Early the next morning, the program team’s sudden announcement took the trainees completely by surprise.
“A 24-hour advance assessment?!”
Lu Kui clutched a half-peeled boiled egg, staring blankly at the blue notice posted on the door of the F-class practice room.
[24h Theme Song Assessment Now Open!
(1) This surprise assessment period is from 7:00 AM ~ 9:00 AM. Assessment location: Room 105;
(2) Opportunity waits for no man. Please note, each person has one and only one assessment chance;
(3) Those interested, please line up in an orderly manner to enter. Average assessment time per person is 4 minutes. Wishing all trainees success in their assessment~!]
What happened to the agreed 48-hour time limit? And now, suddenly, a surprise assessment?!
Lu Kui chewed the dry egg yolk, feeling like he wanted to cry but had no tears, inexplicably tasting a hint of bitterness.
If he had known, he wouldn’t have slacked off yesterday. He shouldn’t have gone to bed so early. He hadn’t even finished memorizing the lyrics yet; he could only manage either singing or dancing well, not both. Going for the assessment now would be pure delivery, okay!
Lu Kui’s first thought was to go to the A-class to find Brother Qiao and hug his thigh. But as he turned towards the A-class and passed by the B-class, he happened to bump into Zhong Qu, who was surrounded by a group of people at the door and looking at the notice.
“An advance assessment, hey, Xiao Zhong, you could go. You memorized the moves so quickly,” someone said excitedly, patting Zhong Qu’s shoulder. “It’s only 7:05 now, and there’s no movement from the A-class side yet. If you were the first to pass the theme song assessment, that would be seriously awesome!”
The surrounding B-class trainees joined in the clamor.
“Of course, Brother Zhong can definitely pass. If it weren’t for Brother Zhong’s help yesterday, I wouldn’t even be able to keep up at 0.5x speed now!”
“Zhong Qu,you’re the pride of our B-class! Don’t fight for steamed buns, but for honor! Go, go, go!”
Zhong Qu waved his hand dismissively. “Stop joking around, I’m not that amazing.”
He pointed at the notice. “It says here there’s only one assessment chance. If you take today’s surprise assessment, you can’t take tomorrow’s official one. That means one less day of practice time compared to others.”
“Personally, I’m used to being fully prepared for everything.”
Zhong Qu pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and said with a sincere expression, “To be frank, I think all of you should also try not to attempt it lightly. Practice a bit more. After all, rankings will be based on scores after the assessment. I’m still counting on our whole B-class to get high scores.”
“That’s true, what Xiao Zhong says makes sense. It’s best to be fully prepared before the assessment. I guess the four mentors won’t lower their standards just because we’re testing early,” the speaker shrugged and joked, “They might even be stricter. Going now might be like walking right into the line of fire.”
“This is making me even more nervous. Brother Zhong, I still don’t understand the details of a few moves, can you help me look at them?”
“Luckily we have Xiao Zhong in our class,otherwise we’d be done……”
Zhong Qu nudged the person next to him with his elbow and laughed. “You guys really…It’s not that exaggerated. We’re all in the same class, of course we should help each other out.”
Lu Kui watched silently as the group of trainees was completely swayed by Zhong Qu, almost to the point of swearing they would practice diligently all day today and absolutely not let the B-class down.
He couldn’t help but look up at the sky, thinking, ‘Ah… As expected of Zhong Qu. In just one day, he’s getting along so well with so many people, even fostering class unity spirit. So awesome!’
In comparison, their F-class was still slowly progressing through the stages of forming small cliques and awkward socializing.
Well, there was no helping it. The F-class had the biggest disparity in member strength among all classes.
There were potential stocks like Lu Kui, Wei Bowen, and Liao Fei, who were pre-selected for A-class but failed to advance, as well as zero-foundation “poor students” like Huo Donghua and Qiao Xue who switched tracks mid-way to become trainee contestants.
The teachers assigned to the F-class were practically worried sick. They not only had to teach in separate batches but also tried to implement a one-on-one assistance strategy, having faster-progressing trainees guide the slower ones.
Leaving aside whether Lu Kui and the others were willing, in their hearts, to slow down their own practice progress to help unfamiliar classmates; in front of the cameras, even if they weren’t willing, they had to pretend to be willing.
Anyway, the learning atmosphere in the F-class was far less harmonious than in the B-class.
Lu Kui felt a little envious, but not much, because he knew he couldn’t pull off what Zhong Qu did.
The five BKL trainees had only met each other just before the program recording started. Although their contact time wasn’t long, he felt he understood Zhong Qu well enough.
If Lu Kui were to evaluate him… this guy Zhong Qu was very good at balancing things, enthusiastic about making friends widely, neither arguing nor fighting, a nice guy who never offended anyone.
But thinking about it carefully, this brother had a bit of a performative personality; he really enjoyed being surrounded by crowds and being the center of attention.
So…he seemed quite suitable for being on a talent show and becoming a star, right?
Before recording the show, the company had arranged rough personas and storylines for them based on their five personalities and current internet trends.
However, since BKL Entertainment wasn’t the main investor for this season’s show, they couldn’t interfere with the editing, and it was difficult to manipulate team selections behind the scenes. So, the plans for personas and storylines were for reference only; afterwards, they had to rely on their own efforts.
The persona assigned to Lu Kui was “Sunny, Chatty, Puffy-haired Puppy.” His perm with foil highlights was specifically done to fit this persona.
He remembered Zhong Qu’s persona seemed to be “Gentle, Strong and Tragic,” specifically parsed as “Naive Idealist,” “Benevolent Saint,” “Pitiful person exploited by teammates due to kindness and not knowing how to refuse.”
In short, it was a route offering a one-stop service for attracting fans; making them protective, purifying the fanbase, and solidifying it, which perfectly aligned with Zhong Qu’s idea of selling a BL CP and easily fostering a group of extreme fans with double the fighting power.
By placing himself in the self-sacrificing, disadvantaged position, he could create a storyline in the hearts of solo fans and CP fans of “I sacrifice myself and am happy to help others, but everyone has let me down.”
While evoking pity, he steadily occupies the moral high ground. If handled well, he could even create the “group pet” persona. Truly killing N birds with one stone.
This highly technical route, where a slight misstep could lead to disaster, was something only Zhong Qu dared to take.
Anyway, Lu Kui didn’t want to touch it at all. He even somewhat disliked his own so-called puppy persona, but under company pressure, he could only obediently get his hair permed for now.
But his Brother Qiao was truly bold and decisive. He completely rejected the company’s plan… Well, maybe also because the persona the company arranged for Brother Qiao was too crappy?
A philandering playboy who sows love everywhere… what kind of persona was that to appear on an idol boy group survival show?!
This was a survival show with 101 boys fiercely competing for the audience’s affection. What kind of love was there to sow, what flowers to pick, what grass to provoke! Were they really not afraid of being dragged on forums for thousands of posts?
Lu Kui tried to squeeze past the group of B-class students blocking the hallway, but was spotted by Zhong Qu.
“Lu Kui?” He looked up in surprise, then glanced towards the other end of the hallway, “…… Are you going to find Yan Qiao?”
Lu Kui nodded subconsciously. “Yeah.”
Zhong Qu narrowed his eyes. “Oh… Then let’s go together. We had classes all day yesterday, I haven’t been to the A-class to see. I wonder how Yan Qiao is doing over there.”
He smiled and gestured to the people around him. “Do you want to go visit their class together? We can just ask the big bosses in Class A for some advice and learn from them. Their progress must be very fast.”
The B-class group looked at each other and chimed in one after another. “Let’s go, of course we have to go!”
On the first day after the class divisions, everyone had been burying their heads in training inside their own practice rooms, afraid of falling behind others, and simply didn’t have time to go visit other classes.
And after returning to the dorms at night, the dorm areas for each class were clearly demarcated.
The B and C classes, both on the second floor, still had chances to meet, but the seven A-class trainees isolated in the third-floor dorms were far too mysterious. Most people had not even exchanged a word with them yet!
Think about who was in the A-class?
Quentin, whose face and skills walled everyone else; Yan Qiao, whose dancing was seriously very awesome; Wen Xinyi, whose high notes shook the entire venue; Xue Mingzhu, whose rap was fiercely strong; Fang Xu, with balanced singing and dancing skills; Yan Wenbing, who could sing, dance, and rap; the experienced senior Zhou Zilin…
All were big shots not to be trifled with!
But if you really compared carefully, the B-class trainees weren’t convinced they were inferior. Although they were slightly worse in the initial stage, who could say they couldn’t stage a comeback and overtake in the later performances?
They didn’t need to compare vocal skills with Wen Xinyi, dance with Yan Qiao, or rap with Xue Mingzhu.
Everyone present had one or two things they were particularly good at. Survival shows weren’t about stubbornly butting heads, the key was to show your own strengths and charm in front of the camera and win the audience’s favor.
Skill was just the foundation for gaining popularity; audience appeal was often more important than skill.
Amidst Lu Kui’s bewildered to speechless mental journey, the large group marched towards the A-class classroom.
Zhong Qu was just about to knock, his hand hadn’t even landed, when the door happened to open from the inside.
Then he looked up and met two familiar faces.
“Yan Qiao? And… Quentin?”
Zhong Qu stared at the two in front of him, his gaze shifting between them, the look in his eyes flickering behind his lenses.
“What a coincidence, are you two heading out?” He smiled, “You’re not going for the theme song assessment, are you? With your skills, you must have practiced enough already, right?”
Before Yan Qiao and Quentin could answer, a head suddenly popped out from behind them.
“Wow, so many people.”
Zhou Zilin raised his hand in a cheerful greeting, his smile bright. “Are all of you going for the early assessment too? Do you want to go line up together?”
The B-class crowd waiting outside were all stunned for a moment, then stared wide-eyed in disbelief, talking over each other, “You three are going for the assessment now? Seriously?”
“Really?That’s too fast! The assessment lasts until 9:00! Why the rush?”
“Fuck… is this the world of masters?!”
“Brother Zhou, don’t be impulsive! Wouldn’t one more day of preparation be better? Testing tomorrow will definitely get you a higher score than today, the score is what matters most!”
Zhou Zilin’s expression didn’t change. He rubbed the back of his head and chuckled. “I think I’m prepared enough, I just want to give it a try. Coincidentally, Quentin and Yan Qiao feel the same, so the three of us are going together. Finish early, relax early, you know.”
These words were, of course, just the surface reasoning. The benefit of the 24h early assessment wasn’t about whether the mentors would go easy because of it, but about the contrast formed with the trainees taking the 48hr official assessment when the show aired.
If the trainees taking the 24hr early assessment performed better and achieved higher scores than those in the 48hr official assessment, the coexisting gap between time and score would highlight the former’s ability more clearly.
Survival show audiences more or less admired strength. Setting aside special cases where personal bias colored their view, audiences could generally objectively rank true skilled individuals as 1, 2, 3 in their hearts.
What Zhou Zilin wanted to compete for was a spot in the top 3.
As the saying goes, one step slow, every step slow.
He originally didn’t plan to set off so early in the morning, thinking he’d rehearse a few more times and go a little after 8:00 wouldn’t be too late.
However, unfortunately, he saw that after Quentin and Yan Qiao finished a set of warm-up stretches in the practice room, they actually intended to go take the assessment directly!
Zhou Zilin was well-versed in audience psychology.
If he was left behind by these two ridiculously strong youngsters, when the show aired in the future, the audience would mention only Quentin and Yan Qiao as the first batch to pass the 24hr early assessment, without Zhou Zilin who assessed a step later.
That wouldn’t do!
He, a senior who had debuted over a decade ago, competing on the same stage with a bunch of young kids was one thing, but if he were truly outshone, it would be too embarrassing!
Anyway, he didn’t have his sights set on the C-position; a slightly lower score was acceptable.
Besides, with his current ability, he should steadily make the top three; first place was a bit of a stretch. Even with continued practice, he might not be able to get it…
Thinking of this, Zhou Zilin couldn’t help but feel frustrated and helpless. During the class and training with the A-class members yesterday, he had deeply understood what it meant to be a genius who leaves no path for others.
To be honest, even if he tested later, he might not necessarily surpass Quentin. So he might as well go with them. At the very least, his average score for singing and dancing should be able to surpass Yan Qiao’s.
Not only did Zhou Zilin understand these reasoning, Zhong Qu also understood, and many B-class trainees had their own thoughts as well.
—A guaranteed high score, or the possibility of being one step ahead?
Driven by the actions of the three A-class trainees, the other trainees’ minds began to waver.
So, how about it? Should they go for it? Gamble, and maybe a bicycle turns into a motorcycle?
Meanwhile, the “culprits” who unintentionally triggered the first round of internal competition in the program, Quentin and Yan Qiao, the two parties involved, truly hadn’t considered that much.
Their real thoughts coincided with Zhou Zilin’s surface reasoning. Finish early, relax early. Testing today versus tomorrow didn’t make much difference to them, so they might as well just go for it.
And so, in the following two hours, the director team in the backstage monitoring room watched as trainees, with expressions ranging from relaxed to frustrated, streamed in and out of Room 105 continuously, feeling both surprised and helpless.
Ah, where did so many bold fools come from? Don’t they know their own weight? They dare to charge in without even memorizing the lyrics properly!
Aren’t they afraid of losing face? The theme song assessment has full live action recordings! Are young people these days really that confident?
