Chapter 3

The moment the announcement ended, staff members came in carrying tables and chairs, followed by the three evaluators.

The only female evaluator, seated in the middle, was Qin Yun. She was in her thirties. Her seniority wasn’t especially high, but she had gained a fair amount of recognition over the past two years and was a singer signed under TS Entertainment. Shen Ri’an was also a veteran singer with the company and had extensive experience performing in a group. He was currently the leader of the company’s most popular and longest-established boy group. These days, the group rarely promoted together anymore, maintaining a schedule of roughly one group concert every year or two while the members pursued their individual careers, all of which were going fairly well.

Zhou Rui was the only one from another company, as well as the oldest of the three evaluators. He was in his forties, known for his tough-guy image, with clearly defined muscles and an exceptionally well-maintained physique.

The instant the three of them entered, the dance studio fell silent. Every stray sound disappeared automatically. The girls, tense and uneasy, followed the first person who moved and gathered off to one side, forming a messy arrangement of more than three rows.

Shen Ri’an wore a smile and seemed to be in a pretty good mood. Sweeping his gaze over the group of girls, he asked, “Tired?”

More than half of them answered weakly, their voices carrying hints of complaint and coquettishness.

“Tired. Really tired.”

Having to learn a completely unfamiliar dance in such a short time and sing a song they had never even heard before was genuinely difficult. [unauthorized copy]None of them had slept the previous night. They hadn’t dared to sleep, nor had they had the time. After pushing themselves until now, most of them had already reached the limits of their stamina.

“Tired, huh?” Zhou Rui nodded and said seriously, “Good. Remember how you feel right now. For the next three months, or perhaps even longer, this is what your life is going to be like. In the past, some of you might have wondered why certain artists always say they’re exhausted. What you’re experiencing now is only the tiniest glimpse into this industry. I hope all of you can hold on.”

It was a very fair statement.

As the only person there who had already lived through all of this once, An Rong agreed with him very, very much.

She raised her head and observed the people around her. Every face was young and full of vitality. After hearing Zhou Rui’s words, each of them carried a trace of a newcomer’s confusion and eagerness.

Xu Xiaoye didn’t.

She stood calmly off to the side, doing her best to present herself in her best possible condition.

She was no longer a complete newcomer. She had already been with the company for three years. It was just that she had remained a trainee the entire time and had never debuted.

The initial excitement, novelty, and anxiety of being new—she bailiantales.com had already experienced all of that.

This was her final chance.

Qin Yun nodded, opened the folder in her hands, and said solemnly, “Someday, you’ll thank yourselves for working this hard now. Let’s begin. We’ll start with dance. Whoever wants to go first, stand inside one of the white boxes in front. Five people per group. Who wants to go first?”

Five boxes had been marked out on the floor with white tape, forming five performance spaces.

Xu Xiaoye smiled and calmly stepped forward, taking the first box.

An Rong had known she would go first, so she had already been prepared. She immediately followed and took the second box.

Xiao Yu had been beaten to it, so she took the center spot instead. A small, skinny girl came up behind them. She had short, naturally curly hair that looked fluffy and rather cute. The final girl to step forward clearly had a strong dance background as well and appeared very confident.

The people who had hesitated and stayed behind broke into scattered applause, nearly all their gazes falling on An Rong.

Some were even whispering behind her.

“She actually dared to go up?”

“What a warrior.”

“She’s the only one out of those five who can’t dance, right? Isn’t she going to look absolutely terrible by comparison?”

“Just watch, just watch.”

An Rong exhaled.

She had no trouble entering on beat, and she could completely keep up with the opening movements. But the moment they reached the chorus, An Rong began constantly darting glances to either side and copying.

If they moved left, she copied Xu Xiaoye.

If they moved right, she copied Xiao Yu.

The advantage of a terrible student hiding among a group of top students was displayed in full.

Of course, so was the extent to which those top students completely crushed her.

She was like a tiny grain of millet beside the full moon on the fifteenth night—so insignificant she could practically be ignored.

But from another perspective, she was like a single foxtail weed that had somehow gotten mixed into a field of flowers.

A crooked, twisted foxtail weed at that.

She stood out painfully.

The trainees who hadn’t gone yet were already laughing.

And yet, strangely enough, An Rong managed to muddle her way through by copying the others.

She was a little frantic, lacked strength in her movements, and looked almost clownish compared to the other four.

But she still managed to finish the dance without incident.

Shen Ri’an watched An Rong with an indulgent uncle-like smile. The moment the music stopped, he asked, “You’ve got courage. Dancing like that, and you still dared to come up this early?”

An Rong was panting.

She first bowed slightly. Her voice was still trembling a little from the exertion, and she was somewhat embarrassed, but she answered with perfect seriousness, “The main reason is that I have no foundation. If there’s no one for me to follow, I can’t dance it by myself.”

Shen Ri’an deliberately widened his eyes in surprise and asked with a smile, “Huh? You’re just admitting that outright? We’re grading you, you know. Aren’t you afraid of being eliminated?”

An Rong nodded and answered honestly, “I am. But I really don’t know how to do it yet. I’ll work hard to learn, though. I’ll definitely be able to learn it.”

The corners of Shen Ri’an’s eyes crinkled from smiling.

He glanced at the red swelling on An Rong’s forehead and nodded repeatedly in satisfaction.

“You actually danced pretty well. With absolutely no foundation, being able to do this much is already impressive.”

An Rong almost felt embarrassed.

Her dancing was still quite a distance from what anyone could honestly call “pretty good,” so she was very grateful that Shen Ri’an had said that.

At the very least, he had helped her out of an awkward situation and given her some encouragement, sparing her from being too humiliated in front of everyone.

So An Rong immediately pressed her palms together and bowed.

“Thank you, Teacher.”

Once their group finished, they were allowed to move aside [Read on BaiLianTales]and leave the space open for the next five.

Zhou Rui turned his head slightly to look at Qin Yun in the middle.

Qin Yun then glanced at Shen Ri’an.

Shen Ri’an gave a slight nod, leaned closer, covered his microphone, and whispered very softly, “With no foundation at all, being able to dance like that means she has pretty good natural aptitude. If I remember correctly, her singing was especially good too. How about we keep her for another round and see?”

Qin Yun hesitated for a moment.

Zhou Rui nodded in agreement.

In any case, the elimination results wouldn’t be decided until after the entire evaluation was over, so nothing would be announced yet.

They might as well see how everyone else did first.

They were only eliminating five people this round, so perhaps it wouldn’t even come down to her.

An Rong didn’t dare relax at all.

The moment she moved off to the side, she began singing softly under her breath, tapping the beat against her thigh with her fingers.

Truthfully, she was a little nervous.

Only now did An Rong remember that during her original first evaluation, she hadn’t gone onstage until much later.

Back then, she had been somewhat insecure. Even after practicing for an entire day, she still hadn’t had much confidence.

But at that time, the possibility of being eliminated hadn’t meant all that much to her.

She wasn’t a professional anyway.

So although she had lacked confidence, she had at least managed to remain relatively calm.

Now was completely different…

Now she was panicking like crazy.

Xiao Yu walked over and said gently, “Don’t be nervous. You danced pretty well.”

An Rong looked up in surprise.

Xiao Yu was the aloof, untouchable goddess type.

They hadn’t even interacted yet, and she was already coming over to encourage her?

Perhaps the sheer surprise written across An Rong’s face amused Xiao Yu, because she pressed her lips together in a small smile and said, “Good luck.”

An Rong nodded seriously.

“Thank you.”

Her gaze drifted toward Xu Xiaoye, who was standing diagonally behind Xiao Yu.

At seventeen, An Rong still looked very young. There was still a bit of soft baby fat on her cheeks that she hadn’t fully grown out of, yet she carried herself with such deliberate maturity and composure that she looked a little like a child pretending to be an adult.

Still, somehow, she genuinely gave off a strangely steady impression.

Perhaps it was because her overall bearing simply didn’t feel like that of someone her age.

But paired with the red mark on her forehead that still hadn’t faded, Xu Xiaoye found herself struggling not to laugh.

It wouldn’t be very nice to laugh right in front of her, so she lightly coughed and suppressed it.

An Rong thought she wanted to say something and immediately focused all her attention on her.

Being stared at so intently made Xu Xiaoye feel a little awkward, so she searched for something to say.

“Mm. You’re starting to look the part.”

It was a slightly familiar compliment, and there was even a hint of perfunctoriness to it.

Yet somehow, it hit exactly the right spot for An Rong.

She was instantly satisfied.

Her brows even lifted slightly as she pressed her lips together in a smile.

“Thank you.”

Xu Xiaoye started wondering whether she had just showered An [Read on BaiLianTales]Rong with some incredible, over-the-top praise.

Why did the girl look so ridiculously pleased?

The moment she smiled, her already-not-very-large eyes looked even smaller.

Kind of ugly.

And strangely cute.

Xu Xiaoye’s expression turned slightly cool again.

She gave a quiet “Mm,” turned her head away, and went back to memorizing the lyrics.

Her memory wasn’t very good.

She had to keep repeating them until they became muscle memory, or there was a very ​unauthorized copy​real chance she would forget them again while singing.

An Rong silently switched from tapping the rhythm with her fingers to keeping time with her palm instead.

Her movements were small, and the sound was very soft.

Only someone standing close beside her would have been able to hear it.

By the time Xu Xiaoye noticed, she had already sung through the entire song following An Rong’s beat.

Xu Xiaoye glanced sideways at An Rong.

An Rong pressed her lips together and gave her a faint smile.

In that split second, she suddenly worried that Xu Xiaoye might misunderstand and think she was some scheming sex maniac.

So she immediately straightened her expression, looked away with perfect seriousness, stolen contentand pretended she had been keeping time for herself the whole time.

Xu Xiaoye was utterly baffled.

She had no idea what was wrong with this kid.

The dance evaluations nearby ended quickly.

There were only twenty-five trainees, after all, and with five people being evaluated at a time, it only took five groups to finish.

So they soon moved on to the singing portion.

Singing was different from dancing.

They had to perform one at a time.

Wanting to claw back some points for herself, An Rong volunteered to go first.

And she performed exceptionally well.

All three evaluators were stunned.

She sang with far more technique than she had during the open audition a few days earlier, and her personal style was much more distinct as well.

If her résumé and age hadn’t been written there in black and white, they almost would have assumed An Rong had already debuted before.

The way she handled certain parts was clearly something that came from training.

Her improvement could only be described as astonishingly fast.

And most importantly, the most precious thing about her voice hadn’t been lost.

She still sounded sincere, with an intense emotional pull.

There was practically nothing to criticize.

Nearly everyone was a little stunned.

First, because she genuinely sounded good.

Second, because with An Rong’s ability, as long as nothing else went wrong, the lead vocalist position was practically guaranteed to be hers.

For dance, there was already Xu Xiaoye and Xiao Yu.

That meant three positions were effectively occupied all at once.

Only two spots remained for everyone else to fight over.

Standing among the crowd, Wang Yunshui curled her lip and shot An Rong a disdainful glance.

Unfortunately for her, An Rong happened to turn around to leave at that exact moment and caught her red-handed.

Their gazes met.

An Rong didn’t back down in the slightest.

Her eyes were like knives.

Expressionless, she stared straight at Wang Yunshui until even the people standing beside Wang Yunshui noticed something was wrong.

Only then did An Rong casually shift her gaze away.

Getting caught doing something like that was always embarrassing.

But Wang Yunshui wasn’t the kind of person who could swallow her pride.

Since she had already been seen, she only restrained herself slightly because the cameras and evaluators were present.

Her expression remained anything but friendly.

She lifted her chin high, tossed her head aside, and walked to the front to prepare for her turn to sing.

Wang Yunshui wasn’t as good a dancer as Xiao Yu, and she didn’t have much natural vocal quality either.

But coincidentally, the song chosen for this evaluation was an extremely simple, catchy pop song with almost no difficulty to speak of.

As long as she had enough time to practice the few places that required some technique, there wouldn’t be much of a problem.

And during this evaluation, Wang Yunshui performed extraordinarily well.

Her dancing was no worse than Xu Xiaoye’s, ​stolen content​and there were no obvious problems with her singing either.

Overall, her ability ranked just behind Xu Xiaoye’s.

At this rate, they were definitely still going to end up debuting in the same group.

An Rong’s expression darkened.

She lowered her head, frowned, and stood by the wall.

Xu Xiaoye had been watching her for quite a while.

Thinking An Rong had been discouraged and finding her rather pitiful, she hesitated for a moment before walking over and calling out to her.

“Hey.”

An Rong looked up blankly for a second and said, “My name is An Rong.”

Xu Xiaoye wasn’t very good at remembering names.

Having been called out on it, she awkwardly rubbed her nose.

“I know. I just couldn’t remember it for a second.”

An Rong’s little brain spun rapidly.

“The Rong from xiaorong—‘smile.’”

Xu Xiaoye suddenly understood and nodded.

Wasn’t that basically the same meaning as her own name?

Easy to remember.

“I knew that, I knew that.”

Xu Xiaoye stubbornly refused to admit she had a bad memory, then comforted her like a caring older sister.

“Don’t worry. You’ll definitely pass.”

An Rong hadn’t expected Xu Xiaoye to come over and comfort her at this point.

Her heart instantly burst into bloom.

Light flashed into her eyes, and she smiled so widely that her teeth showed.

She even shook her head a little as she asked, “Really?”

The moment Xu Xiaoye saw her smile, she had no idea why, but she suddenly felt like laughing too.

Unable to figure out the reason, she could only conclude…

“Stop smiling. You look kind of ugly when you smile.”

An Rong erased her smile in one second and immediately returned to a stern, serious expression.

Xu Xiaoye turned her head away and burst out laughing.

Oh my God.

She really was kind of cute.