The audience’s murmurs rose and fell with the playback of the VCR. Cheng Shaozi’s team, waiting in the backstage to enter, could not see the VCR content on the large screen and could only judge by the lively noise outside that their VCR was probably very watchable.
Quentin and the others, performing after them, could not see the large screen either, but their attention was not on the VCR.
The seven young men formed a circle to review their respective interactions with the senior sister. Zhang Fu sat to the side, occasionally interjecting with supplements.
Both teams gathered in the same waiting area backstage but always maintained a distance of two meters. The staff around them separated them, making the two sides appear clearly divided.
Bi Xiao glanced sideways at the other team’s direction several times. He lowered his voice and signaled to Cheng Shaozi, “Hey, Team leader, look at them, they’re still rehearsing.”
Cheng Shaozi was raising his hand for a staff member to check his microphone. He looked up at the words, “Is there a problem?”
Bi Xiao fiddled with the skateboard in his hand, feeling inexplicably anxious inside, but pretended to look unconcerned, “Nothing, I’m just looking. Their team is so competitive, it’s making me a bit nervous.”
“Don’t be nervous. Don’t worry about how others perform. Just do what you need to do.”
Cheng Shaozi’s voice was very clear and gentle. Logically, such a voice would be very soothing, but his expression and tone of voice carried a natural coolness. Even when comforting others, he was still aloof.
Compared to Quentin and Fang Xu, Cheng Shaozi was not considered a fair skinned type. His skin was still within the healthy range of the yellow toned skin, at most he was slightly fair skinned.
But he had a pair of very distinctive phoenix eyes. Paired with his excellent posture and temperament, these eyes made him resemble the master of an immortal sect in countless people’s imaginations, with a kind of unattainable, ascetic feel.
Judging by the style of the seven people, the three with the highest popularity in Cheng Shaozi’s team, namely Cheng Shaozi, Bi Xiao, and Lu Kui, the first two were not suited to the sweet song stage of “Senior Sister, No.” Only Lu Kui, with his energetic curly hair and puppy-like demeanor, fit perfectly.
But Cheng Shaozi was not worried about this aspect. He did not have an obsessive need to win this PK. As long as he showed his own strengths, ensured the level of the entire stage was above average, and did not disappoint the fans, that was enough.
He looked at Bi Xiao, “This time I am the team leader. Even if we lose the PK, you won’t lose more miserably than in the second public performance. So don’t overthink it.”
Bi Xiao: “…You really know how to talk.”
Fine, what Team Leader Cheng said was not wrong. Last time he lost to Xue Mingzhu as a team leader. This time if he lost, it should be to Quentin, as he corresponded to the same character as him in the lyrics.
At least, “losing to Quentin” sounded much more honorable than “losing to Xue Mingzhu.”
The only thing Bi Xiao regretted was that his plan to redeem himself in the show was probably going to fail.
Clearly, from the initial stage on, every battle or PK he had been matched against Xue Mingzhu, but the latter had been tied to Quentin since the second public performance, thus remaining invincible.
How was that guy so lucky!
Bi Xiao naturally ignored the fact that he had lost to Xue Mingzhu in both the initial stage battle and the first public performance PK. He logically convinced himself and quickly adjusted his pre-stage state.
Five minutes later, the VCR finished playing, and the stage lights suddenly dimmed.
Cheng Shaozi team entered. The first group’s performance of “Senior Sister, No” was about to begin, and the discussions offstage gradually ceased.
The lights gradually brightened, and the classroom setting slowly came into the audience’s view.
Upbeat prelude music played. Seven desks were arranged in a W shape. Girl group senior sister Lou Yu sat in the center C position, with Cheng Shaozi and Bi Xiao on her left and right.
Several people were either flipping through textbooks or holding pens to write and draw, their expressions either calm or grimacing, clearly portraying the situation of being in class.
Then, the class end bell rang. Lou Yu tilted her head towards the camera, her big eyes full of smiles, and opened her mouth to sing the first line of lyrics.
The subsequent stage choreography was smooth and successful. Before the chorus began, whoever’s part it was would make movements behind the desk that fit their “persona.”
For example, Bi Xiao spun a skateboard, Cheng Shaozi pinched an envelope in both hands and “talked to himself,” Lu Kui lay on the desk and threw a paper airplane at Lou Yu…
When the chorus sounded, everyone left the desks, took a few steps forward, and smoothly changed formation to transition into the synchronized singing and dancing part.
Without a doubt, this was a very standard idol stage, smooth and with almost zero errors.
Cheng Shaozi was very talented in choreography. The design of each move seemed to blend into the music, and the transition between moves had no sense of incongruity. Perhaps he was not very good at freestyle, but he was undoubtedly a choreographer with extraordinary potential.
The highlights of this team were basically concentrated in the chorus part. The solo parts in the verse could only be said to be stable performances, but the singing, dancing, and complex formations in the chorus dazzled the audience, making them exclaim with pleasure.
In the dark auditorium offstage, light boards with names like “Cheng Shaozi,” “Bi Xiao,” and “Lu Kui” waved enthusiastically to the music beat from all directions.
The fans were very happy. They had not waited in vain. Xiao Cheng’s choreography yyds, Bi Xiao’s rap had improved, Lu Kui’s singing and dancing had taken a leap forward.
Although the other three teammates were slightly less popular in comparison, the trainees who could remain until the third public performance were not cannon fodder.
Moreover, the three of them had been carefully selected by Cheng Shaozi to join the group during the free team formation round. With their balanced abilities, they would not hold the team back regardless.
As for Lou Yu, needless to say, even though there were differences between girl group dances and boy group dances, she had at least one more year of group stage experience than the fledgling trainees, let alone being the main dancer!
With her and Cheng Shaozi standing in the middle, they directly raised the entire team’s dance ability by one level.
After this team’s performance ended, the audience discussed it offstage.
“Their overall ability is so strong!”
“Cheng Shaozi’s voice doesn’t tremble at all when he dances. Was he this stable the previous two times?”
“This group should be the strongest opposing team Quentin has ever encountered. They’re really stable. It feels like they could debut directly.”
“I didn’t expect their stage effect to be this good. I don’t know half the people in this group…”
“Whatever, anyway Quentin won’t lose. The others can do whatever.”
“It’s said that Quentin and his team are the debut group. Actually, Cheng Shaozi should also be in the debut group. He ranked sixth last time.”
“Bi Xiao and Lu Kui also rank very high, both in the top ten. Lu Kui’s ranking has risen super fast.”
“Why isn’t Cheng Shaozi in Quentin’s team? This time Quentin’s team formation was clearly based on ranking.”
“Maybe because Cui Yan is seventh and Fang Xu is eighth? One is Quentin’s workout buddy, the other is Quentin’s roommate. They both have a better relationship with Quentin than Cheng Shaozi does.”
“I don’t know how they formed teams for this public performance. The top ten are all in these two groups. That’s just damn ridiculous!”
“Shh…don’t talk. The next group’s stage is about to start!”
…
As the lights changed from dark to bright once more, the new stage setting gradually appeared.
For a stage with a campus love theme, a schoolyard style was the most suitable. But unlike Cheng Shaozi’s team, which chose the interior of a classroom, Quentin’s team chose the corridor outside the classroom as the main feature.
A white wall with a front door, back door, and two windows stood horizontally at the back of the stage. Looking through the window glass half-covered by curtains, one could vaguely see desks with books stacked behind the wall.
When the prelude sounded, only Zhang Fu was in the corridor outside the classroom.
She had her hands behind her back, pacing back and forth absently on the corridor, seeming troubled by something.
If Cheng Shaozi’s team only made some rhythmic adaptations to “Senior Sister, No,” making the original song’s tempo faster, more suitable for boy group dance beats, while keeping the song’s style unchanged.
Then Quentin’s adaptation was more flamboyant, adding numerous elements to the original song without giving any sense of tediousness or burden.
And the change in musical style transformed the original song’s “girlish feelings” into a “sweet love song,” full of an ambiguous sense of trying to hide it from the very beginning.
Compared to the pure music of the original prelude, the audience keenly heard the whistling sound added to this version’s prelude.
Combined with the accompaniment, it sounded somehow romantic, a little frivolous, and gave people a sense of eager curiosity.
If attentive viewers reviewed later, they would find that this whistling segment was actually humming the “confession” phrase in the chorus.
Zhang Fu’s singing ability was not outstanding, so the first line of the song was given to Wen Xinyi to sing, who, like a narrator, told of the girl’s longing and melancholy about love.
Probably because the live atmosphere was created too well, the audience only exclaimed in surprise at the sound of Wen Xinyi’s voice, and then quietly listened to him perform.
Although the audience outwardly held back and did not speak, their inner thoughts were still very abundant, and their eyes were also wandering around the stage.
—Holy crap, who is singing? Such a good singer. The original version of this song wasn’t this R&B, right?
—No need to think, it must be Quentin responsible for the adaptation. I usually don’t support song adaptations, but I can eat up Quentin’s adaptations any time!
—This is definitely Xiao Wen’s voice. Where are the others?
—They’re all hiding behind that wall, right? I can’t see them through the window either. Why are they hiding so tightly?
Before their inner thoughts could flood into a few more sentences, the curtain of one of the windows was suddenly pulled open, and the large screen camera also shifted from Zhang Fu to this window.
The young man’s action of pulling the curtain was crisp. With a swoosh, he pulled it completely open, his upper body fully exposed behind the window.
A thin black microphone arm passed through his blonde hair, extending from behind his ear, the microphone stopping just below his lips.
The moment he appeared, the silent audience instantly erupted in a thunderous noise….this was the commotion made by fans who had keenly recognized him from that blonde hair.
Before the rest of the audience could react, they saw the large screen suddenly cut to a face so handsome it made people’s bodies tremble.
The dazzling platinum blonde hair forcefully dominated the attention of everyone in the entire venue. This face itself was already very top-tier, and with the addition of the blonde hair, it was as if it had its own filter and glowing special effect.
What was the difference between this and the protagonist’s first appearance in a shoujo manga!
From all corners of the offstage audience, exclamations of “holy shit” sounded one after another. When humans suddenly face something that amazes them, their reactions are always very uniform…
Is he really that handsome? No way!
Help, Mom, it’s love at first sight!
Holy shit, did the director Photoshop him separately? This large screen close-up to his face is just too much to handle!
What’s going on? I’m already automatically imagining the flying flowers and blossoms from shoujo manga TvT
…
A mess of thoughts swirled together in everyone’s minds.
Many of Quentin’s fans on site, while shocked, instinctively had a professional habit kick in, thinking of a series of public performance report post titles.
—Blonde hair is a basic, but the face is anything but basic!
—Court? Wasteland? Campus? A top-tier visual can easily digest any styling!
—Everyone! Remember! The face is the core equipment of styling!
—Okay, let’s get married [kneeling][ring]
When Quentin pulled open the curtain, Wen Xinyi’s part was still continuing.
He noticed the camera with the indicator light in the distance, knowing that his every move was being projected on the large screen, so he consciously restrained himself from making eye contact with the camera.
Before long, it was his part. He propped one hand on the windowsill, following the movement repeated countless times during rehearsals, and held the skateboard under his other arm.
With a crisp jump, the black and yellow plaid shirt tied around his waist swung back in a perfect arc, and then he landed perfectly seated on one side of the open window.
His left knee bent and pressed against the window sill, his right leg naturally hanging down, the tip of his shoe touching the floor. The slim-fit jeans he wore were not tight or restrictive, instead making his legs look longer than fate.
In recent years, this style of pants was not trendy. The hem was slightly wide, with torn holes at the knees, and the cuffs barely covered his ankles. If someone else wore them, they might have looked like a typical “wannabe cool guy”.
But for someone with nice legs, none of the above were problems!
Even the high-top canvas shoes of some unknown, not mainstream brand on his feet looked incredibly handsome.
The moment he sat down, he hit the beat perfectly. His highly recognizable voice and excellent singing ability easily took over from Wen Xinyi, and then pushed the atmosphere to an even higher climax with the turn in the very end of this line of lyrics.
Quentin still did not look at the camera. While holding the microphone, he made eye contact with the senior sister looking back on the corridor. The straightforward lyrics were sung by him like a heartfelt confession.
But one look at his blonde hair, his outfit so trendy it could give you rheumatism, the white cartoon band-aid on the bridge of his nose, and the casual expression on his face…
What heartfelt confession? It was clearly a hooligan’s flirtation!
This hooligan is so bad…the audience looked at this scene, their next thought immediately following.
This hooligan is so… handsome!
One line followed the transition from Wen Xinyi’s part, and the next line was the entrance line of the character played by Quentin.
“The rebellious boy on the skateboard…”
He sang lazily, smiled lazily, and unhurriedly let go of the skateboard tucked under his arm, dropping it to the ground.
Then he turned his head to look at the camera, his left eyebrow slightly raised, his pupils reflecting several lights near and far, his bright green eyes burning like fire.
The blonde young man’s smile was still so casual, blatantly wicked, the unspoken passion clear in the depths of his eyes.
Just like he sang, the turn of the melody was lingering, displaying the unique romance of R&B to the fullest.
“The rebellious boy on the skateboard…”
“Has a pair of passionate eyes.”
“He looks at you, says nothing, yet says everything into your heart.”
Thank you for the update!