‘Main Character No. 2?’
Quentin’s hand-washing movement paused. He was confused. Why was the progress bar increasing in such inexplicable ways every time?
He asked in his mind: “How much did it increase?”
The system replied guiltily: “…0.01%”
Quentin: “…It’s fine. Any increase is good.”
The sound of a phone and the progress bar increase couldn’t be a coincidence.
Assuming the two were related, then Main Character No. 2 was a trainee who had secretly hidden a phone.
The increase of only 0.01% might be because the incident of “dropping the phone while someone was outside the bathroom” only caused a slight scare for Main Character No. 2, and since that person was himself (Quentin), there was an extremely small probability it would affect the other party’s subsequent fate.
But even dropping a phone could add 0.01%, which indirectly indicated that Main Character No. 2’s use of the phone was closely related to their Bad Ending.
Secretly hiding a phone during program recording wasn’t some major black material.
And hiding in the bathroom to play on the phone during lunch break…was more of a joke than a black material.
So, the act of hiding and using the phone itself wasn’t important. What was important was what Main Character No. 2 was doing with the phone.
Quentin thought: “They are most likely chatting with someone.”
Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Parents? Siblings? Or an important close friend?
Based on his experience browsing numerous entertainment industry web novels last week, he analyzed that the main character of a boy group novel probably wouldn’t participate in a survival show while having an ambiguous or romantic interest. Otherwise, wouldn’t that be roughly equivalent to being a 0.2 version of Zhong Qu’s time bomb?
Not only would it let down the boy group fans within the novel, but even the book fans outside the novel would complain and protest.
But thinking of this, Quentin felt somewhat hesitant again.
Hmm….Can an author who wrote a bad ending for everyone really not plant landmines in the romance line?
The system urgently checked the novel’s classification and said decisively: “Host, rest assured! The original book is classified as No CP. The six main characters were single dogs from beginning to end. There are no romantic subplots whatsoever!”
Quentin felt relieved.
Single dogs are good. He didn’t want to get involved between couples later, looking around for that bit of progress bar. What if one of their bad endings turned out to involve those scumbag-abuse tragedies?
It is said that this kind of plot trope has a significant market share in domestic web novels, containing various kinds of abusive love, scumbag men and innocent little white flowers, chasing wives to crematoriums, and all sorts of lawless lunatics.
In terms of love, Quentin had never eaten the pork, nor had he seen many normal pigs running.
Trusting him in this would be worse than trusting a township community matchmaking agency. He should be thankful if he didn’t mess up someone’s originally peaceful and good relationship into a complete mess.
Anyway, it was still early, only 0.01%. There was no need to be anxious or get tangled up over Main Character No. 2’s plotline. Maybe the progress would increase for no reason later. It was better to think about who this Main Character No. 2 might be.
But then he reconsidered. Given that Zhong Qu could trigger the Main Character No. 1 progress bar, the person hiding in the toilet stall at this moment wasn’t necessarily 100% Main Character No. 2. It could also be a key person leading to Main Character No. 2’s bad ending.
Quentin remembered that when he left the Class A practice room, Xue Mingzhu, Yan Qiao, Zhou Zilin, and Yan Wenbing were all still there. However, his two roommates had left earlier. There were too many people in the other three classes to be sure.
Should he wait outside the bathroom door for the person to finish playing on their phone and come out? He thought: “But that feels a bit stupid……and a bit perverted.”
Who knows how long the person would stay in the bathroom? Xue Mingzhu was still waiting for him in the practice room.
He had been standing in front of the sink for at least ten minutes before this and had not seen anyone else enter or leave. If not for that sudden “clatter”, he wouldn’t even have known someone was hiding in the stall behind him.
Quentin silently turned off the faucet. He gave up the idea of waiting by the tree for a rabbit, turned, and left, heading straight back to the Class A practice room.
At this time, only Xue Mingzhu was still in the practice room; the others had gone to the cafeteria to eat.
Xue Mingzhu had used these ten minutes to run to the cafeteria and bring back two boxed meals.
He was sitting on the floor against the wall with one leg cocked, looking down at the printed lyric sheet in his hand. The meal boxes were placed casually to the side, with two pairs of unopened disposable chopsticks resting on the lids.
Today’s meal looked slightly better than yesterday’s. Fresh beef, quinoa, and lettuce were neatly arranged in the box, garnished with a few bright red cherry tomatoes. The presentation was quite appealing.
Quentin and Xue Mingzhu sat on the floor. The moment they picked up their chopsticks and took the first bite of food, they looked at each other, all their thoughts written in their eyes.
—Sigh…
Quentin found it as tasteless as chewing wax: “Didn’t the cafeteria serve any seasonings?”
Xue Mingzhu’s expression was pained: “I heard it’s to punish the trainees from other classes who were late this morning, so they temporarily removed the seasonings. But when I was getting the food, I clearly saw the auntie sprinkling black pepper on our beef!”
Why couldn’t they taste any salt? Had the spicy beef from last night spoiled their taste buds? The contrast was too brutal! Galaxy Entertainment is so rich, why can’t they hire a few chefs with better skills?
“It’s fine… the meat itself is still quite fragrant.”
Quentin swallowed the food and sped up his eating pace: “As long as it fills the stomach.”
Xue Mingzhu stared at the palm-sized meal box in his hand, his eyelids dropping unhappily. He stuffed a large mouthful of lettuce into his mouth and mumbled unclearly: “Fill the stomach…Tsk, this little amount can only make a ghost full.”
Did the program crew even consider that they were a group of teenagers for whom eating is the most important thing in the world? Don’t they know the saying ‘a growing boy can eat his father poor’!
Although everyone in their group except Quentin was already an adult, and most had passed their growth spurts, singing and dancing every day still consumed a lot of energy, ok?!
They were really going all out to reduce swelling and lose fat… Ha, is this the life of a boy group idol?
Xue Mingzhu grunted and ate all the food in his meal box. After putting down his chopsticks, he leaned back and lay on the floor, reaching out to touch his stomach.
It was flat, just not as empty as before eating.
He comforted himself inwardly: ‘It’s fine! This way, I’ll definitely have abs in three months!’
When the time comes, he will definitely lift his shirt, take a selfie in the mirror, and post it on the forum! He will be perfectly satisfied if he could get half the look of Quentin in his robe last night.
The afternoon schedule remained the same, consisting of one dance lesson and one vocal lesson arranged alternately.
In his previous life, Quentin’s dance lessons had always been one-on-one with global top-tier dance teachers. The backup dancers who collaborated with him on his world tours all came from world-class dance troupes. The director teams responsible for the live stage design were also renowned and highly skilled.
These experiences directly resulted in Quentin having a solid dance foundation, rich stage experience, and a unique personal style. Thanks to his excellent head-to-body ratio, leg length, and arm span, his dancing was very visually appealing.
Unlike Yan Qiao’s technical style, which was dazzling and evoked inner awe, Quentin’s strengths lay more in his vivid and compelling sense of rhythm and his seemingly effortless control of the stage.
When he stood in the C position among the seven, even if Xue Mingzhu and Wen Xinyi on either side couldn’t keep up with the beat, it didn’t significantly affect the overall impression for the audience.
To put it bluntly, the aura Quentin brought to the center position would elevate the entire team, making the audience unconsciously exclaim…“Fuck, this group looks really awesome!”
The dance teacher sat in front of the mirror watching the seven Class A trainees move in unison to the beat and freeze in the ending pose. The white-top, red-bottom training outfits created a strong sense of group cohesion at a glance.
It was really unbelievable, why did she have the illusion of seeing a top-tier boy group? And this illusion was strongest only when Quentin stood in the center of the front row.
“Quentin, Yan Qiao, Zhou Zilin, you three have no major issues for now. Familiarize yourselves more with the details. Practice more before the assessment to develop muscle memory.”
“Fang Xu and Yan Wenbing also performed well, but both of you mixed up the moves during the second chorus. You need to practice more, put in more effort. Making mistakes during the assessment will greatly affect your scores.”
Finally, she looked at the two struggling members standing on the left and right and said helplessly: “Wen Xinyi and Xue Mingzhu…Before memorizing the moves, make sure you can perform each move correctly. Don’t memorize them wrong. You can slightly simplify individual moves with higher difficulty, but don’t think you can just slack your way through everything.”
“In short, your task today is to keep up with the beat of your other classmates as much as possible. I’ll call you out individually to dance tomorrow.”
Everyone said in unison: “Okay! Thank you, teacher!”
Compared to the clear hierarchy during dance lessons, the subsequent vocal lesson had no one falling behind; it was steady with a focus on progress.
Even Xue Mingzhu, who hadn’t shown his vocal skills on the initial stage, had a unique technique that matched his voice. Not to mention Wen Xinyi, who had amazed everyone with his singing yesterday.
But if one had to say who was the most outstanding…
The vocal teacher propped her chin on her hand, looked down at the lyrics, and listened intently to the singing of the last Class A trainee, who was only 17 years old, and sighed inwardly. This season’s boy group survival show really had *hidden dragons and crouching tigers
**many hidden talents.
Or perhaps it should be said…that it’s indeed worthy of Class A that was selected from the best through several rounds of battle?
This vocal teacher hired by the [NS] program was named Liu Qinghe. She was highly renowned in the industry and was an associate professor at a top domestic music conservatory.
Most of the more established singers or musicians in the current entertainment industry had sought her guidance at one point or another. She was undoubtedly a famous teacher with students everywhere.
As luck would have it, five years ago, Liu Qinghe had been invited to work at Xinda Media for a short period, specifically to teach the then 16-year-old Wen Xinyi and another boy of similar age.
She was well aware of Wen Xinyi’s talent and vocal condition. Before coming to [NS], she had anticipated that this child would amaze everyone with a single performance on the stage of a survival show.
In fact, according to her plan, Xinda Media should have sent Wen Xinyi to [Sing If You Want—Young Passion Season], another new singing competition show that Youth TV was preparing.
If Wen Xinyi went there to make a name for himself, he should, barring accidents, be able to bring back a championship trophy.
But just last week, she unexpectedly heard some unverifiable rumors: Xinda Media was preparing to arrange for another young newcomer to participate in [Sing If You Want—Young Passion Season].
It was said that Xinda Media had already selected all the songs needed for the newcomer’s preliminary rounds, top 16, placement battles, top 4, and finals. They had even prepared the early marketing press releases, clearly poised to escort the other party to the champion’s throne.
Even more coincidentally, the newcomer rumored to be favored by Xinda Media happened to be the other boy who had taken lessons with Wen Xinyi under Liu Qinghe five years ago.
She remembered… that boy seemed to have the surname Shen?
In any case, based on her remaining impression from the lessons back then, apart from a face as pretty as a girl’s, that boy surnamed Shen had no highlights compared to Wen Xinyi.
Liu Qinghe vaguely remembered that she had privately communicated with the respective agents of Wen and Shen, hoping to have the two children take separate lessons to avoid holding each other back.
But that boy surnamed Shen had a stubborn, unyielding personality. He practiced singing privately until his voice turned hoarse, pushing himself hard to keep up with Wen Xinyi’s progress, and refused to change his lesson schedule until the very last class.
Back then, Liu Qinghe had sighed to her friend Chen Shiyu, saying that making a living in music really depended on seventy percent talent and thirty percent effort.
Some people were born with talent bestowed by heaven; ordinary people wouldn’t even know where to start trying to catch up. They might struggle their whole lives and still not match a moment of inspiration from the talented.
Wen Xinyi was clearly a prime example of someone ‘fed by heaven’.
However, at this moment, after listening to the trial singing of the seven Class A trainees, Liu Qinghe’s emotions remained unsettled for a long time.
The excellence of the others was within the normal range. Although they couldn’t compare to Wen Xinyi, who had studied vocal music since childhood, their standard was already quite good among the group of idol trainees.
But what was going on with this Quentin?
She had never heard his name before. Which company was hiding such a precious treasure? How could they bear to put such a genius weapon into a boy group survival show?!
……..Could it be that they planned to gain traffic and popularity through a two-year limited group first, and then debut as a singer?
Teacher Liu admitted to herself that it was difficult to judge whether Quentin or Wen Xinyi’s performance was more outstanding, because their areas of expertise were different.
The former’s comfort zone was probably baritone and tenor, while the latter was a rare male tenor who could hit High Cs stably.
But she felt that the moment she started pondering this question, Web Xinyi had already lost a point.
Because in Quentin, she saw an extremely terrifying musical sense. He didn’t need anyone to teach him; he was born knowing how to utilize his voice to its utmost potential, and how to interpret a line of lyrics so that it resonated deeply with people.
It made her somewhat doubt her own life experience. This kid’s voice was just too gripping, too uniquely distinctive. It was simply like heaven was chasing after him to feed him. Such a person was born for massive stardom.
Wen Xinyi also had this kind of musical sense, as did every famous singer…it was just a matter of degree, some were stronger, others even even stronger.
But that was precisely what made it so unsettling upon closer thought, she actually felt that Quentin was almost on par with top-tier singers who had been famous in the industry for years.
If he had better equipment, perhaps he could even….. rival them on equal footing?
