Chapter 11

“Wow! The production team really was willing to spend money! The place they rented is way bigger than I imagined! Where are the rooms? Where are the rooms?”

Other people’s voices suddenly came from downstairs. From the sound of it, there should be more than just one or two people.

Chi Rui turned to Ling Yu and said, “Let’s go down and take a look.”

Ling Yu nodded, closed her suitcase, and followed Chi Rui out.

This time, more than a dozen people had arrived all at once. They had probably run into one another on the first floor and come up together, or maybe they already knew each other privately and had come as a group.

Among the group of girls, a slender black figure stood out extremely clearly. Being tall was secondary. The main thing was the aura that set this person apart from everyone else. Her well-mannered posture made her look more upright and elegant than the others.

Bai Chang obviously did not want to dress in a way that stole the spotlight. She wore very few accessories, but with that noble, expensive-looking face of hers right there, what extra decoration did she need? She stood at the side, yet she was surrounded by the girls and became the center point. No one was stupid. Daily dormitory footage was generally rarely edited into the main episode, but the effect was different if they could ride Bai Chang’s screen time.

When there were many girls, the noise became somewhat chaotic. However, Bai Chang did not look impatient at all. The smile on her face was calm and gentle, and her tone when answering questions was also extremely soft.

Bai Chang was holding a bag filled with small, exquisitely packaged gifts, which she was handing out one by one.

Chi Rui very unromantically thought of the scene she had seen on Animal World when she was little, where a female bird fed ​unauthorized copy​her chicks. Other than the species being different, this comparison really fit the current situation perfectly.

In an instant, as though some mysterious electric wave in the air were guiding her, Bai Chang, who had been lowering her head to speak, suddenly raised her head and looked in Chi Rui’s direction. Their gazes met in midair across several trainees.

“Good morning, Teacher Bai.” Chi Rui was the first to break the silence, the indifference on her face making it seem as though she and Bai Chang had never known each other.

Bai Chang could not hear even half a trace of respect in Chi Rui’s “Teacher,” but with so many cameras around them, the atmosphere could not collapse. She smiled softly, appearing appropriate and kind. “Morning.”

A girl with short brown hair jumped out. “Actually, Boss could have slept a while longer. I was the one who shamelessly begged Boss to drive me here this early, hahahaha. The buses in the morning aren’t too easy to take, after all.”

Chi Rui understood. This was probably the other trainee HM had sent over, Su Wanwan.

Most of the newcomers Bai Chang signed were people who could develop in the direction of acting. This Su Wanwan was an exception. She had once been a trainee at one of the three major companies overseas. Her skills were outstanding, and she had easily entered the debut lineup. Unfortunately, her luck was somewhat poor. Right before debut, a health problem came up and she had to undergo surgery in time. For the sake of the group’s development, the company could only replace her. After that, once Su Wanwan recovered, Tang Yu poached her over to HM.

Although she had not officially debuted at HM, she had played a likable maidservant role in a television drama Bai Chang starred in. Adding on the small group of fans she had accumulated in her early years as a trainee, she was a seeded contestant with a foundation of popularity.

Chi Rui remembered that Tang Yu had said before that Bai Chang had put in quite a lot of effort for the show. Thinking about it now, more than half of that effort was probably for this seeded contestant.

Su Wanwan had a cheerful personality. Aside from her professional skills, her greatest strength was making friends. She had only been here for a short while, yet she had already linked arms with an independent trainee who had been alone.

As for the remaining few, from the moment Chi Rui appeared, they immediately ​unauthorized copy​stopped talking. They formed their own little groups and looked at her with curious, guarded gazes.

Every one of them could feel the sense of difference radiating from Chi Rui. Chi Rui was not the same as semi-amateurs like them. She had debuted before, had exploded in popularity, and had even acted with Bai Chang, who was now the show initiator, and had been rumored to be romantically involved with her. Setting aside the negative online rumors about her bad temper, those points alone were enough to create a bottomless gulf between the two sides.

“Go take a look at the rooms first,” Bai Chang said. When she spoke, she looked at Chi Rui, as though hoping Chi Rui would lead everyone around the dormitory.

“All right, all right!” Su Wanwan nodded at the side. “I’m super curious about what the dorms look like this time.”

With one simple sentence, she pulled Chi Rui over from the opposite side of the trainees, allowing her to blend into the group.

The root cause of prejudice was a lack of communication. Before this, these trainees had never met Chi Rui at all. Based only on the smear posts online, it was indeed very easy for them to judge her as someone with a difficult temper who was hard to get along with.

And from the audience’s perspective, there was nothing wrong with Bai Chang doing this either. Among everyone here, only Chi Rui and Ling Yu had arrived early and were familiar with the environment. Ling Yu was from Lemon, and as a former MK artist, it was perfectly logical for Bai Chang to avoid cueing her.

But if it were the other way around, it would be different. As Chi Rui’s current boss and former CP partner, as long as Bai Chang’s goodwill became even slightly obvious, it would be interpreted as favoritism.

That was also why she had ignored Bai Yuanyuan’s suggestion in the car. In this industry, the biggest taboo was doing something bad with good intentions. Excessive bundled marketing would, in the end, mostly backfire on oneself. Let alone when more than half of Bai Chang’s fans were hostile toward Chi Rui.

And so, as the “host,” Chi Rui could only repeat her old trick and continue fighting for screen time by taking on the role of tour guide.

Bai Chang walked behind the chattering [read the original at bailiantales.com]group of girls, following at a leisurely pace while watching.

“Let me say this first: before entering, everyone, please prepare yourselves mentally.” Chi Rui held the door handle and deliberately kept them in suspense.

The girls’ dormitories from the previous season had been luxurious princess suites. They had been decorated extremely well. So the moment Chi Rui said this, all the girls’ eyes carried a bit of anticipation. Bai Chang, tall and standing at the very back of the line, let her light gaze fall on Chi Rui’s face and silently watched her play around.

“Ta-da—” Chi Rui pushed open the door and stepped aside, letting those anticipation-filled girls get a clear look at this overly “plain” room.

Maybe it was because the room she had chosen was in a bad location, but not only was the dust worse than in her room, there were even cobwebs on the railing of one of the beds. When one of the girls saw it, she was so frightened she screamed.

“No way. It’s one thing if there’s nothing here, but they can’t even guarantee basic cleanliness?”

“Can I still go home now?”

“No, wait. It must be because Chi Rui opened the door the wrong way. Let me try again.” Su Wanwan stepped forward, closed the door again, then imitated a Taoist priest from television and chanted a spell. Finally, she shouted, “Open sesame!”

Unfortunately, what opened was still a cobweb.

Su Wanwan’s expression collapsed at once. “I don’t want to live with spiders. Spare me.”

The follow-cam VJ happily shoved the camera toward them, capturing all the girls’ various distressed expressions. He had suffered quite a few setbacks earlier [bailiantales.com]with Chi Rui and Ling Yu. Finally, a few normal people had arrived!

Su Wanwan refused to give up. She opened three rooms in a row and found that none of them were much better. Suddenly, she remembered something. “Eh, Chi Rui, which room did you pick?”

There had to be a normal room. Otherwise, how could Chi Rui look so calm?

Everyone’s attention was drawn by that sentence and landed on Chi Rui. Bai Chang was no exception.

When she heard from Tang Yu that Chi Rui had not only not been late today but had been the first to arrive, she had already found it surprising. Now, even after seeing rooms in such poor condition, Chi Rui remained unmoved. That was truly completely beyond Bai Chang’s understanding of her.

“0312.” Chi Rui pointed behind her.

“No way, I have to go look at your room!” Su Wanwan grabbed the good sister she had just made and ran. “Yu Shu! Hurry!”

The girl named Yu Shu also looked like someone who did not like talking. She had been quiet throughout the journey just now, looking out of place beside the crowd around her. No one knew how Su Wanwan had managed to abduct her hand, but when Su Wanwan pulled her, she really obediently started running after her.

Chi Rui felt even more tired than she had earlier when she was alone with Ling Yu. If all ninety-eight girls were this troublesome, was she still going to compete or not?

“Wow! Why does this room look like it’s from a completely different style than the one just now!” Su Wanwan’s loud voice could carry from the end of the hallway all the way over. Some curious people were immediately attracted by her and came over. In an instant, the doorway of room 0312 was packed with people.

And after taking a look, wasn’t that exactly the case?

Not only was it much cleaner than the other rooms, but dark coffee-colored bed curtains had also been hung by the windows. A sponge mat had been laid over the floor, and over that was another layer of warm brown carpet. Just looking at it, one could tell it would feel soft and comfortable underfoot. Not only that, there were also decorations that resembled strings of colored lights hanging on each person’s bed railing. Clearly, the furnishings were no different from the dorms they had just seen, yet this one had been decorated properly and looked clean and presentable.

The lights, carpet, and sponge mats were all brought by Ling Yu. Chi Rui had only been responsible for assembling them. Even she had not expected that Ling Yu’s two large suitcases had actually been filled with so many fancy things.

With this before-and-after contrast, the rooms they had just seen were all rough, unfinished houses, while Chi Rui’s dorm was a five-star hotel!

“Who did all this?” Su Wanwan asked.

Everyone looked in unison toward Ling Yu, who was beside Chi Rui. After all, they all defaulted to thinking that Chi Rui was a little princess whose fingers had never touched spring water. After the method of elimination, only Ling Yu was left.

Ling Yu had originally been quietly standing behind Chi Rui. Suddenly discovering that many gazes were gathered on her, she had no choice but to open her mouth. “Chi cleaned and arranged it.”

Everyone’s gazes shifted to Chi Rui, changing from curiosity to shock. Bai Chang, meanwhile, caught the intimate way Ling Yu addressed Chi Rui and raised her brows slightly in surprise.

Bai Chang had specifically looked into Lemon’s trainees. Among them, their ace trainee, Ling Yu, had a distinct personal style and solid ability. She was born into a famous musical family. From top to bottom, the entire family leaned toward classical music. No one expected that when it came to Ling Yu, a rapper would appear.

Tang Yu seemed very interested in this Ling Yu and had even thought about poaching her over. Unfortunately, even with her eloquence, she had not been able to convince her.

But this person whom even Tang Yu could not handle had, from the moment Bai Chang entered just now, followed half a step beside Chi Rui like a loyal dog the entire way. Even though she was quiet, she still took the initiative to mention Chi Rui’s contribution in front of everyone.

Whether Tang Yu’s analysis of Ling Yu had been off, or Chi Rui had fed her some kind of bewitching soup, Bai Chang had no way of knowing.