Chapter 16

A long, long time later.

He still looked back on it fondly.

That deserted street in the early hours, the warm yellow lights, and Gu Zhijing nestled beside him, soft and round like a little dumpling.

In the difficult first half of his life.

It was the best moment he had ever known.

Chapter 17

October 10. Clear skies. An auspicious day to debut.

At 10:10 a.m., Leap Entertainment's official Weibo account announced the debut of Color4, a four-member boy group led by Sheng Chi, with Gu Zhijing, Jiang Yu, and Xu Linyuan as its members.

Half an hour later, in the practice room.

"So we're spending the first day after our debut in the practice room after all."

Gu Zhijing yawned and sat down against the mirror, slumping into a boneless little heap.

He was still a little listless from last night's hangover, without an ounce of energy in him. "This doesn't seem any different from before our debut," he muttered.

He had thought there would at least be a grand press conference, with a whole crowd of reporters interviewing them about how they felt about debuting, camera flashes going off all around them, and news of Color4's debut filling the papers, television, and Weibo's trending searches the next day.

That was the entertainment industry he had imagined.

Reality mercilessly shattered his dream.

The official account had gone through the whole process in a single Weibo post. After that, they trained when it was time to train, ate when it was time to eat, and carried on as usual.

Gu Zhijing let out a long sigh.

So this is debuting?

It doesn't seem all that special.

"What else did you expect?"

Xu Linyuan chuckled and teased him. "Did you think we'd start a world tour today and pick up the CMJ award for group of the year tomorrow?"

Gu Zhijing thought about it and gave a wry smile. "There should at least be some sense of occasion, right?"

He looked to the side, his eyes curving. "Don't you think so, Captain?"

Sheng Chi, who had just been chosen as Color4's new leader, stood there expressionlessly and tossed each of them a wristband, neatly sidestepping the question. "Time to train."

Gu Zhijing puffed out his cheeks and muttered, "You're no fun. I'm starting to regret voting for you as leader."

Of course, his vote wouldn't actually have changed the outcome.

Sheng Chi was the obvious choice for leader, and everyone had wanted him for the role.

First, Sheng Chi was twenty-one, the oldest in the group.

Second, in terms of both skill and experience, he was several levels above the other three.

There was just one thing.

As Gu Zhijing put on his wristband, he thought that when Sheng Chi had to speak as their leader, he would probably be the type to answer one out of every ten questions the media asked.

Fortunately, Gu Zhijing stood right beside Sheng Chi and could help out with a word or two when necessary.

Jiang Yu put on his wristbands too, flexed his wrists, and sighed helplessly. "We debuted only to pick at our feet. That's so real. This is what life is like for boy groups in the domestic entertainment industry."

"That's too crude."

Fully geared up, Gu Zhijing was in no hurry to get up. He kept tapping away on his phone, politely correcting Jiang Yu without looking up. "You should call it caressing your feet."

Jiang Yu: "..."

What the hell is the difference?

He glanced at Gu Zhijing and leaned over curiously. "We're about to train. What are you looking at? Weibo?"

Gu Zhijing immediately locked his screen and hid his phone behind him. "Just browsing."

Jiang Yu made a noise of protest. "Come on, what secrets are you keeping from us? Don't tell me you're secretly dating someone too?"

At that, Sheng Chi glanced at him as well.

Gu Zhijing laughed it off.

Of course, he didn't dare say that he had been scrolling through the comments under the official account's debut post.

Contrary to what he had expected.

He had thought the worst they'd face was having very few fans, with their comments stuck miserably in the double or even single digits.

He hadn't expected the comments to be overrun by onlookers who were still furious that the debut evaluation had been canceled on them.

Some asked questions, some made snide remarks, and others came to laugh at them. The worst even directly questioned Leap Entertainment's standards for choosing people.

Not long ago, Leap Entertainment's official account had issued a statement briefly explaining that trainees including Qi Wang had left the company for personal reasons, giving them a chance to save face at the end.

But the fans didn't know that.

All they knew was that after a large number of trainees left, Leap Entertainment had skipped the debut evaluation and launched a new boy group directly.

To outsiders, that series of actions would indeed raise suspicions. Had there been some sort of conflict among Leap's trainees? Had some shady dealings been uncovered, causing the other trainees to leave in anger?

And were the ones left behind the company's royal family, the ones it intended to push at all costs?

What a bad start.

They had only just debuted, and the young man's high-spirited confidence had already run into a wall.

Gu Zhijing's shoulders drooped, and he was a little distracted even during practice.

Sheng Chi noticed the state he was in but said nothing.

It wasn't until their lunch break that he walked over and asked in a low voice, "Are you feeling unwell?"

He had leaned in rather close.

Gu Zhijing looked up and suddenly panicked for a moment, his heart skipping half a beat. Then he shook his head. "No."

Sheng Chi still didn't seem reassured. After a pause, he was about to say more when an angry roar from Jiang Yu abruptly cut him off. "Damn it, who bombed our Weibo comments?!"

Gu Zhijing froze. "..."

What has to come will come.

Sure enough, Sheng Chi turned his head slightly. "What?"

"Someone bombed our comments."

Jiang Yu cursed. "It's our debut day. Can't they say something nice? Fine, don't wish us well, but some people are even asking where Qi Wang is. How should I know? Go ask his fucking girlfriend!"

The practice room fell into an unprecedented silence.

Many people thought debuting was the start of a bright future, the end of all their hard work.

It wasn't.

A debut was often only the beginning.

"Why get angry?"

After a long silence, Sheng Chi took off his wristbands and spoke calmly. "In our current situation, it's good enough just to be noticed."

The other three were all taken aback.

Under the circumstances, Sheng Chi was unexpectedly calm and optimistic. "Attention is precious, even if it's negative."

Xu Linyuan quickly agreed. "Exactly. The worst thing in the entertainment industry isn't people criticizing you. It's when nobody even bothers to criticize you. That's when you're really a flop."

"Onlookers' goodwill and dislike both come and go quickly."

Sheng Chi glanced at the comments, unruffled. "The people saying they're boycotting Color4 as a royal-family group might change their minds after watching one of our performances."

"And the only thing we need to do,"

he said, "is use our skills to turn that negative attention into positive attention."

Gu Zhijing stared at Sheng Chi.

Suddenly, he felt the lingering unhappiness in his heart vanish completely.

"All right, all right, don't be so down. It's not like we don't have any fans at all!"

Jiang Yu dug through the comments and unearthed one. "Look, here's one! It says, 'Wishing Color4 a successful debut. A bright future awaits you, boys!' See? They're even a fan of the whole group!"

Gu Zhijing turned his head. "?"

...Why did that wording seem a little familiar?

"The little fan's pretty cute."

Jiang Yu cackled at the comment. "But come on, you think I don't know fandom damage-control language? 'A bright future awaits' is just a polite way of saying you're a nobody right now!"

"But at least it shows we do have fans. What's their name? Oh, Distant Centrifugal Heart. When Color4 takes the throne, we'll give her first-class merit."

Gu Zhijing: "..."

Where's a crack in the ground?

Let me crawl into it.

Chapter 18

Jiang Yu had only said it casually and clearly hadn't given it much thought.

But though the speaker meant nothing by it, the listener took it to heart.

Gu Zhijing was genuinely worried for a moment.

As he recalled, idol groups eventually held album signing events and in-person fan meetings.

Big fans who bought lots of albums were naturally almost guaranteed to win a spot.

If someone really looked into it when the time came...

OMG.

Gu Zhijing trained anxiously all day. When practice finally ended, he prepared to slip over to Fei Yue's office and ask about his plans for Color so he could make arrangements early.

But just as he was about to knock, he suddenly heard Yu Wenwen's voice. "What happened?"

Gu Zhijing's hand stopped in midair.

Inside the office, Fei Yue's voice was full of dejection. "Music New Trends turned down our request to promote our song."

Gu Zhijing froze for a moment and quickly withdrew his hand.

A few years ago, the domestic entertainment industry hadn't had any decent music promotion shows. Later, as survival shows emerged one after another, there were more and more boy and girl groups. Although most were temporary groups, they still represented a sizable market.

On top of that, a temporary group formed through a survival show had won the best group award that year thanks to both its popularity and its skills, opening up the idol market completely.

Seeing room to develop the domestic idol market, investors quickly began setting up music promotion platforms.

Music New Trends was currently one of the most popular idol music promotion platforms in the domestic entertainment industry.

Whenever idols released a new song, they would generally make an appearance on the platform.

But top idols didn't release new songs every day.

As a result, the platform's continued operation depended mainly on obscure, low-tier idols and their fans, so it was rare to hear of Music New Trends turning anyone down.

But if this was true.

Gu Zhijing lowered his lashes slightly.

That meant the new-song performance they had worked so hard on for the past half month.

Would all come to nothing.

Yu Wenwen tapped the desk and frowned. "What was the reason?"

"They said too many idols have released songs recently, and they can only fit four or five acts into each episode, so they can't find room in the schedule. If we insist on appearing, we'll probably have to wait another three months."

Fei Yue sneered inwardly. In three months, the buzz around Color's debut would be over. If they really waited until then, it would be far too late.

It was obviously an excuse to turn them down.

"That's what they said, but anyone can guess the real reason."

"They just think our Color4 is too obscure," Fei Yue said.

All newly released songs were counted toward the rankings, which were determined through a fairly complicated set of calculations.

For a group like Color, even making it to the very bottom of the rankings was wishful thinking.

Why waste resources on them?

"After all, calling us eighteenth-tier would be giving us too much credit right now."

Fei Yue gave a self-mocking laugh. "We're a three-hundred-and-sixtieth-tier little idol group at the edge of the universe. It's normal for them not to give us the opportunity."

After saying that, Fei Yue comforted himself. "Don't worry. Tomorrow I'll go to Music Show and try our luck there."

Music Show was another domestic music promotion platform, but its popularity and prestige were nowhere near New Direction's.

Still, they were in no position to be picky now.

"Don't tell them about this."

"They just need to focus on training and getting the performance ready," Fei Yue said. "I'll take care of everything else."

Gu Zhijing stood outside the door for a long time before finally leaving.

Instead of returning to the dorm, he made his way back to the practice room.

Jiang Yu and Xu Linyuan had already gone back. Only Sheng Chi was still there, putting in extra practice.

Gu Zhijing briefly explained what had happened, then asked, "Should we tell those two?"

Sheng Chi shook his head and said in a low voice, "There's no need."

Being suddenly told that they might not even get a first debut performance.

It would be too discouraging, too damaging to morale.

"What if we went on a survival show too?"

Leaning against the wall, Gu Zhijing thought for a long time before saying, "I think New Generation of Idols is still running next year, right? Would it be better to get our faces known there before coming back to promote as a group?"

That was what many idols in the domestic entertainment industry did.

They used a survival show as a springboard, hoping it would let them spread their wings and soar.

But if they didn't take off in the end, they could only return to compete again and again, season after season.

Sheng Chi immediately shook his head and rejected the idea. "There's no need."

"Brother Fei has his own plans. We don't need to take that path."

"Besides."

Sheng Chi said softly, "I don't want Color4 to split up either."

In his heart, since he had followed C