After that, she did a few sets of stretches her daughter had taught her, slowly finished the food in the paper bag, and returned to the dorm. She washed up, changed clothes, and fell into a deep sleep.
Meanwhile, Tang Liuli seemed to have had her mute button pressed. Even when Chu Yuanqing thanked her, she just wrapped herself in the blanket like some strange creature and gave a nasal hum in reply.
Chu Yuanqing didn't mind. With only two days left until the Second Evaluation, she was exhausted and had no energy to dwell on it. After showering, she put on an eye mask and earplugs and fell into a deep sleep.
Tang Liuli, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. Once she had escaped the bizarre state caused by the reverse interference of [Flow State], she found herself completely unable to accept how perverted she was.
The girl repeatedly analyzed herself. The more she thought about it, the more wrong it seemed; the more she thought about it, the more absurd it felt.
At first, treating Chu Yuanqing like her mother when she was little, or as a human lullaby, was one thing.
But now she'd actually become so excited after experiencing Chu Yuanqing's emotions that she went straight into [Flow State]. She was still worked up, and had even been so charmed that she was ready to start a religion!
This was too much! What was the difference between being a lesbian and a pervert?
Tang Liuli tossed and turned. She felt like she was getting addicted. Her mind was full of yearning to enter [Flow State] again, and her heart was filled with fantasies of being patted on the head, rewarded, praised, cuddled, and stealing a little maternal love.
But as she kept thinking, she began to feel guilty. What right did she have to crave those things?
Tang Liuli suddenly recalled how sad Chu Yuanqing had been. In the middle of the night, she quietly sat up and slapped herself hard. Her eyes filled with tears from the pain, and she thought she really was awful.
Qingqing had clearly been sad, yet she'd used that to make herself happy. That was just too much!
The more the girl thought about it, the guiltier she felt.
Chu Yuanqing was sad because she couldn't keep up with the other trainees' progress. She loved the stage so much that she'd kept training until almost eleven without returning to the dorm, all to get a little closer to her dream, right?
But reality was cruel. No matter how hard she worked in such a short time, she couldn't catch up with the foundation others had built over years.
Chu Yuanqing had to know that, yet she'd still chosen to persevere.
Knowing her efforts might be futile, yet refusing to give up—that persistence and passion made the sadness Tang Liuli had just experienced feel scorching hot, as if it were about to burn a hole through her heart.
Tang Liuli had never liked idols.
There were no stages in the Chinese Entertainment Industry, and idols had no future.
The trainees who debuted through talent shows only wanted to use the popularity they gained as idols to transition into acting or some other career.
In her eyes, the trainees who had come to Shining Stage were no different from the ones who'd come before. They were all ambitious schemers looking to attract more attention, with no dreams to speak of. Just like her father, they were all tainted by the disgusting stench of money.
But...
The sadness she'd experienced through Chu Yuanqing seemed to mock that prejudice, smashing her arrogant disdain for idols to pieces.
Tang Liuli thought that someone as twisted, dark, and awkward as her, someone who was practically falling apart, might understand genuine idols less than anyone—and be the least suited to stand onstage and shine.
But whether it was to repay a debt, atone for her sins, or even just satisfy herself, it didn't matter.
She'd suddenly wanted to witness the moment this girl, who could so easily hurt her with nothing but sadness, stepped onto the world's greatest stage and shone in full bloom.
If it was this person, then the fulfillment of achieving her dream, and the radiance she'd display like a deity, might... even completely cure Tang Liuli's twisted affliction.
"Chu Yuanqing, I'll help you."
From then on, Tang Liuli had another reason to stay on Shining Stage.
The next day, the girl whom viewers had always regarded as utterly ordinary took the initiative to enter the B-Class practice room. For the first time, she overcame her fear, opened a livestream, and spoke with the viewers.
In the end, although her exchanges with the comments were halting, she still showed the outside world her terrifying strength as a vocalist with a simple singing practice. In just two hours, she had piqued everyone's curiosity.
The outside world was suddenly in an uproar, and voices poured in from every direction.
This former child star, once a prodigy, seemed to have awakened the country's dormant fanbase overnight. The official Weibo account Shining Stage had created for her gained a full two million followers at rocket speed.
She was only B-Class, but this achievement, built on her established standing in the entertainment industry, was an overwhelming display of superiority. Her popularity quickly surpassed Kiriwake Yayoi's, Chu Yuanqing's, and even most of the First A-Class contestants'. She became one of the hottest contestants in the country.
Meanwhile, there was only one day left until the Second Evaluation.
All the contestants were like machines with their springs wound tight, making one final push during those twenty-four hours.
And compared with the underground base, time seemed to pass even faster in the outside world.
In recent days, the country's relentless promotion of Shining Stage had been impossible to escape. Even citizens who had never cared about idols or the Entertainment Industry couldn't help turning their attention to this extraordinary survival talent show.
Shining Stage had swept into every corner of the lives of two billion citizens. The promotional campaign was so widespread that clips of the First A-Class contestants performing could be seen everywhere.
—The stage is a battlefield; victory or defeat determines the future.
—A global-scale project, with an unprecedented approach to cultivating idols!
—When will the two Shining Stage projects in Great Xia face off?
—Among the First A-Class contestants from Sea Capital and Kyoto, who is the strongest contender?
These slogans and the public discussion around them kept pushing viewership to new heights.
For the first time, the Live Broadcast Room's concurrent viewers surpassed fifty million.
Shining Stage was like a prehistoric leviathan trying to change the Chinese Entertainment Industry. With the approval of the National Level authorities, it devoured ninety percent of the country's entertainment traffic with overwhelming force.
The once-popular singers and actors, films about to begin their promotional campaigns, TV dramas, variety shows, and even games all disappeared overnight when Shining Stage burst onto the scene, as if they'd vanished from the face of the earth without a trace.
Great Xia, the entire Donghuang Federation, and even the distant Sacred United Nation were all caught up in the same terrifying wave.
The whole world was promoting the existence of idols at breakneck speed, even pushing down the attention given to everything else that might distract people.
This strategy turned Shining Stage itself into a symbol of fashion. With public opinion deliberately steering people toward conformity, the show continued expanding its reach on a massive scale.
At this stage, the entire talent-show genre's pool of basic traffic was growing bigger and stronger.
In an environment where the nation itself supported watching talent shows and following idols rationally, the country's fandom was swelling like a snowball.
And amid this white-hot atmosphere, Shining Stage posted an announcement on its official website, dropping a nuclear bomb that sent a shock wave across the internet.
That is—the first episode would be released simultaneously on all major streaming platforms at six that evening!
A girl like you shouldn't stop here—debut as the Center! (7,000 words)
The news quickly spread across the country, drawing the attention of countless casual viewers and talent-show fans.
The biggest difference between a livestream and a recorded program was that the former was immediate, while the latter could remain in the spotlight for a long time.
Especially with Shining Stage's livestreams!
Aside from the Initial Evaluation performances, none of the other footage could be reposted or edited before the program aired. Anyone who tried would have to contend with a world-class legal team—and might even attract the attention of the National Level authorities.
Under these conditions, Shining Stage had left viewers who'd missed the livestreams eagerly anticipating the program. The first episode was certain to draw a massive wave of attention.
Even with two Shining Stage projects in the country splitting the audience, the viewership for the premiere alone would still be terrifying. The contestants would finally draw the attention of the whole nation and truly take off.
Three-thirty in the afternoon.
Xu Ling was curled up in a chair at home, staring at her computer screen and refreshing the official website out of boredom.
As an old-time fan of Kiriwake Yayoi and Chu Yuanqing, and a small-time blogger who now proudly carried the flag for their ship, she naturally couldn't miss Shining Stage's premiere.
There were still several hours before it aired, but that didn't stop her from refreshing the page early. She might even be able to grab the first comment and type out Yayoi and Qing Bao's names.
After her next refresh, a new video actually appeared on the official website.
It wasn't an early release of the first episode, though. It was a collection of behind-the-scenes clips cut from the contestants' auditions, probably meant to build anticipation.
Xu Ling clicked on it without much hope. How could a clip under ten minutes include all 168 contestants? The girl she supported probably wouldn't get much screen time.
To her surprise, the very first person to appear in the video was Chu Yuanqing, at her audition.
Then one hilarious moment after another followed.
The interviewer wore a serious expression.
"Contestant 198, it's time for your performance. Is there any singing or dancing you can show us?"
Chu Yuanqing's little face was earnest.
"I have no experience in singing or dancing, so I didn't prepare anything."
The interviewer asked the usual question.
"Then why did you want to join our program?"
Chu Yuanqing hesitated for a moment, then asked uncertainly, "Because... you pay well?"
The girl didn't notice the interviewer's eyes bulging in shock. With a bashful expression on her pretty, delicate face, she explained earnestly, "Well, you see, your program's flyer says there's no educational requirement, and food and accommodation are included. Most jobs don't offer that these days... so I came."
Xu Ling imagined herself in the interviewer's shoes and immediately lost it. She burst out laughing.
That was just unfair! How could Qing Bao be so cute?!
Chu Yuanqing's audition video was short, just a minute and a half in total. Aside from a few lines of dialogue, it ended on a shot of her densely packed résumé, which looked so out of place that it was downright hilarious.
Laughing, Xu Ling paused the video and dragged the progress bar back to watch it several more times. Meanwhile, the comments began piling up.
"Holy crap, I'm dying of laughter!"
"Ugh, who's going to dare say my Qing Bao has no special skills now? She's clearly good at video editing, yo-yo tricks, drawing, shooting, cooking, and sales???!"
"I can't take it—the hell is a yo-yo doing on there?"
"I'm dead. I can already picture Qing Bao trying her hardest to write that résumé. She just listed everything she could do and basically applied for a job."
"Wait, what if the dream Qing Bao talked about onstage wasn't about performing at all, but about that twelve-thousand-yuan monthly salary?"
"Hard to say. Given Qing Bao's circumstances, twelve thousand yuan a month must be as tempting as Pan Jinlian to Ximen Qing. Maybe she's just doing a summer job while chasing her dream on the side."
"This is too damn funny. Has Qing Bao's dream-chaser image collapsed?"
"Her image collapsed? What a shame. I used to like Chu Yuanqing a lot, and now... I like her even more???!"
Because Shining Stage's popularity was so overwhelming, and all the funniest parts of this clip were in Chu Yuanqing's segment, the trending topic "[Chu Yuanqing's image collapses]" made it into Weibo's top ten just an hour after the video was posted. It was a spectacularly absurd sight.
Seeing that, Xu Ling sighed smugly.
"Hehehe, our Qing Bao was born to be a star. She's going to blow up no matter what!"
With that, she checked Chu Yuanqing's Weibo, where her follower count was still rising.
The account now had as many as 1.39 million active followers. For an ordinary girl who hadn't debuted and had only spent a week on Shining Stage, that was already a terrifying number.
The unfortunate part was that, as an ordinary person, she had no company managing her account. She also couldn't use her phone on the show, so the account was still an empty shell. It felt as if her fans had followed a corpse, which was a little eerie.
Xu Ling looked forward to it.
"Once the first episode airs, that's when Qing Bao and Yayoi will really start gaining followers."
Three hours passed in a flash.
Sure enough, the first episode of Shining Stage's Sea Capital project was eighty minutes long. It had been up on the major streaming platforms for less than half an hour, yet the contestants who'd appeared prominently in the early segments were already gaining followers at an astonishing rate that was shaking up the Chinese Entertainment Industry.
Rain pattered outside the window, while bubbles burst in the lime wine on the table.
Xu Ling used two phones to check the two girls' Weibo accounts while watching the program on her computer.
On-screen, the mascot Dream Weaver Rabbit smiled politely and bowed to all the viewers.
Then the program officially began. The underground base from the preview appeared on screen, only now it was shown in greater detail, with even more stunning visuals.
As for what came after, it was all very familiar to Xu Ling, who had watched eight hours of livestreams.
The only difference was that the livestream allowed viewers to switch channels freely, while the amount of screen time in the program was entirely up to the editors and post-production team.
Like any ordinary talent show, Shining Stage focused its earliest footage on popular contestants with built-in followings, such as Xie Qingxuan, Ji Shuzhu, Chen Yining, Lin Bao'er, and Tang Liuli.
The screen-time distribution only began to shift according to the contestants' reactions after Dream Weaver Rabbit appeared to announce the rules.
As online viewers had guessed, Chu Yuanqing was the first to choose to compete. Bathed in a ribbon effect, she raised her eyes and smiled, winning the most screen time in that segment.
Chu Wangshu came next, earning a huge amount of attention as well and escaping her initial status as a background character with no screen time.
After that came the classic seat-selection segment.
For those who hadn't watched the livestream, the main question was which contestants would risk never being allowed to become idols by choosing to compete.
For those who had watched it, the more novel part was the introductory video shown as each contestant entered. Some featured audition clips; others showed their past achievements.
It was all newly revealed material. Most of the introductions were fairly ordinary and had little to make them stand out. The ones that made the comments go wild were the contestants who already had work to their name and clearly had something to show for it.
As expected, neither Chu Yuanqing nor Kiriwake Yayoi had much of an introduction.
Before you continue