Chapter 6

His voice was rather low, yet he sang the song's wide range effortlessly. Paired with the intensely percussive popping dance in the verses, it all seemed perfectly natural.

It was as if he wasn't being evaluated at all, but putting on a solo stage show.

The chorus arrived, and the style of the music changed slightly.

Without a moment's hesitation, Sheng Chi relaxed his limbs slightly and switched straight to locking, a dance style known for its quick stops.

The camera slowly moved in.

There were never any rehearsals for the evaluations, and the trainees had to figure out how to work with the cameras on the spot.

Many trainees had taken a long time to get the hang of it over the previous evaluations, but Sheng Chi only tilted his head slightly and gave the camera a look, capturing it completely.

For the first half of the song, he had deliberately imitated the group's style. His entire aura seemed copied straight from the boy group's dance video.

But after the chorus and the break in the instrumental, Sheng Chi came out of a locked pose and looked up again, seeming like a different person.

Below the stage, Gu Zhijing lost focus for a moment.

If the first half of the performance had been imitation and faithful reproduction,

then the second half was something Sheng Chi had distilled from that boy group's work and taken further, making it his own.

Sure enough, even though the dance in the second half consisted mostly of repeated moves, Sheng Chi took his precision on the beat, the sharpness of his movements, and his personal aura to another level.

Offstage, he was cold and detached.

But the moment he stepped onto the stage, it was as if another soul had entered his body, setting him ablaze in an instant. He dominated the entire stage, radiating a dazzling brilliance.

The song ended.

Sheng Chi dropped to one knee, bracing a hand against the floor as sweat ran down his jaw.

Right on the song's final beat, a drop struck the floor.

At that moment, he looked up at the camera, the corner of his mouth lifting into a smile.

The performance was over.

He was a blazing flame.

He had set the entire stage alight.

After three seconds of silence, the room erupted in applause.

"Who would've guessed?"

Xu Linyuan clapped and sighed. "That was really good."

Jiang Yu clapped and nodded furiously, clearly won over completely by Sheng Chi's skills. "Holy shit! That was incredible! Someone who came back from SPC really is different! Where's my phone?!"

"Quick, guys! Put 'Sheng Chi is fucking awesome' in the chat!!!"

Xu Linyuan rolled his eyes at Jiang Yu, then turned to Gu Zhijing. "He's got this in the bag, right?"

Gu Zhijing didn't answer.

He stared at Sheng Chi, his gaze a little unfocused, and unconsciously touched his earring.

His fingertips were slightly hot, and contact with the cool earring brought him back to himself a little.

So he could smile after all.

But as soon as the performance ended, Sheng Chi's expression vanished, his gaze steady and cool again.

It was as if the soul that belonged only to the stage had been swiftly stripped away, returning control of the body to Sheng Chi himself.

The stark contrast left Gu Zhijing dazed for quite a while. It took him some time to compose himself before his eyes finally curved, a confident smile in his voice. "He's got it."

When someone's skills were so overwhelmingly superior, any favoritism seemed insignificant.

Because anyone who wasn't blind could see it.

Sheng Chi was far better than every other trainee there.

Gu Zhijing had helped him earlier partly because, as a sucker for good looks, he had taken an immediate liking to Sheng Chi, and mainly because of Brother Fei.

After all, he believed Brother Fei wouldn't have gone to such lengths to sign someone at this particular time unless that person was capable enough to win everyone over.

It seemed Brother Fei had made the right decision.

Sheng Chi would definitely be a pillar of the future debut group.

Gu Zhijing pressed his fingertips together and suddenly let out a breath of relief.

He glanced at the resting area beside the stage.

After watching the performance, Qi Wang had gone straight out, his face dark.

Gu Zhijing raised an eyebrow.

How should he put it?

For some reason, that felt pretty satisfying.

When Sheng Chi returned, Gu Zhijing was about to get him a bottle of water, but Jiang Yu beat him to it.

After handing over the water, Jiang Yu kept chattering, full of admiration. "Not bad, Brother Sheng. You've really been hiding your skills."

"I'm impressed. You have no idea how arrogant that idiot Qi Wang was before you got here, acting like he was the best in the whole damn world. Well, now Qi Wang won't have a thing to say. He can just wait to get slapped in the face and apologize-"

Sheng Chi took the water and sat down without drinking it. He nodded, then glanced at Gu Zhijing. "What did you think?"

"Huh?"

Gu Zhijing froze for a moment, then blurted out, "Good."

After a pause, he seemed to feel that was a little perfunctory, so he added, "Really, really good. It's the best performance I've seen so far."

"That's our Brother Chi for you."

His peach blossom eyes curved as he smiled. In the dim light below the stage, he looked gentle and affectionate.

Sheng Chi murmured an acknowledgment, and it was impossible to tell whether he was pleased.

The dance instructor had already begun calling the next trainee's name. Everything that had just happened seemed to have been put aside, temporarily forgotten until the final results were announced.

Sheng Chi lowered his head and turned the water bottle in his hands.

After a while, the corner of his mouth quietly curved upward.

About half an hour later, it was finally the last trainee's turn: Gu Zhijing.

Of course, he no longer had a chance to draw lots and could only take the last slip of paper the instructor handed him.

"Gu Zhijing, your average overall ranking to date is sixth. Because of a mistake onstage during last week's evaluation, you placed eighth that time-"

The vocal instructor casually flipped through his résumé, frowning almost imperceptibly when he saw the last line. A moment later, his brow smoothed, and he gave Gu Zhijing an encouraging smile. "Do your best this time."

Gu Zhijing had already read the slip of paper. Hearing that, he gave a small, toothy smile and said politely and warmly, "Thank you."

He stepped back to the center of the stage and took a deep breath as he waited for the music to start.

The evaluation song left for him was "I Wanna Go."

It also happened to be the only one of the nine evaluation songs they hadn't learned in class.

He knew how to sing it. It was a recent hit, not too difficult, and a very youthful, cheerful song.

The problem was that there was hardly any way to choreograph a dance for a song like that.

Even improvisation required room to work with.

A song like this didn't suit overly difficult moves, and its overall tempo was brisk. It would be easy to end up dancing at the level of a kindergarten recital.

Was it really such a coincidence?

Or had someone known his fundamentals were weak and that he would be sure to review the month's songs before the evaluation, and deliberately wanted to make all his previous efforts go to waste?

Gu Zhijing lowered his eyes and quietly clenched his fingers.

But the instant the music started, he looked up without a trace of panic.

The camera swept over and gave him a close-up.

His features were already handsome, with soft facial lines, thick eyelashes, and full under-eye puff.

The layers of stage lighting made his peach blossom eyes shine even brighter. Even in the entertainment industry, where good looks were never in short supply, his beauty stood out.

Below the stage, Sheng Chi unconsciously sat up straight.

A smile curved Gu Zhijing's lips, carrying a freshness and vitality unique to youth. As the fast-paced music kicked in, it swept away everyone's fatigue in an instant.

That was a young idol in the prime of youth at his most captivating.

The first eight-count of the verse began.

Gu Zhijing began singing and dancing to the beat, using his own choreography.

It doesn't matter if you don't know the dance.

Just take moves from dances in a similar style that you've learned before and fit them to the beat.

Don't panic, don't be nervous. You're onstage now; you're the one in control of it.

After all, your goal isn't to be perfect.

It's to make other people like you.

Sheng Chi watched the person onstage without blinking.

He could tell.

Gu Zhijing had never learned the dance for this song before. He had made up every move on the spot.

Of course, his dancing wasn't perfect. In many places, it was clear he lacked strength.

Halfway through the song, his breathing also became a little unsteady.

There was still plenty of room for improvement.

But it was hard not to admit that he was mesmerizing.

Gu Zhijing had excellent control over his facial expressions and never slipped up once throughout the performance.

He was already blessed with a beautiful face, and with that little skill added, he seemed to radiate a light of his own, drawing everyone's eyes to him without their realizing it.

Some people were born gifted, with a natural aptitude for being an idol.

That so-called idol quality meant that no matter where you stood or whether your skills far surpassed everyone else's, as long as you were onstage, you could draw in fans by the storm with your unique style, and the audience's eyes would naturally focus on you alone. Sheng Chi had once heard someone say:

An idol needed more than skills.

No matter how skilled you were, if you couldn't catch people's attention, you might as well go back and be a backup dancer.

But someone whose skills were a little lacking, yet who was exceptionally gifted and could win fans over with sheer stage presence-

that was a true idol.

The music ended.

Breathing lightly, Gu Zhijing gave the camera following him a quick, subtle wink, then smiled again.

It was a beautiful, effortless smile.

It made it almost impossible to realize just how tense and rushed he had been when he improvised and performed that dance moments ago.

At that instant, a thought suddenly occurred to Sheng Chi.

He had probably found someone like that.

Chapter 7

After all the trainees had finished performing, there was a break.

During that time, the instructors would score and rank the trainees based on their overall performances, then announce the results on the spot.

In a corner backstage, Qi Wang spoke in a negotiating tone. "Can you change it?"

The other person shook his head. "Impossible."

Qi Wang immediately grew anxious. "How is it impossible? There are only a few of us here anyway. Even if you give me a higher ranking, the others won't dare say anything."

"Fei Yue is still here, but with my brother backing me, even if he notices something, he won't dare do anything to me!"

The dance instructor glanced at him and sighed. "Look at the livestream yourself. This time, I really can't help you."

After the instructor left, Qi Wang hurriedly pulled his phone from his pocket and opened the livestreaming platform, somewhat puzzled.

The livestream's viewer count had, for once, surpassed a hundred thousand.

Perhaps because there were so many people, the stream was still a little laggy even though it was currently on a break.

But at a glance, many of the scrolling comments were filled with Sheng Chi's name.

Qi Wang nearly passed out.

H-how was that possible?!

Before Sheng Chi came to Leap Entertainment, he had been a nobody rejected by SPC and then scammed by a shell company.

Where had he gotten so many fans?!

The livestream really had blown up this time.

Their streams had never attracted much traffic before because Fei Yue's own account had very poor algorithmic ranking and had never made it onto the homepage. Site X's main audience wasn't made up of idol fans, either.

But during this particular stream, a Weibo blogger had reposted it.

The blogger had a little over a hundred thousand followers and had gotten their start covering idol survival shows. Even after the overall trend for those shows weakened this year, they hadn't turned into a marketing account, instead continuing to do it for love, frequenting the domestic entertainment idol scene and devoting themselves to finding all kinds of handsome unknowns.

[@Have a Milk Candy v: So small companies have their own internal survival shows now too? Aaaaaah, I'm in, I'm in again!! [Link]]

The post was quickly reposted over a thousand times, and plenty of passersby came to watch the show.

The livestream had started gaining traction right when Sheng Chi was performing.

The scrolling comments exploded.

[Holy shit, he's so handsome and talented! Why didn't the company send him to a survival show last year? Aaaaaah!!! He's obviously got TOP written all over him!!]

[Strongly seconding the girl above! If they'd actually sent him, maybe all three shows wouldn't have flopped this year. [Wipes tears]]

The comments kept up their lively discussion, and when Gu Zhijing appeared later, they hit another peak.

[Shit, I gasped in front of my screen. How the fuck is he this gorgeous?!]

[? Who's this handsome guy? I want his information in five seconds!!]

[He's so gorgeous I'm crying,