Chapter 15

After training for a week, An Rong’s body hadn’t felt comfortable for even a single day. Every morning, she woke up in pain, then forced her aching, protesting body through the exact same training she had done the day before. After lunch, she practiced her instrument, and at night, she attended an hour-long music class. That counted as rest.

But the results were visibly improving too. An Rong had slimmed down remarkably quickly. It wasn’t only that she had lost fat; the muscles on her body had also become firmer and more defined. Training no longer felt quite as painful or difficult as it had at the beginning.

Their progress over the past week had more or less kept up with the original plan. The five of them could now get through almost the entire dance smoothly. From here on, they would have to rehearse it over and over, refine the details, identify problems, and improve.

An Rong was still at the bottom.

Although she worked extremely hard, poor physical coordination simply wasn’t something that could be fixed in a short period of time. Some movements just looked stiff and awkward when she did them, never quite smooth enough.

When Xu Xiaoye returned from the restroom, she saw An Rong still dancing, repeating the same movements over and over again.

She really was serious.

And hardworking.

A little like Xu Xiaoye herself back then.

An Rong stopped to take a drink of water, then pinched the front of her shirt and pulled it away from her chest. The fabric was damp with sweat and clinging to her body, which felt extremely uncomfortable.

Seeing this, Xu Xiaoye let her gaze linger around An Rong’s chest for a moment, then smiled and nodded.

“Seventeen. It is a little small.”

A double entendre.

An Rong had just let go of her shirt, and the sweat-soaked fabric immediately clung back to her body. The company-issued clothes were still drying after being washed, so she was wearing one of her own T-shirts. It was cotton, breathable and absorbent, but once it got wet, certain things became slightly more obvious.

An Rong froze for a moment, then slowly lowered her head and looked at her own chest.

Raising a brow, she said, “I still have room to grow.”

Another double entendre.

Xu Xiaoye secretly laughed.

Not bad.

Her brain worked pretty fast.

Without changing expression, An Rong let her own gaze sweep across Xu Xiaoye’s full chest before continuing, “Big has its advantages. Small has its own charm.”

Xu Xiaoye’s smile gradually disappeared.

Her brows furrowed slightly as she stared at An Rong with a head full of question marks.

An Rong waved a hand, narrowed her eyes, and smiled with her lips pressed together. Her catlike mouth made her look both mischievous and cute.

Then, in an extremely exaggerated attempt to cover herself, she said, “Hey, I was talking about age. Older means mature, younger means cute. Don’t overthink it.”

Xu Xiaoye: …

If you hadn’t added that explanation, and I’d thought ​Read on BaiLianTales​my way to that interpretation myself, I really would’ve believed you!

Xu Xiaoye blinked furiously.

Having been deliberately led astray by An Rong, she guiltily turned her head and clapped her hands.

“Who overthought anything? That’s what I meant too!”

With her hands behind her back, she walked over beside An Rong, bumped her lightly with an elbow, then let her gaze circle around before flicking toward the doorway.

An Rong immediately understood.

She turned and walked straight outside.

Xu Xiaoye froze.

That direct?

Not even one token excuse?

And here she had been so careful about signaling her.

Once they were outside the dance studio, An Rong looked at Xu Xiaoye in confusion and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Xu Xiaoye’s smile disappeared.

Her gaze swept around. Only after confirming there was no one nearby and no filming equipment in the area did she lower her voice with a frown.

“I ran into Sister Chen just now. Something came up.”

Sister Chen was Chen Xin, the person responsible for managing every aspect of their daily lives.

She almost never entered the dance studio and rarely went into the dorm around noon or evening either, mainly to avoid appearing on camera and making things inconvenient during editing. After all, if this was going to be broadcast as a variety show, the audience only needed to see the contestants.

Xu Xiaoye’s brows were furrowed, and her expression looked rather serious, as though some kind of trouble had come up.

An Rong immediately became worried.

She was afraid something unexpected had happened that might force Xu Xiaoye out.

But since Xu Xiaoye hadn’t said anything yet, she couldn’t exactly ask directly.

An Rong pressed her lips together, suppressed her nervousness, and asked seriously, “What happened?”

Even though she had been given another chance, An Rong had never relaxed.

She didn’t dare assume everything would unfold exactly as it had in her previous life.

What if a butterfly effect changed something and events suddenly went beyond what she remembered?

That would be disastrous.

Xu Xiaoye bit her lip and sighed.

With a headache, she said, “Someone from publicity came over. They said filming us training all day is too boring and they haven’t gotten much usable footage. They want us to [bailiantales.com]pay more attention during our normal routines. There needs to be jokes, funny moments, games—or if that doesn’t work, arguments, conflicts, crying because we miss home… anything.”

The directing team had been hired from outside, while someone in the publicity department was responsible for coordinating with the filming crew.

They had already been filming for a week, and the directors were practically falling asleep.

There was pitifully little footage worth editing.

It was bad enough that this group of complete amateurs had no sense of the camera.

They didn’t even have a single conflict.

This was a variety show.

What did audiences want to see?

People going to class every day?

No.

They wanted handsome guys and pretty girls, ridiculous jokes, interpersonal conflict, and scenes that moved people to tears!

The publicity department was anxious too.

This project was one of the company’s major initiatives for the second half of the year, and this was only its first season.

If it performed well, this selection format could potentially become the company’s standard way of choosing group members in the future, bringing in enormous traffic and profit.

The moment Xu Xiaoye explained it, An Rong understood.

The company was still being cautious.

They probably didn’t want to tell the trainees something like this directly because they were afraid footage of Chen Xin giving them these instructions might be captured.

If the filming crew got hold of that footage and it somehow leaked, the negative impact on the company would be enormous.

Xu Xiaoye had already signed with TS, so bailiantales.comhaving her privately pass the message along was the best option.

“Girl groups these days don’t just have to sing, dance, and look pretty. They also have to be cute and basically walking comedy material.”

Xu Xiaoye leaned miserably onto An Rong’s shoulder and complained, “Do you have any ideas?”

An Rong looked innocent.

She slowly turned her head to the side, and their cheeks lightly brushed.

There was less than a centimeter between them.

An Rong lowered her eyes, then quickly shifted back again with a serious expression.

Xu Xiaoye clicked her tongue in frustration.

“You’re basically an autistic kid. What ideas could you possibly have?”

Unfortunately, interesting souls were one in ten thousand.

Xu Xiaoye felt she belonged firmly to the extremely boring category.

She muttered quietly to An Rong, “As long as you can create a memorable moment, you can get screen time. Once you get screen time, you get in front of the audience. This is an opportunity. You need to make good use of it.”

The basic principle behind editing a show was to make it entertaining—to have highlights and no boring stretches.

There would certainly be other factors interfering toward the end, but the basic entertaining material should still be preserved.

An Rong pressed down the corners of her mouth and said frankly, “I don’t have any jokes, and I’m not funny.”

An Rong genuinely thought she was a pretty boring person.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have managed to secretly love someone for four years without ever being discovered.

Xu Xiaoye patted An Rong’s other shoulder with the exasperation of someone disappointed that iron had failed to become steel.

The two of them still couldn’t come up with anything.

They even had to pretend to casually wander through the dorm for a while.

Then An Rong’s gaze fell on her instrument beside the table, and an idea suddenly came to her.

She picked it up, hesitated for a moment, then gestured toward Xu Xiaoye and asked, “Can I bring this to the dance studio and use it?”

“You can.”

Xu Xiaoye nodded, then raised a brow at her and sighed helplessly.

The instrument had already made a stunning appearance once before.

Doing it again probably wouldn’t have as much impact as the first time.

But since it was still an idea the kid had worked hard to come up with, Xu Xiaoye didn’t want to discourage her.

Instead, she encouraged her.

“Forget playing instruments or erhu. The publicity department probably wishes someone would start doing somersaults in the dance studio or dorm so they could give the media something to write about.”

This was one thing An Rong genuinely admired about Xu Xiaoye.

Even though she was only a trainee right now, she always managed to look at the same situation from many different angles.

Calm and rational.

An Rong had already reached the doorway with her Shaoqin when Xu Xiaoye hesitated, turned around, and went back to retrieve her own guitar as well.

“I’ll go with you.”

The moment the two of them entered the dance studio, they attracted plenty of attention.

Quite a few people had brought guitars with them, but no one had ever carried one into the dance studio. At most, they played them in the dorm at night.

So seeing both An Rong and Xu Xiaoye walking in with instruments naturally made everyone curious.

Xia Chunhua was sitting on the floor taking a break.

The moment she saw what was happening, she perceptively ran off and brought over two chairs.

An Rong looked at Xu Xiaoye, then said to the other three, “Take a break if you’re tired. Let’s play and sing. The captain and I will play, and you guys sing. Let’s see how well everyone’s learned the song.”

Learning the song itself was relatively simple.

Spending an entire week on one song was actually quite slow, but since they were all newcomers, the company had deliberately given them more time.

Still, Xu Xiaoye had managed their schedule and progress very well.

At this point, singing the song shouldn’t be a problem.

Xu Xiaoye played the intro first.

An Rong joined in midway.

The sounds of the two instruments were completely different, their styles entirely distinct, yet together they sounded unexpectedly beautiful.

It was clearly the first time they had played together, but their coordination was so natural that it felt as though they had rehearsed countless times.

Their instruments harmonized perfectly, effortlessly complementing one another.

An Rong concentrated on playing, but her gaze quickly swept toward Xu Xiaoye.

She saw those gentle eyes that seemed filled with stars.

Then, flustered, she hurriedly looked away.

Xu Xiaoye noticed nothing.

She even raised her head and glanced sideways at An Rong with a smile.

The more she looked at this little fool, the more she liked her.

Author’s Note:

An Rong: I often feel deeply inferior because of how boring I am. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have secretly loved someone for four years. You think having a secret crush is easy?

Question for everyone: What does “ttl” mean???? “Too sweet”? “Sweet all the way through”? “Train every day”? “Too greedy”? “Too picky”? “Tui Tui Le”? “Totole”?