“Again.”

“Still not quite right. One more time.”

After several reminders from the recording engineer, the members finally gave a wry smile.
“Teacher, can we take a moment to work it out ourselves?”

The EP recording had started off smoothly. The entire record had four tracks—Crown had already been performed at the Greenlime Music Festival. Of the remaining three, Savage leaned rock, and Reckless was a dance track. The members had expected those two to be the most difficult.

Surprisingly, both tracks passed after just a few takes.

The real problem was the final ballad: Summer Bloom.

To be fair, after weeks of intensive post-debut training, CROWN’s vocals had levelled up significantly since their Battle of the Stars days. In Crown, they’d shown excellent vocal coordination and smart part distribution.

But… Summer Bloom just felt off whenever they tried singing it together. Individually, each part sounded fine. But in harmony—it simply didn’t work.

They had already spent three or four days on this single track.

“What exactly is going wrong?”

With the song still unresolved, tension hung thick in the air of the recording booth.

The lessons they’d learned from Crown didn’t seem to apply to Summer Bloom. They tried chasing that same energy and emotion, but it still didn’t click.

They’d combed through the sheet music so many times it was practically worn thin. Gu Yi, ironically the one with the least music theory knowledge in the group, had picked up a fair bit after being ground down by this song for days.

“We’ll just have to take it slow.”

They stepped out of the studio for some air, leaning against a shady wall, quietly thinking.

While Gu Yi was lost in thought, something cool tapped his forehead. He looked up to find Ji Chi handing him a popsicle.

“Thanks,” Gu Yi mumbled, sticking it in his mouth and going right back to brooding.

The recording engineer hadn’t said they lacked vocal skills, and their condition wasn’t bad either.

“Feeling” was a vague, slippery thing.

But because it was so intangible, so hard to put into words—that made it even harder to fix.

The six of them finished their popsicles in a few bites. Then Yang Ting sighed, “I want a Coke.”

“I want watermelon.”

Their manager Yuan Cheng wasn’t especially strict with them, but Yang Ting had a body type that gained weight easily—if he wasn’t careful, he could put on several kilos just like that. The others didn’t have to watch their diets as closely, but Yang Ting did.

“It’s summer! We should be eating watermelon and drinking soda!”

“Have you ever heard of Orange Soda by Summer Band?” Ji Chi suddenly asked.

Gu Yi nodded.

“You’ve actually heard it? I’m shocked.”

Gu Yi gave Yang Ting a look. “I’m not allowed to?”

“…No, that’s fine.”

Despite being CROWN’s centre, Gu Yi couldn’t match his teammates in idol or music industry knowledge. The others were used to him saying “Never heard of it” or “Don’t know them,” so hearing him recognize Orange Soda was genuinely surprising.

In truth, Gu Yi had been expanding his playlist ever since joining CROWN. But that particular track? It had actually been in the original Gu Yi’s playlist. He’d kept it.

“Let’s listen to it again.”

“Still a bop!”

Summer Band had gotten famous early on. True to their name, their style was hot and vibrant like the season itself—sun-tanned skin, loud Hawaiian shirts, the kind of group you’d expect to jet off to the beach any second.

Orange Soda was breezy, refreshing, upbeat—just bright, feel-good music that made your body move without thinking.

“So now I’m wondering… maybe we’ve been going about this all wrong?” Ji Chi said. “The song’s called Summer Bloom, but do we actually sound like summer?”

“Zheng Yanlin’s After We Parted is a summer song too,” Liu Junyuan added. “Every time I hear Summer Bloom, I picture her MV—cicadas, sunlight, popsicles…”

That made everyone pause.

When they’d recorded Summer Bloom, they’d focused on conveying emotional depth. But now that they thought about it, maybe what the song needed was more heat—more vivid, blazing colour.

“I’ll think on it some more.”

They remained crouched in that shady corner.

It was midday, and summer’s sun was relentless. Even under shelter, just a step toward the light made the air feel like it was burning. The dust was dry. The cicadas screamed in the trees.

Gu Yi frowned, silently replaying the melody and lyrics of Summer Bloom, accidentally finishing another popsicle without even realizing it.

How do you make it feel hot?

Liu Junyuan started humming the intro again. Maybe Ji Chi’s comments had hit home, because this time, his tone had something new.

That subtle shift in the opening changed the rest of the performance, too.

They weren’t in a recording booth—acoustically, the space was terrible—but by the time they reached the end of the song, they knew.

That was the feeling.

“All hail the popsicle.”

“Praise the Stick Sect.”

Gu Yi: “…”

Anything can be a cult now, huh?

Anyway—on their next try, they finally heard something from the engineer that wasn’t “Again.”

Of course, one good take wasn’t enough. But now that they’d found the vibe, they started sculpting Summer Bloom more precisely. Every line had to be balanced, while still showing CROWN’s unique tone.

All told, Summer Bloom alone took five full days to record.

“Completely wrecked.”

“Brother Yuan, please don’t book us anything else right now. I beg.”

He Zhao sighed. “I thought making an EP would be faster than this.”

In his mind, idols from his company who joined limited groups would usually release an EP within two weeks. A full album might take a month, ten songs straight to streaming platforms.

But now that they were actually doing it themselves, it felt like clearing a video game—with boss battles after every checkpoint. Between recording and training, each day left them completely drained.

Still, once the recordings were done, the EP release wouldn’t be far off.

…

Gu Yi received a private parcel.

CROWN had a designated space for fan letters. From the start, the team had made it clear: they would accept handwritten letters—no gifts.

They’d assumed fan letters would be few and far between—but the fans’ enthusiasm far exceeded expectations.

During CROWN’s quiet first month after debut, the volume of mail was modest. But ever since their performance of Crown at the Greenlime Music Festival, even their designated storage room was running out of space.

The team had to go scavenging through libraries for extra bookshelves and began organizing fan mail by date. Every week, they posted a scanned image of a member’s reply—which only fuelled the fans’ excitement further. The letters kept coming, and piling up.

But today’s delivery wasn’t from a fan.

He had a hunch. And sure enough—

—It was the latest issue of Chemistry and Life magazine.

There’d been no rejection email in his inbox, so it seemed like his article had made it into this issue.

He’d submitted to Chemistry and Life because the journal didn’t charge authors and even paid a modest honorarium. Magazines like that usually had higher quality standards.

It also had a quick turnaround. If he’d submitted elsewhere, he might still be stuck in the queue.

Gu Yi quietly flipped open the magazine.

His article leaned more toward practical, everyday chemistry—Chemistry and Life had a section specifically for real-world chemical applications. Even so, when he submitted, he hadn’t held out much hope.

But it got in.

Out of habit, Gu Yi snapped a photo of the printed piece and sent it to his manager Yuan Cheng—along with a casual question: “Can this count toward a professional title evaluation?”

He only remembered afterward—he was under contract with an entertainment company now. Title evaluations didn’t really apply.

Yuan Cheng: “…”

Jiangshi TV used to be a subsidiary of a traditional TV station, so in the past, title assessments were a thing—mostly for anchors and broadcast engineers.

He skimmed Gu Yi’s article and thought, the only way this ties into broadcast work is if he built a bomb and blew up the studio.

After reading his own paper, Gu Yi didn’t stop—he sat down and read the entire issue cover to cover.

Honestly, writing a paper was excruciating. The only real joy came in the fleeting moment you held the printed copy in your hands.

His teammates couldn’t care less about that joy.

To be precise, the moment they saw the cover of Chemistry and Life, they lost all interest in its contents.

If they had to sum up Gu Yi in one word, it would be: deranged.

How did he not fear his CPU melting?

While the rest of CROWN was already buried in work—recording, training, promotions—this guy was off being a community culture ambassador, memorizing film scripts, and writing research papers.

According to Gu Yi, he’d written the paper while studying the script.

Is that something a human says?

Go overachieve somewhere else, man. Leave the planet.

…

After receiving the magazine, Gu Yi tucked it away. The paper had been a byproduct of reading the A Letter on My Desk script. If asked to write another, unless it was purely theoretical, he probably couldn’t manage it.

Chemistry was still, after all, a highly experimental science.

A few days later, Gu Yi had already forgotten all about the magazine.

But—there was more than one Li Yu in the world.

It must’ve been another fan from a chemistry background who happened to spot Chemistry and Life in a bookstore or library. Because overnight, marketing accounts everywhere started pushing headlines:

【Gu Yi publishes in Chemistry and Life! 】

Sun Youming, reading the article: “…”

Honestly, he just wanted Gu Yi to familiarize himself with the script. No one had said anything about writing a paper.

Fans: “…”

【“AHHH help, why is Teacher Gu always shining in fields where I’m completely useless?” 】
【“I imagined Gu Yi bald and scratching his head like I do when I write papers… suddenly, I’m no longer in love.” 】
【“Please protect your hairline, Teacher Gu!” 】
【“It’s fine. Teacher Gu won’t go bald until at least thirty. And even then, with that face, he’ll still be a hot bald guy.” 】
【“But a hot bald guy is still… bald. No thanks.” 】

Papers were serious business, and a lot of fans weren’t emotionally ready to face that. Just like they’d rather not acknowledge that Gu Yi also taught civil service exam prep on the side.

But baldness?

Someone—no one knows who—started it. And soon fans were Photoshopping mockups of Gu Yi’s future bald look.

The rest of the fandom and Gu Yi himself: “…”

First of all, he wasn’t bald.

Whoever made those edits was definitely a hater.

Gu Yi didn’t consider himself vain, but as someone who’d spent years working in research, hair loss was a terrifying prospect.

Even worse than being born unattractive.

Because if you’re ugly, you never knew anything else.

But if you go bald, it means you once had luscious hair… and lost it.

After some reflection, Gu Yi decided he should probably slow down—for the sake of his hairline.

【“So, if Teacher Gu can write chemistry papers, why is he still giving civil service lectures?” 】
【“Because… the provincial exam had no open positions?” 】
【“My useless major just got another bullet. My classmates all joined pharma companies, and here I am, stuck grinding the ‘three-no-restrictions’ frontline…”】

Fans were starting to realize: stanning Gu Yi meant getting your self-esteem repeatedly wrecked.

That day, Gu Yi received a flood of private messages.

Most of his DMs fell into three categories:

1. Asking him to be more active on Weibo.
2. Begging for more provincial civil service exam prep.
3. Now: asking him to help review their academic papers.

One fan messaged:

“My thesis was literally on this topic. Thank god I graduated in June. Praise be.”

Oh—and one more.

An anti-hair-loss shampoo brand messaged him asking if he’d be interested in being their spokesperson.

Gu Yi quietly marked it as false advertising, with the reason:

“I am not bald. The ad assumes I am, which is misleading to consumers…”