Ch76 - External Help Is Here

“…As long as it’s you, I’ll treat you well…”

When Lu Xu heard that, he tilted his head to glance at Ji Xiunian, with a strange expression on his face.

The meaning of those words could be that Ji Xiunian treated him as a true friend, but even if that was the case, so what? No one had ever heard of a grim reaper becoming friends with their client, no matter what, each person should know their place.

At the most, when Ji Xiunian went on the road to the underworld, he could call a specifically nice car for him.

Just as Lu Xu was thinking about this, there was a sudden crack of thunder.

There was a little bit of wind on this initially hot day, but it seemed like a heavy rain was about to fall.

Ji Xiunian had just made a promise, and then the sky let out a roar of thunder. Lu Xu couldn’t help but laugh. “Nian ge, look. There are some things you can’t just promise like that, otherwise even the heavens won’t be able to look on.”

“I wasn’t lying.” Ji Xiunian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, it was just that the thunder had come at a coincidental time, making his words seem like they were problematic.

In order to prove himself, Ji Xiunian added, “Those were words from the heart, no matter what happens in the future, I’ll remember the words I spoke today…”

Before he had even finished speaking, a flash of lightning pierced the clouds, followed by an even louder clap of thunder.

Ji Xiunian, “…”

“Hahaha…” Seeing Ji Xiunian’s helpless expression, Lu Xu’s mood inexplicably improved. He laughed brightly, and his eyes glinted with light, and he looked once more like an easy-going youth.

Ji Xiunian had planned to explain, but seeing him laugh like that wiped away that notion, and he simply smiled along with him.

As long as he was happy, then those two thunderclaps were meaningful.

Lu Xu laughed for a long while before stopping, and seeing that Ji Xiunian was watching him, he couldn’t help but smile at him. “Thank you, Nian ge.”

Whether this person was being sincere or just being polite, at least it made him happy.

Lu Xu was a ghostly spirit, but it was clear that he was still grateful.

Without waiting for Ji Xiunian to speak, fat droplets of rain started to fall. At first it was only a trickle falling from the skies, but it quickly grew heavier.

“It’s a thunderstorm, let’s go let’s go, hurry back inside.” Ji Xiunian didn’t want Lu Xu to get drenched by the rain, and ushered him to go back.

The two of them had long limbs, and they hurried back towards the rooftop door.

The rain chased behind them, the droplets rushing to fall to the ground to chase away the heat of the day, and the sky darkened.

–

In order to edit the fourth episode of the show, Fan Zeng had stayed up the entire night. By the time he had composed himself for filming, it was already 7 pm.

The staff members had already briefed the recording schedule to the trainees, so they more or less knew the rules of this episode.

Because it wasn’t a public performance, Ji Xiunian became the temporary host for the filming of the fifth episode and was responsible for announcing the rules.

“Everyone has probably already looked at the aspiration forms in their hands, our task today is to split into classes based on the slot you filled in on your form…”

Next up for the recording, the trainees had to fill up the aspiration forms in line with their own circumstances. The production team had set up groups for composition, vocals and dance.

The aspiration form had three categories, and the trainees could fill it in based on what they wanted. After that, the instructors would split them into groups based on their forms, and their first choice would be their most preferred.

“To be honest, when I got the form, I felt like I was taking my high school examinations again. It felt like I was applying for college, it was that kind of a feel.”

“So difficult, I don’t know which one I should fill in, seems like vocals would be a bit better.”

“I think a lot of people would go for dance, the B and C rank would probably prefer dancing as their first choice…”

The trainees chatted amongst themselves, clearly unable to make a decision.

“Instructor Ji, this is the namelist of the external instructors we got, you can announce them…”

Ji Xiunian was considered the head of all the instructors, and the other three had been put in charge of composition, vocals and dancing respectively.

In order to cut down on the workload of the instructors as well as to hype up the show, the production team had specially invited three artists to join them. Which meant that every group had two instructors, and they were famous artists from the industry.

Tao Yingbo had been invited to be in charge of the composition group, it was completely in line with his talent.

Because he didn’t like to show his face, Ji Xiunian was in the composition group with Gu Wenan, acting as “Instructor Tao”’s microphone. Before the show had even been recorded, Fan Zeng had already decided that hyping up the conversation of an invisible “Instructor Tao” sounded pretty good.

As for Qin Kewei and Shen Chengyu, both of them had come from girl and boy groups, so the two of them were the dance instructors.

“And now for the list of instructors for composition and choreography…” As Ji Xiunian spoke, his gaze paused on the two external instructors’ names from the vocal team. After he saw a specific person’s name, Ji Xiunian automatically glanced towards Lu Xu.

Lu Xu was aware of his surroundings and lifted his head to look back at Ji Xiunian, his smile carrying a hint of a different meaning.

The trainees below were all very curious who the external instructors were and wanted Ji Xiunian to hurry and announce them.

“Instructor Ji, don’t dangle it in front of our mouths anymore. I was already really nervous filling out my application, now I’m even more nervous.”

“Right right, I’m kneeling and begging Nian ge to hurry and announce them, so we can take a look at the instructors and fill out our applications.”

Ji Xiunian nodded his head imperceptibly, then flipped his scriptbook, only to see two familiar names appear.

“Aaah, it’s Manman!” Xu Lele grabbed Lu Xu’s elbow and covered his mouth in excitement, his face was one of disbelief. “Xu ge Xu ge, it’s my idol goddess!”

Xu Haoming was the same, and immediately filled in his form. “For the goddess, I’ll also go to the vocal team, no matter what I have to get in!”

“My god, and there’s even Qu ge, the production team really went big on the budget.”

“Now that you mention it, it seems to have been a long time since Qu Tianwang released an album, and he hasn’t promoted anything lately. I never thought that he would actually make a reappearance for our show, this really is giving a lot of face.”

“That’s right that’s right, a vocal god against the queen, it’s exciting just thinking about it.”

“Now I feel like the vocal team is full, I think Lu Xu will choose the vocal team, after all Yu Manman is his shijie ah…”

Everyone knew that the program staff would invite external instructors, and they had guessed it would be people who were rather well known. However, it was one song god and one queen; to have a program that was able to invite these two deities, it could be said that their ‘Birth of an Idol’ really had style.

The usual four instructors were already very famous to begin with; now there were two very strong external guests. Thinking of the excitement it would cause online, the trainees were filled with fighting spirits.

The names had been announced, next up everyone had to fill in their forms.

Several people looked at one another, and were even more conflicted when they saw the list of instructors.

“What to do, I still haven’t decided which one I should go for.”

“This shouldn’t be hard, just write down the one you want to go for.”

“I want to go to the vocal team, but there are probably a lot of people who would do the same. What if it’s filled up and I get sent to the composition team, with my level of creativity, if I go there I’ll cry until I pass out.”

“That’s a good point, aaah, what to do, I’m also conflicted…”

“But what if everyone is thinking the same thing, and avoid the vocal group as their first choice? As insurance, I should just follow my heart’s intent…”

…

The people around him said all kinds of things. Lu Xu merely listened and filled out his application without any hesitation.

Xu Lele liked Yu Manman and carried thoughts of being with his goddess. He didn’t hesitate in putting down the vocal group as his first choice.

After filling it out, he felt a little flustered, and couldn’t help looking over at Lu Xu’s application. He was immediately dumbstruck. “Xu ge, how come you chose this?”

Almost everyone assumed Lu Xu would choose vocal or choreography; after all, those were his strengths.  Either choice would allow him to remain. But no one had thought that Lu Xu’s first choice was actually the composition group. This made everyone feel a bit out of the ordinary.

Seeing Xu Lele so surprised, Lu Xu looked at Xu Lele’s application and saw that the composition group had been willingly put down as his third choice.

“I’m for real, I’d rather be beaten to death than go to the composition group! This is way too difficult for me, if I went I’d just be making trouble for both the instructors and myself. I’d rather not.”

Xu Haoming and Han Tianyu also scooted over after filling out their applications. When they saw Lu Xu’s choices, they also felt a bit surprised. “Xu ge, you know how to compose?”

Lu Xu shook his head. “No.”

“Then have you written songs before, like lyrics?”

Lu Xu shook his head again. “Never.”

“…”

Xu Haoming thought about advising him to think twice about it, after all if he didn’t know how to write lyrics then he would make a fool of himself by going to the composition group.

After all, Lu Xu’s image was so good, and he was super popular, there was no need to take this kind of risk.

However, Lu Xu didn’t think that this was a problem, and even laughed as he gave his reason. “Isn’t there a saying that one should work on their weaknesses or something? I’ve never tried writing songs, so of course I have to go and try it.”

When the others heard this response, they were shocked, and felt that somehow Lu Xu did make some sense.

It was as if when they filled in the forms, they only considered their own strengths and weaknesses so that they could do well in the second public performance.

Only Lu Xu was different, he didn’t even consider the pros and cons of his ranking, instead he chose to interact with this unfamiliar thing. It could be said that amongst all these people, only Lu Xu was here to enjoy the competition.

However, though they felt that he was right, no one wanted to try composition.

It was already the elimination phase, and every performance would impact their popularity. Lu Xu was the most popular, but the others were different.

Very quickly, the staff members had collected all the forms, not announcing it on the spot.

“The two instructors for our vocal team will arrive at the apartment tomorrow to participate in the recording, until then we’ll collate everyone’s forms and then split you into groups according to the instructors’ opinions.”

“Sigh! We still have to wait until tomorrow, won’t this just make me anxious the entire night?”

“There’s no helping it. It seems like the vocal group will be filled to the brim, when the time comes the instructors will definitely choose the trainees based on their own opinion. Now, they’re not here, so there’s really no way to decide.”

“It doesn’t matter which group I go to, as long as it’s not the composition one. It already sounds difficult, if I go there then it’s definitely a game over.”

“Don’t you think it’s strange that Lu Xu chose the composition group? Could it be that it’s because Nian ge is in that team, after all their relationship is so good…”

“I also think it’s possible, the two of them are a duo, I feel like the new CP fans must be so excited that they could pass out.”

“Hahaha, I saw a “JiXu CP” fan edit online, don’t even talk about that, it was quite catchy…”

…

They weren’t talking very loudly, but because they were bored and for no other reason, they didn’t try to control their volume.

Ji Xiunian, who hadn’t left yet, heard it and he didn’t feel repulsed, he just remembered the weird combo “Ji Xu CP”.

Netizens loved pairings, and there was a whole group of people who sincerely shipped it.

Ji Xiunian and Lu Xu initially didn’t have that kind of couple feel, but the DR advertisement was too classic and people couldn’t help but imagine it. In addition to Ji Xiuniain even personally mentioning Lu Xu, never mind the rest, at least the involved parties didn’t hate that they were in a CP.

It was also because of this that in the short span of a day, the “Ji Xu CP” had quickly gone viral. A lot of netizens were following the supertopic, and the talented ones even edited videos of them together, just in time to get popular during the hype of these two.

Ji Xiunian himself didn’t really like being put into pairings, but now he was a bit curious to see this fan edit that the netizens had put together.

When he got back to his room, Ji Xiunian took out his phone to download the app, then he noticed that the CP video of him and Lu Xu was even in his recommended page.

Before he had the chance to watch it, there was a knock on his door and the sound of Lu Xu’s voice. “Nian ge, are you there?”

Ji Xiunian immediately placed his phone screen side down on the couch, then got up to open the door for Lu Xu.

“Meow…” Ba Mei made the first noise from where it was in Lu Xu’s arms, and when it saw Ji Xiunian it was beyond excited. Ba Mei struggled to jump off and rubbed itself against Ji Xiunian’s calf, then sprinted towards its buffet corner.

No one could tell whether it felt closer to Ji Xiunian or to the cans of food.

“Instructor Ji.” Lu Xu wasn’t the only one standing by the doorway, there was also Tao Yingbo with a complicated expression on his face.

When he learned that Qu Dehui was also coming to participate in the show recording, Tao Yinbo felt very complicated. Every time he thought about this person, he felt both hateful and helpless.

He had fantasized so many times about receiving justice, but the only thing that awaited him was disappointment and impossibility.

But it was different this time. With Lu Xu and Ji Xiunian here, everything would change for sure.