DYUTVOBGA Chapter 38

Xinda Media’s headquarters.

Five or six young artists gathered in the bright and spacious break room. They were all promising talents scouted by the company’s talent scouts from the arts entrance exams that had concluded several months prior.

They all studied locally; some had been admitted to Yanhai Conservatory of Music, while others were studying at China Conservatory of Music…all top-tier art institutions in the country.

Usually, their school schedules were packed, making it difficult to find time for company training. Therefore, these young people unanimously chose to come to the company for training on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Over time, they grew familiar with one another.

The training courses offered by the entertainment company differed significantly from those at school. The latter aimed to cultivate students into qualified music professionals, whether singers, creators, behind-the-scenes workers, or teachers. The former’s goal, however, was to shape mature celebrity artists.

The young people sat on sofas by the floor-to-ceiling window, chatting while drinking milk tea. Their conversations revolved around how difficult recent courses had been, what gossip was circulating at school, which celebrity alumni had recently returned to campus, and what fresh news had emerged in the industry…

“But the hottest topic these days still has to be ‘that one,’ right?”

The boy speaking made a face: “That show that’s trending on the hot search every day even before the main episodes have aired… the one where our company’s top male and female artists are serving as mentors…”

“Shh!” A girl sitting on the adjacent sofa widened her eyes, “Keep your voice down. The top female artist is one thing, but since when do we have a definitive top male artist?”

How fiercely those senior artists compete behind the scenes within the company was something even these newly signed rookies had heard whispers about.

Chen Shiyu’s seniority and status were quite solid, but Lin Chengfeng’s situation was less certain.

His background was average, without substantial connections, and his personality wasn’t suited to scheming. Even if his talent and ability placed him at the forefront among original music creators, he couldn’t escape the predicament of lacking support within the company.

The boy shrank his neck: “Isn’t it because everyone here is familiar with each other, and there’s no one else around? What can’t be said… And I didn’t mean to gossip about seniors; I just see those hot search topics hanging there every day…I’m just a bit jealous.”

A girl across the coffee table bit her milk tea straw and pouted: “Sigh, there’s no helping it. Who isn’t jealous? A bunch of amateurs stumbled onto a show destined to be a hit. If I weren’t a girl, I’d want to join in too.”

“Given Youth TV’s habits, these hit variety show IPs are one season per year. Last year was a girl group, this year is a boy group, so next year should switch back to a girl group, right?”

Another girl, who was looking down at her phone, interjected lazily: “I think we all have a chance next year. I’ve never experienced debuting in a girl group before.”

A boy sitting on the side grew even more jealous: “Damn it, then I guess I have to wait two more years… But I get the feeling our company might not be willing to send us to audition shows. Didn’t you see this season of ‘NS’ has only one trainee from Xinda? Last year’s girl group audition didn’t have any from our company at all.”

“Hmm… how to put it?” The girl lowered her voice, “Our company has always taken a relatively conservative path. Last year’s girl group show was the first of its kind domestically, so it was normal for Xinda not to participate.”

“But this year’s ‘NS’… Do you know who the trainee Xinda arranged to send is?”

The girl paused for emphasis: “Wen Xinyi! Chen Shiyu’s student, the secret weapon Xinda has been hiding these past few years! Even he was arranged into ‘NS’…doesn’t that prove our company values this survival show IP?”

“Pfft.”

The boy who had remained silent on the middle sofa suddenly snorted coldly: “What joke is that? Wen Xinyi being thrown into ‘NS’ just means the company has given up on him, okay? Otherwise, why didn’t the company send him to ‘Sing If You Want’? That music variety show is the top-tier resource for new singers this year.”

The girl frowned and asked suspiciously: “Really? How do you know?”

“That’s why I said your info isn’t sharp enough. Chen Shiyu doesn’t have only Wen Xinyi as a student.”

The person glanced sideways disdainfully: “She took on another new one last year. He’s about the same age as Wen Xinyi, a sophomore at our school, same major as the two of us, surname Shen. Haven’t you heard of him?”

“Shen…” The girl vaguely recalled something, “You mean Shen Yuquan? He’s Chen Shiyu’s student? Are you sure? He debuted quite a while ago. I remember he only appeared on some minor variety shows for exposure these past two years; his resources are pretty average and he doesn’t seem like someone with connections.”

Most importantly, that Shen Yuquan’s skill level was merely mediocre, far inferior to Wen Xinyi’s. How could Chen Shiyu take him as a student?

It couldn’t be because of his looks, could it?

The boy spoke as if it were obvious: “That was before. Now the company has stuffed him into ‘Sing If You Want-Young Passion Season.’ The show starts recording next week. By then, ‘NS”s popularity will definitely be snatched away by a large portion!”

“Is that so…”

The girl looked at his resentful expression, lowered her head to sip her milk tea, thinking: ‘In this circle, no matter the topic, major or minor, there’s never a shortage of jealous people.’

The boy who first brought up the survival show didn’t join that discussion and silently changed the subject: “That… have you seen the group messages? Remember that Cupid we talked about a few days ago… his song has already skyrocketed to number 18 on the daily chart!”

He waved his phone, his tone exaggerated: “I asked around in the training group. Guess what…this Cupid isn’t signed to any company! His song became popular naturally!”

Everyone immediately grew restless. They straightened their backs one by one, hurriedly set down their milk tea, pulling out their phones and quickly opening the Light Music app.

“Really? Fuck, are you serious?”

“These kinds of purple stars really exist…so many geniuses, why can’t there be one more of me!”

“So really, what’s there to be jealous about with ‘NS’? If you’re jealous, you should be jealous of this! I knew from the start this person wasn’t simple, which newbie’s first released song reaches number 18!”

The boy clicked his tongue in amazement: “They say this song has already become a must-play track for study anchors on forums, many study rooms are using it now.”

“Is our company going to sign him? Help, if this kind of genius comes in, will there be any room left for us…”

“Don’t be too pessimistic. Think of the bright side, at least he’s an original music creator. If he signs with our company, it’ll be easier to request songs from him or something in the future.”

The young people in the break room were plunged into intense discussion because of this sudden news.

Meanwhile, staff in a recording studio upstairs were chatting and laughing while packing up to leave work.

A young man who had just finished recording a chorus section sat on the sofa, took out his phone, and prepared to contact his agent to check his schedule for the coming days.

The next second, his movements stopped, his eyes fixed intently on the group messages popping up continuously, carefully and slowly browsing the discussions about “Cupid”‘s song and ranking in the group.

When he saw rumors like “Xinda Media is attempting to contact Cupid to discuss signing matters” spreading in the group, the young man’s brow furrowed tightly, his expression suddenly turning gloomy.

A genius… another genius!

He had finally managed to squeeze out one Wen Xinyi, and now another Cupid was coming?!

He immediately forgot about contacting his agent, instead opening a chat window with the contact name “AAA Geek Internet Cafe Customer Service Xiao Yun.”

[Are you there?]

[Put the last matter on hold for now, help me look into someone]

The reply came quickly.

[?]

[Boss, we’ve already prepared the plan here; suddenly changing targets requires extra payment oh]

The young man took a deep breath, checked the balance shown in his banking app, and transferred two thousand over with an expressionless face.

[Boss, you’re generous!]

[Don’t worry! We’ll count this as an urgent order for the boss; results within three days; happy cooperation mua~]

*

“Host! The progress bar for Main Character No. 2 has moved again!”

Quentin, who was walking down the stairs, paused and looked up blankly, his hair still dripping from the wash.

The towel around his neck dutifully absorbed the water, its touch cold and damp against his skin. A gust of wind blew in from the first-floor stairwell entrance, and his upper body couldn’t help but shiver.

It moved again?

What did he do? How would he know?

It was currently half past ten at night. Quentin had just returned from the practice building.

He received the original and adapted tracks of “Black Umbrella” from the production team in the morning and had spent roughly four to five hours adapting the entire song based on the vocal characteristics of their seven-member team.

In the afternoon, he gathered all seven team members, swiftly assigned everyone’s parts without asking for opinions or discussing who would be Center…he didn’t even have that concept.

It wasn’t until a teammate cautiously asked who the Center was that he remembered this matter.

“According to the parts I assigned, there’s no strict Center. The clown has seven personalities; each personality has its own killing part.”

Quentin pointed at the lyric sheet: “I know most of you haven’t been exposed to bel canto, but the original song is an aria after all. Although I adapted it towards pop music, I still kept a segment of bel canto.”

“This lyric segment is a dialogue between three personalities, performed by me, Fang Xu, and Cui Yan.”

He spoke very bluntly, never beating around the bush: “If we count part duration in seconds, because of this dialogue segment, the three of us will naturally have about five or six seconds more than you. If you have any issues, say them now.”

Perhaps his presence was too imposing, or perhaps because he single-handedly handled all the adaptation work, no one in the team raised any objections.

With no objections, things became easier afterward.

Time to start rolling! Begin devil training!

Quentin was always the harshest on himself. Theoretically, his body was the youngest among all the trainees and had the poorest physical fitness, but he was often one of the last to leave the practice room.

Under the leadership of this captain of rolling kings, his team didn’t dare leave early either, gritting their teeth and following him to practice moves, formations, and harmonies.

Fortunately, the choreography for “Black Umbrella” wasn’t difficult. Even Liao Fei, who had zero dance foundation, could perform quite decently after practicing hard for over seven hours.

Half an hour ago, Quentin finished rehearsal and the first thing he did upon returning to the dorm was shower.

While changing clothes, he suddenly remembered Main Character No. 2 he had encountered playing on his phone in the bathroom a few days earlier.

So he decided to take advantage of this free time before sleep to stroll around the dormitories of other classes downstairs and see if he could catch anyone secretly using their phones.

This should be peak phone usage time, right?

But… he had barely reached the second-floor stairwell, hadn’t even stepped into the first-floor Class F dormitory area, when the system’s prompt came.

It was really baffling.

While Quentin stood at the stair landing doubting life, Liao Fei, who had just finished washing clothes, was surrounded by trainees from other dormitories on the same floor, chatting in the corridor.

“…What’s it like being in the same group as Quentin?”

Liao Fei, holding a clothes-drying pole, turned his head in confusion toward the boy who asked: “Why are you suddenly bringing this up?”

The boy scratched the back of his head somewhat sheepishly: “I’m just curious? Almost no one in our class can get to interact with him… Even if we occasionally see him in the cafeteria, he’s always surrounded by people, there’s no chance to strike up a conversation.”

His roommate also chimed in: “Yes, it just happens that you managed to infiltrate the inner circle. Tell us quickly, did anything interesting happen? What is Quentin like?”

These trainees would all be called handsome guys if they were outside, who among them hadn’t been praised since childhood?

Plus, handsome guys like to hang out with handsome guys. Even the least attractive trainee signed to a company is better looking than the average guy. In theory, their standards should have been raised long ago; even the most appearance-conscious person in the entertainment industry would become desensitized over time.

But, well, Quentin’s looks are just a bit different.

Humans are always attracted to exceptionally beautiful and special things.

They didn’t know if it’s the mixed-race influence, but those green eyes definitely add to the appeal. But even putting the eyes aside, that face is a peerless beauty they’ve never seen before.

And… strangely enough, even though they had never spoken to Quentin face-to-face, they all felt that the boy’s aura was very special and alluring.

It’s the kind of charm that would make people look twice even if he was ordinary-looking.

Uh, it couldn’t be that they haven’t seen much of the world, could it? So they found an Eastern-Western mixed-race person novel?

That shouldn’t be. The celebrities they liked before were all Chinese. In terms of looks and talent, their own people are always better!

Liao Fei wasn’t aware of their mental activities, but they had a good relationship. Having shared hardships in Class F for over a week was enough for him to understand their characters.

He tried hard to recall today’s training: “Nothing special happened… But Quentin is really great! The song our team got is too hard to sing. Quentin adapted ‘Black Umbrella’ from start to finish based on our voices and ranges, and made slight adjustments to the lyrics too. This huge workload was all done by him alone, and it only took him one morning!”

Liao Fei was an original music creator himself, which made him even more respectful of Quentin’s demonstrated creative ability.

He suspected Quentin had an account on Light Music. How could someone so talented be unknown? Could there still be reclusive masters and hermits in this age of widespread internet?

Under the group’s intense gaze, he continued: “Quentin doesn’t procrastinate at all. He assigned our parts, decided the Center…everything was very decisive and fair and selfless.”

“Usually, there’s only one Center in a team, but Quentin directly designated three. And I don’t even think that counts as Center, it’s just because only the three of us in the team can sing bel canto, so we got a few seconds more parts. The end result isn’t much different from rotating Centers.”

Everyone: “Ooh! What else, what else?”

“Hmm… Quentin also personally taught us how to dance! He guided us through formations and corrected our moves. If someone’s hip swing isn’t right, he would stand behind that person, reach his hands around from the back to hold their waist, and call out the beat while adjusting them in front of the mirror.”

Everyone: “Ooooh!”

Liao Fei became more fluent as he spoke: “He memorizes moves very quickly and dances really well. His only minor shortcoming is stamina, but even during breaks, he keeps an eye on our training.”

“You all know his voice is very nice, right? He stands beside us saying things like ‘put more force into it’, ‘thrust your hip out’…his voice is a bit hoarse after hard training so it’s really pleasant to hear… You get it, right?”

Everyone put on serious faces: “We get it! Of course we get it! Keep going.”

The boy shyly pursed his lips: “And also… do you know the chest roll dance move? I never learned dance before, so my core is weak and my limbs are uncoordinated. When I do chest rolls, my shoulders are stiff, so I just can’t get it right.”

“Quentin demonstrated a few times, but I still didn’t get it. He comforted me, saying everyone’s like that when first learning; most people look like the inflatable tube men at supermarket entrances when they first try this move…”

Thinking of what happened next, Liao Fei’s fingers gripping the clothes pole tightened slightly, and he whispered: “Because our training clothes are loose white T-shirts, Quentin thought the moves were obscured, that I couldn’t see clearly so I couldn’t learn. So… he directly grabbed my wrist, pressed my hand against his chest, and had me feel the rise and fall of his entire chest area when he did the chest roll…”

Everyone’s mouths fell open: “oiiiiiiii…!!!!!!!”

Liao Fei raised a hand to cover his lower lip, quietly adding: “And it was around 5 PM, we were all very tired, Quentin even more so; his face was red, he was panting… he kept habitually licking his lips; the color of his lower lip… as red as if he was holding a cherry.”

“I saw up close that his eyelashes were already soaked; his eyes looked like they were soaking in water; there was so much sweat on his neck, making his skin appear even whiter… Does anyone know what brand his shower gel is? He smells really good.”

“…Who would know something like that!”

The boy who first mentioned Quentin had red ears, feigning sternness as he clenched his fists: “Liao Fei, you… you… your mind is too dirty! Quentin was kindly teaching you to dance but look at what you were observing! How can you be like this!”

Damn it! Why wasn’t he lucky enough to be assigned to Quentin’s team!

He had originally planned to join Quentin’s team, but by the time it was his turn to choose, Quentin’s group was already full!

Liao Fei looked bewildered: “What did I do?… I was just telling the truth.”

“It’s precisely because it’s the truth that it’s strange. When Lu Kui taught us dance before, did you also notice such details? Are you straight or what, you…”

The boy’s muttering mouth was abruptly covered by his roommate.

The roommate expressionlessly put an arm around the boy’s neck and strangled: “Sheng Yuanxu, if you can’t speak properly, just shut up.”

The boy whose mouth was covered rolled his eyes: “Mmph… mmph mmph! Li He! Let go…ahem ahem ahem!”

Li He let go nonchalantly, then looked at the shy and confused Liao Fei with confusion, thinking: ‘How does he manage to say all these things so openly with such an innocent face? Is this the power of an original singer?’

The key was he described it so… vividly, making it feel immersive and the sense of substitution was maximized.

He said casually: “It’s fine, ignore him. He’s in a bad mood today because he didn’t get a good team assignment, ran into some weirdos… Keep going, did anything else interesting happen?”

Liao Fei: “…Probably, nothing else, right?”

Other Class F trainees were captivated; some even stepped forward enthusiastically, pulling a companion along to imitate Quentin’s teaching posture and movements, asking Liao Fei for guidance.

More and more people gathered in the corridor. Even Lu Kui, who was squatting at the dorm door washing underwear, couldn’t help but interject, mumbling with a look of disdain: “Damn it, what expressions are you two making? Can you be normal? Publicly acting gay in broad daylight, do you have no shame?”

The two boys putting on the act pushed and pulled each other, pinching their throats and saying: “Gay? What’s gay? Little old me doesn’t know anything~”

Everyone around laughed while watching, but some were genuinely curious.

“Ahem, that… Do you think… it’s possible…that Quentin actually… likes men?”