Chapter 19

The two weeks passed quickly. Since this was the first round, the company had given them plenty of preparation time. By the time they reached the final rehearsals, all four groups were basically ready. Even though Wang Yunshui had put on a fake-fall performance just yesterday, she was already able to come to the dance studio for rehearsal today.

The three evaluators didn’t have any other schedules these past two days either, so they came by every day to take a look around and offer a little guidance.

Maybe because An Rong had performed well last time, Qin Yun seemed to pay particular attention to her. Every time she came, she would stand near the entrance, with Xu Xiaoye’s group on the left and Wang Yunshui’s group on the right.

Once they finished the final freeze pose, An Rong let out a breath. This was probably about the best condition they could reach right now. There was no way they could improve much more in such a short time.

Seeing that they had stopped, Qin Yun applauded and walked over. Looking at An Rong with both satisfaction and amazement, she said, “You’ve improved a lot. Your breath control is much steadier than it was at the beginning, and your rhythm is good too. But whenever you have to put force into your dance movements, your voice still wavers. You need to keep practicing. Try singing while running. Learn how to control the frequency and method of your breathing.”

An Rong nodded and said seriously, “Thank you, Teacher. I’ll keep working hard.”

“Keep it up.” Qin Yun rarely showed a smile. “I have high hopes for you.”

She only spoke to An Rong for a few sentences before continuing forward to watch the other groups. When she met up with Shen Ri’an farther ahead, Shen Ri’an lowered his voice and asked, “You really think that highly of her?”

Qin Yun hesitated for a moment, then said objectively, “She’s young, willing to work hard, has good physical proportions and appearance, excellent vocal qualities, and talent. Most importantly, you’re a singer too. You know what’s hardest to find in a singer.”

Not everyone had talent, and not everyone with talent was willing to work hard and learn. Someone who had both talent and the willingness to endure so much hardship was bound to carry a certain pride, especially when they were young. Teenagers and young adults often had trouble getting along well with others and were also reluctant to follow company arrangements.

But Qin Yun could see in An Rong the qualities that people like that often lacked. It was impossible to Read on BaiLianTalesknow what the future would bring, but as things stood now, she really was an excellent prospect for becoming an idol singer.

Shen Ri’an nodded. What Qin Yun said wasn’t wrong. They were all experienced enough to read people well, and after watching the trainees work together for half a month, they had basically figured out what kind of foundation each of these students had. Still, he hesitated for a moment, smiled and greeted another student passing by, then lowered his voice and quietly said to Qin Yun, “But I think she might not be very suited to a girl group.”

Shen Ri’an himself had come from a boy group and had later done very well as a solo artist, so he understood the difference between being part of a group and developing individually.

Qin Yun hesitated too and didn’t argue.

Xia Chunhua grabbed An Rong’s arm and bounced up and down, as excited as though she herself had been praised. Lowering her voice, she said animatedly, “She praised you! She praised you!”

An Rong smiled and patted her hair, nodding. Qin Yun saying something like that had surprised her a little too, but she didn’t show it. After thinking for a moment, she said, “I think Teacher Qin’s method sounds good. But your lung capacity is better than mine, so you probably don’t have this problem.”

Xu Xiaoye shook her head. “Actually, it’s a technique. The training process is really painful, but for singing and dancing, the results are very obvious. It’s worth practicing.”

Song Ran was distracted, her brows furrowed the entire time.

Xu Xiaoye turned and noticed. She patted her shoulder encouragingly. “Don’t be nervous. The performance isn’t until tonight. You’re already doing very well now. You can completely keep up.”

Song Ran still looked uneasy. Her brows remained tightly knitted, and even her complexion looked a little poor. Nervous and anxious, she asked, “What if I mess up when the time comes? I heard there’ll be an audience there. I’ve never performed onstage before. Will there be a lot of people? What if I forget the lyrics, or my movements are too slow… Ah— I’m going crazy! Sorry, I’m just a little nervous.”

She had no experience in this area, and among the five of them, she was also the weakest at both singing and dancing. She was afraid of embarrassing herself in public and even more afraid of dragging down her teammates. The more she thought about it, the more panicked she became.

“I’m a little nervous too.” Kang Yu let out a breath. “But it bailiantales.com should be fine. Haven’t our rehearsals been going pretty well? How about we do it one more time? I’m not feeling very confident either…”

An Rong was the type who, once she believed she had prepared thoroughly, absolutely wouldn’t be afraid. She also had several years of stage performance experience, so a small event like this didn’t affect her much.

Xia Chunhua was simply naturally optimistic. She figured that since she had learned it, she could perform it. There was nothing particularly serious about that.

Xu Xiaoye had been on stages much bigger than this before. Even though she had only been there as a backup dancer supporting someone else, she had prepared for so long, and now that she was finally going to be the main performer, she wasn’t nervous at all. If anything, she was a little excited.

So only Song Ran and Kang Yu were left looking anxious and uneasy.

Xia Chunhua, member of the Optimistic Family, nodded along too. “Sure. We have plenty of time anyway, so let’s do it one more time. What’s there to be nervous about? We’ve been so smooth during rehearsals. They’ll definitely let us rehearse at the actual venue this afternoon too, test the microphones and all the equipment. They’re not just going to grab us and throw us directly onto the stage.”

Still, everyone could understand feeling nervous. Practicing a few more times wasn’t a bad thing anyway, as long as they managed their stamina and protected their throats so they didn’t overuse their voices and affect the evening performance.

They rehearsed twice more. The three teachers came out from farther inside, happened to pass by them, and stopped to watch them finish. Shen Ri’an clapped and said, “Very good. Go eat something and rest for a while. The main event is still ahead. Don’t exhaust yourselves before you get there.”

The moment he said that, Song Ran became too scared to keep practicing.

The girls encouraged one another, though the atmosphere was slightly solemn.

An Rong stretched out her hand. Xia Chunhua reacted the fastest and slapped hers down on top with a smack. Xu Xiaoye understood too and silently joined in. Kang Yu and Song Ran added their hands as well.

Everyone assumed this was going to be a normal team cheer and got ready.

An Rong declared passionately, “Comrades, classmates, come on, sing with me. Unity is strength~ Ready— Unity is strength~ This strength is iron~ This strength is steel~ Harder than iron~ Stronger than steel~”

The singing abruptly stopped. The five of them tentatively looked at one another until they confirmed that, apparently, none of the others knew the rest either. The atmosphere instantly became awkward.

An Rong lifted her hand, and everyone moved their hands downward together in perfect synchronization. “Hey! Let’s go!”

Whether they knew the rest of the song or not didn’t matter. Cheering was enough!

The ridiculous misunderstanding actually lightened everyone’s mood a little. At this point, they had practiced everything they needed to practice and solved every problem they could solve. Continuing to rehearse would only drain their energy. It was better to save their strength for the formal stage rehearsal that afternoon.

After encouraging each other, everyone dispersed to do their own thing—eat, rest, or continue training.

At three in the afternoon, someone came over to notify them that the studio on the fifth floor was ready and that anyone who wanted to rehearse could go up.

The moment the people in the dorm heard, they all rushed out.

An Rong and Xu Xiaoye walked at the very back and weren’t especially hurried. There were only four groups anyway. One full rehearsal round would take about an hour. Going last had its advantages too. Once they finished rehearsing, they could go straight into the performance later without losing the adrenaline they had built up and then having to wait around nervously for ages.

The crowd ahead had already surged forward, so Xu Xiaoye lowered her voice and said to An Rong, “There’ll be an audience tonight. That studio isn’t very big, so it can only seat forty or fifty people at most. Don’t get nervous tonight.”

TS’s small studio really couldn’t hold very many people, but for complete newcomers like them, forty or fifty people was already unauthorized copya lot. And there would also be the director and the evaluators.

It felt completely different from the elimination round on the first day, when they had simply marked out a square on the floor with white tape.

Fortunately, An Rong had already experienced all of this before, so she didn’t feel nervous.

Seeing that An Rong remained calm and unhurried, steady just as she had expected, Xu Xiaoye felt reassured. Good. As expected of the person she had chosen.

“Actually, the audience won’t really be ordinary audience members either. We’re all newcomers and don’t have fans who would come watch us, so about half of them will be company employees—people from publicity, management, and departments like that. A smaller portion will be random passersby brought in from outside. Aside from a few company employees whose work is related to this, not many people will actually be watching seriously. So you don’t need to be nervous. Just relax and perform.”

Xu Xiaoye spoke lightly and quietly, essentially giving An Rong the inside scoop.

An Rong frowned slightly and glanced sideways at Xu Xiaoye. “Are you trying to comfort me or scare me?”

Xu Xiaoye patted her shoulder and said with a grin, “Of course I’m not trying to scare you. Everything I said is true. But judging from your face, you don’t seem surprised at all?”

An Rong had experience, so of course she wasn’t surprised. But that wasn’t something she could exactly use as an explanation. She pouted, raised one hand, and shrugged. “I don’t understand any of this stuff anyway. If you say that’s how it works, then that’s how it works. I’ve seen big crowds before. Forty or fifty people is nothing.”

“Oh?” Xu Xiaoye raised a brow, amusement in her eyes. “Not bad. I actually underestimated you. Tell me, what kind of big crowds have you seen?”

An Rong truly had seen big crowds, at least more than the current Xu Xiaoye had. But she couldn’t talk about those. After thinking for a moment, she said, “I played erhu at school before, in front of over two thousand students. Does that count as a big crowd?”

Xu Xiaoye smacked her lips.

That really did count.

Still, performing as a student at school was somewhat different from going onstage for a formal scored performance. Xu Xiaoye had originally been a little worried that An Rong might get nervous. After all, she was only seventeen. She usually looked composed and mature, but it was still possible that once she got onstage, she might panic and not know what to do.

But now it seemed she had worried for nothing.

There wasn’t an audience in the studio yet, but several TS staff members were already there. The stage itself wasn’t very large, and there were a few rows of chairs below it. With the curtains drawn and the overhead lights turned on, it actually looked quite official.

Xia Chunhua had already run around the entire room and inspected everything. The moment she saw the two of them come in, she hurried over and whispered, “This place doesn’t look very big. How many people can even fit in here?”

Right.

This one actually thought the venue was too small.

Xu Xiaoye finally felt completely reassured. With teammates like this, great. No need to worry.

They had rehearsed well in the dance studio, and nothing went wrong here either. Almost every group went through their performance twice. In the end, a staff member had to come over and stop them, telling them to leave for now and go do whatever they needed to do. The opening time was eight in the evening. They were not to come back before eight, and when they returned, they needed to act as though it was their first time seeing the place.

This was standard procedure, and everyone understood what it meant. They had already rehearsed twice anyway, which was more or less enough.

At six in the evening, people were already going to the makeup room to wait for their turn.

The makeup room was quite large. Even though twenty people couldn’t all be accommodated at once, the wait wouldn’t be very long.

Since tonight was an important occasion, even Xu Xiaoye didn’t do her own makeup. She took An Rong with her to the makeup room to wait for the artists. They needed both makeup and styling, and the outfits prepared by the company had already been sent down and piled in the makeup room. Every piece had a label attached, so everyone could simply find their own.

The outfits for An Rong’s group were fairly convenient. The necklines were loose, and there were adjustable ties at the shoulders, so they could finish their makeup first and then go back to change.

They were the first group scheduled to perform, but since they had started preparing early, they weren’t in much of a rush.

Once they were ready, the five of them stood together and encouraged one another while waiting to be called.

Author’s Note:

An Rong: There’s a hidden senior among us, and that person is—dun dun dun dun~ me! Relax, Sister Rong will carry you all!