light show into a massive public execution.

"Qing Bao Qing Bao Qing Bao, give Mom a kiss???!"

"Maid outfit! Maid outfit! Maid outfit!"

"The Solo Fans have gone dark! Qing Bao, stay away from that Sakura Girl! Don't fall for her tricks!"

"Qing Bao looked at me! Hehehe, my legs are shaking from happiness. I'm going to faint???!"

"You'd better be fainting because you're happy!"

"Lesbians, don't go too far. As a straight girl, I can't keep watching this???."

Chu Yuanqing had only raised her head and looked for a few moments before her pupils shook and her heart nearly stopped. She wanted to evaporate on the spot.

The girl's little face flushed crimson as she tried her best to maintain a serious expression.

Damn it, that annoying red-eyed rabbit is trying to disrupt my resolve with Bullet Comments again!

And those weird Bullet Comments calling themselves mom—I have a daughter myself, okay? I don't need any strange Mom Fans!

Wait, maid outfit? What is a maid outfit?

That keyword caused the memories inserted into her mind through causal correction to vaguely float to the surface.

As Chu Yuanqing puzzled over it, she actually remembered, in a daze, the awkward scene of herself wearing a maid outfit. She clenched her fists and secretly ground her teeth, so angry that she nearly stomped her foot. The embarrassment made even her earlobes burn red.

This is bad. Who exactly blessed me with this superpower?

Why is it such a scam? It would have been enough to fix a little causality, but it had to create such a complete past for me—so complete that I wouldn't even know about it unless I recalled it myself. Now I have so much extra Black History for no reason!

No wonder I was inexplicably so skilled whenever I put on underwear. I could easily undo or fasten those Rubik's Cube-level complicated clasps.

Are Magical Girls all this magical?

At the same time, because the Bullet Comments floating around Chu Yuanqing had all locked onto her perspective, viewers almost immediately saw her microexpressions and rapidly pinkening earlobes, and couldn't help losing their minds even harder:

"So cute so cute so cute, she's blushing!"

"What's the point of living without Qing Bao to watch? Of course I'd go crazy! I'm only holding it in! Fuck, I can't take it anymore. Tonight, I'm going to blow up Flash Dance and steal Qing Bao away! I'm going completely feral???!"

"I'm a student, give me one."

"This is ridiculous, I can't take it! Can't you see my Qing Bao is embarrassed? You Lesbians, restrain yourselves and stay away from my Qing Bao!"

Modern internet lesbian madness literature successfully gave the Savior from the old era a tiny shock.

Chu Yuanqing couldn't handle it at all. The dirty talk made her brain crash, so she directly chose to become an ostrich, closed her eyes, and played dead.

During this period, similar things happened around many contestants.

But unlike Chu Yuanqing, they had all surfed the internet before. They weren't middle-aged Corporate Slaves so busy that they had fallen out of touch with the times, and they possessed powerful filtering abilities.

Besides, everyone knew this was the best way to gather information from the outside world and clearly understand their own popularity there, so naturally none of them would casually give it up.

Therefore, almost everyone was now interacting with the Bullet Comments in their own way.

From the A-Class contestants' perspective, the number of Bullet Comments outside their own section decreased in a stair-step pattern. Only Chu Yuanqing, surrounded by an enormous mass of Bullet Comments in the C-Class area, looked utterly out of place among the other C-Class contestants.

And in the B-Class area, Tang Liuli stood out the most, followed by Chu Wangshu.

Tang Liuli had once been a child star who illuminated all of Great Xia.

Even though she had retired for many years, her dormant fanbase far exceeded that of ordinary trainees making their debut.

On the other hand, this young actress, who had a certain standing in both film and television circles, had silently appeared on Flash Dance as an idol trainee after being out of the public eye for years. It was hard not to be curious about that.

Under such circumstances, marketing accounts and self-media outlets reposted and fabricated stories about her, desperately riding the wave of attention. As a result, her presence continued to rise.

Among the bullet comments gathering around her now, some were heartfelt blessings and declarations of support from loyal fans, while the other group was almost entirely made up of gossip-seeking passersby.

Tang Liuli's emerald eyes were gloomy. Intense inferiority and fear engulfed her like a tide. She opened her mouth at the Bullet Comments, but she could not say anything for a long time. She stood silent like a statue, a statue that could crack and shatter at any moment.

Until...

"Was Liuli secretly staring at Chu Yuanqing's profile the whole time?"

"Yeah, I remember she blushed too. She was super cute."

"Little Liuli grew up to be very beautiful too. Too bad she became a lesbian. I'm dying."

"Don't say it. That's absolutely a crush."

"Can we ship them? Can we ship them? Can we ship them?"

Tang Liuli immediately broke down.

Damn it, what do you mean secretly staring? What do you mean absolutely a crush?

I am not! I didn't! That wasn't me!!!

Tang Liuli didn't even have time to be depressed anymore. She anxiously wanted to speak up and refute them, but she was still extremely unaccustomed to facing the gazes behind all those Bullet Comments. Her moist lips moved for a long while, yet only one quiet sentence escaped:

"Don't ship us!"

As expected, those words provoked the audience's rebelliousness. They seized on that point and began teasing her furiously, while the Bullet Comments multiplied at a rapid rate, quickly turning the surroundings into a sea of joy.

Exclusive Votes, Theme Songs

The atmosphere around Chu Wangshu was relatively relaxed, unlike Tang Liuli, who was being pushed into greater and greater panic by the [I want to ship them][I want to ship them] comments.

The little girl was immersed in the novelty of being noticed and liked by so many people. Her eyes sparkled brightly, making her adorable. She chatted with the bullet comments in a cheerful yet slightly shy manner, earnestly answering some questions and drawing more and more fans to her.

Meanwhile,

the A-Class contestants, who had the authority to grab Bullet Comments, delivered the best entertainment value.

As for Kiriwake Yayoi, who could not really understand Great Xia's writing and should have been at a disadvantage, a pile of considerate Island Nation-language Bullet Comments successfully made up for it.

The Little Idol was at a loss. Her eyes reddened slightly, and her usual perfect smile wavered a little. Yet she successfully held back and did not cry from the belated comfort, instead continuing to patiently and earnestly answer her fans' questions.

Yes, that included the small number of CP fans who were not losing their minds.

Dream Weaver Rabbit said nothing. The current fan-interaction segment had long been part of the show's planned format.

The contestants could use it to learn about the outside world, close the distance between themselves and their fans, and truly realize what that stage had brought them.

And this was precisely the situation Flash Dance wanted to see.

So-called ambition could only grow after one had tasted the taste of power.

The same applied to idols. After tasting the taste of being loved, praised, and surrounded because of the stage, could they still accept the cruel reality of being eliminated, having their dreams shattered, and becoming ordinary?

If they could not, then they had to work with everything they had and show the public their shining selves onstage.

This cycle of mutual stimulation, combined with the underground base's special training methods, would allow every idol trainee inside to continuously evolve again and again along a growth curve they could never have imagined before.