Ch48 - Monster

cw: brief mention of suicide (not graphic and not discussed)

“My god, Nian ge actually chose the effort team!”

“No way, the ability team will win for sure.”

“Brothers pinch me. I’m not dreaming right, Nian ge actually chose our side from the start! “

…

After Ji Xiunian announced his choice, nearly everyone was struck dumb.

Even Liang Da, after hearing his decision, wanted to confirm it another time. “Xiunian, you’re sure about choosing the effort team?”

“I’m sure.” Ji Xiunian’s expression was firm, and he didn’t feel like this decision was anything special.

“Okay okay.” He had already said what he did, and Liang Da didn’t want to push it either, so he politely said, “Then let’s invite our first effort team head to go and sit by the effort team.”

It just so happened that Lu Xu’s position was the one closest to the centre, so Ji Xiunian very naturally stood beside him.

The gazes of the two met and they couldn’t help but smile; in the eyes of other people, it gave off a different feeling.

“It couldn’t be that Nian ge chose the effort team because of Xu ge, right?”

Seeing Ji Xiunian walk over to Lu Xu’s side, that was Xu Lele’s first reaction.

When he thought about it, he felt that it couldn’t just be because their relationship was good that Ji Xiunian chose that team. Maybe it was a result of the show?

The camera followed Ji Xiunian and then landed on Lu Xu, the two of them happened to be in the same frame.

Liang Da saw this and immediately asked, “Lu Xu, are you happy that Xiunian chose you guys?”

This question had its limitations. Lu Xu naturally only smiled and said, “Very happy.”

Liang Da continued, “Then, Xiunian chose the effort team because he believed in you all. Do you have faith in your first performance?”

The camera once again panned to Lu Xu. He tilted his head and glanced at Ji Xiunian, then smiled, his eyes curving into crescents. “Since Ji Xiunian chose to believe in us, then our effort team will definitely do our very best, isn’t that right?”

“Right!” The group of trainees behind him raised their voices in agreement. Perhaps their abilities couldn’t hold up to the others, but the contest hadn’t ended yet. They at least couldn’t lose in attitude.

Liang Da nodded and gave them a few words of encouragement before turning around to look towards Gu Wenan and continuing on with the show’s program. “Wenan, choose a team between the ability and effort teams to lead. What’s your choice?”

Gu Wenan looked at the ability teams then looked at the Ji Xiunian standing by the effort teams. After hesitating for a moment, he said, “Since Xiunian chose the effort team, then I will definitely choose the ability team. The two groups have to be balanced; it’ll be fair this way.

No one thought his choice was out of the ordinary. The ability teams were even more enthusiastic in welcoming their first instructor.

At this moment, Qin Kewei and Shen Chengyu were the only remaining mentors.

Liang Da’s eyes twinkled as he looked back and forth between the two of them. His gaze landed on Qin Kewei. “The female mentor goes first. Kewei, make your choice first—effort team and ability team, which one will you choose?”

Qin Kewei wanted to be with Ji Xiunian, but in the end, she listened to her own desire for victory, and straight-forwardly selected the ability team.

As Shen Chengyu was the last mentor, he was naturally placed with the effort team.

At this point, the mentors’ selections had come to an end, and the drawing for performances began.

“I currently have sixteen songs in my hand that you will need to perform in your groups. Please have each team captain come and draw a slip. The order in which you select songs will be decided by the results of your draws…”

In the time Liang Da took to speak, the screen behind him displayed the sixteen songs available for selection.

“Aaaaa, aren’t these songs a little too exciting? ‘Maiden’s Prayer’, ‘Monster’ and ‘Pink Summer Dream’, oh my god…”

“I feel like a song like ‘First Heart’ is easier to sing but difficult to show something extraordinary with. It’s really too difficult to choose.”

“The song list actually has ‘Queen High Heels’, do they want this bunch of guys to wear high heels hahahaha…”

…

The sixteen songs came in a variety of styles, almost covering all genres of music.

Songs like ‘Youthful Feeling’ that gave off the image of youthful springtime were rather easy to interpret. There were also sweet love songs that were easy to control. Other than that, some songs had rather niche genres; it was difficult to imagine how they could be presented on stage.

As the trainees discussed privately among themselves what songs they wanted to choose, they hoped that their captains would draw a good number.

The earlier they got to choose, the more choices they had. If they were relegated to the end of the line, they could only pick from others’ leftovers.

After Lu Xu came back with his slip, his group members immediately scooted over. “Aaaa, what ranking are we?”

Comparatively calmer, Captain Lu Xu slowly opened up the slip. He glanced at the ‘4’ on the paper and raised his eyebrows.

“Wa, 4 is pretty good ai.”

“Right right, although it’s not the top three, it’s still better than the teams behind us.”

“Xu ge, it seems like you draw 4 every time ha, it’s definitely your lucky number.”

The group members traded words back and forth. After they had finished talking about how good their number was, they began discussing which song they should pick.

“How about ‘Youthful Feeling’. Aren’t we at the prime of our youth right now? It should be easy to interpret…”

Right after Xu Lele said this, the Yao Yulong who had drawn first place came out with his pick. “We choose ‘Youthful Feeling.’”

“Ah, the one I like has been taken!”

“What to do, what to do, hurry and figure out which one to choose.”

…

It wasn’t just Xu Lele. After looking at the list of songs, everyone’s first reaction was to choose ‘Youthful Feeling.’ It was a pity someone had come up and immediately taken it. Everyone could only go down the list again and choose something else.

“Xu ge Xu ge, what should we choose?”

Everyone else was incredibly anxious, but Lu Xu remained calm. This composed attitude gave his group members a shot of reassurance, so everyone couldn’t help but ask him what he was thinking of.

Lu Xu glanced briefly at the song list and said casually, “I think pink, so let’s choose ‘Pink Summer Dream’ okay…”

“Ai? That sounds pretty good. Then let’s choose ‘Pink Summer Dream.’”

Lan Gaojie had picked number 2. His groupmates were discussing whether they should pick ‘First Heart’. It was rather suitable for him. Lan Gaojie was originally hesitating over the song list, but when he heard Lu Xu’s group, he suddenly made a decision.

The 20 seconds for song selection had expired. Liang Da directly opened his mouth to ask what song he had chosen.

Lan Gaojie subconsciously looked towards Lu Xu and stuck his chin out, arching his brows as he said, “I choose ‘Pink Summer Dream.’”

“No way, we just chose that ai.” The faces of Lu Xu’s groupmates immediately fell, sighing in slight annoyance.

Xu Lele pursed his lips and couldn’t help muttering, “It can’t be that he chose it after hearing us say we’ll pick ‘Pink Summer Dream’ right.”

Even Lan Gaojie’s team members thought it was a little difficult to stand out with ‘Pink Summer Dream’. That song was a bit overly sweet; if they didn’t do the slightest thing well then it would turn nauseating.

But the team captain had already made a choice, so they could only let out a long sigh and accept it.

Lan Gaojie didn’t care what his teammates’ reactions were. The whole time, he was only focused on Lu Xu’s reaction.

He should probably be angry. After all, the song he had wanted had been taken away.

But the blame couldn’t be placed on him. The one who got the priority pick was him, there was freedom to pick whatever, wasn’t there?

He imagined Lu Xu’s angry yet helpless reaction. Lan Gaojie couldn’t help but feel a bit pleased, and even wanted to laugh a bit.

However when he lifted his head, he saw that Lu Xu who was opposite him wasn’t angry or unsettled, the corners of his lips even carried the hint of a smile.

At that moment, Lan Gaojie didn’t know what on earth this person was thinking about.

The third group was Chai Siyuan’s group. Their teammates’ opinions had been unanimous, and all of them had voted to pick ‘First Heart’.

Very soon it was Lu Xu’s team’s turn. The teammates were beyond conflicted and didn’t know which one to choose.

Lu Xu didn’t say anything and waited to hear their opinions. However, up until the end, no one could come to an agreement and handed the choice over to Lu Xu. “Xu ge, you pick. You can choose anything, we’ll listen to you.”

“If it’s like that.” The corner of Lu Xu’s mouth curved upwards and he nodded. He quickly glanced over the song list, and fixed his gaze on a spot.

As an A-rank trainee for two episodes, Lu Xu was naturally the focus of everyone’s attention.

Everyone was curious about what Lu Xu was going to choose. Many people felt that he would choose the young, sunny song, after all that was where his image was.

After the allocated time for thinking was over, Liang Da called Lu Xu’s name. “Lu Xu, your team’s choice is?”

The camera showed a close-up of Lu Xu’s face. Even though it was so close, there was no flaw to be found. With a hint of cunning in his delicate and handsome face, he looked like a young boy from a manhua when he smiled.

Lu Xu’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the song list, then lightly made a choice. “Monster.”

“My god, no way, Lu Xu actually chose ‘Monster’?”

“Seems a bit impulsive, that song is so hard to sing, and it’s so depressing. When I first heard it, I didn’t want to hear it a second time.”

“Crazy crazy, if I werein their team I would cry to death.”

“Don’t you think we should give our thanks to Xu ge? Otherwise, those of us in the back would be forced to pick ‘Monster’.”

…

“Monster” was the posthumous work of the late singer Zhang Jiamu. The whole song was filled with gloom and darkness.

In addition, not long after this song was released, Zhang Jiamu committed suicide, making people feel even more that it was a symbol of depression and despair.

Zhang Jiamu used to have a decent relationship with Fan Zeng. Today just so happened to be the seventh anniversary of his passing. In order to commemorate a good friend who had passed away, Fan Zeng had gone against the crowd and added the song to the list.

Since there was this kind of commemorative feeling to it, this song really wasn’t suited for dancing.

Never mind that everyone was young, they still believed very strongly in the power of the supernatural. At the mention of a posthumous work, everyone subconsciously thought that it was unlucky, so of course, no one wanted to pick it.

It had to be said that Lu Xu’s choice this time had been unexpected and was generally unfavourable.

However, Lu Xu didn’t care, it was as though he hadn’t taken the context of the song into consideration at all.

As teammates, Xu Lele and the others were also very surprised. After all, everyone had subconsciously excluded “Monster” from their choices from the start.

But now that Lu Xu had made a decision, it was too late for them to change their mind.

Seeing that the other trainees were sending them sympathetic gazes, Xu Lele instead stood firmly by Lu Xu’s side. “I believe in Xu ge’s choice. If it’s “Monster” then it’s “Monster”, we can definitely sing it well.

Very quickly, the remaining teams each decided on the song for their performance.

Basically, everyone was barely satisfied. Only Xu Haoming was crying. As the sixteenth group, they didn’t even have a choice, and could only thicken their skin and accept “The Queen’s High Heels”. This was the famous song of Qin Kewei’s girl group, and the main feature was that it was sexy and hot.

When Xu Haoming had watched the music video, and he had liked it a lot. Now, he was in despair.

He even wanted to beg others to switch songs, but everyone ignored him.

Lu Xu’s teammates’ initially had some hesitation towards “Monster”, but compared to Xu Haoming’s team, they felt that they could accept it.

“Everyone has chosen their songs. The next three days will be yours to train. When it’s time for the performance, we’ll be inviting thousands of audience judges. At that time, in pairs, the winning team will be determined based on the number of audience votes…”

After Liang Da finished announcing the rules of the competition, each team hurriedly went back to prepare for the performance.

The song and choreography had to be rearranged. Time was tight and the tasks were heavy, so they couldn’t slack off.

The four team leaders each brought their team to different training studios and began to warm-up.

After Shen Chengyu said a few inspirational chicken soup words of “good luck, work hard”, it was Ji Xiunian’s turn to motivate his members.

He was wearing a dark suit, and his face looked cold, his aura elegant and noble. He walked to the centre of the practise room, his gaze sweeping across the trainees. He suddenly asked in a low voice, “Do you know the reason I chose you?”

When this question came out, the trainees immediately opened their mouths and talked at the same time, with all sorts of answers.

“You wanted to give us a consolation prize.”

“Nian ge, tell us the truth, was this choice scripted before the recording, for the result of the show or something.”

“Could be because of kindness…”

…

Xu Lele was stuck in the middle of all the trainees. He heard them say more and more ridiculous things, and couldn’t resist raising his hand and saying, “Because of Xu ge, after all, you guys have a good relationship.”

For a brother, nothing was crazy.

When Ji Xiunian heard this, he subconsciously shook his head, then replied, “I chose you all not because of a certain someone, and not because of a script. In fact, if there really was a script, the team I’d have chosen now would have been the ability team. Whatever it is, the performance is competitive, and right now it seems that the ability team has greater odds of winning, maybe many of you think so too, right?”

“Right, we can’t even compare.”

What was said was absolutely correct. The difference between the ability team and effort team was there. No one thought that the effort team could win. Even they thought this.

With one look, Ji Xiunian knew what they were thinking, and he continued, “I’m the kind of person who likes a challenge. The more impossible it is, the more I like to do it. No one is born winning. You are like that, the ability team is also like that. Team performance needs cooperation. As long as every one of you works hard for this team, then a miracle will definitely happen.”

He looked at the group, then finally threw out a final explosive comment. “Be clear about why you joined this competition. You must know that your final goal isn’t the performance, but to be in the final eleven. Only eleven people get to debut. Other people can do it, and you can too.”

Ji Xiunian sounded extremely confident, as though he had already seen the ending outcome.

The effort team who initially thought that they couldn’t compare were suddenly hyped up.

Everyone was very jumpy, as if they had been injected with chicken blood.

Lu Xu looked left and right, and unconsciously laughed. This Ji Xiunian really was incomprehensible. He looked like he had no desires, but when he spoke, he had a strong desire to win. His brainwashing and hyping could be said to be top-notch.

After the motivational meeting was over, each team started their practise.

The effort team with Lu Xu as the leader was waiting for their instructor in the practise studio and were dumbfounded when they saw Ji Xiunian walk in at the end.

As they were in shock, they heard Ji Xiunian say slowly, “I will be responsible for your performance. I hope we can work happily together for the next three days.”