This week, a pre-check for the First Public Performance was conducted. To prevent bias in scoring, only the trainees' teachers participated in the pre-check from the start of the First Public Performance. Everyone else had to wait until the actual performance to see it. Similarly, during the First Public Performance, the teachers couldn't participate in scoring but could offer opinions.
The audience waiting for the third episode to go online was unaware of these details. The second episode only showed half of the preliminary competition stage, with the other half set to air this week.
After a week of building momentum, as more people watched the show, online discussions increased. Previously, posts about trainees' information only had dozens or hundreds of shares and comments, but now they easily reached thousands. The earliest viral poster of Ye Xing on the grass field had even surpassed ten thousand shares.
As soon as the third episode went live, viewers who had been waiting eagerly in front of their screens rushed in, watching at increased speed.
The end of the previous episode had just shown Yao Shuo's group taking the stage, but it only played the beginning before abruptly ending. Throughout the week, Yao Shuo's fans had been promoting him extensively. His previous performance videos were also dug up, one being the initial group stage and the other his solo stage.
These two performances had been seen by quite a few people before the show began, but now that they were brought up again, many viewers had a sudden realization.
"I think I've seen this stage before."
"What an incredible high note."
"Isn't there a group fancam for this?"
"Only those who've been to Galaxy know the greatness of this fancam."
"Yao Shuo is in a group with Chi Qiao! Feels like they're going to face off against Pei Luming's group!"
"The main vocalist must debut!"
"Before watching the video: The comment section is exaggerating, even praising improved sound quality. After watching: The sound quality really did improve."
"Please vote for Yao Shuo! Pretty please!"
The third episode began with Yao Shuo's group. As they took the stage, the camera cut to the VIP room, where the person sitting in the middle tapped on a tablet, saying, "Wonder how well they've practiced this week."
As each group took the stage, clips of their practice sessions were interspersed. For some groups, even pre-check footage was included, creating a build-up of tension. When Gao Xiayu's group performed, because the teachers had praised them so much, there was no pre-check footage shown. Instead, they only included parts where Gao Xiayu was meticulously going over movements with them via video call and teaching strictly.
For Chi Qiao's group, however, a snippet of the pre-check was shown.
Liu Jiajia sat at the front, arms crossed, with a puzzled expression on her face. "I don't understand. Did you have military training to attend or were you injured for half a month? How did your group end up dancing like this?"
Chi Qiao's group was the one where members isolated the team leader, practiced solo stages too much causing discontent among members, and didn't listen to the leader's instructions.
Everyone had their own ideas, and Chi Qiao couldn't keep them in check, so the more they practiced, the messier it became. In the end, they were each practicing on their own, only coming together for a run-through right before the check.
The result was that while the members seemed to be performing the same moves, they were all different. Even the force used and the direction of movements varied among the nine people.
After Liu Jiajia's criticism, the show editors included some of their practice conflicts. The comment section immediately flooded with reactions.
"Chi Qiao is right, they refused to listen to him, so he stopped managing later. Why blame the leader?"
"Guess why the leader is the leader?"
"Yao Shuo also practiced his solo a lot, why isn't anyone criticizing him, only targeting Chi Qiao?"
"Poor members, stuck with a leader who can't keep things under control."
"Unbelievable, they chose this leader themselves, and now they're pulling this?"
"Chi Qiao took all the blame, didn't tell the teachers they were isolating him."
"This is why I say boys are the troublemakers, they all want to be the boss."
"It's really just nine kings."
The official stage performance was much better than the pre-check. Yao Shuo and Chi Qiao carried the whole show, and none of the members made mistakes. The show gave it a storyline of overcoming adversity.
After the performance ended, the audience applauded. As Chi Qiao was returning backstage, he finally couldn't hold back and quickly wiped away a tear. The members beside him noticed first.
"Why are you crying?"
"It's nothing, it's over now, and none of us made mistakes."
"Captain, you've worked hard..."
What started as just Chi Qiao crying turned into all nine boys huddling together, hugging and crying. They might have been very sad, but the scene was extremely funny.
"They're all just kids after all."
"Great, this will be their embarrassing memory in the future!"
"This is hilarious, who's that? Who's crying like a duck?"
"The main vocalist is different indeed, even his crying is distinctive, haha!"
After that pre-check, they all sat together and expressed their dissatisfaction with each other. For the remaining week, these boys were constantly trying to make up for their earlier childish competitiveness, practicing until late every night.
A few who had already decided to quit didn't tell the others about it, but still practiced very seriously.
But no matter how much they practiced, they couldn't catch up to the other groups. Even though the audience reaction after their performance was not bad, Chi Qiao himself was unsatisfied. He felt that with his level of skill, he shouldn't be presenting such a stage.
After all the groups had performed, everyone checked the progress bar and found that half was still left.
"Looks like things aren't so simple!"
"Are they going to show the First Public Performance stage right away?"
"Wake up, sisters, the First Public Performance hasn't even started yet!"
"Lying down comfortably after checking the progress bar."
The content of the third episode was divided into the preliminary competition stage performances and preparation for the First Public Performance, with a ten-minute post-competition commentary sandwiched in between.
After watching the performances, Liu Yue instinctively fast-forwarded through a few times. She wasn't interested in the commentary, as she already knew who was eliminated from the start and didn't need to watch it again. As she was fast-forwarding, suddenly a very familiar face flashed across the screen.
"...?" Liu Yue's chip-eating motion stopped.
She released the fast-forward button, and the video started playing normally. The familiar face was now on screen, mouth opening and closing as if saying something.
Suddenly, Liu Yue thought of something and muttered with narrowed eyes, "That Jiang Juyou..."
Liu Yue had also followed the Random Entertainment boss's Weibo account. At the time, she had even screenshot it and sent it to the dorm group chat, saying how unique the name Jiang Juyou was and that someone could have the same name, truly befitting a country with a large population.
The other two had laughed about it for a while. Now that she thought about it, Jiang Juyou hadn't replied at the time.
Thinking back even further, they had gone to see a performance before. There were only four or five hundred people in the venue that day. When they were leaving, they saw someone who looked very similar to Jiang Juyou in both figure and clothing. They had asked in the group chat, but Jiang Juyou said it wasn't her.
Since she said it wasn't, they naturally thought they had seen wrong and changed the topic.
But now--
"Jiang Juyou, you're done for!!!" Liu Yue didn't even bother watching the video anymore, she picked up her phone intending to bombard Jiang Juyou.
As soon as she opened WeChat, she saw that there were already dozens of messages in the dorm group chat.
"@Juzi's Grocery, come explain this."
"[Screenshot]"
"Don't hide behind your phone and stay silent! I know you're watching!"
"Well, well, well, a rich kid right under our noses."
"Last time we asked, you said it wasn't you!!!"
"Wuwuwuwu give me one of Pei Luming's photo cards and I'll forgive you."
"Then I want two."
"Ahhhhh I really want to go crazy, I want to shout on my Moments that Random Entertainment's boss is my roommate!"
"Do you know how many people on my Moments are following this show?"
"...We're all in the same Moments group, you probably don't have as many people as Juzi in your Moments."
"That's true."
"I don't care, I want Pei Luming's photo card, even if you have to resell it!"
"Pei Luming's Snowman Photo Card has already been inflated to 3,000 yuan, do you know what 3,000 means? That's half a month of my salary!"
"Money doesn't matter, I just really want to own it!"
"It's the first time in my life entering the photo card circle and I'm attracted to such an expensive card, ahhhh!"
"Well, that's why it's expensive."
"It hurts, my heart hurts, why didn't I go on the day of the preliminary competition!"
"Even if you went, you might not have gotten one. Only people in the inner circle got them."
"When I saw online that many people threw them away, I felt so heartbroken. Why would they throw them away!"
"That day, when checking the statistics on Pei Luming's super topic, there should have been over 700 sets of photo cards, but in the end, less than 100 sets were preserved."
"I think it's okay that neither of us ever owned any, but do you know how much pain my sister went through? That day she just went to join the crowd and make some money. She got a set, but when she found out there was no Ye Xing in it, nor anyone she knew, she threw it away as soon as she left, thinking it would just take up space at home -- and now she's fallen into the Pei Luming fandom."
"Ouch... just hearing about it hurts."
Liu Yue: "..."
She turned her head to look at the hidden door next to the TV background wall, where she kept her merchandise.
Last time she went, she was aiming for Ye Xing, wanting to collect some of Ye Xing's photo cards. But that set didn't have Ye Xing, so she didn't collect them in the end. She only picked up some from the trash can when leaving, thinking that if someone debuted, those cards would become valuable.
Now... she felt the card prices could still go up a bit more.
Suddenly, her phone vibrated. Liu Yue looked down and saw that Jiang Juyou had come online.
"@JuyouGeneralStore: What boss? I'm just a worker! An intern even! I only take home 8,500 a month!"
On the other end of the phone, Jiang Juyou was typing furiously, using the same excuse she had used to fool her sisters. But she wasn't lying – as Jiang Juyou hadn't graduated yet, she couldn't sign a labor contract with the system, so she could only receive an intern's salary.
Now she just had a big title, but the money in her hands hadn't increased at all.
"@JuyouGeneralStore, baby, is your company still hiring?"
"Can I intern at your company? I don't need payment."
Liu Yue, seeing this, didn't back down either: "Me too... I can even pay to work there."
Jiang Juyou, holding her phone, pressed her temple and then replied: "...HR doesn't report to me."
"@JuyouGeneralStore, you've already rejected one of us, you might not be able to reject the next one."
"@JuyouGeneralStore, we want the photo cards to come back!!!!"
"@JuyouGeneralStore, then I want Ye Xing's photo card..."
Lucky Mom: Then I want Ye Xing to take a selfie class!! :)
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