Her Majesty The Empress Has Made Her Debut In The Center Position [Ancient to Modern] - Chapter 10

As Ji Zhao had predicted, the production team resolved all issues, and the recording began on time.

To maintain authenticity, none of the trainees wore makeup. Dressed in their colorful class uniforms, they gathered together, buzzing with nervous excitement about the upcoming assessment.

Ji Zhao found a spot to sit, and Yu Cheng stood beside her, the short sleeves of her uniform tied in a knot at her waist, making her look like a tall, slender poplar tree. Her ears twitched slightly as she tuned into the sounds around her.

In the dormitory, Chen Xingzi was checking her reflection in the mirror. “Cancan, I told you not to wear makeup, right? Do you even know what ‘faux-natural’ looks like?”

Shen Yican sat with her arms crossed. “I know I got an extra hour of sleep.”

Chen Xingzi froze, then spun around. “I told you I don’t want to talk to you!”

There was no real threat in her words.

Yu Cheng shifted her gaze.

Song Jiangjiang from Class A was mingling with Class F, boasting about herself. “Whistling is so yesterday. Now I’m rapping about frogs and their crazy jumps! Roommates are assigned, classes are assigned, but friends—you pick them yourself. Hey, beauties, add me!”

Yu Cheng continued scanning the room. Pei Jia and Qiao Yue from Class B were huddled in a corner, muttering to each other. Listening closely, she heard them saying, “Dying early and being reborn is best. Let’s hope I get picked first. Thank you, heavens!” “No, no, let’s be in the last group. I need more time to prepare.”

Tong Wei, from the same company, stood confidently at the front, scolding Tang Ge, “Stop looking back. Ji Zhao and Yu Cheng are behind you. They won’t rush over and hit you!”

Tang Ge whispered, “Aren’t you trying to provoke her? Make her hit you on camera so she’ll withdraw from the competition?”

Tong Wei gritted her teeth. “They’re avoiding me like the plague now. I can’t even set her up! And Ji Jing is being such a pain. Why won’t he make Ji Zhao withdraw?”

Yu Cheng silently noted Tong Wei’s malicious intentions.

Just as she was listening in further, someone tugged at her sleeve. She looked down and met Ji Zhao’s slightly impatient gaze. “Sit down. Tilting your head back like that is tiring.”

Yu Cheng obediently sat down.

“Even if you make a mistake, it can’t be a major one,” Ji Zhao said. “Where do you plan to make the mistake?”

Yu Cheng paused before answering. “The second line of the chorus.”

Ever since they saw the so-called online attention to the program last night, Ji Zhao believed they shouldn’t reveal their hand too quickly while they still hadn’t grasped the full situation. She wanted to avoid being the “bird that sticks out its head” and exposing any weak points.

That meant they couldn’t have Initial Center.

Since they weren’t taking her, they had to hide their shortcomings. How to conceal them without raising suspicion was an art in itself.

Yu Cheng reported Tong Wei’s words to Ji Zhao, but Ji Zhao didn’t even frown. She said lazily, “The audience will help us get rid of her when the time comes.”

Just as she finished speaking, a staff member walked in to notify her that the assessment was ready to begin. The trainees from Class A would be divided into groups of six, starting with them.

The trainees from each class quickly gathered together, chattering excitedly about the order of performance.

Before long, Class A had selected their six members.

They lined up in a row on the cleared space, from left to right: Ji Zhao, Song Jiangjiang, Chen Xingzi, Shen Yican, Ying Tian, and Yu Cheng.

A camera was placed in front of each trainee, live-streaming their performance to a large screen in another room.

Just then, Cheng Feiwan’s gentle voice came from the cameras: “Begin.”

The six trainees assumed their starting positions.

The upbeat intro began, and the trainees moved in perfect unison. Their synchronized performance caught the attention of everyone in the room, and Cheng Feiwan nodded approvingly. “Just as expected of Class A.”

“Ji Zhaozhao’s singing is truly impressive,” Ruan Qing said, adjusting her glasses. “I have high hopes for her.”

“Ying Tian is off-key,” Jiang Yan noted, making a mark on her scoring sheet. “She’s still nervous. She remembers the moves but forgets to sing. And next to her, Shen Yican is singing the right notes but doing the wrong dance moves.”

Ding Chuan, a legendary street dancer who had won multiple world championships, observed sharply. “That was deliberate.”

“What?” Jiao Ye asked, sitting next to him.

Ding Chuan pointed at Yu Cheng, the farthest to the right. “The second line of the chorus is half a beat late. She deliberately messed up the dance.”

Jiao Ye clearly didn’t believe him. “Why would she do that on purpose? She just looks nervous.”

“Tsk,” Jiang Yan interjected. “Is Ji Zhaozhao close to Yu Cheng?”

“They’re very close,” Jiao Ye said with a laugh. “I never heard Old Yu mention his daughter having connections with the Ji family, though. And they’re supposedly inseparable.”

Ruan Qing, who was also close to Yu Cheng’s Movie Emperor father, finished scoring. “I’ll ask Old Yu later.”

The theme song assessment didn’t require us to dance the entire song. Basically, we just had to finish the chorus part, and that was it. The repeated sections after that weren’t really necessary for the assessment. Each group took one or two minutes, plus preparation time, so the whole thing was over in less than two hours.

After the assessment, all the trainees returned to their respective classes to wait for the results.

On this spring day in April, the lawn outside the window was lush and green, and a gardener was trimming new patterns into it. The patterns seemed chaotic at first glance, but the overall effect was striking. Ji Zhao was watching intently when she suddenly heard small sniffling sounds from beside her.

Ji Zhao froze, reluctantly tearing her gaze away from the gardening machine. She turned her head.

The girl standing beside her was Ying Tian, barely past sixteen, a very sweet and well-behaved girl. Even outside of training hours, she didn’t chat with others. Instead, she sat by the window doing homework. Ji Zhao had glanced at her work before—the formulas were so complicated they gave her a headache just looking at them.

She could, however, understand the political science textbook. When Ying Tian wasn’t using it, Ji Zhao would flip through a few pages. Aside from that, the two hardly interacted at all.