Chapter 51 Huaning TV Station 11

"How can we compare this?" Even Zhang Runyue, who is usually calm, couldn't hold back any longer.

I went for plastic surgery on Monday. Are they all involved in this game together?

Zhong Zicang remained calm: "The new rules of the team competition have increased the importance of appearance. It's not surprising that they did this."

Zhang Runyue: "But, it's obvious that people who have plastic surgery have problems, and they are so eager to have it."

"It's better to have problems than to die." Zhong Zicang seemed to have let go of plastic surgery. "The individual performance assessment has proven that plastic surgery can save lives. How many people in the studio regretted not having plastic surgery? If you don't go now, your chance may be taken away by a higher-level trainee in a few days."

Zhang Runyue turned to look at Zhong Zicang, admiring him for being able to analyze all this so calmly at this moment.

However, the others in the lower group were not as calm as him. After dinner, two more people from the middle group went to sign up for plastic surgery, and they were not in the mood to discuss the group program.

Seeing that everyone was only concerned about the plastic surgery, Zhong Zicang thought for a moment and asked Hu Yihang directly: "Would you like to tell everyone what the side effects of your plastic surgery are?"

This was what all the lower group players were paying attention to. Now they were united and all looked at Hu Yihang.

Hu Yihang looked at Zhong Zicang in confusion.

Zhong Zicang: "Are you unfamiliar with me? Do you still know who I am?"

Hu Yihang nodded. He sat in the corner looking a little scared.

Zhong Zicang observed him and asked gently, "Are you forgetting something?"

Hu Yihang nodded again.

Zhong Zicang continued to ask: "Can you tell us, your classmates and friends, what the sequelae are and what the specific situation is, while you have not forgotten everything?"

Hu Yihang was a volunteer from Heping Medical College, a volunteer who came to the TV station for rescue. His eyes were originally a little gloomy, he was not a calm person. He was the one who questioned Zhong Zicang for the first time in the dormitory, and he told Zhong Zicang that plastic surgery was his own business and it was not Zhong Zicang's business that mattered.

After the plastic surgery, he had a pair of smiling eyes and he successfully passed the individual assessment. He became dazed and quiet, a little distraught, and subconsciously looked for someone he was familiar with.

Zhong Zicang: “Can you tell us?”

He said, “Yes.”

Before he said anything more specific, he inexplicably said, "My name is Hu Yihang."

Everyone around was stunned. Xia Bai said, "Your name is Hu Yihang."

Hu Yihang looked at Xia Bai for a while before saying, "It was confusing at first. My memory is a little confused."

He pulled out a small notebook from his pocket with his notes on it. "Look, I wrote this down. My memory was confused on the first night. This is what I summarized the next morning. The confusion is what I saw with my own eyes."

Hu Yihang realized something was wrong the next day. He was afraid that his thoughts were confused and he would not be able to remember, so he wrote it down in a small notebook.

The first two days were chaotic and blurry, and then I started to forget.

[I don’t know if it’s forgetting, or just disappearing suddenly, like the puzzle of myself breaking apart and falling bit by bit, everything related to “seeing” and eyes disappeared from my mind and my body.]

[Since these eyes were installed in my eye sockets, they have been absorbing and devouring everything I “see”. My soul is being devoured by them. I am almost gone.]

The trainees looked into his beautiful eyes again, and a chill ran down their spines.

So, these eyes are devouring everything Hu Yihang knows about "seeing"?

Human memory, and even human self, are all related to “seeing”. From the moment a person with normal vision opens his eyes to see the world to the time he grows into a complete self, he cannot do without “seeing”. When everything he sees will be swallowed up by these dead eyes, what will he have left?

They understood why Hu Yihang said he was Hu Yihang in the beginning.

He was afraid that if his self was completely devoured, he might no longer be himself.

"Then Liao Manni's mouth was replaced. Who is she?" A trainee asked himself and answered, "She was swallowed up by that dead man's mouth, everything she 'tasted'."

“Tasting” something that you don’t “see” has a big impact on people, but isn’t it also an important part of the human self?

Another trainee said: "What Feng Sheng changed was his nose, and what was devoured was everything related to 'smell'."

"Smell" is also an important part of life.

They looked at the other three people who had undergone plastic surgery in the practice room. Some of them were silent, while others nodded, confirming their guess.

"Well, there's a second plastic surgery today, doesn't that mean...what will he look like in the end?"

Xia Bai: "Become a talent show instructor."

A perfect talent instructor from beginning to end, she would just smile no matter what happened. It's not that she has excellent facial expression management or that she is emotionally stable, but that she doesn't have many emotions anymore and has a serious lack of self-awareness. She only has a pair of smiling mouths.

She is the one who stayed and is still able to participate in the show, and there are probably many more people who are worse off than her.

What will happen after multiple plastic surgeries?

Will turn into a beautiful zombie.

Even if she can smile, move her eyes and dance, she is still a beautiful zombie.

A beautiful shell.

It turns out that this is the essence of plastic surgery, exchanging your inner self for outer beauty.

The lower practice room was silent.

Zhong Zicang looked at them one by one, "Do you still want plastic surgery? If it is self-devouring, even if we can leave the game, the healing player can restore our face, but it may not restore our self."

"But if we don't have plastic surgery, we might die!" a trainee shouted in despair.

Zhong Zicang remained calm, "Can't we win by the show? Can we just win the middle group?"

"How can we win? Two people in the middle group have already had plastic surgery, and two more have signed up. Now at least two of them have already completed the surgery. Except for You Mohan, everyone in their group has had plastic surgery."

Zhong Zicang did the same thing again. This time, he obtained Hu Yihang's consent and showed his notebook to all the trainees, laying out the results of the plastic surgery to them.

They had no choice but to believe it. They only needed to check with the players in the same group who had plastic surgery to prove that he was not exaggerating.

Zhong Zicang asked You Mohan: "President You, how about our two groups not having plastic surgery and just decide the winner based on the talent show?"

"This is not something I can decide." You Mohan thought for a few seconds, "I'll try my best."

The plastic surgery was temporarily suspended for one day.

In the afternoon they were finally able to calm down a little and discuss their competition program.

Before the show started, Zhong Zicang said, "Let me make it clear that this show concerns the life and death of each of us. If you have a good idea for the show, you can't tell anyone outside the group."

He was on guard against Xia Bai's program ideas being plagiarized again.

He took out a gleaming piece of paper that he had prepared in advance. On it was written that no creative ideas within the group could be spread outside. "This is the contract prop I bought from the game mall. If you agree, everyone will sign it one by one. If you violate the contract, you will be punished by the game."

Many trainees signed immediately, but two were a little hesitant.

Zhong Zicang said: "If you don't sign, and don't care about the life and death of yourself and your teammates, don't participate in the rehearsal."

Those two players signed anyway.

After signing, Zhong Zicang and many trainees breathed a sigh of relief. They could discuss without reservation and express their ideas.

Zhang Runyue said first: "Can we use the story of the emergency room we talked about last time this time? Can we add some things that ghost audiences like to watch?"

A trainee said, "Can Xia Bai perform the coffining again? That would be amazing."

Zhong Zicang shook his head. "We've already performed it. If we do it again, the effect won't be that good. Let's think about why ghost audiences like burials so much. We can expand on this."

A player named Ding Jingchen said: "Because they have all experienced it, or want to experience it? They are all dead people, and leaving cleanly, completely and with dignity is what they once longed for. Xia Bai's show makes them feel respected, and they are very happy watching it?"

Xia Bai shook his head. "You are only half right. They like corpses. What I do is to repair and beautify corpses."

Several players were stunned. Except for the one who had plastic surgery, the rest of the players were stable and smart people. Xia Bai had already given them hints, so it was impossible that they hadn't figured it out yet.

Ghost audiences like corpses, which was revealed when Xia Bai was scolded for his first autopsy.

Zhang Runyue: "Xia Bai, your coffining performance really hit the nail on the head for them."

Xia Bai nodded without hesitation.

"This direction is so important." Zhong Zicang said happily: "How can we use this direction?"

A volunteer named Tian Sihan said: "We must cater to their needs and prepare as many bodies as possible."

"No, the production team won't give us so many corpses." Zhong Zicang shook his head. As the team leader, he submitted a list of props for their group's individual assessments to the production team. There were two corpses on the list at the time, and the producer kept asking questions for a long time, saying that the corpses were not easy to find.

I used to think that the bodies were all distributed to the plastic surgery material library, but now it seems that there is more than one reason why we don’t want to give them so many bodies.

"We can only get two corpses at most for one performance," said Zhong Zicang.

Zhang Runyue: "First of all, we must get these two corpses and find a way to add them to our program."

All the trainees in the lower group agreed that since the ghost audience liked it, they would rather not refuse it.

Ding Jingchen: "If we add two corpses, how can we make the best use of them? What can we perform?"

They didn't think of a good idea at the moment. The emergency room is to desperately save dying people, and adding corpses would go against their original idea.

Seeing this, Xia Bai expressed his thoughts: "Since ghost audiences like corpses, then we can pretend to be corpses."

Several people looked at him, and Zhong Zicang asked, "Xia Bai, if you have any ideas, just speak up."

"Yeah." Xia Bai said, "Ghost audiences like corpses, so we try to show them corpses as much as possible, and we also try to be in a way that they like, which is what I call pretending to be corpses. If we extend this idea into a show, maybe, have you heard of corpse chasers?"

Zhong Zicang's eyes lit up. "You mean, we perform corpse-driving together? We all dress up as corpses, and one person drives the corpse?"

"Great!" Tian Sihan said, "Not only is the program creative and pranks the audience, but each of us will also make the audience like it a little more."

Hu Yihang reacted for a while and whispered, "In this case, I can also play a corpse. It's not that difficult. Thank you, Xia Bai."

The other three people who had plastic surgery also looked at Xia Bai.

They were worried that as their egos were being devoured, their reactions would be much slower and they wouldn't be able to act well. If it was a corpse, it wouldn't be that difficult for them to act.

——They were already becoming like zombies.

“It’s really good.” Zhang Runyue said: “Before, I was thinking that if it was an emergency room, our roles would be distributed unfairly, with doctors, nurses and patients having different likability. But this problem does not exist in the corpse-driving show. We are all corpses that ghost audiences like.”

Xia Bai: "There will be one who stands out, the corpse chaser."

"It's you." Zhong Zicang said, "You are the only B-level trainee in our group, and you are the most popular trainee among the ghost audience. No matter how we eliminate them, it will never be your turn. You can be the corpse chaser, and the distribution is still fair."

Xia Bai looked at the other people in the group, and they nodded one by one.

"Xia Bai, what the captain said makes a lot of sense. Besides, you were the one who came up with this program, so you should be the corpse chaser."

"Yes, junior, you are the most suitable one. Don't worry, I will be an obedient corpse."

"That is, how to drive the corpse, does anyone know? Should we discuss it?"

Xia Bai pursed his lips and took out two corpse-suppressing talismans and corpse-controlling talismans. "I know how. This is my skill. I can suppress and control corpses. These are for the two corpses."

“…”

The practice room was quiet for a moment.

Ding Jingchen said: "I don't know why, but I feel so happy. I was almost driven crazy by this crappy show, but now I feel safe. I feel like we can win with the show, at least in the middle group."

"I feel that way too. I feel like there's something wrong with me."

"I actually saw hope, it's incredible."

Zhang Runyue looked at the dazed Xia Bai and smiled, "The captain is right. As long as we prepare well for the program, we can pass it. Didn't Xia Bai prove it in the individual assessment? He didn't use any skills from the game, and he got a B."

Zhong Zicang also laughed. It seemed like he hadn't laughed for a long time. He looked at the eleven players in the group and said, "Don't think about plastic surgery anymore. Let's focus all our attention on the show and rehearse it, okay?"

"good!"

After the discussion, Zhong Zicang walked over to Xia Bai who was standing by the window and said to him, "Xia Bai, thank you."

Xia Bai was still staring blankly, "Everyone has a responsibility."

Zhong Zicang smiled and said, "But you have exposed your skills, and they might be leaked out."

They don't talk about their shows, but they can talk about Xia Bai's skills alone.

That's good.

More people will see grandpa’s skills.

Thinking of this, Xia Bai said: "Don't be afraid, you will know sooner or later."

As the two were talking, another trainee came over and said, "Captain, I'm sorry."

His name is Zheng Shaoning, and he is also a volunteer at their school. He was the boy who complained to Zhong Zicang because he couldn't have plastic surgery on Saturday.

"I really am. I am under too much pressure and too scared. I shouldn't have said that. I know you have done a lot for us, President."

Then, several people who had undergone plastic surgery came over one after another. Hu Yihang opened his mouth to say something in confusion, but was interrupted by Zhong Zicang.

"Let's go back to school together." He said, "Don't let anyone be missing."

"Um!"

"Go back to school. I miss our school so much."

"Who wouldn't want to? Our school is the best school. We have good accommodation, good food, good teachers, and good classmates."

If one is not driven crazy and twisted by terror and death, who would want to be a hateful evil person?

Xia Bai felt that the so-called game of the Holy Tour Guild being "doing justice for the heavens" was nonsense. A peaceful and stable environment could better nourish a shining soul.

He likes corpses, and he also likes glittering souls.

During lunch, Yang Mei saw that Xia Bai, Zhang Runyue and others were in a good mood, so she asked Xia Bai: "Does your group have any good ideas?"

Xia Bai nodded.

Yang Mei asked curiously, "What is it?"

Xia Bai: "I can't tell you."

Xia Bai asked Yang Mei again: "What about you guys? What program are you doing?"

"Oh." This "oh" was a reply to Xia Bai saying that he couldn't tell him. Yang Mei immediately said, "Our group is like this. They are all difficult to discipline, and the captain doesn't want to manage them, so he suggested that everyone prepare a one or two minute solo performance, and then combine them into a group performance in order."

“…”

The trainees from both the lower and upper groups were silent.

Xia Bai asked: "Every time you enter the game, are you accompanied by members of the assault team like Erwa?"

Yang Mei: "Brother, how did you know?"

Xia Bai: "Otherwise, it's hard for me to imagine how you managed to survive so many games, even if you have useful skills."

Yang Mei: “…”

After dinner, the twelve people in the lower group immediately returned to the practice room. They spent the entire afternoon completing the program and wrote a short character story for each corpse, specifying age, personality, cause of death, obsession, etc. This way, each corpse was complete and unique, giving them plenty of time to perform.

On Tuesday morning, they began to practice seriously, practicing how to play the role of a dead body, no, Xia Bai corrected it to be the God of Joy.

The director is Zhong Zicang and the technical director is Xia Bai.

They personally participated in their own makeup and designed their own costumes and handed them over to the program team. They had their own ideas for makeup, and the technical guidance was still Xia Bai, who was buried.

When laughter was heard for the first time in the lower group's practice room, they would sometimes suddenly feel that they were preparing for the school's New Year's Day gala performance, not some damn 404 stage. They would laugh in sweat and even fight and scold.

When the two corpses came, they were not afraid. When they saw Xia Bai put corpse-suppressing talismans on them, they childishly lined up and jumped up and down with them, raising their hands.

Xia Bai, who was originally a technical instructor, would jump up and down behind them as he watched.

They are all gods of joy, so many gods of joy.

"Look at Junior Brother Xia Bai. He doesn't need to act. His silly face looks like the god of joy."

"Oh my god, why are they so alike? Hahaha!"

"Hahaha are you polite?"

Xia Bai: “…”

This situation continued until Saturday. When they were about to go to lunch on Saturday, Ding Jingchen hurried over to tell them, "The people in the middle group went for plastic surgery again! Three people in the queue went! It seems that all three of them had second plastic surgery!"

The players in the lower group were all stunned.

On Monday, Zhong Zicang told You Mohan that no one in the two groups would have plastic surgery and that each group would rely on their talent.

They knew that the top group was too difficult to surpass because there were too many skilled bosses, and Yang Mei and Ling Changye's ghost energy was too high, so if they were to eliminate them, they could only eliminate these two groups.

After learning about the terrible consequences of plastic surgery, Zhong Zicang proposed this suggestion to You Mohan, which is good for both parties. You Mohan said he would consider it, and since no one had gone for plastic surgery in the past few days, they thought this was an agreement reached.

Unexpectedly, three of them suddenly went for plastic surgery again.

"You guys go have lunch first. I'll go to the basement level 3 to take a look. We'll discuss this together after lunch." Zhong Zicang said, "Senior Zhang, please bring me a box of rice."

Zhang Runyue: "Okay, leave it to me, you go ahead, Captain."

They ate their lunch absentmindedly and uncomfortably.

There were only seven people left in the middle group, five of whom had undergone plastic surgery. On Monday, in addition to You Mohan, the other player who had not undergone plastic surgery went for it, and another one had it done twice.

Today there are three more left to queue.

In other words, the current configuration of the medium group is a skilled C-level trainee, You Mohan, and the rest are all players who have undergone plastic surgery, four of whom have undergone secondary plastic surgery.

With this configuration, not only the lower group, but even the two last ones in the upper group are a little worried.

Originally they were not worried at all. There were so many big guys in the top group, so they didn't have to worry at all. They would definitely remain in the top group and no one would be eliminated. But now, the middle group was so strong that even they were afraid of it.

The people in the lower group hurriedly ate a few mouthfuls of rice and returned to the practice room with a box of lunch.

Zhong Zicang came back later than them and explained the situation to them: "They are indeed in the middle group, and they did have plastic surgery last week, a second plastic surgery. Moreover, they have taken up the rest of the plastic surgery time today, so others can't have plastic surgery anymore."

"They must have done it on purpose! They pretended to agree to not have plastic surgery and deliberately delayed it until today, so that we can't have it but they can!" Zheng Shaoning said angrily.

Zhang Runyue said: "It's no use saying this now."

Yes, it’s no use saying this now, they have no choice.

The atmosphere in the practice room was depressing and silent.

Zhong Zicang broke the silence and said with a smile, "Are you scared now? Who said that Junior Xia Bai could be B without any skills or plastic surgery? Who made him feel at ease and happy because of our show? They just got three more people who had plastic surgery. We still have the advantage in numbers over them."

He was a serious man, but at this moment he seemed to be teasing them. He looked really relieved. This relaxed attitude made others relax as well.

"Yes, I am very confident in our program. I don't believe they can have a better talent show than ours."

"They had plastic surgery, and we dressed up as the God of Happiness. Who knows which one will be liked more by the ghost audiences."

"They did this in the end, probably to make us lose our composure. The tension on this stage is fatal. We must not let them lead us into a ditch."

"Wait, maybe they just don't have the confidence, so they had to get plastic surgery as a last resort."

"We can do it, can't we?"

"Can!"

Zhong Zicang smiled and clapped his hands, "Come on, let's rehearse twice more. Believe in the program we have prepared carefully."

"Okay! Let's continue rehearsing and develop some muscle memory even when we're nervous."

This time, there were no complaints or people getting angry in the practice room. They were just angry for a while and then started preparing together again.

Many people even didn't want to eat dinner and wanted to continue practicing.

Zhong Zicang said, "If we miss dinner, it will be gone. If we are too hungry to sleep at night, it will not be worth it. How about this, you guys continue to practice, I will bring our rice to the dormitory, and we can finish early tonight and have dinner together?"

The proposal to have dinner together was agreed by all the trainees. Their relationship had become much closer in the past few days, and they really wanted to have dinner together as a group to prepare for tomorrow's scary, yet not-so-scary assessment.

"I can also try some of Xia Bai's sumptuous dishes," said Zhang Runyue.

Xia Bai actually nodded, "I only like to eat white rice."

When Zhong Zicang went to get dinner, Zhang Runyue called him, "Captain."

"Hmm?" Zhong Zicang slowly turned his head to look at her, "What's wrong?"

"You didn't eat much for lunch." Zhang Runyue pointed at his lunch box on the windowsill, "Are you hungry? Why don't you come back after dinner?"

"Yes, captain, you didn't eat in the restaurant at noon. Come back after you eat. Don't worry, we won't be lazy." Zheng Shaoning followed.

"Okay." Zhong Zicang looked at the faces in the practice room and smiled with relief under the shaky lights, "I'm very happy you said that."

Zhong Zicang left and walked down the stairs next to him.

They continued to rehearse in the practice room, and after practicing normally twice, they began to rehearse with their eyes closed. When they could find their position and complete the performance smoothly with their eyes closed, they knew that they would have no problem with this performance.

"Has it been an hour? Why hasn't the captain come back yet? Should we line up twice more after he comes?" Ding Jingchen asked.

Zhang Runyue: "It's been more than an hour. The captain is not too tired and fell asleep in the dormitory, right?"

Thinking of the way Zhong Zicang left, Xia Bai's heart suddenly jumped. He said, "Let's go find the captain."

They didn't find him in other practice rooms, in the dormitory, or on the underground third floor, and finally they returned to the practice room in a hurry.

There was a person squatting in the practice.

"Captain! Where have you been? We were so worried!"

The man stood up slowly, and they were a little stunned when they saw his background.

Isn't this the captain? The captain is not that tall.

When he turned his head, they were no longer stunned.

This person was not the captain. None of his facial features looked like the captain's. He looked perfect and strange, smiling as he looked at them.

However, he was wearing Captain Zhong Zicang's coat.