Chapter 31

As soon as Shen Huaixi said this, even the contestants who had nervously formed five-person groups hoping their mentor wouldn’t pick them and give them a “crazy” team, showed subtle changes in their expressions.

Everyone looked at Shen Huaixi in confusion, feeling that his last question to Su Xingyao seemed… a bit rude.

Although his reasoning sounded impressive, the fact was, he had given them such a terrible team.

Fine, he gave them the team, but then he had to stab them in the back with that final comment.

What did he want to hear from the “Cat Cat”? Did he expect a “thank you”?

Once Shen Huaixi spoke, the atmosphere on stage became awkward. Many contestants exchanged looks, unable to say anything.

Even Fu Qingyan, who usually defended Shen Huaixi, couldn’t help but glance at him.

Besides Fu Qingyan, Sheng Yan, as the mentor, immediately sensed something was off and took a few steps forward, trying to help Su Xingyao out of the situation.

But Su Xingyao didn’t need anyone’s help. Instead, he actively turned on his microphone.

His lips curled up slightly, and he politely spoke.

“Thank you, Mentor Shen.”

After saying this politely, Su Xingyao shifted his gaze to his four teammates. His tone was calm, and there was no sign of being upset over the team arrangement.

“I’ve always sung solo before, but this time, I’m really looking forward to collaborating with so many talented singers in our new group.”

Su Xingyao’s response was polite and magnanimous, while also considering the feelings of the other contestants.

Although his face was hidden by the headgear, everyone could tell from his calm voice that he wasn’t bothered by Shen Huaixi’s team arrangement.

After finishing his words, he even took the initiative to walk over to his four teammates, standing side by side with them.

It was like a fist hitting cotton.

Shen Huaixi, feeling awkward, could only force a smile and give a thumbs-up to Su Xingyao’s back.

However, his tone wasn’t as friendly.

“Then you go ahead and do your best.”

Not “you all”, but just “you”.

Su Xingyao didn’t turn around, nor did he respond to Shen Huaixi’s provocation.

Instead, he lowered his head to adjust his costume and stood quietly on the stage.

In fact, Su Xingyao wasn’t completely unprepared for Shen Huaixi’s sudden attack.

He had known for a long time that Shen Huaixi’s mind was sharper than a needle, and that he always fought for everything.

When Su Xingyao was first recognized as a member of the Shen family, Qin Mingchuan, who had just turned 18, had just gotten his driver’s license.

The day after getting his license, Qin Mingchuan started driving his flashy sports car around their school every day.

He would always show up right on time after evening study sessions, inventing all sorts of ridiculous excuses to try to take Su Xingyao to the Shen family home.

Once, Shen Huaixi caught Su Xingyao getting out of Qin Mingchuan’s sports car, and the next day, Qin Mingchuan mysteriously twisted his ankle at school.

After that, Qin Mingchuan’s passenger seat was always occupied by Shen Huaixi, and Qin Mingchuan stopped coming to find Su Xingyao for a long time.

At that time, Su Xingyao was completely focused on his studies and had no interest in Qin Mingchuan or his ^[1]“seven-figure” amount refers to a number that has seven digits, typically in the context of money. For example, it refers to an amount between 1,000,000 and 9,999,999.seven-figure sports car.

In fact, he had only ever ridden in the car twice.

Yet, even so, Shen Huaixi couldn’t stand it. He wasn’t sure what he said to Qin Mingchuan, but after that, Qin Mingchuan never drove the car again, nor did he let Su Xingyao sit in the passenger seat of any other car.

Soon after, Shen Huaixi invited him to ride bicycles together, and, strangely enough, Su Xingyao got injured.

Qin Mingchuan, of course, naturally blamed Su Xingyao for pushing Shen Huaixi.

Su Xingyao wasn’t the kind of person who only cared about studying the classics. He had read some online novels too.

In the novels he had encountered, even though the protagonists had many flaws, at least their character wasn’t a major issue.

But he realized Shen Huaixi seemed to be an exception.

It wasn’t that he had a tendency to fight and compete for everything, but he certainly didn’t use underhanded means to get what he wanted.

Yet, strangely enough, these clumsy tactics of his always managed to deceive everyone.

No one suspected him. In fact, everyone liked him, believing that whatever he did was excusable, even when he made mistakes, because they saw him as a pure person with no ill intentions.

Thinking of this, Su Xingyao lowered his gaze.

This must be the effect of the protagonist’s halo, with the world’s will forcing everyone to view him through an eight-hundredfold filter.

Just like when he hadn’t picked enough people for his team, Fu Qingyan had shamelessly changed the competition rules to help him select five people.

—

The incident with the team selection quickly passed.

But the remaining contestants and mentors still felt uneasy, afraid that Shen Huaixi might suddenly go crazy again and form teams of six, seven, or eight people.

Fortunately, soon after, he seemed to return to normal, as if he realized that more people didn’t necessarily mean better, and that the key was in matching the right styles. After that, he didn’t cause any more chaos and formed groups of three according to the rules of the other three mentors.

Half an hour later, when the teams were finally formed, the contestants let out a collective sigh of relief.

They then looked at the unlucky Su Xingyao with great sympathy.

He was universally recognized as the strongest contestant, yet Shen Huaixi, an outsider, had assigned him to a mismatched team with an odd combination of styles.

Contestant 77 was fine, someone with strong overall abilities could work with anyone.

But the rest—there were a rapper and a historical costume influencer—had styles that were worlds apart, and one of them was even a weak link.

The other contestants couldn’t imagine how this cat-headed big shot with such a powerful voice would manage to drag the team forward.

After the team assignments, the group recording session for the day ended, and the remaining time was for each mentor to guide their team in selecting songs.

Without the group recording, Fu Qingyan no longer had any recording tasks.

However, he didn’t leave. Instead, he knocked on the door of Shen Huaixi’s dressing room.

“Come in.”

Shen Huaixi’s cold voice echoed through the room.

When Fu Qingyan pushed open the door and walked over to him, he immediately realized that it wasn’t his assistant who had entered. Shen Huaixi’s lips curled into a smile.

Fu Qingyan handed Shen Huaixi the milk tea that his assistant had specially bought for him.

It was Shen Huaixi’s favorite flavor.

Noticing that Shen Huaixi seemed somewhat distracted, Fu Qingyan gently asked, “Are you tired?”

“Mm,” Shen Huaixi happily took a sip of the milk tea.

But after that one sip, he set the rest of the large cup aside and didn’t touch it again.

Shen Huaixi rubbed his shoulder and complained, “I’m so exhausted from recording today… mentally and physically drained.”

Fu Qingyan seamlessly picked up on his words and asked, “Is it because of the team selection?”

Shen Huaixi was texting Xu Beizhou, asking him to help select songs for the contestants he had picked, so he didn’t pay much attention to Fu Qingyan’s question and just nodded absently.

Fu Qingyan stayed silent for several seconds.

After the sudden rule change earlier, he had apologized to every mentor.

Especially Sheng Yan—he could tell that Shen Huaixi had taken a lot of heat today.

Originally, Fu Qingyan had planned to talk to the five-person group that Shen Huaixi had assigned, but in the end, he decided to speak with Shen Huaixi first.

“Huaixi, about the No. 78 group…”

Fu Qingyan decided to ask for Shen Huaixi’s opinion directly. “What made you think to form them like that?”

When Shen Huaixi heard Fu Qingyan bring up the No. 78 group again, his mood instantly soured. He had already been displeased with Fu Qingyan’s excessive attention to them.

He put down his phone, propped his chin up with one hand, and innocently said, “I just thought it would be more fun if they were grouped together.”

Upon hearing this reason, Fu Qingyan seemed hesitant, as if he wanted to say something but held back.

Finally, he spoke up, “Huaixi, have you ever considered…”

He gently reminded him.

“This stage might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some contestants. In a sense, the way you arrange the teams will decide their fate moving forward.”

Hearing the implied criticism in Fu Qingyan’s words, Shen Huaixi’s smile faded, and his mood darkened.

“So?” he replied.

Fu Qingyan sighed but ultimately refrained from voicing his reproach.

“I just think… sometimes, you don’t have to be so headstrong.”

Shen Huaixi smiled indifferently, but then turned the criticism back onto Fu Qingyan.

“Qingyan, sometimes you’re just too concerned about others. We’re just here to record a show. The contestants’ fates aren’t something we can control. There are so many of them—can you look after each one individually? Someone has to be eliminated.”

After saying that, he realized his words had been a bit too harsh and quickly tried to explain himself. “Besides, by arranging them this way, I’m actually giving them more exposure and topics to talk about…”

For some reason, tonight the air was thick with damp humidity.

Fu Qingyan was slightly irritated, no longer wanting to listen to Shen Huaixi’s evasions. He asked bluntly, “Is that really true?”

Shen Huaixi, who had already been annoyed by Fu Qingyan questioning him over and over again because of strangers, grew cold.

“Qingyan, are you really blaming me for the team arrangement?”

“Or is it because I put your favorite, Cat, in that group?”

Shen Huaixi smiled.

“But can you really blame me? Isn’t all of this his own choice?”

“He chose Sheng Yan, and Sheng Yan’s team… was already full of all kinds of strange people. It wouldn’t have mattered who he was placed with.”

Fu Qingyan had intended to say more to Shen Huaixi, but seeing that the other man was busy looking at his phone and showing no remorse for the difficult position he’d put the contestants in today, he ultimately decided to stay silent.

After knowing him for so many years, at this moment, Fu Qingyan suddenly felt like he didn’t quite understand him anymore.

He looked up, and Shen Huaixi’s face began to blur in his eyes.

He realized that the young man who had rushed into a burning building to save him when he was 18 seemed to have changed over the years, as if time had slowly altered him.

While Shen Huaixi was comfortably leaving the task of selecting songs for his group to Xu Beizhou, Sheng Yan had been tossing and turning all night, unable to sleep.

Among the four teams he was managing, he wasn’t too worried about the other three, apart from Su Xingyao’s team.

Although none of the members in the other teams were perfect fits for each other, the groups were at least reasonably matched. They each had their own distinct style, and there were plenty of songs suitable for them.

The real challenge lay with the five-person group.

More specifically, with their rapper and the traditional-style singer.

These two singers weren’t as versatile as the others. Apart from having weaker vocal abilities, their vocal ranges were also quite narrow.

They could sing other pop songs, but the result wouldn’t be great.

Having spent the entire night agonizing over the song selection, Sheng Yan arrived at the practice room designated for his team in the recording building the next morning, with clear dark circles under his eyes.

Seeing Sheng Yan in such a fatigued state, contestant 77 asked, “Mentor, don’t tell me you stayed up all night…”

Sheng Yan weakly nodded, “Pretty much.”

After that, he turned and instructed his assistant to bring in the computer he had brought and set it up.

“Let’s not talk about that for now. We need to finalize the song. The program team only gave us three days to prepare.”

At first, the idol trainee who specialized in singing and dancing didn’t quite understand. “What?”

Sheng Yan clarified, “In three days, we’ll have our first live performance…”

Upon hearing this, the other contestants nearly lost it.

“Three days???”

“What kind of crazy timeline is this…”

While the others were in shock, Su Xingyao remained silent.

In fact, Su Xingyao had already thought about the time issue right after the recording yesterday.

Previously, the program team had always released updates on Saturday evenings at 8 o’clock.

The director of this show had a tendency to set extreme time limits for tasks, forcing the contestants to complete them under pressure.

At this moment, Su Xingyao wondered if they would have the competition this Saturday.

But by the time they were recording yesterday, it was already Thursday, and he thought that with Saturday being so close, they probably wouldn’t arrange such a tight schedule.

However, to his surprise, they had decided to push the live broadcast to Sunday…

Thinking about this, Su Xingyao realized that he had been too naive…

Since the time was so short, and he already had an answer in his mind, he still asked Sheng Yan a very important question.

“Does today count?”

Sheng Yan had only mentioned “three days,” but hadn’t specified which days or times the live broadcast would be, so this detail was crucial!

Sheng Yan paused his movements, his eyes a little dazed from lack of sleep, and looked at Su Xingyao.

After a few seconds, he replied, “Of course it counts…”

The other contestants, after hearing this, fell silent, their mood completely drained.

The rapper, glancing at the time on the wall and realizing there was little time left, sighed, “No wonder I saw the other team practicing at 5 AM this morning…”

Contestant 77 added, “They probably decided on their songs last night.”

Hearing that other teams were so ahead of schedule, the traditional-style singer, who realized it was his own delays that were holding everyone back, quickly apologized, “I’ve really slowed everyone down… I’m sorry, sorry.”

As the other contestant bowed deeply, his head lowered in apology, Su Xingyao, who was standing right next to him, quickly helped him up and comforted him, “We’re all on the same team. No one is holding anyone back.”

Although Su Xingyao had a voice modulator on, his tone was gentle.

The traditional singer felt a little better after hearing that Su Xingyao didn’t mind him.

“We’re running out of time. Our group is the only one whose song hasn’t been decided yet. We need to choose a song now.”

After speaking, Sheng Yan switched the computer screen to show the songs he had tentatively chosen for the contestants.

After staying up all night, he had barely managed to pick out four songs for them.

The rules of the show were pretty extreme too.

To promote better teamwork between the mentors and the contestants, the songs the contestants performed had to either be songs by their mentor or ones chosen by the mentor.

Contestants weren’t allowed to independently discuss and choose their songs. They could only select from the song list provided by their mentor.

Sheng Yan knew that the songs he had performed as an idol were not suitable for these contestants, so he had to choose songs by other artists for them overnight.

Once the songs were on screen, he immediately played them one by one for everyone.

Ten minutes later, the first three songs had played.

Sheng Yan looked at everyone. “What do you think?”

After he asked, the contestants all looked a little uneasy.

The styles of these songs are quite diverse and inclusive, but overall, they can only be described as barely suitable, because each song has one or two singers it doesn’t quite match with, so they’re not really the best fit for this group.

As the contestants hesitated, contestant 77 focused on the last song with a foreign name that Sheng Yan had selected.

“Mentor Sheng, why didn’t you play the last song?”

“This song…” Sheng Yan glanced at the song title, paused for a few seconds, and then said, “Maybe it’s not suitable.”

But after thinking for a moment, Sheng Yan decided it was better to let everyone hear it first. “But you can listen to it first. If it works, I’ll figure something out.”

After speaking, Sheng Yan clicked on the title of the last song.

Soon, a light and upbeat melody filled the room.

The fourth song was a foreign-language song. Although the language was different, the atmosphere was spot on.

The traditional-style singer raised his eyebrows in surprise.

He didn’t expect that Sheng Yan would bring in a foreign song for them.

Although the language was different, the effect was definitely noticeable.

Three minutes later, when the song finished, both the dance-singer and the rapper nodded in agreement.

“This intro could definitely have a rap part added… there’s room for me to show my skills.”

The traditional-style singer finally exhaled.

“I think I can sing the part before the C-section chorus. I’m pretty good with the falsetto in that part.”

Compared to the previous songs, everyone was able to find something they could work with in this relaxed and healing foreign song. After listening to it, everyone seemed fairly satisfied.

However, the careful dance-singer raised a concern, “But the high notes in the chorus are too high… I’m a bit worried.”

He was being polite, but in reality, while he could handle most parts of the song, the high notes were something he was too afraid to touch. The difficulty level was just way too high.

Singing that would literally cost him his life.

Once the dance-singer spoke, Sheng Yan, who had clearly already thought about this issue, calmly looked at Su Xingyao.

“Cat, can you do it?”

For this difficult singing part, there was only one person in their group who could handle it.

Suddenly being called out, Su Xingyao glanced at Sheng Yan and then tapped his cat-headpiece.

“I can do it…”

Everyone could hear that the song’s chorus had very high notes, and the transitions between falsetto and chest voice were extremely difficult.

If someone else had said those words so casually, the others might have questioned it.

But when Su Xingyao said those four words so calmly, it had a more convincing effect than if he had added ten exclamation marks.

Realizing that the most difficult part had been so easily solved, everyone finally relaxed and had a bit of the joy of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

However, Sheng Yan then threw a bucket of cold water on everyone.

“When I found this song last night, I felt that with a few rearrangements, it would actually fit our team quite well.”

After speaking, Sheng Yan let out a helpless smile. “But right now, there’s a big problem.”

The contestants looked at him curiously.

“What problem?”

Sheng Yan shrugged in resignation.

“We don’t have the rights to this song… at least, not for now.”

The singer of this song is Lance, a very distinctive new artist from abroad this year. His music is very innovative and diverse, and every song he creates blends many different elements.

Although his songs mix many elements, each one achieves harmony and unity without feeling pieced together or out of place.

Because of this, even though his music is not widely known in China yet, it has already garnered a lot of attention internationally since his debut.

However, despite being somewhat famous, this artist is quite mysterious.

Sheng Yan’s team had tried every connection they could last night, but they still couldn’t get in touch with him.

“Lance’s songs require his personal authorization to use, and he’s very difficult to contact.”

Sheng Yan struggled to get the words out, then added, “That’s why I didn’t play this song for you right away.”

They were afraid everyone would get their hopes up only to be disappointed.

Just as they had seen a glimmer of hope, it felt like a thunderbolt struck.

The light in the contestants’ eyes quickly faded.

The group, now deflated, lowered their heads.

“Why are we always so unlucky…”

Amidst the sighs and complaints, Su Xingyao, who had been silent and standing at the edge, looked at the troubled group and gently raised his little cat-paw glove.

“Well… maybe I can try to contact Lance.”