Chapter 10

A slight stir ran through the crowd.

Gu Zhijing felt many eyes settle on him.

But his vision was going white, and his head spun.

When was the last time he had come in last?

It had been at the end of June, half an hour before the evaluation, when he received a call from his older sister.

She hadn't said anything harsh that time. She had only asked when he planned to come back, and whether he really intended to stay away and be a trainee forever.

A trainee.

How had his family found out he was a trainee?

He had thought he had hidden his tracks well enough. He had temporarily cut ties with his old friends, stayed off social media, and changed his phone number.

Yet he had still ended up under the Gu family's surveillance.

After hanging up, Gu Zhijing had been distracted, afraid that Gu Zeduan might really lose his temper and shut down a small company like Leap to force him home.

As a result, he had performed poorly at the evaluation and come in last.

History was repeating itself.

It was as if he were trapped forever in the little plot of land the Gu family had marked out for him, unable to escape...

After the rankings were announced, the livestream cameras were switched off.

Before Gu Zhijing could hurry away, however, Sheng Chi grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him backstage, allowing no argument.

The backstage staff had finished clearing the area and left.

The lights in the venue outside gradually dimmed. Sheng Chi led him into a room and shut the door. Before he turned around, he heard Gu Zhijing speak quietly.

"Brother Chi."

"I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize to me."

Sheng Chi turned, leaned against the door, and glanced at him. Only after holding himself back again and again did he say, "Give me a reason."

"Since there was nothing wrong with your voice, why didn't you sing just now?"

His tone grew cold. "There's no way you couldn't sing it."

The evaluation song Gu Zhijing had drawn was the very one Sheng Chi had helped him practice just the day before.

The moment the music started.

He had thought Gu Zhijing had the evaluation in the bag.

But he had never expected it to end this way.

Gu Zhijing lowered his head, staring at a scratch on the tiled floor. "There's no reason. I didn't want to sing."

Sheng Chi was silent for a moment. "Do you remember what I told you? Slacking off onstage is another thing that disqualifies someone as an idol."

He couldn't keep the disappointment out of his voice. "You don't want to debut anymore?"

"..."

How was he supposed to explain why he had given up?

If he told Sheng Chi, would Sheng Chi think it was too ridiculous?

Gu Zhijing thought for a moment, pressing his fingertips tightly together. "I don't need this chance to debut."

"But someone else does."

"..."

Sheng Chi thought he probably understood. He narrowed his eyes. "You wanted to give your spot to another trainee?"

Gu Zhijing paused. He said nothing, letting that pass as an admission.

The reason was downright ludicrous.

Sheng Chi, who had fought his way up through a crowd of ten thousand in South Korea, was so furious he laughed. "Is that something you can just give away?"

"What do you think the stage is? What do you think debuting is? Dreams aren't something for you to joke around with like this."

It was the first time he had felt so strongly about something.

Even when Qi Wang had tried every way he could to provoke and humiliate him, his emotions hadn't wavered in the slightest. Yet now he had completely lost his composure.

After a long silence, Gu Zhijing finally steeled his heart.

He said softly, "But that was never my dream."

Sheng Chi's pupils contracted sharply.

He thought of Gu Zhijing's attitude toward practice and recalled that he had indeed never said he absolutely had to debut. All at once, he felt as though his kindness had been thrown to the dogs.

His voice turned icy. "...Why do you think I said I'd help you back then?"

The domestic entertainment industry's idol scene had once been a barren desert. Then, when it opened up overnight, countless idols packaged by capital flooded onto stages and in front of cameras, basking in the adoration of the masses.

Many of them had little talent and were merely cashing in on the boom, but in doing so they had rapidly driven down the quality of the entire market and turned fans into leeks to be harvested.

But idols shouldn't be like that.

Gu Zhijing wasn't deeply fixated on the stage, but that made him clean and pure instead, the type best suited to passing vitality and energy on to fans.

No one was better suited to being an idol than him.

Yet he didn't want to be an idol.

Gu Zhijing still said nothing, quietly keeping his head lowered.

Sheng Chi looked at him for a long, long time. At last, he spoke. "Fine."

"Then let's just say I've been sticking my nose where it didn't belong for the past two weeks."

The next day, Sheng Chi didn't wake Gu Zhijing to go to the practice room.

Gu Zhijing was actually awake, but he didn't dare make a sound either. He buried his face in the covers for a long while, then continued lying on the bed in a daze after Sheng Chi left.

By the time Xu Linyuan got up, the trash can by Gu Zhijing's bed was almost full.

It was full of wrappers from all kinds of snacks.

Xu Linyuan sighed inwardly.

Gu Zhijing was a little childish in this respect.

Whenever he was unhappy, he would start eating junk food.

"Don't tell me you stayed up all night and ate this much."

Xu Linyuan helped him toss the wrappers that had missed the bin into it and asked, "Did you and Sheng Chi have a fight?"

"No," Gu Zhijing said in a muffled voice.

Xu Linyuan laughed. "Bullshit. Usually it's Brother Chi this and Brother Chi that every time you open your mouth, but you didn't make a peep when you came back last night. And Sheng Chi was so cold he could've turned the Sahara Desert into Siberia."

He paused, then asked anyway, "Is your throat really all right?"

"...It's fine."

Xu Linyuan breathed a sigh of relief. "All right, then let's go. It's time for class."

Gu Zhijing said listlessly, "I don't want to go."

Xu Linyuan laughed. "What's wrong? You don't want to debut anymore?"

The subject of yesterday's argument had come up again, and Gu Zhijing felt utterly miserable. "I'm not debuting."

He shifted farther back on the bed. "Go train. Don't mind me. Just let me be a salted fish here."

Xu Linyuan was taken aback.

It sounded like something said in a fit of pique, but it definitely wasn't that simple.

He had known Gu Zhijing the longest and knew his temperament best.

Back when they were the only two at the company, they had talked about everything in the empty dorm at night.

Although Gu Zhijing hadn't gone into specifics, Xu Linyuan was smart enough to make a pretty accurate guess.

At last, Xu Linyuan sighed and gave in. As if coaxing a child, he said, "All right, young master. I'll ask for leave for you."

"And don't eat too much junk food. It's bad for you."

Gu Zhijing lay face down on his pillow. After a long while, he said glumly, "I know."

After Xu Linyuan left, Jiang Yu came back to get something. After asking him a couple of questions about what was going on, Jiang Yu left too.

The dorm was empty.

Gu Zhijing lay on his bed in a daze.

He wasn't actually angry.

Of course he understood why Sheng Chi was angry, but he couldn't explain.

What could he say?

If I insist on debuting, the whole group might be suppressed and blacklisted afterward. You won't get any opportunities or be able to perform on any stage. No one will listen to the songs you release, and they won't sell. No one will watch the dances you choreograph, and you won't have anywhere to perform them.

The future you worked so hard to earn would have to be planned all over again.

How could I possibly let the dream you've held on to for six years be ruined by me again after you've already failed twice?

He himself could do without debuting. If things didn't work out afterward, he could go solo. If that didn't work either, he could become a second-generation trainee.

In any case, Brother Fei knew his situation and would never throw him out.

But Sheng Chi had to make a proper debut.

Even so, Gu Zhijing was terribly upset.

He picked up the stud earring by his bed and squeezed it several times, as if making up his mind about something. After lying face down for a while, he got up and played games to take his mind off things.

His thoughts were in a mess, and he wasn't playing very well. After losing several rounds, he was about to get some more sleep when a message suddenly popped up.

It was from Xu Linyuan.

[Young master, your Brother Chi and Qi Wang are fighting in the practice room.]

[Are you coming to take a look?]

Chapter 11

Sheng Chi didn't know what was wrong with him today.

He wasn't actually the type to brood in anger.

But ever since his argument with Gu Zhijing yesterday, a smoldering anger had been weighing on him.

The smoldering anger hadn't gone away.

After getting up early and seeing that Gu Zhijing had eaten another trash can's worth of snacks, it had even flared up a little more.

Generally speaking, ordinary idols, trainees included, had a set daily calorie intake.

Not long ago, he had also mentioned that Gu Zhijing should eat fewer snacks.

And by doing this, Gu Zhijing was openly showing that he didn't want to debut or even continue being an idol.

Sheng Chi ground his back teeth without changing expression. He still said nothing, merely taking that smoldering anger with him to the practice room.

Then Qi Wang came in.

Since their last bet, Qi Wang had actually been quiet for quite a while. He had skipped classes for a full week, then barely managed to place third in yesterday's evaluation.

By rights, given his personality, placing third should have made him even too ashamed to come to class today.

Yet, for once, he had come early.

As soon as he entered, he surveyed the empty practice room. Catching sight of Sheng Chi, he said, "Oh? Your little shadow isn't here today?"

Sheng Chi ignored him and turned to change the sweat-soaked wristband on his arm.

"After that performance yesterday, you're disappointed in him, aren't you?"

Seeing that he didn't answer, Qi Wang took it as agreement and chuckled mischievously. "Don't say I didn't warn you. If you really have nothing better to do, you'd be better off helping Jiang Yu. At least Jiang Yu has some ambition."

"Gu Zhijing is a hopeless case. No matter how much effort you put in, it's no use."

Sheng Chi fastened a new wristband and said without looking up, "Even if Gu Zhijing doesn't debut, it's not your place to talk about him."

Qi Wang hadn't expected Sheng Chi to answer.

He had simply seized the rare chance to get under Sheng Chi's skin from a new angle. When Sheng Chi snapped back, he was briefly taken aback, then suddenly perked up. "Protective, aren't you?"

He laughed. "You've only known him how long? Do you know what kind of person he is?"

Sheng Chi still didn't look at him and had no intention of listening to him. He was about to return to the small practice room without air conditioning when Qi Wang grabbed the practice room door handle.

"Don't you want to know why Gu Zhijing loves following you around so much?"

Sheng Chi frowned and was just about to step back when Qi Wang leaned a little closer and whispered something in his ear.

Sheng Chi's body suddenly went rigid.

"Get it now?"

Qi Wang was still smiling maliciously, his eyes full of anticipation for the show. "After spending so long with him, don't you feel disgusted?"

Sheng Chi was silent for a moment, then lowered his eyes to look at him.

There was almost no other emotion in that look, only an unrestrained chill and hostility.

The next second, he seized Qi Wang by the collar and slammed him against the wall beside them with a thud.

Qi Wang cried out in pain and cursed, "Fuck! Sheng Chi! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

The practice room door opened just then.

Jiang Yu and Xu Linyuan stood in the doorway, stunned.

They saw Qi Wang, furious, hurling abuse. "What, did I hit a nerve? Do you have to protect Gu Zhijing like this? I get it! You're one too, aren't you? I never would've guessed, Sheng Chi! That's the real fucking reason SPC kicked you out, isn't it?!"

He struggled to throw a punch back, but Sheng Chi easily caught his wrist and twisted it downward.

"Although that wasn't why I left SPC,"

Sheng Chi said calmly, "spreading rumors and slandering a fellow company artist in private could very well become the reason you leave Leap now."

By the time Gu Zhijing arrived at the practice room, Sheng Chi and Qi Wang were both gone.

Xu Linyuan glanced at the time and clicked his tongue. "You're way too late."

"I came as soon as I got your message, okay? It's not like I can teleport."

Gu Zhijing was frantic. "Where are they?"

Xu Linyuan said, "Qi Wang went to the hospital. Brother Fei called Sheng Chi in for a talk."

Gu Zhijing was slightly stunned. "The hospital? Was it that serious?"

Jiang Yu spat in disgust. "He's faking it! Does he think we're blind? He didn't take a single punch. At most, he bumped his head once, but he's acting like who knows what happened. I think he's trying to frame our Sheng Brother Chi!"

"But why did they fight? Chi..."

Gu Zhijing hesitated, then said, "Brother Chi isn't that kind of person."

"Who knows? If you're going to hit him, do you need to pick a special day?"