Dad, Please Let Me Stan Just One!

Chu Yuanqing looked back at her past self. She had been like a statue gradually petrified by a curse.

And what about her current self? She was like flesh and blood struggling to grow out of that statue, much lighter than before, no longer so gloomy. Even her personality and certain beliefs had changed. She was more like a normal person, more vivid and alive.

Come to think of it, if she were still the person she had been a month ago, she would not have been this embarrassed over wearing a skirt and dancing, right?

Chu Yuanqing's thoughts drifted as she searched for the meaning of life and her true self.

Kiriwake Yayoi studied the absentminded girl, assuming she found it too difficult. After some thought, she added:

"This is only a method I'm used to using. It may not work for everyone."

"If Xiao Qing finds it too hard, you could try not starting from yourself. Just think of the version of yourself onstage as some world-class idol. That might have a miraculous effect too, you know?"

Chu Yuanqing's wandering thoughts were interrupted. Her eyes lit up as she repeated:

"Imagine myself as some world-class idol?"

That made sense.

Since she had fallen so far that she could not even overcome the embarrassment of dancing in a skirt, she might as well imagine herself as someone else.

Though she still had to resist the erosion of the Sea of Truth and could not truly hypnotize herself, as long as she put herself in the shoes of an amazing idol, she could barely handle the Second Evaluation and the large-scale public performance without dragging everyone down!

But to be honest, with her pitiful knowledge of the entertainment industry, she could not think of any world-class idol she could visualize.

After thinking it over and over, the first name that sprang to Chu Yuanqing's mind was still that close, dependable comrade-in-arms, the World Funeral Director known as the Doomsday Diva.

—Charlotte.

Chu Yuanqing perked up and muttered to herself:

"Oh, right. As long as I think of myself as Charlotte when I go onstage to dance, whether it's cute movements or winking with a bright smile, it all becomes perfectly reasonable!"

Chu Yuanqing had attained enlightenment.

Because she was Charlotte, being cute was only natural.

Because she was Charlotte, she did not need any sense of shame.

Because she was Charlotte, she would not lose to any world-class idol.

Chu Yuanqing felt as though she had found the ultimate substitute. For a moment, she was brimming with confidence and felt that victory was already assured. She confidently asked Kiriwake Yayoi to count them in again so she could redo the part where she had made the most mistakes.

Then ten minutes passed.

The Live Broadcast Room was a sea of joy:

"Hahahaha, sorry, Qing Bao. Mom didn't want to laugh, but you were just too cute. I really couldn't hold it in."

"You dare laugh at my Qing Bao? Was that on purpose, or was it an accident????"

"It's only the second day. Qingqing can definitely do it!"

"Qing Bao is too mature. It really is hard for her to show a girlish feeling in dance, but I believe she'll improve later!"

Kiriwake Yayoi blinked, seeming as though she wanted to say something but stopped herself.

Chu Yuanqing's movements were still stiff, and her expressions were still poorly managed. She kept making mistakes in the more delicate hand movements. Even when she spun, which should have looked light and graceful, she resembled a tiny dancing doll on a music box moving with the gears—jerking along bit by bit in a beauty that was difficult to put into words.

Well, to sum it up, she had barely improved at all.

If that dance were played back in front of Chen Baijiu, he would probably bombard her with vicious remarks for ten straight minutes.

At this moment.

Chu Yuanqing was deeply grief-stricken over the loss of a shortcut for slacking off.

Damn it, it was because Charlotte was simply too cute that she could not imagine herself as her at all, okay?!

What Deductive Method? Fake nonsense.

Chu Yuanqing began to miss her former invincible self!

Kiriwake Yayoi watched the extraordinarily sorrowful Chu Yuanqing, feeling both a little sympathetic and a little expectant.

Xiao Qing respected and loved the stage so much. She must be worried about the evaluations over the next few days.

But this anxiety and pain were precisely the hurdle a qualified idol had to go through. Only by experiencing them could one understand just how precious that moment of standing onstage truly was.

Kiriwake Yayoi remembered her own past. When she had first joined that idol group, she had been the last member to enter, so she often had to expend tremendous effort just to keep up with the seniors' progress.

In the end, the unscrupulous company had even delayed her promised debut date on the grounds of her poor results.

That delay lasted a full two years.

The girl from the Hokkaido countryside, who had come to the bustling city with innocence and dreams in her heart, had chosen to persevere through countless bouts of anxiety, doubt, inferiority, pain, fear of never being able to stand onstage, and even despair.

Part-time work and training became the main melody of her life.

Kiriwake Yayoi had thought about giving up countless times, but she had not been crushed. She successfully endured it all.

Though life after debut was even harder and the stages she stood on were narrow, the moment she stood beneath the spotlights, drenched in sweat, and heard the few audience members below calling for an encore, it felt as though everything had been repaid.

From that moment on, she began looking forward to the future.

—She wanted to stand on bigger stages.

—She wanted to become a better idol.

—She wanted to hear encores like a tsunami.

Kiriwake Yayoi had never liked glorifying suffering.

But she had to admit that those difficult, lightless years had honed the resilience hidden in her personality, distilled her incomparable desire for the stage, and shaped the endlessly passionate, never-give-up person she was today.

It was the same now.

Only after accumulating enough sweat and hard work, then stepping onto a true stage, could one breathe in that sweetness like poppies, making people charge forward one after another like moths to a flame; only then could one truly understand the weight carried by the words "true idol."

That sweetness and realization would distill enough passion to overcome adversity.

Dream Weaver Rabbit said the Second Evaluation was a rebirth.

But in her view, only a large-scale public performance where one truly faced the audience could bring a butterfly-like transformation of the self. Only that could count as a chance at rebirth.

Thinking this, Kiriwake Yayoi revealed a sincere smile.

"Xiao Qing, don't overthink it. Once you get familiar with the movements, it'll be fine."

"Let's practice a few more times together, okay?"

The girl watched Chu Yuanqing's immature figure dance again to the beat. Her lowered eyes shone brightly, concealing scorching expectations.

The Second Evaluation, and the first public performance.

Xiao Qing, just how much would these two opportunities allow you to grow?

I'm looking forward to it. If you really are the same kind of person as me, then try to... be reborn from the flames!

Like a flawless saint, training, interview.

Time turned.

Three days passed in the blink of an eye.

The week of training was nearly halfway over. Since the choreography and singing style of Candy were relatively simple, most contestants could already complete the song and dance smoothly and had entered the stage of refinement and polishing.

After that day, Chu Yuanqing temporarily gave up the idea of using the Deductive Method to slack off. With a miserable expression, she officially began her grueling training according to the guidance of Tang Liuli, Kiriwake Yayoi, and the remaining trainees.

Besides flexibility training, vocal training, and even jazz dance fundamentals, she also had to study music theory, learn to distinguish other dance styles, and master singing techniques beyond vocalization.

Those were only scattered peripheral details. The most important thing was still becoming familiar with the breakdown of Candy's movements.

Though she could enter Flow State to speed up her learning efficiency, the various debuffs meant she could only use it while not exercising.

And the sweet, girlish dance Candy clearly did not meet the activation conditions for Flow State, which kept her learning progress at a normal pace.

Chu Yuanqing could now barely dance through the entire routine. Though she was much better than three days ago, she looked extremely formulaic. The viewers in the Live Broadcast Room only called her cute because of her absurdly pretty face and their fan filters.

Objectively speaking, let alone compared with C-Class contestants, even most F-Class contestants danced better than she did. She was truly near the bottom of the rankings.

But there was nothing she could do about it.

Over those three days, she trained for an average of eight to nine hours a day.

Compared to certain training maniacs, that was not especially intense. But for this frail body, it was no different from one brutal overexertion after another. Every day left her whole body aching and exhausted, so it absolutely could not be called slacking off.

Chu Yuanqing's rare free time each day, aside from eating, consisted only of showering and changing clothes when she returned to the dorm at noon and in the evening.

During this period, she would also handle the dorm chores as though completing daily quests—blowing Xie Qingxuan's hair dry, helping Liang Xiaoxiao put in colored contacts, and sometimes even being responsible for "putting Tang Liuli to sleep" by chatting with her before bed.

This meticulous care made her seem both like a mom and a young wife. Meanwhile, her actual daughter, Chu Wangshu, did not share a dorm with her, and both were busy training, so they barely had chances to meet or talk. As a result, she had not experienced this care.

It was worth mentioning that Chu Yuanqing's relationship with her roommates had improved over the three days.

Xie Qingxuan looked imposing and aloof, but she was actually very polite. Setting aside certain obsessive traits, she could even seem a little airheaded. Especially when someone dried her hair, she was incredibly well-behaved. Her hair tips swayed like an angel's down feathers, making her look like a puppy.

Liang Xiaoxiao had high emotional intelligence and liked to smile. Though she claimed to have accepted her fate of elimination, she spent no less time in the dance studio than Chu Yuanqing did every day. She was stubborn yet fragile, once secretly crying in the bathroom. She was a dream chaser who saw reality clearly but refused to accept it.

Tang Liuli carried a gloomy air that always made people think of a rain woman from the Island Nation. She liked to hide her social anxiety and inferiority complex beneath irritability. She also had some insomnia and a lack of affection. She was one of the rare contestants uninterested in becoming an idol, treating her daily training like a routine task and preferring to stay in the corners to reduce her presence.

Well, although she sometimes blushed when she saw her, she was not a bad kid. She was even a little pitiful.

And while Chu Yuanqing was forming impressions of her roommates, the others were doing the same.

In Xie Qingxuan's Initial Evaluation, Chu Yuanqing had been just like all those people whose heads were full of idol dreams: an idiot who charged recklessly onto the cruel stage of Flash Dance without evaluating herself, relying only on a burst of passion.

The only difference between this idiot and the other idiots was that she was too pretty, so looking at her was pleasing to the eye.

As for her other opinions?

Even Xie Qingxuan herself did not know. Her obsession with destroying her older sister's dream left her with no mind to linger and admire the scenery by the roadside. Even if she sensed a hint of warmth, she no longer had the spare energy to investigate further.

Liang Xiaoxiao's assessment was more ordinary. She thought Chu Yuanqing was very gentle. Even after realizing Liang Xiaoxiao had been crying, she had only left a pack of tissues in the cabinet outside the bathroom. She was a girl who understood boundaries and was excessively beautiful.

But on the other hand, she felt it was difficult to truly get close to her.

If Tang Liuli's social defenses were roses, a hedgehog, and a city wall.

Then Chu Yuanqing's social defenses were a gentleness that stopped at a taste, an undisguised distance in her eyes, and a suffocating loneliness that struck in fleeting moments.

In Tang Liuli's eyes, Chu Yuanqing was almost not worth mentioning.

What succubus, what young mom, what humanoid lullaby, what the only light in Flash Dance—it was all flashy nonsense.

One could only say that even Tang Liuli herself probably could not understand how such abstract yet concrete impressions had been branded into her mind.

At this moment, inside the C-Class practice room.

Chu Yuanqing wore fitted dance clothes beneath a loose short-sleeved shirt that concealed the curve of her chest. She was stretching with someone, extending her slender body and displaying all the beauty of youth.

Sweat seeped from the girl's temples. Her clean face, bare of makeup, held a healthy pink flush. Her expression was serious, but her eyes concealed irritation and embarrassment.

Every time this body bent over to stretch, her underwear had to bear an unusual amount of pressure to keep the soft, full flesh in place.

Though she had been gender-swapped for nearly three weeks, she was still not used to these things. She had never expected that even on the Initial Evaluation stage, she would be wearing cheap stuff bought from a supermarket.

It was only recently, after intense training had rubbed her delicate skin red, that she had proactively asked the underground base's life assistant for a few supportive sports bras. Otherwise, stretching, flexibility training, and regular practice would all have been troublesome.

If those trivial details were still bearable.

Then the current situation was undoubtedly pushing the limits of what she could endure.

"Qingqing, it's really simple. Stretch a few more times after training, and it won't hurt anymore."

A cute, intimate smile appeared on Chu Wangshu's cool and lovely face.

After saying that, the little girl seriously demonstrated another set of movements, using her youthful yet nearly mature body curves to prove that Chu Yuanqing's many years of careful care had not been wasted.

Chu Yuanqing felt a brief burst of pride in her cooking skills, but she quickly moved her gaze away gloomily. She pressed her lips together and followed the movements her daughter demonstrated, pretending calmly as she stretched.

Yet the regret in her heart expanded every moment. By the time she had learned the full set of movements, it had even grown to the scale of a tsunami, drowning her overwhelming shame and absurdity.

But this torment had not yet reached its end.

When her daughter watched like a little teacher, carefully checking whether her movements were correct and correcting her several times, those extremely complicated emotions reached a brand new peak. The string in her mind finally snapped, and a series of crackling sounds rang out again and again.

That was the wail of a father's dignity, continuously shattering.

Why was there no massage pod in the C-Class practice room?!

Why couldn't a Magical Girl use magic to eliminate muscle soreness?!

Why had she run her mouth this morning and told Xiao Shu that her stretching had not been up to standard lately?!