Chapter 58

After a while of playfulness among the contestants, the staff instructed everyone to return to their seats and prepare for the upcoming recording.

The first recording segment had already been announced the day before.

The contestants were required to sing the songs chosen by the netizens, using the methods selected by the fans.

However, the songs and performance styles voted on by the netizens for most of the contestants were too unique.

This time, the production team finally showed some consideration and allowed each contestant to perform for only one minute.

However, the order in which the contestants performed was decided by a random draw.

Soon, the numbers representing the contestants’ order started rapidly changing on the screen and then stopped at number 13.

Everyone’s gaze immediately shifted to the first lucky contestant.

A round of whistling quickly followed.

The contestant with number 13 was the acrobatic guy who had been the subject of everyone’s teasing all afternoon.

Under everyone’s expectant gaze, the acrobatic guy waved to the crowd and confidently walked toward the blue ribbons hanging in the center of the stage.

For this fun performance segment, he went all out, wearing a special performance outfit with added effects.

Su Xingyao watched him as he left.

Before he could fully grasp what was happening, the acrobatic guy had already nimbly latched onto the ribbon and completed several difficult spinning moves.

Although he was an amateur, he performed the routine with style, and soon it turned into a performance as he began singing the song that his fans had voted for him to sing.

Despite the intense physical activity, the acrobatic guy’s singing was not great.

But fortunately, his main strength was his confidence, which shone through.

How well he sang didn’t matter as long as the performance was impressive.

After this exaggerated opening by the acrobatic guy, the following contestants threw themselves into their own performances with full enthusiasm.

Since this wasn’t a formal competition, the overall stage effects presented by the contestants were more relaxed and comedic.

Su Xingyao was the seventeenth contestant to be drawn.

Holding his card, he walked onto the stage. Following the director’s cue, he once again demonstrated the request made by his fans in front of the camera.

It was a falsetto.

The other contestants, seeing this performance style, screamed in excitement and cheered loudly.

“Ahhhh! Falsetto! How will you do it? Do you want to sing in a loli voice, cat? I love it!”

“No loli, no loli! A real man should sing in a cool older sister voice when using falsetto!”

“Hahahaha, I’m different. Cat, just sing in cat language, it’ll be twice as cute.”

Everyone teased and joked, while the little bear on stage waved its paws and spun around, fiercely signaling “no.”

The cheerful BGM melody quickly started, and once it finished, Su Xingyao officially began singing.

The sound that filled the venue was Su Xingyao’s usual cold, mechanical voice.

Hearing this familiar voice, the contestants realized that Cat hadn’t turned off his voice changer this time!

The voice, which was somewhere between male and female, somewhat androgynous, was a bit strange for singing.

But for some reason, with the performer in the stage costume and the cute, anime-like song, it created a bizarre contrast that was unexpectedly adorable.

Although the style seemed completely mismatched, the way he sang it made it seem to fit perfectly.

The contestants, realizing that Su Xingyao had actually pulled off the “falsetto” rule so well, immediately gave him a thumbs-up.

“Cat, you really know how to do falsetto!”

“New use for the voice changer, got it~”

“But seriously, this voice changer and this song go together really well!”

At first, the contestants thought that Su Xingyao was just using the voice changer to pull off the song.

However, to their surprise, they saw Su Xingyao suddenly turn off the voice changer during the song’s interlude.

Three seconds later, the song moved into the second verse.

Then, that mechanical, cold voice suddenly transformed into an extremely energetic, cute boy’s voice!

The crowd below the stage stopped moving, wide-eyed, trying to confirm whether this person on stage was really Cat.

They had heard Contestant No. 78 sing several times.

But it had always been a very normal, youthful voice.

Hearing a cute, playful voice singing was something completely new!

Combined with the adorable little bear costume, and the cheerful, kawaii anime-style music, it was absolutely irresistible!

The contestants, who had heard Su Xingyao switch his vocal style, cheered for him while secretly marveling.

Cat’s skills and vocal range were far beyond what anyone had imagined.

One minute was a very short time. After Su Xingyao finished singing and returned to his seat, everyone immediately crowded around him.

“Cat, be honest, how many ‘^[1]“Kawaii” is a Japanese word that means “cute” or “adorable.” It is often used to describe things, people, or behaviors that are charming, sweet, or endearing, … Continue readingKawaii’ treats did you eat after this?”

The little bear innocently glanced around at the crowd, and with his thumb on his index finger, he gestured a small amount. “Just… a tiny bit.”

In less than two hours, all the contestants had performed the songs that their fans had chosen for them.

Whether it was a hit or a flop, everyone had a great time performing.

But before they could enjoy the moment too long, the sound system suddenly began to play the audio of their singing performances.

Accompanying the audio, four machines that looked somewhat like dance pads appeared on the lift stage in the center.

The entire room fell silent, their eyes locked onto the four machines.

Su Xingyao stared at the changing animations on the screens, suddenly feeling an ominous premonition.

The host appeared at the center of the stage with a microphone.

“The audio of the 24 contestants’ performances has just been imported into the newly developed automatic sensing dance machines from a certain company. The machines have automatically generated dance moves for you all.”

“Next, please find your track and follow the dance moves on the screen.”

“The machine will automatically give you a score~”

The host emphasized once more, “This score is important to you all, so please take it seriously.”

After hearing the rules introduced by the host, everyone was taken aback.

“We’re doing a music competition, and now we have to show off our dance moves?”

“I knew they had no good intentions when they suddenly made us sing the songs chosen by the fans!”

“Program team, you really didn’t need to push the product placement this hard…”

“We finally finished singing, and now we have to dance again… whose idea was this?”

Upon hearing the contestants’ questions, the host smiled and turned his gaze to the stage’s director, Song Yingming.

Upon realizing that the mastermind was this troublemaking director again, the contestants angrily asked.

“Director Song, is there really nothing left in this world that you care about?”

Song Yingming raised an eyebrow, “For example?”

“For example, ^[2]“eating instant noodles without the seasoning packet” is a humorous way of saying something is lacking or incomplete. It suggests that eating instant noodles without the seasoning packet … Continue readingeating instant noodles without the seasoning packet.”

Having already eaten instant noodles without the seasoning packet, Song Yingming shrugged, “I’ve already done that.”

Contestants: …

Contestant No. 77 began joking: “Then how about going to the bathroom and finding no toilet paper…”

Song Yingming: …

The next moment, he pulled a tissue packet from his pocket and shrugged at everyone.

“People who carry tissues with them are fearless~”

As Song Yingming proudly shook his head, Su Xingyao raised his hand and gently patted the little bear on the head.

“That Director Song… maybe… will his hair keep getting thinner?”

Song Yingming’s smile instantly froze.

—

That’s harsh!

Although Su Xingyao hit a nerve with Song Yingming, the game rules still remained unchanged.

Soon, four contestants were called to the stage to perform a gorilla-style punch dance in front of everyone.

The crowd below the stage laughed unkindly but couldn’t help but light a candle for themselves.

Who would’ve thought that to participate in a music competition, not only would they need singing skills, but also various other talents.

In the latest song selection round, if you didn’t have three to five years of experience in arcade gaming, you wouldn’t be able to complete the task.

Su Xingyao had sung as the 17th contestant, so he was placed in the fifth group.

Having never done this before, he dragged his incredibly heavy feet and finally stepped onto the dance machine.

Then he looked down, seeing for the first time what the foot buttons actually looked like.

However, before he could familiarize himself with the layout of the buttons, the intro to the song he had just sung started playing in his ears.

Su Xingyao quickly looked up, and his gaze immediately landed on the difficulty level of the choreography system provided.

Full stars.

—

What kind of hellish difficulty level is this…?

Su Xingyao silently confirmed it once again.

Was this difficulty level too cruel for someone who couldn’t dance?

Listening to the sounds coming from the machine, Su Xingyao’s emotions were hard to calm down…

Why did the song he felt was so perfect when he sang it now sound like a form of torture?

After a brief inner breakdown, Su Xingyao still held onto the hope of “maybe there’s a chance” and persisted, unwilling to give up.

But when he confidently raised his hand, elegantly swung his leg, yet always seemed to hit every beat exactly…

Su Xingyao stared at the screen filled with misses and finally realized.

There are really people in this world who have absolutely no rhythm when it comes to dancing.

Like him.

After making some bear-punching moves in the air, Su Xingyao gradually began to regret it.

If only he had worn his Sunset dog plush costume today, at least he could have become a dog dancing machine…

If that were the case, he could’ve at least hummed “dog dance~ dog dance~” and maybe even kept up with a couple of beats.

The rhythm of the song paused at the second cute boyish voice.

After experiencing the longest minute of his life, Su Xingyao let out a deep breath.

This really almost killed him.

After the dance ended, the system told the contestants to wait for a while.

Su Xingyao knew that the system would score them.

However, this score was only known to the contestants and the production team, and would not be revealed to everyone.

After waiting for about twenty seconds, the system finally provided the score.

17 points.

Seeing this number, Su Xingyao felt a bit surprised.

Not zero points?

After coming down from the stage with his 17 points, Su Xingyao didn’t have the courage to ask everyone how his dancing was.

However, the rapper, with a serious expression, patted his shoulder and said something quite insightful.

“Catcat… now I believe that heaven is fair…”

Su Xingyao, feeling a little embarrassed: …

Once everyone had finished their dance, each contestant had an idea of how they had performed.

Since the host had mentioned that the score was important, though not explicitly stated, the contestants with lower scores started worrying that they would be at a disadvantage when it came to song selection.

However, the next part of the competition took a turn that no one had expected.

The production team immediately threw out four sets of songs.

These four sets corresponded to four different styles: classic old songs, pop music, internet hits, and folk songs.

The host first called on Fu Qingyan, who was acting as a mentor for the first time, to choose a set that interested him.

Fu Qingyan picked folk songs.

As soon as he finished speaking, the names of six folk songs appeared on the screen.

Some of them were quite familiar, while two of them were more obscure.

After Fu Qingyan finished, it was Wen Yun’s turn.

He chose classic old songs.

Following the same process as before, the production team displayed six songs in each category.

Next, Sheng Yan and Xu Beizhou each chose pop music and internet hits, respectively.

The production team had selected a total of twenty-four songs for everyone.

They were of various styles and genres.

Among them were many songs with excellent arrangements and lyrics.

However, there were also many poorly made songs mixed in.

This was especially true for the internet hit section.

The quality of the lyrics was noticeably lower compared to the other three categories.

Although there were one or two good songs, none of them could compare to the shock the contestants felt when they saw the song Mist.

Some netizens had once commented that the best part of the song was the title.

At first glance, Mist seemed to have an ambiguous, poetic charm, but in reality, the lyrics were extremely vulgar and brainless, and the arrangement was incredibly tacky.

The only reason this song became popular was due to its climactic section, which was completely lacking in substance and comparable to the mindless, repetitive melodies used in certain kinds of shouting rap.

Thus, despite this song having an audience, the vast majority of listeners only used the climactic part as a background music for short videos to keep up with the trend.

Almost no one would actively go to find the full version to listen to.

After all, the audience knows that this type of song, apart from the climax being pleasant to the ears, has little else worth listening to.

So, when this song appeared in the list of options, nearly all the contestants were shocked and immediately started praying it wouldn’t end up being their song.

After all, very few people in the room were confident they could handle this song.

And if they wanted to stand out, they would have to completely transform the song, making changes to both the lyrics and the music.

But whether they could actually improve it was uncertain, and the production team hadn’t given them much time to make adjustments.

Once all the songs were revealed, various discussions broke out in the venue.

“Director Song, how is this song going to be judged?”

Some people were so scared they couldn’t help but ask the director directly.

Director Song didn’t say anything, but by this point, the host took the opportunity to explain the rules to everyone.

“You’ve probably all seen that the songs this time are divided into four categories.”

“And we have exactly four teams.”

“So… each team, led by a mentor, will interpret one of the categories of songs.”

After hearing these words from the host, the contestants all shifted their focus to their own mentors, hoping their mentors would pick normal songs and avoid picking internet hits.

Just as the contestants were thinking this, the host spoke again.

“However, for this competition, the song selections will be based on mutual voting between the teams.”

“The mentors will not participate in the song selection process. The style of songs for each group will be decided by votes from the contestants themselves.”

Because they were so nervous, many people didn’t fully understand this rule and began asking others around them.

The rapper, completely confused by the rule, quickly turned to Su Xingyao for help.

“Catcat, did you understand what this means?”

Su Xingyao glanced at the four sets of songs on the big screen before responding.

“If I understood correctly, it means we choose songs for other teams.”

“For example, if you think the classic songs category suits Wen Yun’s team, you vote it to them. If our team suits pop music, you vote it to us. And so on…”

After hearing Su Xingyao’s explanation, the rapper’s expression changed.

“Does that mean our fate is in the hands of others…”

Contestant No. 77 complained, “Everyone’s fate is in the hands of others.”

Since they entered the competition, everyone knew this stage was incredibly harsh.

It’s just that before, no one had felt it so clearly…

But as soon as the mutual voting rule was introduced today, everyone immediately realized that the previous surface-level peace and love would certainly be shattered.

The only thing they didn’t know was how badly it would break.

The rapper had just figured out the rules and hadn’t even had a chance to discuss how their team would handle it when the staff called them aside individually.

The production team didn’t give anyone time to discuss and immediately separated everyone into different rooms.

Then they were given a card.

One side was for the category they wanted, and the other side was for the category they wanted to assign to another team.

The staff emphasized that if a group received the most votes from the other contestants, then all members of that group would have to choose songs from the corresponding category.

And everyone knew that the internet hits category was the most difficult and least likely to stand out, so when voting, everyone was considering which team should get this category.

It was all about whether to be harsh or lenient on others, and the decision was made in an instant.

No one wanted the internet hits category in their own team, so deciding which group would get it was a critical issue…

The monitor displayed 24 different screens, and most people were incredibly anxious.

Except for Su Xingyao, the rapper, and one other contestant.

Because the three of them had been told that due to their low scores in the dance segment, they were directly deprived of their voting rights.

As a result, the top three performers in the dance segment would each have an extra voting opportunity.

This meant regular contestants could cast four votes, while the top three could cast five, and they could repeat their votes.

After Su Xingyao wrote down the song category he wanted on the card, he stared at the camera for a long time, bored out of his mind.

After waiting for a while, and with no one finishing their voting, he grabbed another blank card, which he wasn’t allowed to vote with, and began drawing a chibi character on it.

Su Xingyao drew a middle-aged man.

The man was always smiling, looking somewhat sly.

When Song Yingming saw the chibi man’s hair on the monitor—so sparse there was barely a strand—he almost spit out his tea.

“Well, well, the director’s got jokes!!!”

Fifteen minutes later, everyone finally finished voting.

As they emerged, everyone’s faces were filled with nervousness, uncertain about what genre of song their team would be assigned.

Contestant 77, nervously clasping his hands, continued to pray online.

“Please, no internet hits, no internet hits, please.”

The others in Sheng Yan’s team saw this and joined in.

“Please, no internet hits, any other category would be fine.”

Others from different teams saw this and joined 77 in the prayer.

For a moment, the contestant area resembled a large ritual scene.

After anxiously waiting for over 20 minutes, everyone was mysteriously called back into the same room by the production staff.

“Now, we will announce the results of the mutual voting.”

“After the results are revealed, the contestants will proceed with song selection.”

The director’s voice echoed through all the rooms.

The screens in front of the contestants lit up immediately.

Since the soundproofing of the rooms wasn’t great, Su Xingyao could hear the cheers from the room next door the next second.

They must have received the style they wanted, judging by how happy they sounded.

After hearing the cheers from others, Su Xingyao began to feel confused.

He realized that the screen in front of him was still showing the names of the 24 songs bouncing back and forth, but it hadn’t displayed anything else useful.

“Director, is this broken?”

He couldn’t help but look up at the camera.

The camera swayed back and forth a couple of times, signaling that there was no problem.

Su Xingyao couldn’t get an answer and had no choice but to continue staring at his screen, waiting patiently.

After he had memorized all the names of the 24 songs, the bouncing on the screen finally stopped.

It was then that he realized why his screen was different from others’.

He had no choice at all.

The first thing to appear on his screen were the words “Internet Hit Songs.”

The other contestants had voted for this style of songs to be assigned to his group.

Su Xingyao wasn’t surprised. He just smiled and stared at the screen, eager to see which song he would get.

Ten seconds later, the four large characters disappeared, replaced by two other words.

“Fog.”

This was the song that no one wanted to sing, and it had been assigned to him.

Su Xingyao didn’t say anything in response to the result. He just let out a light sigh.

At this moment, there was only one thought in his mind.

Superstition is useless!

Rituals don’t help at all~