"Have you decided?"
As soon as Jiang Juyou entered the room, she unzipped her down jacket and quickly took off her coat. Seeing no response from the system, she asked again, "Have you decided?"
"..."
After a long silence, Jiang Juyou sighed resignedly, "Never mind."
At that moment, the system finally spoke up, "Could you help me choose one?"
Jiang Juyou, who was rummaging through her suitcase for a change of clothes, paused. "...Sure." She withdrew her hand and sat back on the floor.
The hotel room had underfloor heating, and warmth radiated from the ground. It didn't take long for Jiang Juyou to feel drowsy from the cozy atmosphere.
"Let me think..." She rubbed her eyes and even let out a yawn. "What surname would you like?"
This time it was the system's turn to be stumped. It took a few seconds before answering Jiang Juyou, "...Cong?"
"What?" Jiang Juyou's brain suddenly stopped feeling drowsy and started analyzing its words.
After processing for a while, she finally interpreted it as "Cong," and nodded in understanding. "Cong, huh? You're quite something, finding such an uncommon surname."
System: "..."
It didn't voice any denial.
Jiang Juyou seriously began to think for it, "Cong what..." As she spoke, she took out her phone and flipped through the calendar.
"How about Cong Lixia? 'Li' from 'inspire,' and 'Xia' meaning 'summer.'" Jiang Juyou looked at the date marked on her phone and said, "We met on the day of Lixia (Start of Summer)."
As soon as she finished speaking, Jiang Juyou heard a slightly amused response from the system, "Alright, I'll be called Cong Lixia."
Jiang Juyou's next words lacked warmth, "Good. Now I'm going to take a shower, you can mute yourself."
"..."
-
Since training hadn't started yet, the trainees had been sightseeing these past few days, and the staff members had also checked in at quite a few locations.
When Gao Xiayu and the others returned to the dormitory, they distributed the clothes and skincare products they bought to the rest and shared about where they had been today.
"No way... you dared to let Jiang-jie tag along?"
"Wasn't it suffocating?"
"I'm not envious at all, really."
Someone noticed that Pei Luming hadn't returned and asked, "Where's Pei Luming? At the convenience store downstairs?"
"Nah, he went to have dinner with his sister," Sang Mo said while taking off his jacket.
Perhaps it was Sang Mo's casual tone, but the others just glossed over this statement after hearing it and continued looking at the clothes.
Just as they finished talking about Pei Luming, he opened the door and came in. "Ahhh, it's freezing!" He stamped his feet at the entrance, swiftly took off his shoes, and then stood on the heated floor in his socks, revealing a blissful smile. "Ahh—"
Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and looked towards the door. Sang Mo even checked the time on his phone. They had only come in about ten minutes ago, and Pei Luming followed right after. What kind of meal did he have?
"Didn't you go for dinner?" Sang Mo asked him.
Pei Luming waved his hand dismissively and started taking off his down jacket, chattering as he did so, "I just took a photo with my sister to check in. My mom insisted we meet up, so we just went to a restaurant front to take a picture, that's all."
He glossed over it in a few words, not mentioning at all why his mother wanted them to take a verification photo.
Downstairs, Pei Zhiping was shivering in her coat, waiting for a car by the roadside. As she waited, she muttered under her breath, "...It's freezing. Making me come all the way from Chengbuk-dong just to take a photo, not even treating me to a meal... Who wants to reconcile with you... I'm telling mom when I get back, ow, it's so cold!"
Upstairs, Pei Luming sneezed twice, then continued changing clothes, showing off in front of the mirror, "Look! Purple!"
The older boys behind him all nodded and mumbled in agreement, but none of them actually looked at him.
Pei Luming, now in his new clothes, sat on the floor and took out his phone to check his sister's WeChat. However, it was eerily quiet; she hadn't sent any messages cursing him out, and his mom hadn't messaged either.
"..." This was even more terrifying.
He tilted his head and sent a message to her: "Did you get in the car?"
But there was no response from the other end.
Pei Zhiping had seen his message but didn't want to reply. She was searching for big companies' audition announcements on the internet, her brows furrowed. She was already annoyed, and seeing Pei Luming's message only irritated her more.
-
On Jiang Juyou's last day before returning to China, the trainees officially started their classes, with training intensity higher than ever before.
They began warming up and exercising shortly after waking up, jogging to the building where they trained. There was a gym on the basement level, which they had rented for those two morning hours. The trainees started running before they had even eaten breakfast.
On the first day, the intensity couldn't be too high, so they finished their physical training after running three kilometers.
By the time Jiang Juyou arrived at the practice room, they had already completed the three-kilometer run and learned new Hip-hop framework moves. Each of them was drenched in sweat, their shirt hems darkened with moisture.
Due to the high temperature and humidity in the room, a layer of fog had formed on the mirrors in the practice room. When she entered, they were using cloths to wipe the mirrors.
"You all look like you're falling apart," Jiang Juyou joked as she came in.
Hearing the familiar Chinese voice, those sprawled on the floor immediately stood up. "...Hello, Jiang-jie."
Jiang Juyou nodded and walked towards the mirror. "Gather around, I have a few things to say."
Before she even finished speaking, the trainees had already taken their positions and wiped the sweat from their foreheads, not wanting to leave a bad impression on Jiang-jie.
Jiang Juyou stood at the front and scanned the room. In this frigid winter with temperatures below zero, these young men all had flushed faces, their bangs clinging to their foreheads in damp strands. The practice room was filled with the not-so-pleasant smell of sweat.
She let out a long breath, "I know the final performance just ended not long ago, but time waits for no one, so you'll be facing even more rigorous training from now on."
"The small groups have already been assigned. Based on your current groupings, we'll be conducting a new survival competition."
In this misty practice room, Jiang Juyou's words instantly dropped the temperature by several degrees.
Several trainees couldn't help but shiver.
"I'll fly over every month to participate in your end-of-month evaluations. Only the group that ranks first will have the right to be posted online."
"So the upcoming period will be your private survival competition time. For the group that ranks first, the company will release training behind-the-scenes footage and results online."
"You've all been through survival competitions before, so you know how important it is to accumulate fans. I hope everyone takes this seriously."
As Jiang Juyou spoke, she also felt she was being cruel, but from another perspective, this wasn't something she should worry about with her monthly salary of 8,000 yuan.
She took a breath and continued, "The management will be very strict. I hope everyone focuses on training."
"Well then — see you next month."
-
Apart from being spotted during their first few days in Korea, there had been absolutely no news about the group of trainees who went there.
Rumors were circulating in the fan circles. Some sasaeng fans wanted to go there, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't find out where the trainees were staying or training. Everyone suspected that Jiang Juyou had spirited them away again.
The person in question, Jiang Juyou, looked at these bizarre speculations online every day and felt quite exasperated.
She sat in her office chair, spinning around while commenting on the online guesses.
"Secretly ran off to Japan for training... We just hired a Japanese dance instructor, that's all."
"Actually in America... Impossible, they couldn't get visas."
"Went bankrupt, preparing to disband the trainees... Ridiculous."
"Shifted focus to female trainees, male trainees are being managed by another company..."
Jiang Juyou held her head in her hands.
She frowned and asked, "Where do they get all this mix of true and false information from?"
She had only learned about the news regarding female trainees yesterday.
Random Entertainment had been preparing for auditions since the beginning of the year, not only selecting in China but also abroad. Anyone who was Chinese or had at least one Chinese parent could participate.
It had only just begun, yet there was already news outside. It was too exaggerated.
"Knock knock—"
"Jiang-jie, it's almost time for the meeting."
Jiang Juyou looked towards the door, "Alright, I'll be right there."
She glanced at her phone, then at the schedule in her memo pad, and felt a headache coming on when she saw the meeting content.
She stuffed her phone back into her pocket and picked up the iPad that was placed aside, making sure she had everything before heading out.
"Tell Director Liu from the New Talent Department to come to my office after she's done."
"Okay."
With an expression of someone facing their doom, Jiang Juyou headed towards the floor of the Film and Television Department downstairs.
As the elevator numbers decreased, her expression grew darker. It was already painful enough to understand the world of idols, and now she was being forced to venture into the realm of film and television. Her already challenging senior year of college was becoming even more arduous.
At that moment, in the practice room downstairs, Liu Jiajia was sitting at a long table. The room had two large display screens on either side and several cameras set up. Besides her, dance and vocal teachers were seated on both sides.
"Hello, teachers. My name is Pei Zhiping, I'm 14 years old, and my height is 169.5--"
Before she could finish, the person sitting in the main seat raised a hand to interrupt her. "Take off your shoes and go to the side to weigh yourself."
Pei Zhiping tucked her loose hair behind her ear. "Okay." She obediently trotted over, took off her shoes, and stepped onto the scale.
"Height: 170 centimeters, weight: 49 kilograms."
Standing on the scale, Pei Zhiping looked towards the long table, noticing the teachers whispering to each other and writing something on their forms.
"Come stand on the black dot, facing forward," said the person in the main seat. As soon as they finished speaking, the cameras moved slightly, and Pei Zhiping's face quickly appeared on the large screens.
"Okay."
Without waiting for the teacher's next instruction, Pei Zhiping instinctively turned to the other side.
In the practice room, besides Pei Zhiping, there were four other girls. They all watched nervously and curiously, while only Pei Zhiping remained poised and relaxed, without even tensing her muscles.
At this moment, a teacher in front asked the girl:
"I see here that it says... your brother is called Pei Luming. Is that the Pei Luming from our company?"
Hearing this, the four girls immediately widened their eyes.
In their hearts, they screamed:
Holy crap--
