Chapter 2

But the claim that the original owner had pushed out a trainee to secure a spot in the survival show was completely baseless.

The final rehearsal before the competition was about to begin. Li Changjian had been busy all morning, but the moment he heard Ye Zexi's name, he dropped what he was doing and came over.

"Zexi, what is it?" Li Changjian asked as he approached. "Are you still not familiar with yesterday's song? Should I get the vocal coach to teach you again?"

Ye Zexi smiled. "No need, Uncle Li. Today, I'm..."

"How could there be no need?" Li Changjian interrupted him, his brow deeply furrowed. "Your father asked me to look after you. Tomorrow may only be your first public performance before debut, but it still counts as your debut stage. You have to leave a good impression on the audience if you want to gain fans."

Ye Zexi smiled. "That's exactly why I came. Uncle Li, I want to withdraw from the competition."

"What?" Li Changjian paused, but he did not look surprised, as though he had expected it. "You want to withdraw?"

Ye Zexi looked resolute. "Yes. Uncle Li, I've already made up my mind. You don't need to persuade me."

Li Changjian asked, "You're not chasing Xiao Tang anymore?"

Ye Zexi nodded. "No."

Li Changjian asked, "You don't want to debut anymore?"

Ye Zexi said, "No."

Li Changjian asked, "You want to go home?"

Ye Zexi said, "No, no, no."

Li Changjian spread his hands. "Then that won't do."

Ye Zexi said, "Mm... huh?"

Chapter 2

Looking at his utterly clueless nephew, Li Changjian sighed. There was a trace of affection in his voice that even he himself had not noticed as he explained, "Your father called me last night. He said he was very angry this time and froze your card for a year."

Ye Zexi's expression went blank for a moment. He instinctively asked, "W-Why did my dad freeze my card for a year?"

Li Changjian glanced around, then pulled Ye Zexi aside and lowered his voice. "Why didn't you answer your father's call last night?"

Ye Zexi instinctively took out his phone and checked the call log. He said in surprise, "There aren't any missed calls on my phone!"

After saying that, he looked up and met Li Changjian's gaze innocently. Two seconds later, Ye Zexi opened his blacklist with trembling hands. The string of numbers labeled Father Ye was lying quietly inside.

Ye Zexi said, "..."

Fuck, getting transported into a novel on the first day was already trying to kill me!

Li Changjian gave Ye Zexi a sympathetic look. "All right, it's fine. Your father will only stay angry for a couple of days. He also said that if you can place in this survival show, he might consider unfreezing your credit card early."

Ye Zexi was unwilling to accept that. "Uncle, do you know how much money I have left on me?"

Li Changjian's gaze grew even more kindly. "Zexi, on the first day of the selection, you had an argument with your father, and he froze twenty of your cards. Yesterday, he froze your last one."

Ye Zexi said, "..."

Li Changjian continued comforting him. "It's fine. This survival show pays you too. The longer you last, the more money you can get. And you don't need to worry about your expenses with the production team for these two months either. Try a little harder. Forget a debut spot—if you can just make it into the top ten, maybe your father will be happy enough to unfreeze your credit card early!"

His life as a rich second-generation slacker had ended before it had even begun. Ye Zexi could not smile.

But right now, other than continuing the competition, Ye Zexi had no other choice. He was truly broke. The original owner's Alipay and WeChat wallets only had five thousand yuan combined. He had checked last night.

Did these rich second-generation kids not know that eggs should not be put in the same basket?!

The smile on Ye Zexi's lips was extremely stiff. Fine, fine. He would treat it as training for his beautiful future life.

Besides, Ye Zexi had originally debuted through a boy group survival show. Afterward, he had clawed his way through the entertainment industry before finally reaching the position of Best Actor.

This could count as returning to the beginner village to level up. Could his old profession really stump him?

More importantly, this was a boy group survival show!

A boy group survival show—full of handsome guys!

Ye Zexi was gay. He had simply been too busy making a name for himself in the industry before. More importantly, his original world had not been so accepting of same-sex relationships, so such thoughts had only flickered briefly before vanishing in an instant.

Things were different now. If Ye Zexi remembered correctly, this was a boys' love novel. To make the romance between the leads progress more naturally, the setting allowed same-sex marriage.

That meant Ye Zexi could date now!

Ahem—

At that thought, the smile on Ye Zexi's lips finally became more genuine. He spoke up, interrupting Li Changjian, who was still talking away beside him. "Uncle, how much does our show pay?"

When Li Changjian heard that, he thought his persuasion had worked. His face lit up, and he said with a smile, "Since none of you have debuted yet, every trainee participating in the survival show gets a base payment of twenty thousand. After that, it will be based on each trainee's ranking, with a cap of two hundred thousand."

In other words, if Ye Zexi was eliminated in the first round, tomorrow night he would have to survive for a year on twenty-five thousand yuan.

That was miserable!

"What about the top ten?" Ye Zexi asked.

Li Changjian said, "One hundred thousand."

Ye Zexi gritted his teeth. "Fine, then top ten it is!"

A flash of delight passed through Li Changjian's eyes. He was very pleased that Ye Zexi had such ambition, though he did not hold much hope for his nephew's top-ten goal. Smiling, he said, "That's more like it! You need to have more confidence in yourself. Even though you're bad at both singing and dancing, our survival show doesn't only judge singing and dancing. With that face of yours, are you worried no fans will vote for you?"

At worst, he could give Ye Zexi a few more flattering shots in the edit. The viewers would definitely eat it up.

Of course, Li Changjian did not say that aloud. He would go have a good talk with post-production later!

After chatting with Li Changjian for a little longer, Li Changjian went back to work. The rehearsal was about to begin, and Ye Zexi headed for the lounge as well.