There's Something Wrong With My Little White Flower - Chapter 59

Chapter 59: Obscure Idol X Top Girl Group Member

The preliminary stage performances were filmed for two full days. Ultimately, the three mentors each selected twenty trainees. They would now officially enter the ranking phase of Road to Stardom, competing as teams.

As the most popular mentor, Jiang Peifeng naturally attracted a lot of attention from the contestants. Many trainees even openly admitted that they joined Star Catcher primarily to follow her.

Consequently, her group had the most applicants. After careful selection, she first picked several top-performing singing and dancing trainees, then chose a few trainees with connections based on the list. Mu Qing was clearly among this tier.

Her final pass badge, however, was given to Ruan Jiyun.

“I look forward to you bringing me another surprise,” Jiang Peifeng said encouragingly, personally handing the sparkling silver badge to Ruan Jiyun, and offering her a gentle smile.

The reactions of the trainees below the stage to her final pass varied. Some felt indifferent, thinking she was just an unknown girl who wouldn’t go far even if she made it to the next round, while others were inevitably jealous.

“Jiang Peifeng gave her the badge purely out of courtesy because they danced together,” complained a curly-haired girl indignantly in a third-floor practice room. “Hey, Mu Qing, you’re from the same company as her. Does she have any special backing?”

She spoke loudly, and no one else in the room dared to contradict her, only continuing their practice silently.

The curly-haired girl, named Xin Lu, was already a minor celebrity with a significant online following. She was drawn to Mu Qing’s neutral charisma during the preliminary stage and strongly invited her to join her performance team.

The first public performance was two weeks away, and the PK theme was set as “The Unique Me.” Each team could freely form groups and choose to perform a dance, vocal, or original piece.

Mu Qing was naturally delighted by the invitation. Seeing Xin Lu’s sarcastic tone toward Ruan Jiyun, she hesitated for a moment but then followed her lead: “I’m not really familiar with her. The company just arranged for us to compete together. Maybe she’s good at sucking up, so she got favor?”

Xin Lu snorted in disdain: “Those lower-class people have to rely on that kind of skill to climb up. And to delusionally try to attach herself to Jiang Peifeng for fame, it’s hilarious.”

She came from the industry’s famous entertainment company, Jingxin. Her participation in Road to Stardom was also to better accumulate popularity. Jingxin was very wealthy, sending six trainees to the competition, five of whom entered the preliminary round. Xin Lu was the most popular of them.

As a future starlet, Xin Lu had always been a fan of Jiang Peifeng. Now, seeing her idol seemingly show preferential treatment to an unknown trainee, she couldn’t help but feel jealous.

She should be the one standing next to Jiang Peifeng!

Thinking of this, she said sourly: “Forget it. Anyway, our team is definitely the strongest now. I’d like to see who Ruan Jiyun can team up with in the end.”

After Xin Lu’s words spread, any trainee in Jiang Peifeng’s group with any connections or background wisely steered clear of Ruan Jiyun. As the free team formation drew to a close, two dancer groups successfully formed, and the original group was joined by a few music-oriented contestants, leaving only a few trainees like Ruan Jiyun who were left behind.

And the only remaining performance category available was vocal performance.

Compared to the other established or popular trainees, these few were unknowns. Seeing the most attention-grabbing dance stages taken, one girl with pigtails almost cried.

“There are three available songs for the vocal group. Please discuss and choose one,” the assistant director posted the form on the whiteboard and explained the procedure. “The first is the popular online hit ‘Fall in Love, Sweetly,’ the second is the pop queen Qin Xin’s ‘If Not for Deep Affection,’ and the last is an old song, ‘Qingzhou Serenade.'”

The girls subconsciously looked at Ruan Jiyun. Perhaps because Ruan Jiyun looked the calmest at the moment, they unconsciously regarded her as their anchor.

Ruan Jiyun was also weighing the pros and cons of the songs. Seeing the situation, she gave the casting coordinator a smile: “Sister, could you give us a moment to discuss?”

She had a good temper and was always well-behaved and polite, even to the staff. The coordinator had a good impression of her and nodded: “You have five minutes.”

Ruan Jiyun then tried to share her thoughts with her teammates: “The first song is popular, but the melody is too simple, and the audience’s preconceived notions are strong, which might make it difficult to achieve a dramatic effect. Pop Queen Qin’s song relies on brilliant high notes; we could try it if everyone here were a vocal professional. Lastly, there’s ‘Qingzhou Serenade.’ Although it’s an old song, if arranged well, it could offer something new.”

Convinced by her thorough analysis, the girl with pigtails said submissively: “I can’t do high notes… I’ll listen to you all and try my best not to drag everyone down.”

“A collaborative stage relies on everyone’s strength,” Ruan Jiyun said gently. “If we highlight everyone’s best parts, I believe we can create a brilliant stage if we work together.”

The skill levels of the other girls were similar. After a brief discussion, Ruan Jiyun was still the one to speak: “We choose ‘Qingzhou Serenade.'”

After the coordinator confirmed and pasted the song title onto the public board, Xin Lu and the other contestants watching the show from the sidelines laughed disdainfully.

“An old song from how many years ago? So outdated. Will anyone even listen?”

“You can only rely on being unconventional to get some attention…”

Faced with these harsh comments, the few girls awkwardly lowered their heads. High-ranking contestants were backed by large agencies and dominated the traffic. This kind of bullying was not isolated, it just wasn’t caught on camera.

The story in front of the camera is always glamorous. Before reaching the peak, no one pays attention to the fate of the cannon fodder drowned in the crowd.

Ruan Jiyun quietly comforted the others: “The place where we fight is the stage. As long as we practice hard and present the best performance, someone will definitely see us.”

“But…” the girl with pigtails said frustratingly, “Can the few of us really perform well?”

“We must perform well,” Ruan Jiyun said firmly. “Didn’t we come here to show the audience a good performance? If we’re not prepared well enough now, then we’ll practice ten times, twenty times more. We still have more than a week until the public performance. If we put our hearts into it, we can definitely master it!”

Her expression was so determined that the young girls unconsciously regained some confidence. The girl with pigtails sniffed and said, “I think Ruan Ruan is right.”

“We came here to chase our dreams! Let’s practice hard!”

At the other end of the practice room, Xin Lu looked at them and still sneered dismissively: “Overestimating themselves.”

Based on past experience, unless a vocal group had a naturally gifted talent, the live effect would definitely not be as explosive and effective as a dance group’s. She hadn’t paid much attention to the initial performances of these few contestants, but if there were truly strong vocalists, why would they be left over?

People who were born at the foot of the mountain but still dared to look up at the stars made her feel truly irritated.

Mu Qing noticed her expression and hesitated before asking, “They won’t actually come up with some kind of trick, will they?”

“It’s not that easy,” Xin Lu snorted. “Stage performance doesn’t just rely on individual effort. Just wait and see.”

Just as she predicted, Ruan Jiyun’s group encountered many problems during practice.

First, during the scramble for resources, Xin Lu’s dance group claimed they wanted to enhance the live effect and requisitioned the piano accompanist originally scheduled for Ruan Jiyun’s group, who often disappeared for half a day. The vocal trainees also faced various degrees of bullying in the dorm area, being complained about by other contestants for practicing too loudly. Most critically, their stage rehearsals were constantly squeezed to the very end.

“You’ve already rehearsed more than ten times, and you still won’t come down,” the girls blocked the rehearsal room door, confronting Xin Lu’s dancer group. “Didn’t everyone receive the rehearsal schedule?”

Xin Lu glanced at them dismissively: “Dance groups naturally need more stage time than you do. The coordination of music, lighting, and props requires constant refinement to ensure the live effect. Since you don’t understand anything, I’m too lazy to explain.”

“At least it should be fair,” the pigtail girl said. “The public performance is almost here, and we haven’t even had much time to familiarize ourselves with the stage blocking…”

“You’re just standing there singing. Rehearsing so many times is a waste of time anyway, isn’t it?”

The tall girl next to Xin Lu said sarcastically. In recent days, because of Xin Lu, the coordinators and assistant directors had been particularly preferential to their team, making them a little carried away, thinking they were about to reach the peak.

“You’re all here?” Suddenly, a female voice came from outside the rehearsal room. “Good evening.”

Jiang Peifeng appeared at the rehearsal room, surrounded by staff and her assistant. She must have just returned from outside, wearing only a suit jacket over her dress. She seemed oblivious to the tension in the room and smiled: “Sorry I’m late. I came to check on your rehearsal.”

At her single sentence, the halted work site immediately started operating. Jiang Peifeng smiled as she greeted the enthusiastic trainees and found a seat: “I’ll watch every group’s performance.”

With a mentor personally present, the order off-stage was completely different from before. The assistant director rushed to command everyone: those in charge of lighting adjusted the lights, those looking for the band found them. Everything started according to formal rehearsal standards, and one camera was pointed at Jiang Peifeng’s face.

She was a massive traffic draw. Filming more footage of her to be edited in later was definitely worthwhile.

Jiang Peifeng was also very cooperative, not only seriously watching every group’s performance but also personally pointing out a few areas for improvement. Only after watching all the performances did she gently raise her hand and point to one group: “The performances are basically all good. I look forward to you all doing even better live… Also, I would like your group to stay.”

The spot she pointed to was precisely Ruan Jiyun’s vocal group.

Jiang Peifeng said earnestly: “Only your group’s stage blocking is still a bit unfamiliar. How about this, I’ll accompany you to practice a few more times.”

At this statement, everyone fell silent. The trainees in Ruan Jiyun’s group were naturally ecstatic, as they could now legitimately use the stage for practice! And with personal guidance from the mentor, no less!

Xin Lu and the others, however, had sour looks on their faces. But what could they say?

After all, the person Jiang Peifeng praised was them, and the group she was staying behind to criticize was the one they had been targeting.

But why did it still feel like… something wasn’t quite right?

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