Chapter 58

Chapter 58

After the contestants horsed around for a while, the staff then had everyone return to their seats to get ready for the next segment.

The first segment had been announced two days ago.

The contestants had to perform songs chosen by netizens in the style netizens picked.

But since the songs and styles netizens picked for most contestants were way too out there,

the production team finally cut them some slack this time, letting each contestant perform for just one minute.

But the order was decided by a random draw.

Soon, the numbers on the screen started spinning like crazy before landing on number 13.

All eyes immediately turned to the first lucky contestant.

The place immediately erupted with whistles and cheers.

Because number 13 was the acrobatics guy everyone had been teasing all afternoon.

With everyone watching eagerly, the acrobatics guy gave everyone a wave and confidently strutted over to the blue ribbon hanging center stage.

For today's fun segment, he really went all out, even wearing a special effects costume for the occasion.

Su Xingyao watched him head out.

Before he could even figure out what was going on, the acrobatics guy had already nimbly hooked onto the ribbon and pulled off several tough spins in a row.

Even though he was an amateur, his moves were pretty impressive, and he even sang the song his fans had picked for him while performing.

Even with all the intense moves, the acrobatics guy didn't sing that great.

But hey, he was all about that confidence.

It didn't matter how he sounded, as long as the performance was flashy.

After the acrobatics guy's over-the-top start, the next contestants also went all out, each taking their turn on stage.

Since it wasn't a serious competition, everyone's performances were more laid-back and funny.

Su Xingyao was the seventeenth one picked.

He walked onto the stage with his card and, following the director's instructions, once again displayed the request made by his fans in front of the camera.

Voice imitation.

The contestants below, seeing his performance method, screamed in anticipation and cheered wildly.

"Ahhh voice imitation!!! How are you going to do it? Kitty, how about a loli voice? I love it!"

"No loli, no loli, a real man should imitate a mature woman!"

"Hahahaha I'm different, Kitty, why don't you just sing in cat language, double the cuteness."

While everyone was teasing and joking, the little bear on stage was waving his hands, spinning around, and frantically saying no.

The cheerful melody of the BGM soon started, and after it finished, Su Xingyao officially began to sing.

Su Xingyao's usual cold, mechanical voice echoed through the venue.

Upon hearing this familiar voice, the contestants realized that Su Xingyao had not turned off his voice changer this time!

This androgynous voice, neither distinctly male nor female, sounded a bit odd when singing.

But somehow, when sung by someone in a full-body mascot costume, paired with this anime-style kawaii song, it created a weirdly charming contrast.

Though the styles seemed completely mismatched, they somehow blended perfectly.

The contestants, realizing that the "pseudo-voice" rule could be fulfilled this way, immediately gave Su Xingyao a "6" gesture.

"Cat Cat, you really know how to nail the pseudo-voice trick!"

"New voice changer hack unlocked~"

"But honestly, this voice changer and song are a perfect match!"

At first, the contestants thought Su Xingyao would just rely on the voice changer to get through the song.

But to their surprise, Su Xingyao suddenly turned off the voice changer during the interlude.

Three seconds later, as the second verse began, the cold mechanical voice turned into a lively, cute boyish tone!

The crowd froze, eyes wide, trying to confirm if the person on stage was really Cat Cat.

They had heard contestant number 78—Su Xingyao—sing several times before.

But it was always in a straightforward, normal young man's voice.

Hearing him sing in a cute, moe voice—this was a first!

The voice, paired with the adorable bear costume and kawaii anime melody, was irresistibly cute!

Hearing Su Xingyao switch vocal styles, the contestants cheered while secretly marveling.

Cat Cat's vocal skills and range were way beyond anyone's expectations.

The minute flew by, and as Su Xingyao returned to his seat, the crowd swarmed around him.

"Cat Cat, be honest, how many 'cute boosts' did you have backstage~"

The little bear glanced innocently at the crowd, pinching his fingers, "Just... a little bit."

Within two hours, all contestants had performed the songs their fans voted for.

Whether the performances were good or awkward, everyone had a blast.

But the fun was cut short as the sound system began replaying their performances one by one.

As the audio played, four machines resembling dance pads rose on the central stage's lift.

The room fell silent, all eyes fixed on the four machines.

Watching the animations on the machines, Su Xingyao felt a sudden sense of dread.

The host stepped into the spotlight, microphone in hand.

"The audio recordings of the 24 contestants' performances have been imported into the latest motion-sensing dance machines developed by a certain company, and the machines have automatically generated dances for everyone."

"Next, please find your own songs and follow the choreography provided."

"The machines will automatically score your performance~"

The host emphasized at the end, "This score is very important for you, so please take it seriously."

After hearing the rules introduced by the host, everyone felt a wave of despair.

"Isn't this a music show? Why are we being asked to dance?"

"I knew there was something suspicious about suddenly having us sing songs chosen by netizens!"

"The show's product placement doesn't have to be this aggressive..."

"After finally finishing singing, now we have to dance too... who thought of this terrible idea?"

Hearing the contestants' questions, the host smiled and glanced toward Song Yingming at the edge of the stage.

Upon learning that the culprit was once again this mischief-making director, the contestants angrily asked.

"Director Song, is there really nothing in this world you care about?"

Song Yingming raised an eyebrow, "Like what?"

"Like eating instant noodles without the seasoning packet."

Song Yingming, who had already experienced that, shrugged, "Been there, done that."

The contestants: ...

Number 77 started making wild suggestions: "How about going to the bathroom without toilet paper..."

Song Yingming: ...

The next second, he pulled out a pack of tissues from his pocket and spread his hands to everyone.

"Those who carry tissues are prepared for anything~"

As Song Yingming smugly shook his head, Su Xingyao reached up and touched the top of the bear's head.

"That Director Song... perhaps... is your hairline receding further and further?"

Song Yingming's smile instantly froze.

...

Ouch, that's harsh!

Although Su Xingyao struck a nerve with Song Yingming, the game rules still couldn't be changed.

Soon, four contestants were called up to perform a comical gorilla boxing routine on stage.

While the audience below the stage burst into unkind laughter, they couldn't help but feel a sense of dread for themselves.

Who would have thought that coming to a music show would require mastering every skill under the sun.

In the latest round of song selection, without years of arcade gaming experience, you couldn't even complete the task.

Su Xingyao was the seventeenth to perform earlier, so he was assigned to the fifth group.

Having never used a dance machine before, he dragged his feet with great reluctance and finally stepped onto it.

Then he looked down and got his first look at the footpad keys.

However, before he could clearly recognize and familiarize himself with the keys, the prelude of the song he had just sung started playing.

Su Xingyao quickly looked up, his gaze directly landing on the choreography difficulty provided by the system.

Full stars—the highest difficulty level.

...

What kind of nightmare difficulty is this...

Su Xingyao double-checked in disbelief.

Isn’t this way too harsh for someone who can’t dance?

As the machine’s sounds kept coming, he couldn’t calm down for a while.

Why did the song he thought he nailed now feel like torture?

After a moment of inner collapse, Su Xingyao, clinging to the hope that persistence might pay off, kept dancing, refusing to give up.

As a result, when he confidently raised his hand and elegantly swung his leg, he somehow managed to hit every beat perfectly.

Su Xingyao stared at the screen filled with "miss" notifications and finally realized.

In this world, some people are just born with zero dancing talent.

Like him.

After flailing around like a bear throwing punches, Su Xingyao gradually began to regret.

If only he’d worn that sunset dog costume today, he could’ve at least pretended to be a dancing dog.

If that were the case, he could’ve hummed along to something like "doggy street dance~ doggy street dance~"

Maybe he’d have even managed to hit a beat or two.

The song paused at the second verse with the cute boy’s voice.

After what felt like the longest minute of his life, Su Xingyao took a deep breath.

That was brutal.

After the dance ended, the system told the contestants to wait.

Su Xingyao knew that the system would score them.

However, only the contestants and the production team would know the scores, and they wouldn’t be disclosed to everyone.

After a twenty-second wait, the system finally displayed the score.

17 points—a shockingly low score.

Seeing this number, Su Xingyao was taken aback.

It wasn’t a zero?

After coming down from the stage with his 17 points, Su Xingyao felt too embarrassed to ask everyone how he had danced.

Instead, the Rapper patted his shoulder earnestly and said something quite insightful.

"Kitty... now I truly believe that heaven is fair..."

Su Xingyao, who felt the subtle jab: ...

After everyone finished dancing, they all had a sense of how well they had performed.

Since the host had previously hinted that this score was quite important, though not explicitly stated.

But the lower-scoring contestants were already worried about being at a disadvantage during song selection due to their scores.

However, the next part of the competition was a bit different from what everyone had thought.

The program team presented four sets of songs.

These four sets represented four styles: classic hits, pop hits, viral internet songs, and folk tunes.

The host first prompted Fu Qingyan, a first-time mentor, to pick a category he was interested in from the four.

Fu Qingyan chose folk tunes.

As soon as he made his choice, six folk song titles appeared on the screen.

Some were well-known to everyone, but two were quite obscure.

After Fu Qingyan finished, it was Wen Yun's turn to choose.

He chose classic hits.

Following the same process, the program team displayed six more song options.

Next, Sheng Yan and Xu Beizhou chose pop hits and viral internet songs, respectively.

This time, the program team had prepared a total of twenty-four songs for the contestants.

They spanned a variety of styles and genres.

Among them were many songs with outstanding composition and lyrics.

However, there were also quite a few poorly crafted songs mixed in.

This was especially true in the viral internet songs category.

The lyrics were noticeably weaker compared to the other three categories.

Even with one or two decent tracks, the contestants were still shocked when they saw the song "Mist."

Some netizens had joked that the song's title was its only redeeming quality.

At first glance, "Mist" seems to evoke a hazy beauty, but in reality, its lyrics are crude and nonsensical, and its composition is painfully tacky.

The song's popularity stemmed entirely from its overly repetitive and shouty chorus, which was as grating as it gets.

As a result, while the song had a massive audience, most people only used its chorus as trendy background music for short videos.

Almost no one would go out of their way to listen to the full version of the song.

After all, the audience knows that except for the climax, which is somewhat catchy, the rest of the song isn't really worth listening to.

So when they saw this song on the selection list, almost all the contestants were shocked and started praying it wouldn't land on them.

After all, hardly anyone there felt confident they could pull off this song.

To stand out, they'd have to completely overhaul the song, rewriting both the lyrics and the melody.

But whether they could pull it off was another story, and the production team didn't give them much time to make changes.

After all the songs were announced, the room buzzed with chatter.

"Director Song, how are these songs going to be assigned?"

Someone was so nervous they couldn't help but ask the director.

Director Song stayed silent, but since the segment had reached this point, the host stepped in to explain the rules to everyone.

"As you can see, this time the songs are divided into four categories."

"We just so happen to have four teams."

"So... each mentor's team will perform songs from one category."

After the host's explanation, the contestants all turned to their mentors.

They hoped their mentors would play it smart and not pick any viral internet hits.

Just as the contestants were thinking this, the host chimed in again.

"But this time, the song selection for each team is based on a mutual voting system."

"The mentors won't be part of the song selection process. Instead, the contestants will vote among themselves to decide each team's song category."

Nervous and confused, many contestants didn't get the rule and started asking around.

The rapper was totally lost and quickly turned to Su Xingyao next to him for help.

"Kitty, do you get what this means?"

Su Xingyao glanced at the four song categories on the big screen before answering.

"If I'm not wrong, it means we'll be picking songs for the other teams."

"For example, if you think Wen Yun's team should get the classic songs category, you vote for them to get it. If you think our team should get the pop category, you vote for us. And so on..."

After Su Xingyao's explanation, the rapper's face fell.

"So our fate's in someone else's hands..."

Number 77 chimed in, "Everyone's fate is in someone else's hands."

Since joining the competition, everyone knew this stage was cutthroat.

It's just that before, no one had felt it so sharply...

But with today's mutual voting rule, everyone realized the fake peace and love from before would be shattered.

They still don’t know how it will turn out.

The rapper had just barely figured out the rules and hadn’t had time to discuss their team’s strategy when they were called away by the staff.

The production team didn’t give anyone time to chat and quickly split everyone up into different rooms.

Then they were given a card.

One was for the category they wanted, and the other was for assigning categories to other teams.

The staff emphasized that if a group received the most votes from other contestants, the entire group would have to choose a song from the corresponding category to perform.

Everyone knew that the internet hits category was the toughest and least likely to stand out, so they were all thinking about which group to assign this category to when voting.

Deciding whether to be harsh or easy on others came down to a split-second decision.

No one wanted the internet hits in their own category, so which group to assign these songs to was an extremely thought-provoking question...

The monitor showed 24 screens, with most people looking extremely anxious.

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

Because the three of them were told that their low scores in the dance round meant they lost their voting rights.

Correspondingly, the top three contestants in the dance round each got an extra voting opportunity.

Regular contestants could cast four votes, while the top three could cast five, and they could vote multiple times for the same option.

After Su Xingyao wrote down his chosen song category, he stared at the camera for a while, bored.

After waiting forever and seeing that no one had finished voting, he grabbed another blank card—no voting allowed—and started doodling chibi characters.

Su Xingyao drew a middle-aged man.

The man had a constant smile, looking pretty sneaky.

When Song Yingming saw the chibi man with just one lonely hair on his head through the camera, he nearly spit out his tea.

Wow, taking a jab at the director, huh!!!

Fifteen minutes later, everyone finally finished voting.

Everyone came out looking nervous, completely unsure what kind of song their team would get.

Number 77 nervously clasped his hands, continuing his online ritual.

“Please, no internet hits, I’m begging you.”

Others from Sheng Yan’s team saw this and joined in, “Please, no internet hits, any other category is fine.”

Contestants from other teams saw this and started praying along with number 77.

For a moment, the contestant area looked like a massive prayer circle.

After everyone nervously waited over twenty minutes, the staff mysteriously called them back into the same room.

“Now we will announce the mutual voting results.”

“Once the results are announced, the contestants will move on to selecting their songs.”

The director's voice resounded through all the rooms.

The screens in front of the contestants came to life immediately.

Because the rooms weren’t well soundproofed, Su Xingyao heard cheers from the next room the very next second.

They must have gotten the style they wanted, judging by their laughter.

After hearing the cheers from others, Su Xingyao started to feel puzzled.

Because his screen only showed the names of the 24 songs flashing back and forth, with no other useful information.

"Hey Director, is this thing broken?"

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

The camera shook side to side twice, signaling everything was fine.

Unable to get an answer, Su Xingyao could only keep watching patiently.

Once he’d memorized all 24 song names, the screen finally stopped flashing.

That’s when Su Xingyao realized why his screen was different.

Because he had absolutely no choice.

The screen first displayed four bold characters: "Internet Hit Song."

Contestants from other teams had voted to assign this style to his group.

Su Xingyao wasn’t surprised. He just smiled and kept his eyes on the screen, curious about his song.

Ten seconds later, the bold characters vanished, replaced by two new ones.

The song titled "Mist."

This was the song no one wanted, and now it was his.

Su Xingyao didn’t say a word, just sighed softly.

Only one thought crossed his mind.

Feudal superstition is useless!

Praying doesn’t help at all.