"Her Initial Evaluation stage was also her first time performing onstage, and the fact that she did so well proves she has excellent adaptability onstage and the ability to think on her feet."
Chen Baijiu considered it for a moment, then gave a complicated look. His impression of Chu Yuanqing's ability was still stuck at the stage where she hadn't gotten the hang of singing and dancing yet.
In other words, there was no question that she lagged behind the other contestants.
Judging by stage ability alone, she would struggle to make the starting lineup even in D-Class, let alone C-Class.
Besides, although Chu Yuanqing was praised for having nerves of steel, she had yet to face a test of this caliber. Whether she could perform to her full potential was still up in the air.
Chen Baijiu was a very levelheaded person. He acknowledged that Chu Yuanqing was a promising rough diamond.
But the stage tested fundamentals. Unless she was allowed to half-lip-sync, the most tactful assessment was that she had a chance of staying in her class.
Chen Baijiu coughed a few times, seemingly thinking of something. For once, he showed some tact as he said:
"I think we should leave this question to the audience to judge."
Jiang Chi agreed:
"Letting contestants speak through their performances has always been Flash Dance's style."
As his words faded,
the stage lighting system flickered back to life.
Chu Yuanqing made her way onto the stage. Her outfit was no different from the other contestants', but her perfectly sculpted proportions and curves, rising and falling in all the right places, seemed to come with their own camera correction, forcibly drawing everyone's gaze.
The same went for the girl's face. Normally, performers wore stage-appropriate makeup to make sure they looked good on camera. But as always, she wore none, and her face remained flawless on screen.
The lipstick Xie Qingxuan had applied, set off by her natural beauty, proved the perfect finishing touch. It quietly cast its spell on everyone watching the Live Broadcast Room.
If Little Sakura had used [Flow State] to make the audience imagine the theme song as ramune soda by the seaside,
then Chu Yuanqing relied almost entirely on her atmosphere and impossibly beautiful features to cheat the system. She made the upcoming candy feel as refreshing and sweet as peach oolong tea.
The four judges all froze, then looked at one another. They had clearly realized what the problem was, and fell silent.
Damn, they'd been in the Chinese Entertainment Industry for so many years,
yet this was the first time they'd seen an idol cheat onstage with nothing but her looks?!
Chu Yuanqing didn't have to do a thing. Just by being there, she was the best possible interpretation of the theme song.
Did this mean that as long as the Program Group assigned her a dedicated makeup artist, she could fit into any major stage production and become the one who elevated its overall atmosphere and message?
A natural Center position?
Chen Baijiu felt a headache coming on. He could already picture the terrifying scene of Chu Yuanqing dancing terribly while millions of viewers praised her to the skies.
No way. If she really was that absurdly overpowered, how on earth were they supposed to score her?
Sure, beauty could be considered part of stage presence and expressiveness, but as a world-class choreographer, he cared more about the dancing itself. He was already stressing out in advance.
Zhao Dapan, on the other hand, was delighted. In his view, no matter what evaluation Chu Yuanqing received, her popularity and potential meant she would be fine. Even if it stirred up some controversy, she would eventually prove on a future stage that she was more than capable of shining.
Luo Siling was half an outsider, there to make up the numbers. She thought the audience's immediate response was an important factor to consider.
Jiang Chi wasn't much better. As a RAP guy faced with a theme song that had not a trace of rap in it, he mostly wore sunglasses and acted aloof so he wouldn't look uncultured. He seemed more like a mascot than Dream Weaver Rabbit.
So, in this mentor's view, if Chu Yuanqing could use her unabashed beauty to bewitch the audience and the judges—and make them overlook flaws in her dancing—then that had to count as part of her ability.
If not, why couldn't the other contestants do it?
Since she was the only one who could, then she was awesome.
The RAP mentor's reasoning was very straightforward.
Among the judges,
Dream Weaver Rabbit seemed to be waiting for something. Its gaze was deep, and the corners of its lips curled upward.
It had already received an unexpected surprise from Kiriwake Yayoi, so naturally it wanted to see whether this sparkling rough diamond it had noticed first could push past her limits on a simulated stage and reveal even more potential.
The Live Broadcast Room erupted like a tsunami:
"First sight, solo fan, marriage, buried together."
"Woxiang, the famous Japanese calligrapher, is best known for his wild cursive script. People call his handwriting—Woxiang-Ready-to-Explain-Wild-Cursive???!"
"Waaah, Qing Bao, my Qing Bao, you're Galatea, created by Pygmalion. Even the gods would fall for you. You're the night, and the only ray of dawn in the night. You're the reason I keep living. Thank you, my destined muse???!"
"Qingmen???"
"Sorry, CP fans can't ship anymore. Qing God's beauty has already transcended the worldly love triangle. I've fallen into the dark and become a Solo Fan. I just want Qing God to shine on her own???"
"Qing God said, 'You may come this far, but go no further.' So the other girls should only be allowed to bask in her sidelong glance. Only Yue Bao, chosen as the god's child, is worthy of witnessing the god's mercy and tenderness???"
"Heh, how shallow. Who do you think put on Qing God's lipstick? And who blow-dried the Great Demon King's hair? Yue Bao is only first among the candidates to become the god's child. That doesn't mean the other girls aren't worthy of drawing near to the god's radiance???!"
"I can't take this anymore! Can the Yuan Fans tone it down? Little Sakura is the best. She can come right up and let Qing Bao dunk on her. Can the rest of you girls do that????"
"Your competition for favor is false, misguided, vulgar, indecent, and foolish. Only those truly devoted to the god, willing to rein in their own radiance for her sake, are worthy of enjoying her love alone."
Chu Yuanqing stood at the center of the stage.
She had no idea that a religious war had erupted in the Live Broadcast Room over her, but her Witch senses had suddenly awakened, taking in the gazes of countless viewers and the vast flood of emotions pouring toward her. The Lantern Gem began to glow and grow hot without her realizing it.
At that moment, the cracks in the Lantern Gem seemed to be healing for the first time!!!
But before that trend could spread, the curse deep in her soul seemed to take it as a provocation. It suddenly surged into the Lantern Gem, crushing and tearing apart every positive emotion it had received.
In the end, the hallucinations that erupted from the Sea of Truth once every three days on average—after returning in her dreams at midnight the night before—broke out again at this most inopportune moment.
P.S. 1: My fever's gone down, and I feel like I'm doing pretty well, except I keep coughing. I tried to finish a chapter so I wouldn't miss my daily update.
P.S. 2: The overpowered carry might appear in the next chapter. It's the last day of the month, so please give me some monthly votes and free blades, darling!
First Volume: Hospitalized, Taking Leave
I coughed up blood, and a friend dragged me to the hospital. After a CT scan, the doctor said the infection in my lungs was too extensive and that I needed to stay under observation for a week. Sigh, this happened right after the book went premium. I'm really depressed. I hope I get better soon.
I'm sorry. I'll try to make up for the missed updates once I'm well. For now, I'm going off to fight a comeback battle.
The hallucinations bestowed by the Sea of Truth were an overbearing force that spread from the soul to the senses.
Chu Yuanqing's usual way of dealing with them was the same as when she had treated Chu Wangshu onstage as a hallucination: she used her iron will to force the vision away, splitting her focus in two to keep the shadows of the past from swallowing her everyday life.
But perhaps because the Sea of Truth had invaded the Lantern Gem directly, the positive emotions crushed and swallowed inside it had been like sparks. Before they went out, they had managed to burn a few rays of light and send them tumbling into the abyss of the hallucination.
Pure white.
It was a funeral of salt, pure enough to cleanse heaven and earth, yet as sorrowful as falling snow.
This was the Pure White Forbidden Zone, the Disaster God's domain along the southeastern coast. It had stretched across the land since the apocalypse first swept over the world.
—The Disaster Gods.
Unlike giant disaster beasts, they were immense natural phenomena formed from certain concepts, capable of creating all kinds of special regions that seemed like divine miracles.
Of these, the Pure White Forbidden Zone, born of the concept of salt, had grown from the size of an island over the seventy years during which humanity's territory was gradually devoured. It had become the Salt Continent, swallowing the entire Atlantic Ocean and a third of the Sacred United Nation's territory.
No one knew how many souls and vengeful ghosts it had buried.
A billion? Several billion? More than that? No one could count anymore.
The Disaster Gods were tsunamis, storms, natural calamities no human could defy.
Some said that from the moment they descended, humanity had already lost the right to resist.
"Congratulations. You've achieved the unprecedented feat of killing a Disaster God."
"The Pure White Forbidden Zone is gone. The concept of [salt] has been restrained, and the City of Doomsday will be safe, too."
"Mr. Savior, why don't you try smiling a little?"
Chu Yuanqing came back to herself in a daze. In this familiar yet unfamiliar scene, she suddenly spotted a familiar figure. Before she could say anything, a cool, slender finger pressed against either side of her lips, gently coaxing them into a smile.
The girl smiled brightly. Her skin was fair, her nose fine and straight, and her peerlessly beautiful face was so close that her soft cheek nearly brushed against Chu Yuanqing's. Her eyes looked like pure, translucent apatite, bright and gentle in the light, like a rippling sea.
Just her gaze, her touch, her smile could bring a bewitching hope of happiness—as if she were the sun, shining down upon the world with mercy.
She was Charlotte, the Doomsday Diva who had [buried] the world.
Chu Yuanqing wanted to say something. More than the Second Evaluation stage, more than the fact that this was only a hallucination brought on by the Sea of Truth, for one brief moment she wanted to lose herself in the warmth of the other girl's fingertips and her gentle words...
Because this hallucination was different. It blurred her sense of time, and its vividness was almost impossible to believe. Even her body had returned to its former, horribly mangled state, slowly writhing as it repaired itself.
Now, it was as if she had become Chu Yuanqing from the old era once more.
And this scene felt less like a hallucination and more like the past being brought back to life.
Chu Yuanqing remembered clearly: that day, to erase the concept of [salt], she had chosen to carve an epic into her soul, bearing the cause and effect, the sins of ending the twilight of the gods and destroying the world. In exchange, she had drawn on the full power of the Mythical Weapon—[Laevateinn]—and wiped out the Pure White Forbidden Zone at the cost of only tens of thousands of deaths.
But after doing all that, her memories became hazy.
Whether it was the heavy burden [Laevateinn] placed on her soul or the dissociation caused by so many deaths, her past self had all but crashed. Lost in fragmented thoughts, she had stood in place for a full week without moving.
Later, Charlotte had told her that after [burying] the Disaster Tide outside the city, she had hurried over and rescued Chu Yuanqing from her breakdown.
But when Chu Yuanqing had asked how she had pulled her out of her dissociated state, the Doomsday Diva had only blinked meaningfully and smiled. "It's a secret. You can keep guessing."
Now, this scene—whether real or imagined—might have had something to do with the secret Charlotte had mentioned.
Chu Yuanqing also realized that she had no control over this body. She was like a spirit who had briefly returned from the future to the past, able only to watch history repeat itself in silence.
"■■■ and ■■■■ sacrificed themselves."
"■■■, ■■■■, ■■, ■■■, and ■■■■ are all dead."
The voice was hoarse and unpleasant, like a curse.
The boy's vocal cords seemed to have been devoured and ravaged by flames. His whispered words, broken by coughing, were hollow and bewildered. The names he spoke were indistinct, as if some mysterious force had erased them.
Chu Yuanqing could guess that these were among the things she had forgotten under the curse.
The Sea of Truth would not let her reclaim them. So even in this projection of history, she was forbidden from hearing their true names.
At those words, sorrow tinged the smile in Charlotte's eyes. She spoke softly:
"■■■■, Little Carol, Alice, and... Sister Ellie sacrificed themselves, too."
"But the City of Doomsday is still here. The embers of humanity are still alive."
"As long as you're here, as long as I'm here, one day we'll kill every Disaster God and set the world right, the way we want it to be."
"So don't cry, Xiao Qing."
The boy remained silent, like a statue. Flames had twisted his handsome face, making it look hideous and demonic.
How could a demon cry?
But he really was crying, mourning the dead and repenting for his own helplessness.
Tears streamed from his eyes, only to evaporate in the blazing flames.
The boy's body was repairing itself more and more erratically, flesh weathering away and growing back again and again. Only the [Laevateinn], nearly fused into the bones of his hand, remained unchanged. The sword was still embedded in the heart of the Salt Continent, devouring and stealing the Disaster God's authority.
Charlotte's expression grew more sorrowful. Her smile was brilliant and transparent. Yet she stepped forward, spread her arms like a moth flying into the flames, and embraced the boy, whose body still held the embers of [Laevateinn]. As if they had become flames together, she [buried] the entire crumbling Salt Continent.
Charlotte understood.
At that moment, in order to unleash [Laevateinn], Chu Yuanqing had entered a dissociated state. Everything he said, everything he did, every path he took was merely a stubborn repetition of his past obsessions. Once he regained consciousness, he would forget most of it.
—Including devouring the Salt Continent.
That was normal. For a Savior who wanted to defeat even stronger, more overpowered Disaster Gods, piling up power was necessary.
But the Salt Continent held more than the Disaster God's authority. It also buried countless wronged souls and sins. Devouring it without end would only add to the burden on his soul, and might even force it to collapse in the cycle between life and death.
So...
Charlotte's embrace, an act tantamount to suicide, was meant to awaken the boy's reason and stop Chu Yuanqing from continuing his madness.
Before you continue