If Chu Yuanqing failed, they would take advantage of her vulnerability to comfort her and win her favor.
Now that she hadn't failed, naturally, it was time to shower her with praise!
But for Chu Yuanqing, who was wholeheartedly trying to lower her profile and slack off, this was anything but friendly.
She had just breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that the strangers around her had instantly become familiar. She had only walked back a few steps, yet she was nearly drowned in soft, fragrant warmth.
What was going on? Were kids these days all this enthusiastic?
Xiao Shu was like this, Yayoi was like this, and so were all of you!
Chu Yuanqing fretted inwardly. She cautiously shifted away, maintaining a social distance from them. She answered their questions politely yet distantly, trying her best to put on an extremely aloof, icy demeanor.
But unfortunately, her face was far too youthful, and the coolness in her eyes was easily softened. It made her look like a little adult, and even her serious replies carried an endearing earnestness.
When these girls, who had initially approached her with calculating intentions, received her replies, that refreshing cuteness even dispelled the darkness in their hearts. Their originally awkward tactical cuddling was starting to turn into genuine affection.
Thus, the group darling surrounded by the crowd was like a gentle spring breeze, completely changing the previously stifling atmosphere in the practice room.
Zhao Dapan was delighted by the change in atmosphere. He deliberately allowed the contestants to interact and did not immediately call up the next person.
The essence of a Talent Show was still variety entertainment.
How boring would it be if the audience only watched the contestants train?
What interested viewers were the collisions between people on the platform of talent shows and idols.
There were over a hundred pretty Younger Sisters in Flash Dance. With a little imagination, they could create countless points of interest: shipping lesbians, shipping friendships, shipping mother-daughter pairings, shipping powerful duos, shipping rivals, or even shipping some ethereal group spirit.
The essence of the training segment, meanwhile, lay in how it could give viewers a powerful sense of nurturing growth.
Why did Zhao Dapan think Chu Yuanqing would not be eliminated so easily?
The core reason was that she gave the audience far too much of that nurturing feeling.
Couldn't dance at all? Had zero vocal foundation? Just entered the Entertainment Industry?
If that was all, then she was merely a blank slate. Pure amateurs were everywhere, so what was new about that?
But if MAX-level looks, MAX-level talent, MAX-level camera presence, and MAX-level stage mentality were added into the mix, then it was an entirely different matter.
Chu Yuanqing was an unpolished jade rarely seen once in a century among growth-type idols.
A contestant like this should be paired up with as many CPs as possible in Flash Dance. The more pairings, the more CP fans; the more CP fans, the more faction wars; and the more twisted drama there would be. Sea Capital's Flash Dance would become even more popular!
I: 51. I Want to Die, I Want to Die, I Want to Die.
At this moment, the Live Broadcast Room was in an uproar:
"I can't take it anymore! I'm a pretty Younger Sister too, I want to cuddle Qing Bao too!"
"Hehe, there are too many lesbians. Such a turnoff. I'm different—I just want to be good friends with Qing Bao???."
"You'd better only want to be friends!"
"Damn it, the solo fans are furious! Why is Qing Bao like the Myriad Female King? Everywhere she goes, people chase after her to cuddle! It feels like I've been NTR'd???!"
"NTR? Give me more NTR like this! It's great, I love watching it???."
"Outrageous! You shameless women! Go attend your classes properly, no more cuddling!"
"Sniff, sniff. I want Qing Bao's cold way of replying too. If it's Qing Bao, even manicures are fine???!"
"Damn it, this slap is for you! Put your underwear back on! You tripped me, you know?!"
These outrageous comments, which would have made Chu Yuanqing's vision go dark, did not affect the atmosphere in the practice room.
Only after letting the trainees interact for quite a while did Zhao Dapan clap his hands, signaling the end of the break. He then casually called on a contestant to come up and sing, resolving someone's current predicament.
Chu Yuanqing breathed a sigh of relief and obediently, quietly stayed in the corner. Blinking her eyes, she observed the other contestants as they sang.
Although these eight trainees were only C-Class, the A-Class contestants had specifically selected a weaker batch. The fact that they had been kept meant their fundamentals in all areas were fairly solid.
The facts also proved this point.
These girls had clearly worked hard last night. They were extremely proficient with Candy, far more composed and skillful than she was.
Because they had received basic training and understood vocalization, breathing, and breath support quite well, after taking turns singing, not a single one of them had a raw, untrained voice like hers. All of them could turn their voices into sweet, adorable honeyed tones.
Their only flaw was their poor ability to handle pressure. Once they made even a minor mistake and were interrupted, they would visibly grow nervous and struggle to calm themselves down. Still, because the lyrics and melody were simple, they could generally find their rhythm and make it through, albeit somewhat clumsily.
Chu Yuanqing admired them deeply, while also feeling somewhat emotional.
The more one understood idols, the more one could understand the cruelty of the competition format.
These trainees, who risked never seeing a stage again for the rest of their lives by joining Flash Dance, possessed far purer resolve, dreams, faith, and will than those in ordinary talent shows.
And someone like her, who had no obsession with the stage, had no right to compete on the same stage as these kids.
The more Chu Yuanqing thought about it, the more ashamed she felt. She secretly made up her mind that she had to find an opportunity to slip away as soon as possible. Once she got the money and took out proper insurance, she needed to start handling her affairs after death.
After all, before dying, she could forcibly knead the Magical Girl core back into her original bodily state, ensuring that no flaws could be found in the corpse.
But some insurance companies even outsourced detective teams to investigate in order to prevent insurance fraud. To fool those professionals, she would need to carefully consider how she died!
Time passed.
After Zhao Dapan had the trainees sing one after another, he divided Candy into parts and pointed out several issues they still needed to pay attention to. He then announced the end of class and allowed them to train freely afterward.
This was what everyone had expected. Candy was not difficult to sing, so anyone with even a little foundation did not need constant instruction from a mentor.
And compared to singing, dance was what everyone needed to focus their training on more.
The vocal lesson ended quickly. Chen Baijiu entered the room lazily in a bucket hat, accompanied by a female teaching assistant specifically brought along to avoid suspicion and correct movements. Then he began teaching.
Chu Yuanqing did not slack off amid the chaos.
Although she wanted to be eliminated, with her terrible dance foundation, if she did not study seriously, she might drag down other hard-working contestants during the large Public Performance after the Second Evaluation. It would be even worse if she caused a stage accident.
As for worrying that she might dance too well and gain a huge number of fans?
Chu Yuanqing was not worried about that in the slightest.
As the saying went, everyone had their specialty. Now that 99.9% of her blessings had been stripped away and her soul had declined to become even weaker than an ordinary person's, aside from a few magical methods, she was no different from anyone else. How could she possibly outwork these girls who loved the stage?
It was laughable. Pick any D-Class contestant in Flash Dance, and they could dance better than her.
So she had never considered whether working hard might make her dance too well.
Chu Yuanqing even felt that worrying about it was a form of arrogance.
Sure enough, in dance class, she clearly could not keep up with the learning pace of the other eight.
The first two hours, spent learning the movements in sections and slowly getting familiar with them, were fine.
But afterward, when they officially divided the choreography into parts and began trying to dance in sync to the beat, Chen Baijiu remained constantly on the verge of exploding. Throughout the remaining two long hours, his sharp tongue practically never stopped:
"Your movements are too stiff."
"Chu Yuanqing, where is the coordination you showed onstage?"
"Candy is a sweet-style dance that emphasizes girlishness and cuteness, not tai chi! And not military boxing!"
"You can't even keep up with such simple beats. What are you going to do when you sing and dance?"
"Pay attention to controlling your breathing!"
"Don't keep such a stiff face. Make an expression! This is girl group dance; expression management is the most basic part. Start by practicing your smile!"
Compared to the disaster on this side, the other contestants' performances were not exactly effortless, but they could all successfully keep up with the teaching progress.
Chu Yuanqing had only followed along for two rounds of practice before she was "picked up" like a small animal and pulled aside. Under the one-on-one guidance of the female teaching assistant, she began training all by herself. The scene was both awkward and amusing.
The Bullet Comments in the Live Broadcast Room were filled with laughter and looked quite cheerful.
But some people questioned such a performance, believing that someone with such poor dance fundamentals was unqualified to participate in a global idol project. They argued fiercely with everyone else.
Unaware of the commotion outside, Chu Yuanqing fought back tears as she desperately tried to keep up with the beat. Awkwardly, she performed the choreography she had just learned, part by part and section by section.
These moves were unlike the neutral and cool street dance style. They were jazz-inspired movements mixed with isolation, a classic girl group dance leaning toward sweetness and cuteness.
The inward and outward movements were manageable, but the hip twists and sways, the turns and tilted heads, the meticulously cute hand movements, and even the precisely required wink were completely beyond what she could accept!
The female teaching assistant served as a merciless beat-counting machine. Her demonic "two, two, three, four" was like a terrifying nightmare, gradually transforming the sweet Candy into a tentacled monster in Chu Yuanqing's mind.
Chu Yuanqing only felt an intense sense of shame numbing her whole body. Her skin seemed to turn sticky and slick as the sensation spread over her like a punishment. Her limbs stiffened uncontrollably, and she could not even enter [Flow State]. Her brain was practically crashing.
I want to die, I want to die, I want to die.
I really want to die, I really want to die, I really want to die.
Was she really going to dance something like this in public?
If Xiao Shu saw it, she would definitely be so embarrassed she would evaporate on the spot!
Damn it, no matter what, making a middle-aged man dance something like this was way too cruel, wasn't it?!
Yet even though despair still overflowed within her, her eyes gradually becoming hollow like those of a puppet on strings.
This retired Savior still endured the entire class through sheer force of will.
Chu Yuanqing's back was soaked through with a thin layer of sweat. Her little head buzzed as she stood in the center of the dance studio. As if reborn, she gradually regained her vitality, her long lashes fluttering as she waited for Chen Baijiu to announce dismissal like a migratory bird longing to return home.
The next second,
"Dream Weaver Rabbit said that, in order to adapt to the Public Performance ahead of time, everyone's outfits need a tiny little change."
The mentor clapped his hands and pointed toward the boxes being carried in by intelligent robots. Then, with a smile, he casually delivered a declaration more horrifying than the devil, more terrifying than a catastrophic beast, and more despairing than betrayal by a comrade:
"For example, short skirts."
I: Thoughts on Going Premium, and a Bounty.
The novel will go premium tomorrow, Friday.
Although the bookmarks and views have not been great, my feel for writing this book has gone from stumbling at the start to gradually finding its rhythm.
As everyone knows, Entertainment Industry stories about the girl group cuddling route generally need to lean more toward an ensemble cast. Otherwise, it is hard to make well-rounded characters come alive on the page, allowing readers to happily ship CPs—or even mix and match everyone with everyone.
Well, perhaps it is not something everyone knows. There are so few stories like this that there is no established approach.
Anyway, in my personal view, the relationships between Qing Bao and the supporting characters are still at the stage of tentative first tastes and have not yet deepened.
When this situation will change depends largely on Chu Yuanqing herself.
She is the forgotten Savior, the father about to die, the hopelessly kind person without regrets, the flawless elder.
There is a saying I forgot where I saw, but I have always liked it. I once intended to make it the core of one arc in my previous book, but that outline was discarded for various reasons.
—[An elder cannot be conquered. You cannot be the first, nor can you become their White Moonlight. Someone has already braved fire and water for him, someone has loved her for a hundred years, and they have even promised each other another hundred years.]
—[In the past you cannot see, you think that everything you have done can move her heart, which has long grown accustomed to the world's vicissitudes. Yet you do not realize that these are merely things others have done before. Whether it was taking a blade for her or sitting on a rooftop, smashing liquor bottles and going mad for a while, love and hate alike have been experienced more than once already.]
Chu Yuanqing had no regrets, and she was flawless.
In theory, she could not be conquered. Just as heroes always reached their end, the setting sun always descended, and migratory birds eventually rested, it was an unquestionable objective fact.
Like the apocalyptic world Chu Yuanqing had saved, this fact was an endless wasteland that could only be altered through a Worldline reset.
Yet this story began precisely in the Peaceful Era after the Worldline reset.
From that perspective, Chu Yuanqing stepping onto a stage where all the stars surrounded her was like accidentally beginning a journey of self-redemption. The lock on her heart being pried open seemed once again like an inevitable certainty.
So simply carrying regret for a lifetime seemed difficult to achieve after all.
But if anyone still wants to see it once the plot reaches a certain point, perhaps I could write an IF route as an extra?
In short, I only established Chu Yuanqing's character setting and did not establish her ending. The other supporting characters are basically the same. Thinking carefully about the surprises born from their mutual collisions, it is actually quite interesting.
That is also why I have never replied to comments asking who is the top and who is the bottom. I simply never established that sort of thing, or rather, the labels of top and bottom do not have clear boundaries for me.
Someone who seems insecure and gloomy might, at a critical moment, pounce like a bristling hedgehog and bite hard.
Someone who seems incomparably cold might instead retreat step by step when pursued, only to turn the tables when their shyness reaches its limit.
A glass cannon can be hard as iron when necessary.
A heart of stone may also melt into white snow beneath the spring light.
Whether someone is a zero or a one, a pillow princess or a finger-cot pioneer, it matters and it does not matter.
Well, to sum it up: as long as everyone is adorable, that is a victory!
As for whether it will be 1V1 or a harem...
Although this book's elements are extremely complicated and strange—post-apocalypse, Savior, Magical Girl, father-daughter conflict, gender transformation, and a variety-show talent competition—all combined into an abstract yet harmonious flavor.
Still, both the main plot and side plots will revolve around the stage and idols! To put it more clearly, this is a girl group idol story. Can girl group idols only cuddle with one person? Of course they have to cuddle with everyone!!!
Before you continue