Chapter 13 The Three Dukes

Chapter Summary: This is not the score I should have received.

For the sake of stage effect, Mu Zhi had carefully considered the issue of changing clothes.

Her ancient style look when singing "Beauty": a wig with a flying bun on her head, and a white ancient costume with an ethereal feel, consisting of three layers: inner garment, outer garment, and shawl, as well as matching pants, socks, cloth shoes, and a belt of the same color as the outer garment around her waist, making her slender waist look like a willow branch that could be broken with a single grasp.

Even a solo Huo Yuanjia dance requires wearing ancient costume.

If I prepare another set of ancient costumes, I'm afraid I won't have time to change.

Mu Zhi knew that Liu Cai's finger dance couldn't be performed in ancient costume, so she decided not to change her clothes.

Simply create a "new look".

After singing "The Beauty," remove the flying bun hair bun from your head, put a hairpin in your real hair at the back of your head, and change your white outer garment into a red gauze dress.

Mu Zhi asked the staff to give her a timed rehearsal; 5 minutes was enough.

Liu Cai was slightly taken aback when she saw Mu Zhi's expression that said, "I can handle this, so I'll go first."

To be honest, after several episodes of filming, apart from Xia Xinyan who is quite talented, Liu Cai thinks the other girls are all girls who need to be protected.

We tried our best to take care of those we could, and we made concessions whenever possible. We never expected Mu Zhi to step forward on her own initiative.

Liu Cai hesitated for a moment but accepted Mu Zhiqian's gesture of courtesy, and the order of their performances was thus decided.

After the rehearsal ended, I returned home in the evening.

Mu Zhi was so tired that she wanted to collapse onto the bed and sleep soundly for the rest of her life.

But when I think about the solo dance I did in rehearsals, and watch the playback on the camera, I realize it wasn't good enough.

“Practicing dance is not something that can be done overnight. Your movements are slightly lacking from a professional point of view, but your makeup and styling are stunning and your dancing is full of emotion, which is quite outstanding and you have done a very good job.”

Her mentor Yu Nannan's evaluation did not satisfy her.

Mu Zhi wanted to do more than just create a visual impact; she hoped to at least receive praise for her dancing, with the words "You danced well."

Forcing myself to stay alert, I headed towards the practice room...

The following day, the third performance of "Chasing the Light" began!

The appearance of celebrity mentors as guest performers attracted a lot of attention to this episode. Ever since the selection of celebrity mentors was announced, netizens have been looking forward to seeing what kind of sparks would fly on the collaborative stage.

The program did not reveal how the trainees and celebrity mentors were paired up. Before the official lineup was announced, the national producers already knew about the team formation through the live broadcast footage from the practice room.

When Ning Yao's fans first learned that their idol was in the same team as Mu Zhi and Liu Cai, they were a little disapproving. Their preferred choice was Xia Xinyan, who was both popular and talented. Mu Zhi didn't have a good reputation online and her skills weren't great; as for Liu Cai, she was even less of a match.

After observing the atmosphere in the practice room, they saw that their idol seemed to be having a good time with the other girls and was full of fighting spirit, vowing to take first place. Liu Cai and Mu Zhi were ranked second and third in popularity, so they thought it was pretty good.

To support their idol's first stage performance, many fans bought tickets to the show and planned to attend in person...

Three hours before the live broadcast of the third performance, Ning Yao posted on Weibo.

Ning Yao V: I'll blow up the stage tonight! [Image]

She posted a group photo taken in the training room with Mu Zhi and others, and tagged Mu Zhi and five other girls.

Fans left enthusiastic comments in the comment section:

"Charge! Charge! Charge! Take first place!"

"Ning, do your best and don't embarrass us fans. (Dog head and rose emoji)"

"My Bao Ningyao, I'm looking forward to your performance with the girls!"

......

Other celebrity guests who were also supporting the performances also posted on Weibo and tagged their own trainees to promote the show and build hype for tonight's performance.

8 PM.

As soon as the live stream of "Chasing the Light" started, the number of viewers in the live stream room skyrocketed, breaking new records. The barrage of comments went wild, with not only the names of the 25 trainees but also the names of the celebrity mentors who were there to support them.

Multiple fans engaged in a chaotic battle of empty bottles in the live chat, cheering on their idols.

Tonight, 3,000 public producers came to the event.

The trainees, sitting in the waiting room, were overwhelmed by the screams of their fans through the live stream screen. They felt as if they were being pulled into the crowd of people below the stage, excitedly shouting along with them. They were so looking forward to tonight's performance.

Because the mentors had the task of scoring and there were also celebrity guests to help, the program team did not let the mentors also serve as hosts for the third public performance. Instead, they invited a popular male and female host from the industry, which raised the level of the third public performance and gave it a lot of prestige.

The female host, dressed in a lake-blue long dress, was gentle and elegant as she introduced the competition format for tonight's performance:

"25 girls chasing the light and our 5 celebrity seniors will bring us 5 wonderful performances. The 5 groups of contestants will take the stage in turn according to the order drawn before the competition, and our 3,000 national producers on site will vote."

The online voting for the group performances in the third public performance was cancelled, supposedly because they were worried that the combined enthusiasm of the celebrity seniors' fans would crash the server. The collaborative songs were all vocal, so the live audience could feel the atmosphere well, and the voting base was large enough, so they only relied on the live votes.

Next, the male host introduced the voting rules for the solo stages of the three popular contestants. Simply put, after the three contestants have finished performing, the four mentors will give comments and vote (each mentor's vote counts as 50 votes). In addition, the 3,000 live audience producers and the 3,000 online members of the Owl platform will vote, for a total of 6,004 people, to select the most popular contestant of the night.

After the rules were explained, the performance was about to begin.

The first group to perform was Zhou Jingzhu's group.

The guest star is Chu Beisi, a senior who debuted as the center of the boy group in the first season of the Owl platform 4 years ago. Back then, when he participated in the competition and debuted as a group, he was a frequent visitor to the top of the trending searches and was extremely popular.

The entertainment industry changes extremely quickly; things can change drastically in a year.

After her debut, Chubes released several digital albums exclusively for fans. Later, she went into acting, but her acting skills were not very good, which caused many fans to leave. After two years of silence, she returned to the public eye last year by recording a variety show.

However, its development has not been as good as before.

The performance with Zhou Jingzhu was a dance song. Both of them were very uninhibited, with intimate interactions including close face-to-face dancing. One was sexy and alluring, while the other exuded hormones, eliciting enthusiastic shouts from the audience. In the middle, there was a solo rap by Chu Beisi, the lyrics of which he probably wrote himself. In just a few lines, he expressed the ups and downs he had experienced over the past few years...

After the performance, the trainees in the dressing room applauded, their faces showing a mix of emotions.

The four mentors gave their comments, focusing on the five trainees including Zhou Jingzhu. They praised the team's performance as "an explosive and energetic stage," "highly accomplished," and "Jingzhu and the bassist's hot dance was wonderful!"

The evaluation of Chubes was rather reserved. Well, they are all colleagues in the industry. Chubes has been away from this stage for 4 years, and her singing and dancing skills are not as good as before. But as a guest performer, she still deserves some respect.

After the review session, the celebrity senior students began their campaign for votes, followed by the voting process.

The two hosts said, "Now, please pick up your voting devices, everyone. Do you like this performance? If the answer is yes, please cast your precious vote."

"Is this a competition to see who has more fans?"

"I heard that most viewers don't have a fan club affiliation."

"But the 'national producers' who bought tickets to come to the event will definitely have some trainees they personally prefer..."

Mu Zhi listened to Ning Yao sitting next to her talking to another celebrity senior, and thought to herself: This young man really talks about everything, he talks a lot and he talks a lot.

The vote count for Zhou Jingzhu's group is in, totaling 2018 votes.

This result should be considered good, but there are no other groups' results to compare it with, so it's impossible to make a direct comparison.

It's the second group's turn to perform, Zhang Mengyu's group.

The celebrity senior who came to help is a frequent guest on various variety shows, named Guo An, whom netizens call a "variety show star".

The reason Guo An was invited by the program team is that he participated in the fifth season of "Crossover Song" earlier this year and won the third place, which exposed his hidden identity as a "talented singer", so he was invited to come.

Guo An chose a love song.

He performed a poignant love song with Zhang Mengyu and others. His powerful high notes, including the dolphin-like high notes, showcased his incredible lung capacity to the audience. Zhang Mengyu also sang with great passion and immersion.

Some trainees even wiped away tears after listening, moved to tears.

Mu Zhi felt that Zhang Mengyu performed better tonight than in the second performance; she sang very well. It was clear that she had put in a lot of effort, but... there was almost no interaction between the celebrity mentors and the trainees throughout the performance; they each sang their own songs, and there was no stage atmosphere. It could have been much more moving.

Mentor Xie Chaoyun praised everyone for their dedication and passionate performance in the song, noting that "the only drawback is that, as I mentioned during rehearsals, this is a love song..."

The other mentors also mentioned this point, implying that Guo An's singing lacked emotion and was a bit too technically impressive.

William, speaking in broken Chinese, said he had specifically counted and found that the male lead's eye contact with the girls lasted no more than two seconds. Was he too shy?

Guo An explained, "I was so engrossed in the song that I was lost in my own world."

The camera focused on Zhang Mengyu, who was standing to the side, and her smile was somewhat bitter.

The segment where celebrity seniors campaign for votes for their collaborating trainees.

Guo An praised "Chasing the Light Girls" as a vibrant stage where every trainee is striving to pursue their dreams, and only mentioned at the end, "I hope the audience will support these girls who are chasing their dreams and cast your precious vote!"

In the live stream chat, netizens couldn't help but complain:

"Finally finished talking, you talked so much!"

"Comedians come on TV and act all old-fashioned; they're not likable at all."

"Zhang Mengyu's face darkened because she didn't directly campaign for her team."

"Hurry up and move on to the next group, it's finally Xinyan's turn!!"

The host took the cue card from the staff and read out the number of votes Zhang Mengyu's group received, which was also displayed on the big screen on the stage: 1798 votes.

Currently ranked second.

Zhang Mengyu seemed to have mentally prepared herself, nodded slightly, bowed to the audience below the stage, and did not say anything.

The atmosphere in the lounge froze for a moment.

Many trainees felt sorry for Zhang Mengyu, thinking she shouldn't have only received this result.

Some of the celebrity alumni are there to support the performance, while others... may not necessarily be able to help.

Soon, everyone's hearts were on the edge of their seats as Xia Xinyan's group was about to take the stage.

The live broadcast on the LCD screen in front of me switched to the audience below the stage, panning from the front row to the back, and many audience members shouted the name "Xia Xinyan".

The live stream chat was filled with comments like "Ahhh, Shin-yeon!"

The combination of a top-rated contestant and a prince of love songs is here!