I Became the Top Competitor in a Talent Show Novel - Chapter 46.1

019 curiously asked: “CP-related, what does that mean?”

Even the old memes that people talked about were unknown to Chi Meng, so she definitely didn’t know this! She clicked the web browser to search. 019’s three-and-a-half-year-old child’s voice read the text on the search interface: “CP is the abbreviation of the English word couple, meaning a pair of lovers—”

Before 019 could finish, Chi Meng gasped, immediately stopping it: “System, please keep your little mouth shut.”

019 shut up, sending Chi Meng a digital firework of confusion.

The title had the names of the Host and the Female Supporting Character, so the Host and Song Jiaqi were a couple?

But they weren’t a couple!

The infant system was startled and uncertain, continuing to send Chi Meng fireworks.

Chi Meng paused for a moment, seemingly realizing something. She directly searched for Star Trek on the website, and a stream of videos immediately appeared: fancams of the trainees at the music festival, cuts from the program, compilation cuts, and all kinds of CP-related videos. When Chi Meng entered her name after “Star Trek,” all the CP videos immediately involved her, but the partners were different. Besides Jia Qi Ru Meng (Jiaqi and Meng), there were Su Mengyao, Xue Weiran, Chen Zhu, Lin Tingxia… every trainee who had interacted with her on the show was included, with CP names that were diverse and bizarre, giving Chi Meng a feeling of possessing a harem of thousands when she looked at them herself.

Chi Meng leaned back and squinted: “Wow.”

019 whispered: “Wow!”

Its tone was a little excited.

But when Chi Meng replaced her name with Su Mengyao, even more CP-related videos appeared. 019’s tone immediately changed to: “Waa… oh.”

It sounded quite regretful, like a child who scored 99 while the neighbor’s kid scored 100.

Chi Meng: “?”

“Do you even have to compare this?” she asked, amused. “That’s your Female Lead, you know.”

019 hummed—her own Host was cherished by her own system. 019 wasn’t the Female Lead’s system; her Host was the number one strongest in the world!

Chi Meng didn’t know 019’s private thoughts. She pondered for a moment, tapping the keyboard. Su Mengyao’s name was replaced with Song Jiaqi, and she hit enter to search.

At the bottom, the original ten-plus pages were reduced to six. Besides Song Jiaqi’s personal videos, which were noticeably fewer than others, the CP-related videos almost all featured another person’s name.

The other protagonist raised an eyebrow, curiously clicking on a video squeezed in among the “Jia Qi Ru Meng” ones, pathetically labeled with the CP name “Jia Yao” (Jia and Yao). The video title read “Jia Qi Xiang Xu, Yao Meng Yi Xu” (Jia Qi Promises, Yao Meng Narrates), which was a CP video for Song Jiaqi and Su Mengyao.

“If Jiaqi saw this kind of video…” Chi Meng wondered, imagining Song Jiaqi’s beautiful face instantly darkening, darker than dark.

The video content, set to slightly melancholic background music, cut together all of Song Jiaqi and Su Mengyao’s synchronized moments on the show, played in slow motion, mixed with some individual shots of them walking and talking, forming a little story. Chi Meng even saw the scene where the three of them held hands, but she, sitting in the middle, had been thoughtfully edited out. Only the two main characters were left looking at each other from a distance, with soft-focus filters and the like, making it look a bit tender and affectionate.

Chi Meng instantly recalled the beautiful Chinese words that Song Jiaqi had blurted out without her mic on when she saw Su Mengyao. She laughed and closed the video, thinking that the fans who edited these videos were incredibly talented. Her own abilities and creativity were truly insignificant in front of these people; she bowed in admiration.

With this level of narrative skill and “keen eye,” Chi Meng wouldn’t be surprised to see an intense, loving romance between herself and the rehearsal room one day. After all, the training room was where she had spent the most time during the show, the longest companion… a non-living entity?

She was stroking her chin in thought when she heard a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Chi Meng said, getting up.

Song Jiaqi had come to check on Chi Meng’s grand plan for promotion. She sat down on the bed, and Chi Meng sat next to her, sighing, “I’ve decided to give up. My imagination is insufficient to develop in this area.”

“How so?” Song Jiaqi asked curiously, her gaze falling on the laptop screen. The background was a cat-head webpage, and Song Jiaqi saw many videos from Star Trek, but she wasn’t interested and returned her attention to Chi Meng’s face.

The Song family was wealthy and had excellent guest room conditions. Besides the bed and wardrobe, a desk was placed by the window for the convenience of guests. Originally, Song Jiaqi’s parents had intended this design for her to use when she had classmates over for sleepovers and homework. However, Song Jiaqi had already finished her college entrance exams and never brought classmates over. Instead, Chi Meng was now nestled in the comfortable swivel chair, swaying left and right, sighing as she looked up.

“Don’t ask me, it’s not good for you,” Chi Meng said. “And absolutely do not search for related topics, okay?”

Song Jiaqi frowned in confusion, looking at the swaying Chi Meng, and suddenly said, “If you translate that sentence, it sounds like you’re saying, ‘Hurry up and search for it, you’ll regret it if you don’t.'”

Chi Meng raised her hand and swore, “I did not say that!”

She burst into laughter herself. Song Jiaqi curled her lips, reached out, and pulled Chi Meng’s swaying chair back. She stood up and said, “I won’t search. I don’t like looking at that stuff. You should go to sleep quickly; we have dance practice tomorrow.”

“If I can’t wake up tomorrow, don’t call me. Let me sleep obliviously.” Song Jiaqi had mixed beer and red wine that evening, and her face was flushed. She walked even slower. The scent of wine lingered on her breath, and her words were tinged with a drowsy intoxication. Her voice was even more captivating, like a lullaby inviting someone to sleep with her.

Chi Meng chuckled, following slowly behind her, nodding: “Okay, okay.”

Song Jiaqi walked out of the guest room, then suddenly turned around. She mimicked Chi Meng’s usual salute posture, touching her brow with two fingers pressed together, and saluted Chi Meng.

“I’m off,” her voice was a little sticky. The alcohol in her system spread to her whole face, yet only her dark eyes grew darker, covered by a layer of moisture from the warm alcohol.

Chi Meng stood at the door, brought her hand to her mouth for a kiss, and threw a flying kiss to Song Jiaqi.

“Take care, come visit often.”

Song Jiaqi raised a hand dismissively, catching the flying kiss in the air and throwing it back, saying with a laugh, “So annoying! Go to sleep!”

Chi Meng laughed heartily, watched her walk steadily into her bedroom, and then closed the door. Sleep was important, but there was one more thing she needed to do.

After the second episode of the show was released, the entertainment sections of various social media platforms were quickly dominated by the Star Trek hot topics. Besides the theme song, the formally admitted trainees showed a different side of themselves from the stage, whether it was their cute personalities in private or their mutual assistance during training, all of which was deeply satisfying to watch and allowed fans to better understand the character of the trainees they had picked.

But!

Who could compete with a demon who only slept three hours a day!

This trainee, Chi Meng, who had experienced three consecutive drops in the preliminary stage, from B to F, and provided the climax of the first episode, had a performance in the training camp that audiences described as heart-stopping. How could someone so clearly set goals and rigorously demand perfection from herself, wasting not a single minute? She trained when others slept, and she trained when others ate, only having friends bring her a few bites of food to cope before continuing to train. At first, everyone was curious about what she carried in her backpack every day, but when they discovered it contained toiletries and clean clothes to shower immediately after finishing training, everyone was truly speechless.

She was genuinely putting her heart and soul into training, and this level of self-discipline was daunting! She wasn’t even an adult yet!

Some emotionally sensitive viewers snapped out of their thoughts to find their eyes a little moist. The girl running alone on the quiet campus was actually smiling, as if she were racing toward a future she could see.

Chi Meng’s efforts were worth it. When she returned from Class F to Class B, there were only three words in the barrage of comments.

She deserves it.

Even if Chi Meng had gone straight from Class F to Class A, they would still have nothing to say, still responding with those three words.

Chi Meng’s performance in the final assessment surpassed most of the trainees in the camp. Someone with attention to detail specifically compared Chi Meng’s movements to the mentor’s. The height of her limbs and the arc of her body’s bend for every movement were almost identical to the mentor’s template. Although her movements still carried the stiffness of a beginner, the awkwardness and absurdity of the first day were gone. She was doing her best in her own way.

And she succeeded!

“Chi Meng is really strong…”

“I see her giving her all to be the best.”

“Terrifying, horrifying. She’s not just competitive with herself; she’s competitive with others. Su Mengyao went to Class D, Jing Ming went to Class C, Qi Yan went to Class A, plus Chi Meng—ABCD assembled! The four-person group all got promoted!”

“This is the meaning of effort, I love how hard she strives to move up. From the first day she entered the camp, she never just said she wanted to be promoted or wanted to win. She just did it. She trained herself to death to catch up, then secretly lay down to sleep after the assessment… sigh, it makes me want to cry.”

“This is the kind of person who wins gold medals in competitions and gets a guaranteed spot in J University’s top major. I believe she has enough talent, but she also puts in a hundred percent effort. That kind of spirit can’t be killed. No matter how her life started, she will always go where she wants to go.”

“Meng-Zai’s beginning… QAQ” (Meng-Zai is a fond nickname for Chi Meng)

“Meng-Zai’s smile seems plastered on her face, and she has such a good personality. All the trainees in the camp get along so well with her, but when I think about how much hardship she must have endured to develop this personality, I can’t help but… sigh.”

“…Why is everyone suddenly feeling down? We should be happy! Meng-Zai is back in Class B! I understood the look in her eyes when she took her seat and looked up after the initial stage! Meng-Zai decided then and there that she was going to come back. Now, we should be happy for her success. Come on, to congratulate Meng-Zai on her victory tonight, let me propose a cyber-drink. I hope Meng-Zai’s voting goes full steam ahead and her first-round ranking reaches the peak!”

“Cheers!”

“We also need to thank the big shots in the training camp for helping Meng-Zai! Wishing the big shots victory! Let’s all pop the champagne!”

“Hiss… you shouldn’t pop the champagne at the halfway point!”

“Hahaha, speaking of the big shots, did you guys watch the bonus clips? The fight between Meng Meng and Jiaqi in the preview wasn’t shown at all! It was all in the bonus clips, which first made both fandoms angry! Then they watched the clips and saw the sisters happily rolling around on the floor (hehe. As a result, the rumor that they had a bad relationship was spread, LOL.”

“The main thing is that the atmosphere between these two doesn’t fit the main show at all! There was already a ghost story bit, and then this part just turned it into a comedy show. The dog director probably considered that point and put it in the bonus clips… Hehe. But I never thought Song Jiaqi, who seems so cold, would have such a good relationship with Chi Meng, good enough to roll around on the floor, hahaha!”

“After all, she is Meng-Zai’s ‘most favorite’ trainee, hehe!”

“Everyone, please put quotation marks around ‘rolling around on the floor,’ hahaha! ‘Stop fighting, you two’ .jpg”

“So, none of you have seen the new bonus clip the production team just released? Is the production team causing trouble? The bonus clip has become an exclusive feature for Chi Meng and Song Jiaqi? Haven’t you seen these two’s ‘sister time’?”

“What?!”

“New bonus clip? I took a bite, it’s so sweet! Cough, cough, cough!”

“Sister Time?! !!”

“I checked! The second episode has made all the fansites’ photos/videos of the Star Trek trainees at the music festival popular! It turns out Meng-Zai, Jiaqi, and Yao Yao were together the whole time at the music festival. What kind of fate is this?”

“Hehe, a love triangle~”

“Yao Yao → Meng Meng → Jiaqi, but Jiaqi looks at Yao Yao: Disgusted.jpg. These three need to be together more often. I’ll die laughing watching them.”

“Holy cow! Meng-Zai’s performance at the music festival was too good! She looks unbelievably gorgeous in the crowd shots! The people below were screaming like crazy!”

“Then you haven’t seen the selfies of those three together! 98, 99, 100 super strong! Everything is fate’s arrangement!” (Referring to their grades/rankings)

“Can you believe it? Two hours ago, I saw Chi Meng’s selfie with only 200,000 views; now it’s 520,000… Our Meng-Zai has truly become a hot contestant!”

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