TL: Hua
“Okay.”
Lin Yanran’s voice spread to every corner of the venue.
Seeing his confidence, all the spectators turned their attention to him.
There was doubt, and there was confusion.
This was clearly a competition where the outcome was known before it even began, yet he sounded so confident. Wasn’t he afraid of being humiliated on the spot later?
Feeling the skeptical gazes on his back, Lin Yanran lifted his chin slightly and looked at the stage with determination.
The large screen went black for a moment, then began to play their group’s VCR.
Each group’s post-production team gave their VCR a name, and their group was called “Laughter and Tears.”
The video started with the same old cliché as the other groups.
The post-production team first edited together clips of the trainees from their group who had initially chosen other mentors.
Then the camera angle changed and the scene’s color tone brightened.
Appearing on the big screen first was a signing pen.
Just as everyone was wondering why a signing pen was worth filming, a pair of fair, slender hands also came into view.
Those hands then held the pen and began to sketch on a white piece of paper, stroke by stroke.
Soon, a cute chibi character came to life on the paper.
Sharp-eyed fans in the audience immediately shouted out the name of the trainee.
[Xia Xingxing!! It’s Xia Xingxing!! Ahhh, this chibi Xia Xingxing is so cute!]
Accompanied by the fans’ screams, another chibi character appeared on the paper.
[Ahhh, hahaha, Ji Shuai, Ji Shuai, you’re so cute!]
After two close-ups of the chibi characters, the post-production sped up the footage. In just a few seconds, all fifteen chibi characters were shown.
After watching, the audience belatedly realized that the chibi characters they had just seen were all trainees from Lin Yanran’s group.
Who was so idle that they drew stick figures for all fifteen people? And they were actually drawn quite well and were very expressive.
This question was on everyone’s mind.
Fortunately, the post-production team didn’t intend to keep everyone in suspense. In the next second, the camera panned up from the beautiful hands.
A black patterned shirt, a limited-edition silver-white necklace, slightly upturned lips, dense and long eyelashes…
Finally, the camera stopped, and Lin Yanran’s face appeared directly on the big screen.
His facial features were magnified countless times by the high-definition camera, so clear that even the pores on his face were visible.
Seeing that flawless and delicate face, like that of a doll, many people who disliked Lin Yanran and had never properly looked at him before instantly gasped.
[Has he always been this handsome?]
[Although his character isn’t great, he’s always been good-looking.]
[Yeah, actually, the white shirt today also looks so good on him. He looks both well-behaved and handsome.]
[Ahhh, what beautiful eyes. I declare Yanran my wife and demand a cuddle right now.]
[Please, Yanran, just be a beautiful vase! As long as you don’t stir up trouble, I’ll always be a fan of your face.]
The post-production team for Lin Yanran’s group was clearly very good at stirring things up.
They inserted two small videos at the very edge of the screen.
One was Lin Yanran talking to the camera when he first entered Room 4: Is it just me in the room? So I have to be in jail for three hours?
The second clip showed the crowded Room 3 with Pei Luo and the trainees screaming.
A text box was placed in the middle of the screen: “At this time, a large number of trainees have already chosen their mentors, while Yanran ‘has nothing.'”
When the audience saw the subtitles, they instantly realized that halfway through the show’s recording, no trainee had chosen Lin Yanran.
Then Yanran’s room door was knocked on.
The audience’s reaction was just as real as Lin Yanran’s back then.
[No way, no one would be so crazy as to choose Yanran as a mentor, right…]
Just as this thought came up, when they saw Gu Siyue walk in, the entire audience couldn’t help but scream.
Gu Siyue: “How do you feel?”
Lin Yanran: “To be honest, it’s okay. I’m ready to pick up some hidden gems.”
[Pick up hidden gems? Hahaha, so he knows that no one will choose him?]
[It seems Yanran is quite self-aware, LOL.]
[I haven’t seen such a self-aware mentor in a long time.]
Gu Siyue’s scene only appeared for a few seconds. After he left the room, the post-production team split the screen into two.
The left side showed Lin Yanran’s empty and lonely room.
The right side simultaneously broadcasted the scenes of his future trainees being eliminated by other mentors.
The comparison between the left and right was so stark that anyone who saw it would have to say it was truly pitiful.
Even Lin Yanran’s haters felt a pang of sympathy.
[Stirring things up, stirring things up!]
[Yanran: Post-production team, what about my dignity?]
Soon, the mischievous post-production team deliberately made a note in a corner of Lin Yanran’s room, with a caption: “There’s a surprise here.”
So in the next second, the audience saw Lu Xiaomeng being eliminated by Tangtang in the video on the right.
But Lin Yanran found a practice exam book from the corner that the post-production team had marked!
After that.
Gao Yu was eliminated by Han Zhe while Lin Yanran buried his head to solve the problems.
Lu Tianlang was asked to leave the group by Pei Luo while Lin Yanran was writing furiously, already on the third set of questions.
[Hahahaha, where did he find a practice exam book?]
[Now I finally understand why the post-production team specifically played the clip of him saying he was in jail for three hours.]
[So was he drawing to pass the time too? No wonder he could draw all fifteen trainees. He must have been so bored!]
[It really is like being in jail, hahaha.]
[Yanran: I’ve been driven crazy and am frantically doing practice problems to pass the difficult time.]
[Hahaha, he did three sets of practice problems. He’s a tough one.]
[The scene where no one chose Yanran should be very miserable, but why do I find it so funny?]
[He’s so interesting, help, I kind of like him now.]
The haters who were waiting for Lin Yanran to be humiliated for not being chosen, upon seeing him gaining so much goodwill through this bizarre behavior, immediately jumped in to “educate” everyone.
[This must be scripted. Yanran didn’t even graduate from high school. Can he understand English?]
[He’s just putting on a show. He’s probably just randomly picking A, B, C, or D.]
Someone on the screen immediately retorted: [I clearly saw him even write the essay at the end, and his handwriting is quite nice.]
Just as the haters and the public in the live stream were debating whether Lin Yanran could actually do the problems, the scene had already changed several times.
Now it was playing a clip of him giving up on the problems and getting bored, starting to play with a Rubik’s Cube.
The speed of the footage also sped up.
The remaining group members were eliminated by other mentors for various reasons while Lin Yanran had scrambled and reassembled his Rubik’s Cube countless times.
Just as everyone was wondering where Lin Yanran found so many strange little gadgets, the classic scene arrived.
Xia Xingxing voluntarily chose Lin Yanran and looked at him expectantly.
“Teacher Yanran, please don’t kick me out, on the account that I’ve been a fan of yours for six years.”
Lin Yanran ruthlessly crushed his dreams and brought him back to reality.
“Little Xingxing, I advise you to immediately remove your fan-filter and face reality. You’re probably the only one in the whole audience who thinks I’m popular.”
The audience in the hall and the viewers in the live stream could no longer hold back.
The comments in the live stream were filled with “hahahahaha.”
[Before this VCR, I never thought this group would be so funny.]
[Xia Xingxing is too cute.]
[LOL, is Yanran a comedian?]
[I thought their group would be very depressed.]
Just as the audience was roaring with laughter, the video’s mood took a sudden turn.
The director announced the rules to everyone.
Then they found out the group was going to compete against Pei Luo’s group and had also drawn the worst song, “Not Me”…
Every trainee’s face was filled with despair.
The audience, who hadn’t yet recovered from the shift in mood from comical to disheartened, suffered another blow.
The clock at the top of the video, placed by the post-production team, jumped from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
And the trainees in this group, lacking guidance from a mentor and having vastly different styles, were all like headless chickens.
The lyric distribution was a mess, and the dance practice was a complete disaster.
Lu Xiaomeng couldn’t manage to sing the high note he was given.
Xia Xingxing was huddled in a corner, his limbs uncoordinated and his movements completely unorganized.
Unlike other groups, there were no arguments over highlighted lyrics or disagreements over a single movement, nor was there the expected fight for the center position.
But their state was more heartbreaking than a loud argument from another group.
At least with an argument, people were talking. In their group, there wasn’t even anyone willing to speak up.
At first, a few trainees were willing to practice the song.
But later, they couldn’t get it right, so they gradually gave up.
By the evening, there was no sound in the practice room except for the music.
They didn’t speak. Each person occupied a small area, quietly practicing the dance alone, over and over, following the video with stiff movements.
Their faces showed no signs of life, like soulless puppets waiting to be casually slaughtered by fate.
The atmosphere in the entire practice room was terrifyingly oppressive. Even through the screen, the audience felt suffocated.
The last part of the video showed the trainees presenting the day’s practice to Lin Yanran after he arrived.
In the clip, they had spent the same amount of time as the other groups, who were already able to perform the full song and dance.
But their group hadn’t even finished learning the dance moves. Many couldn’t even remember the lyrics and could only awkwardly hold their lyric books, shuffling in place to the music, barely making it through the entire song.
As the final beat of the music ended, Fan Xiang collapsed to the floor.
He stared at the ceiling, a tear sliding from the corner of his eye.
“Can we really finish this performance…?”
“I feel like I can’t keep going…”
“I can’t see any hope…”
“I’m sorry…”
With Fan Xiang’s whispered apology, the big screen went dark.
A line of text appeared in the center of the video:
Facing adversity, can they successfully complete their stage performance?
Many viewers replayed this sentence in their minds, feeling a lump in their throats.
The more they had laughed in the beginning of the VCR, the sadder they felt by the end.
In other groups’ stories, no matter how much conflict there was in the beginning, the audience could at least see them improving little by little, giving them something to look forward to.
But with this group, the more they watched, the more helpless and hopeless they felt.
The fans of the fifteen trainees in this group felt heartbroken and were on the verge of tears.
[Aren’t trainees supposed to be positive and never give up? Why are they so demoralized?]
[Because their song is difficult, their foundation is poor, and their mentor is useless.]
[If they had a capable mentor, it wouldn’t be like this. Just thinking about them scurrying around in the practice room like headless chickens is pitiful…]
[The first day was a total mess. I don’t know how they made it through the next two days.]
[The performance is about to start. I wondered if they had mastered the dance move.]
[I thought this Yanran guy was quite interesting before, but now I finally understand why everyone dislikes him.]
[Useless Yanran, whoever gets him is out of luck.]
[My baby is so pitiful.]
—
After the video finished, the entire venue fell silent.
The silence was broken only when the host’s voice rang out.
“The VCR has finished playing. I’m sure everyone now has some idea of the group that’s about to perform. Now, let’s take a look at the real-time rankings and audience anticipation for this group of trainees.”
The real-time rankings and anticipation were a deliberate mind-game segment arranged by the show’s producers.
Before each group went on stage, they would display the vote rankings for each trainee as of midnight that day.
At the same time, they would also announce the real-time audience anticipation for the four groups’ performances tonight.
As soon as the host’s words fell, the rankings of the 15 trainees from Lin Yanran’s group flashed on the big screen.
The highest-ranked was Ji Shuai, at 41st. Xia Xingxing and Lu Tianlang were ranked 43rd and 45th.
Only these three from the entire group were barely holding on to the top 45 spots needed to advance.
They were all “gatekeepers,” the type that could easily be surpassed at any moment.
The other twelve trainees were not so lucky; their rankings were all outside the top 50, making them complete elimination candidates.
After the real-time rankings were shown, the audience anticipation for their group was also immediately revealed.
Four pink bar graphs appeared on the screen, showing the real-time audience anticipation for Lin Yanran’s group at 6%.
Next to it, their opponents, Pei Luo’s group, had an anticipation rate of 48%, the highest of all.
6% against 48%—it wasn’t even a fraction of the other’s score.
