Liu Xin and Yan Jinyu's argument suddenly stopped. Everyone looked towards the door, Youyou had come in.
"Youyou? How did you get here?"
Liu Xin was a bit surprised.
Not only had Youyou come back, but she also seemed to be in a pretty good mood. On top of that, she was dressed up by a stylist like usual.
"Senior Liu Xin?"
Youyou glanced at her, politely addressing her but with a rather cold look in her eyes,
"I had a work obligation this morning which took up practice time, I sincerely apologize to everyone and Senior Liu Xin."
"Work? You haven't terminated your contract yet, you should still be obedient..."
Facing Liu Xin's barrage of questioning, Youyou didn't respond at all, as if she hadn't heard it. She turned around and slightly bowed to Gu Minghua to show her regret, then went back to her seat.
Seeing Liu Xin about to say something else, Gu Minghua quickly spoke up first, his tone much stricter than usual:
"Whether to terminate or renew the contract is between you and the company. For now, we're focused on practice, please resolve your grievances privately."
Liu Xin couldn't say anything more. She turned around and started looking at the music sheet while Youyou had a smile on her face.
Qin Wei glanced over at her. Catching Youyou's eye, they exchanged a smile but didn't say anything. They obediently lowered their heads to look at the sheet music and listen attentively to Teacher Gu's explanation.
Gu Minghua wasn't interested in their grievances. Seeing they had stopped arguing, he began his lecture and demonstration.
"Alright, that's it for the chorus section. Familiarize yourselves with what I just went over, then go eat or rest. When you come back this afternoon, we'll start dividing up the lyrics. Just give me a copy once you've divided them up."
After finishing, Gu Minghua quickly left, as he had a bad feeling.
Sure enough, as soon as he exited, the practice room livened up again.
"Youyou, what's going on with you?"
Youyou got up to leave but was sternly called out by Liu Xin,
"You haven't terminated with the company yet, you should be obedient..."
Qin Wei suddenly stepped forward to shield Youyou behind her.
"This is an internal affair of our company. As the manager of the entertainment department's new artists, she's included. "
Liu Xin didn't have a good attitude towards Qin Wei either. After all, she knew the cameras were on but the director wouldn't be foolish enough to broadcast these clips.
"I think you're mistaken?"
Qin Wei tilted her head at her,
"Youyou is my teammate, in the last performance and this one, as well as in the future.
Teacher Liu, check online. Reconsider whether you need to educate my teammate after.
Oh right, she's also my junior."
After speaking, Qin Wei signaled Youyou to go eat with her, leaving Liu Xin standing there puzzled.
Liu Xin still felt confused. She had checked the hot searches on all major platforms this morning yet saw nothing about Youyou.
...
[Anhang Entertainment: Welcome @Anhang-Youyou to the Anhang Entertainment family! We look forward to working together in the future!]
[Anhang-Youyou: Hello everyone, I'm actress Youyou. Joining @Anhang Entertainment was a decision I made to follow my heart. A new beginning, we continue to sail against the wind!]
Comments:
[Congratulations on escaping hardship sis, Anhang is a new company but very capable, looking forward to sis's new works! Bright future ahead for sis!]
[Can someone explain to me? Isn't Shenshi Entertainment more powerful?]
[Impressive, an old entertainment giant, but because of this, there's a strict hierarchy internally and new artists get very limited resources. They also have to obey seniors, feels a bit like certain overseas entertainment companies. Daniel also endured this before making it out, he talked about it in interviews after returning home.]
[New company is good too, plus isn't Qin Wei also at that company? Anhang just hadn't announced it, word is they're waiting until after the competition ends. We'll know soon whether it's true]
...
Looking at her phone screen, Liu Xin felt somewhat headachey.
It seems Anhang Entertainment paid the penalty for Youyou to terminate her contract, otherwise the company wouldn't have let her go so easily.
Shenshi's penalty fee isn't low, paying it for one new artist definitely isn't worth it. What did Anhang Entertainment see in Youyou that made them so readily pay the fee for her?
Because of Qin Wei?
Impossible, Liu Xin denied this idea herself. Anhang Entertainment isn't her family's company.
In the cafeteria, Youyou carried two bowls of meat wonton soup and sat down across from Qin Wei, sliding one bowl over to her:
"Sis, I didn't expect you'd be the one to help me in the end...I really don't know how to thank you enough..."
Her voice choked up and her eyes reddened.
The last two days had truly been unbearable. Although she already knew about paying the penalty and was mentally prepared to face it all, the back-and-forth with the company had exhausted her.
"Don't cry."
Qin Wei passed her a tissue,
"You should thank yourself. I only introduced you to President Xu. He looked over your information and felt you were worth his effort to poach."
Youyou dabbed the corners of her eyes and softly said:
"But I know this is all thanks to you sis. I'm so touched, thank you for believing in me."
...
Finally everyone had arrived. For the groupings this time, Qin Wei and Sun Tiantian were separated. However, she was grouped with Youyou. Not only that, Li Ruyi, whom she had worked with before, was also placed in their group.
Along with Zhao Yan and Yan Jinyu, the strength of this group was still quite good.
The groups had to self-select a song to perform, which was an issue.
The five of them gathered together during the lunch break to start researching.
"It should be fast-paced."
Zhao Yan suggested first,
"Slow songs might sound nice and be worth examining deeply, but it's hard to excite the audience's emotions live on stage. Scores are given live, if the audience only feels it sounds nice after going home and carefully appreciating it, it'll already be too late for us."
Qin Wei took notes on paper while the others agreed as well.
Youyou thought of something:
"The lyrics need to be very inspiring and able to resonate with the audience. Like Zhao Yan said, there's little time live on stage for the audience to react so the lyrics can't be too profound but they also can't be too shallow."
Yan Jinyu stroked his chin and said after thinking for a bit:
"I'm thinking we need a stylistic breakthrough. There are a lot of groups in this show with various performance styles, constantly putting on the same style leads to aesthetic fatigue for the audience.
Like last time with you Qin Wei, your group's <Red Dress> was very unique, so you got especially high scores. Also your group's Rap live was pretty explosive."
<Red Dress> was indeed very good. Even Qin Wei herself felt satisfied with it after watching the playback. As for that Rap...
Qin Wei bitterly laughed:
"Don't mention it. Later when I went online to watch the replay, most of the comments still scolded me. They said I was the shame of rap and some even kindly advised me to go recite poetry at an elementary school auditorium...
I admit that on first listen it seems decent but listening to it a few more times is pretty unbearable."
Hearing her self-mockery, everyone couldn't help but laugh too. Being in this industry, who hadn't been ridiculed before?
The break was almost over and the others gradually trickled back in. Liu Xin came in with sheet music to distribute to everyone:
"I've already divided up the lyrics. Take a look, let me know if you have any feedback."
