DYUTVOBGA Chapter 52

Targeting was out of the question.

After all, the grouping and division of parts had little to do with the production team. Whether one could be a good team leader ultimately depended on the leader’s own ability.

Qi Yang’s team’s stage performance concluded amidst the customary applause.

Immediately after, the stage rotated, and the reverse stage belonging to Quentin’s team slowly came into view amid the gradually rising exclamations of the audience below.

…….

A gloomy, damp, pitch-black alleyway stretched across the center of the stage.

A drizzle pounded against the blue brick road. A fog machine, together with dry ice, spewed a hazy, wet mist, and puddles of water mixed with a blood-like mist flowed in the grooves between the bricks.

A Victorian-style carved long table was tilted and placed in the center, with seven twisted electric torture chairs slanted haphazardly around it.

“BOOM!!!”

There was a flash of white light like lightning, accompanied by a deafening thunderclap.

The audience below jumped in fright, repeatedly rubbing the goosebumps raised on their arms by the thunder.

“Wow, that scared me…”

“No way, these special effects are way too realistic, is it actually raining on stage? There’s water on the ground…”

“It’s not raining, look carefully, the stage is designed with a slope, the water on stage naturally flows down the incline towards the audience, but it’s blocked by a glass partition… wasn’t the previous group’s stage like that too?”

“Ahem, the previous group…… that’s because their group went on stage too early, I didn’t have time to notice these details.”

The audience’s scattered discussions did not affect the progression on stage.

After the lightning, the stage abruptly plunged into pitch darkness.

The pitch black where you can’t see your own hand in front of your face caused small exclamations from below, but immediately after, the music box version of “Black Umbrella’s” prelude began to play.

The sizzling, flickering white light made the audience instinctively squint their eyes, vaguely catching certain changes in the objects on stage.

Someone couldn’t help but complain, “Damn it, this flickering light…… it’s like a dying person’s life flashing before their eyes, my eyes are going blind.”

The girl next to him still tried hard to squint and look, muttering as she did, “Is Quentin coming on? The chairs still seem empty though…”

“Clang.”

A crisp sound of a coin hitting the ground rang out, the clattering sound of metal rolling making everyone’s hearts jolt.

The white light stopped flickering, replaced by a faint, shimmering glow surrounding the center of the stage, flickering on and off, like a candle flame swaying in the wind.

As the audience recovered from the rapidly flashing white light, they looked up and were caught off guard to find that…seven black umbrellas, opened and hanging upside down, had suddenly appeared above the stage!

Dripping blood fell along the menacing ribs of the umbrellas.

Looking down and focusing on the long table in the center, they saw that the seven electric chairs were now occupied by seven clowns of different appearances.

Their faces were all painted with makeup that obscured their features, and their intricately designed court jester costumes also hid their body shapes.

Without close-up shots on the big screen, it was impossible to tell who was who.

Without giving the audience time to react or discuss, the prelude ended, and a sharp, flamboyant violin sound abruptly cut in.

A beam of snow-white overhead light fell on the young man seated in the first position at the far left end of the long table.

His sitting posture was quite arrogant, with his legs crossed and propped high on the edge of the table, head bowed as he meticulously wiped his gasses with a silk cloth.

“Rain can’t wash off the circus stink, But darling monsters… shall we begin?”

An arrogant, elegant, somewhat pretentious voice came from his mouth.

The melody was unfamiliar, completely different from the previous group’s “Black Umbrella,” yet surprisingly easy on the ears.

Of course, the most crucial thing was that his voice was gripping enough to set the tone for the entire song the moment he opened his mouth.

The big screen close-up shot gradually moved from his full body to focus on his face.

The young man with his black hair slicked back pinched the glasses frame, examining it left and right, faint shadows falling below his superior brow bone.

He put it on his nose bridge and raised his eyes to look directly at the camera.

The emerald green pupils symbolizing noble bloodline were fully visible under the strong light.

Deep black and crimson mixed metallic greasepaint painted an exaggerated pattern on his face. Below his left eye, fine rhinestones were meticulously arranged into the shape of a teardrop, and the corners of his mouth extended into an upward clown smile.

A very complex, heavy makeup.

“Heavy” not in terms of eyeshadow, nose contour, etc., used to refine facial features, but in the layering of richly colored pigment.

If this were on an ordinary face, it wouldn’t have this effect of both noble, imposing authority and arrogant madness.

Yes, madness …..this was the clown’s underlying nature.

Under the assault of the big screen close-up, even while being breathless from the impact of his beauty, it wasn’t hard to read the surging madness in his eyes.

This intense emotion, like wildly growing moss, spread to the hearts of the audience, who then felt a scalp-numbing thrill in his following lyrics.

Quentin wore the monocle, its gold wire frame refracting a dazzling light.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, his tone somewhat mocking, his singing containing a hint of breathiness, sounding lingering and ambiguous.

“That detective’s sniffing round our gate, tell me… One of you clowns sealed our fate.”

The accompanying drumbeat was rapid, thumping like a heartbeat.

The overhead light went out abruptly.

The next beam of light focused on the person next to Quentin. The audience, whose minds were already captivated and bewildered, instinctively followed the moving light source with their eyes.

A tall, strong young man sat in the chair, his face grim.

His complexion was relatively dark, his sturdy arms straining the sleeves. The clown costume he wore was the same style as Quentin’s, but he had deliberately torn open the collar, fastened the buttons crookedly, and the cuffs were stained with smudged bloodstains.

Compared to the noble and arrogant young master beside him, the second clown appearing on the big screen looked rough and savage, his collar even stained with dust and grease, resembling an executioner wandering the streets.

When the camera focused on him, the young man stood up abruptly from his seat, slammed the cleaver in his hand onto Quentin’s table, and shouted loudly….

“Stop your posh act! I saw bloodstains, On your cuffs when you found Jane!”

He suddenly looked up, staring at the camera aimed at him, and sang word by word: “Slicing throats takes surgeon’s hands…Guess who studied medicine in Swiss land?”

The overhead light quickly shifted, and the big screen showed the figure of a thin young man sitting on the right side of the long table, head bowed as he wrote at the table.

He seemed to hear the butcher’s accusation, let out a scornful light laugh, and put down his steel pen.

“Still bitter I fired you, Butch? How crude. If I killed, I’d hire you to clean the mess.”

The young man turned his head leisurely, looked towards the camera, a trace of a faint, almost imperceptible sneer on his gloomy, pale face.

“You carved sonnets on Anna’s ribs with mother’s knife, Then framed the clown troupe for taking her life. Who are you?”

The only one not sitting properly in a chair, but instead sitting on the edge of the long table and hugging a damaged teddy bear, gazed blankly and stubbornly at the camera now turned towards him.

The young man’s face was painted with a very childlike, whimsical clown makeup, at first glance, it was even somewhat cute.

“Liar! You promised Mary a fairy tale night! But pushed her down the well when she saw your fright!”

He sang softly and eerily: “Her doll floats in mud where you tossed it deep… While you pocketed the gold secrets she’d keep… Who are you?”

Hearing this, the lawyer clown wearing a suit jacket suddenly stood up, tearing the files in his hand and scattering them into the air.

A hand wearing white gloves pointed directly at the camera. His smile was unrestrained to the point of exaggeration, his relatively high-pitched voice sounding somewhat piercing, yet filled with a sense of smugness.

“Objection! My lord’s alibi is perfectly designed!”

His eyes, appearing pitch black against the contrast of his deathly pale makeup, looked at the camera, his blood-red mouth corners curling upward wantonly.

“You lectured morals at our gambling den, Yet gambled brother’s life to save your skin! That muddy river where you let him drown… Who are you?”

The judge seated in the very center of the long table raised his gavel high and brought it down with a bang.

“Order! Order! This court sees through your lies!”

The crying-face clown who suddenly appeared on the big screen startled the audience, but his gruff, hoarse voice did have a bit of the awe-inspiring righteousness of an old judge.

“Childhood fear drowned Mary in the well.”

“Teenage jealousy poisoned your brother.”

“Young love stabbed Anna through the heart.”

“Street greed choked Jane for her last coin…”

His eyeballs moved, slowly looking towards the young man at the far left end of the long table.

“And you, My Lord, float above guilt as always. If your hands stay clean… What crimes could we possibly bear?”

The music suddenly became lighter, and a section of flowing piano music quietly intervened.

The sound of children’s laughter erupted noisily, slipping past the audience’s ears without a trace.

The flickering candle gradually enveloped the entire long table. Everyone wore relaxed smiles on their faces, and under the camera, the similar clown faces were both unified and strange.

Combined with the on-site stage setting, gorgeous yet filled with decay and rot, it gave people an indescribable, eerie sense of beauty.

The audience sitting below didn’t dare breathe loudly, their breaths suspended in their throats. They felt their hearts pounding wildly, as if being grabbed and kneaded by someone.

“Oh my god…fuck, this stage is too amazing…… awesome to the max!”

One of the few male audience members grabbed his girlfriend’s hand beside him, muttering under his breath: “You said you liked who again, which one in this group is the one you mentioned… Quentin? He’s the captain of this team, right? Is he the one who appeared first, the most handsome guy, the one with green eyes? Was this stage designed by him?”

The girl whose hand he was holding hadn’t recovered her senses either, murmuring blankly: “I don’t know ah… probably, not, right…”

Did she really come to the wrong show?

The difference between this stage and the previous 13 groups was way too big! It simply didn’t look like it came from the same program!

And… and, somehow, even though the camera moved relatively quickly, even though the makeup was exceptionally heavy, it didn’t affect her ability to remember each trainee’s appearance at all.

Hmm… it couldn’t really be called just their appearance either; it felt more like the overall “impression” of them having merged completely with their characters?

At the very least, after this performance ended, when she saw these seven people standing in the center of the stage introducing themselves, she wouldn’t be plagued by all kinds of confusion like…

Hey, did this person appear just now?

What did that person sing again?

Who is actually the center position in this group!

She knew these were common occurrences for her when watching the previous dozen or so stages!

But no matter what, so far, the one who left the deepest impression on her in this team was still Quentin.

Even though the length of his singing parts was similar to the others, even though he appeared earliest, even though he was also wearing heavy clown makeup, it didn’t affect his absolute control as the core of the stage in the slightest.

There was just no helping it…his looks were too godly, his voice too divine, his aura too powerful, the image of the noble young master was too deeply ingrained…his charm was simply too great to resist!

The girl was just about to say something when she saw the young man sitting at the far left end of the long table on stage leisurely lower his legs from the table edge, straighten his chest, adjust his collar, and stand up.

His way of singing was just very different from the others…not only was it pleasant to hear, but it also had a pretentious (in a positive sense), very old-school aristocratic air to it.

“Planning the festivities already, darlings? How…déjà vu of you to count ravens before they rot.”

The black-haired, green-eyed young man walked briskly around half the table, coming to a stop behind the young man who had been sitting silently with his head bowed at the far right end of the table. He gently raised a hand and placed it on the latter’s shoulder.

The big screen focused on Quentin’s profile. Those light green eyes glanced fleetingly at the camera, then his gaze fell on the young man before him.

His fine, dense eyelashes cast a light, thin shadow on his eyelids.

Quentin chuckled lightly: “Ah… Our dear Detective seems to have misplaced his tongue at the finale.”

The detective slowly raised his head.

His clown makeup was actually split yin and yang…the left and right sides of his face used opposite color schemes. Although the corners of his mouth were painted with upward-curving red pigment, his eyes were completely numb and lifeless.

The young man looked up and met Quentin’s gaze. From the split-screen view on the big screen, it actually had a feeling of offering one’s neck for execution, a sense of sacrifice.

“You carved yourself into seven clowns to bury the truth. But tell me, Master.”

“Those dead people, Where they died, What names they had… Can you even remember clearly anymore?”

This low, questioning voice was like a dying candle in the wind, each word seeming to weep blood, yet it held little force, lightly dissipating into the air.

The lights on stage also suddenly went out, and the accompanying music transitioned smoothly into the next segment.

When the lights came on again, the seven chairs were neatly arranged in a row, with seven beams of top light shining down on them from above.

The seven umbrellas that had been hanging upside down in mid-air had, at some point, fallen into their hands.

The next segment of dance, performed to the accompaniment of rhythmic, intense orchestral music, was more in line with the general public’s inherent impression of an idol boy group stage.

This choreography was arranged wonderfully.

For the live audience, it was like watching a row of clown puppets with stiff, perfectly timed movements as if manipulated by invisible strings…dexterous yet revealing a stiff, inhuman quality, hitting every beat in the music perfectly.

Actually, not every member danced perfectly, after all, Cui Yan and Fang Xu’s choreography was based on their own skill levels, and those two were already among the top three in the team in terms of dance foundation.

But the problem was, the center position for this dance was Quentin.

When a center who excels in both singing and dancing, with exceptional stage presence, stands in the middle, few audience members can notice even if the people on either side are slacking off.

Wide shots couldn’t let the audience see Quentin’s face clearly, but for professional dancers, conveying emotion, showcasing stage charm, and providing the audience with direct visual enjoyment…these things never need to rely on the face.

Quentin wasn’t exactly a professional dancer yet, but his excellent rhythm and solid foundation were enough for him to command the stage through his physical performance.

Perhaps the director was also infected by this stage, he always subconsciously switched to close-up shots of Quentin.

Sometimes it was his slightly panting lips, sometimes his Adam’s apple glistening with sweat, sometimes his hand tightly gripping the umbrella handle, sometimes the muscles in his calf, encased in socks, slightly tensing.

And every single shot given to Quentin could trigger waves of cheers and screams from the live audience.

“Wuuuu! What am I going to do, I’ve been put under a gu by Quentin, I can’t take it anymore………………”

“Me too wuuu, what do I do ah, my bias clearly isn’t Quentin… I, I even still have my bias’s face as my phone wallpaper…”

“Huh? No, why are you two crying just from watching a stage performance? Although Quentin is very handsome, it shouldn’t be to the extent of crying like this, right?”

“Get lost, you don’t understand! I’m just emotionally overwhelmed, I couldn’t control it for a moment… Quentin!!! You’re so handsome!!! Quentin!!! Quentin—!!!”

“WTF?! Suddenly screaming so loud, are you trying to deafen me?”

“I’m convinced, you’re still the best, you succeeded, I bet Quentin definitely just glanced in our direction.”

“Ahh! He looked at me, he really does like me!!”

The dance that stirred the entire audience’s cheers came to an end as the music faded out.

The seven beams of overhead light began to flicker uncertainly, and the clowns sitting on the electric chairs maintained identical postures.

Silent, heads bowed, lifeless.

Music box music floated in from a distant place, creaking and squeaking, as if the parts were rusty and broken.

A short, powerful voice-over sounded in the background.

It was clearly Quentin’s voice, but it no longer held the pretentious tone; instead, it was calm and straightforward, pointing out the truth.

“Hard truth:”

“We’re all just…pieces of the killer’s puzzle.”

As soon as the words fell, the lights went out abruptly.

The venue was silent for a moment, then thunderous applause erupted.