Chapter 5 Supporting Edges

Chapter Summary: The Second Performance is Here

Xia Xinyan smiled and greeted Mu Zhi, "So late today?"

Mu Zhi fully embraced the original character's persona, saying, "Well, the second performance is tomorrow, I'm a little nervous."

Just take it easy and keep going!

"Thank you, you too!"

The atmosphere was very harmonious.

There was no scene of swords drawn and anger escalating.

It's probably because they weren't even opponents in the second performance. Besides, Mu Zhi knows that Xia Xinyan has secured the lead role and probably doesn't take her seriously.

The second performance is here!

The performance stage of "Chasing the Light Girls" is broadcast live, without editing or post-production, showcasing the most authentic level of each trainee. Two days later, the production team will edit the highlights of the pre-performance training combined with the stage performance into a final video and upload it to the Owl platform.

Before the performance started, all the trainees were sitting in the waiting room.

A large LCD screen hanging on the front wall broadcasts the live situation on stage.

At the start of the live stream, the camera first cut to the stage.

As the lights came on, mentor and initiator Guan Qier walked onto the stage in a simple and elegant white suit. The suit was fitted with a V-neck, and she wore a diamond necklace, which instantly enhanced her overall temperament.

Guan Qier acted as the host, and after some official opening remarks, she, as usual, first cued the three mentors sitting on the judging panel.

Yu Nannan, dressed in a sexy black dress, and William, in a hip-hop style outfit befitting his rapper persona, stood up one after the other to wave and greet the fans below the stage.

Xie Chaoyun wore a black suit with a white shirt, buttoned up to the top. He was handsome and had a cool and aloof demeanor. As soon as he stood up to greet people, the fans behind him immediately burst into enthusiastic cheers.

They shouted Xie Chaoyun's name loudly.

It was as if it was about to melt this high-mountain flower.

Among the four mentors, Xie Chaoyun and Guan Qier are popular idols with more fans than the popular trainees on the show. These two mentors contributed a lot of traffic and attention to the success of this season of "Chasing the Light Girl".

Next, the camera cut to the enthusiastic audience, mostly fans of the contestants. Since the show prohibited the use of light sticks, they brought their own banners, holding them high and shouting the names of their favorite trainees as the camera focused on them!

"Shinken!"

"Liu Jingcai!"

"Vase branch!"

......

Through the screen, Mu Zhi heard someone calling her name, but she didn't know whether it was a hater or a fan.

The atmosphere was very lively, and the performance was about to begin.

Guan Qier explained the rules, "Tonight, on the stage of the second performance, eight groups will take turns performing, competing against each other in pairs..."

The competition between the trainees in Hall 1 was not broadcast live by the program team.

However, the national producers already knew the lineup for the PK battle from the players' conversations in the practice room and online leaks.

"After both groups of performers have finished, the 1000 audience members in the audience, please vote for your favorite group and one of your favorite performers (limited to one person). Simultaneously, we have also opened an online voting channel during our live stream. Only members of the Owl platform are eligible to vote, limited to the first 1000 people. The voting process is the same as in person..."

The trainees in the waiting room looked surprised and started whispering among themselves:

"Online voting has been added? This is a serious gamble for the second round."

"A total of 2000 votes, both in person and online?"

"These 1000 online votes are highly random."

"The era of speed-based hand gestures."

......

Mu Zhi also felt that the production team was very daring. How to put it? Online voting has its uncertainties and uncontrollability. But this approach greatly increased the participation of online netizens, and limiting voting to members was also a way to attract new users to the platform.

For the contestants, the live broadcast format allows them to see the level of their stage performance more clearly online than live. The "national producers" watch the contestants' performances online in real time, and their votes provide the most authentic feedback on the contestants' performances.

Even for less popular contestants, it's easy to get noticed.

This is also advantageous for the dance group, because even with a large projection screen at the venue, the audience at the back cannot see the dance group's performance up close; the vocal and rap groups have a relatively better chance of performing at the venue.

Starting from the second performance, voting is now being conducted both online and offline, which is relatively fair.

On stage, after explaining the voting rules, Guan Qier was finally about to begin her performance.

"Let's give a round of applause to the first group of contestants for a wonderful performance."

It's Liu Cai's group.

The performance began in the waiting room.

Everyone stopped whispering about the voting rules and focused intently on watching the performance.

The day before, Mu Zhi had seen a short performance by Liu Cai during the rehearsal, and she had made great progress. She didn't expect Liu Cai's performance on stage today to be even stronger. Her rapping had a flamboyant and cool vibe, and her singing and dancing with the microphone instantly ignited the emotions of the audience.

Liu Cai's group had a great opening, which immediately energized the stage.

The rap battle between the two groups turned out differently than the pre-competition PK results; Liu Cai's group won.

They led the other group by a third of the votes.

In the vocal group competition, both groups sang ballads. Mu Zhi felt that the vocal group, which had lost the previous two days, had made significant progress on stage tonight. To her, both songs sounded about the same, and the audience votes were very close after the performance.

Ultimately, the vocal group led by Zhang Mengyu, who had rich stage experience and performed consistently, won.

"Next up is the dance group. Who would you like to see perform?"

Audience members: "Ahhh, Shim-yeon!!"

"Alright, next let's welcome the Wish Girls group!"

Xia Xin's research group is about to take the stage.

Wish Girls Group? Mu Zhi thought of her own team's name and felt that everyone's naming talent was not very good, each one more awkward than the last?

Xia Xinyan's group's costumes were predominantly black, adopting a cool, dark princess style. Wearing the costumes added a lot of narrative depth to the dance performance. As the strongest member of the group and positioned in the center, Xia Xinyan performed several of the more difficult moves.

At the end of the dance, Xia Xinyan's black tulle skirt was stuck to her waist. After her teammates untied it, she was still wearing black leather pants and black high heels. She then performed a high-energy solo that lasted for almost half a minute.

It seems a new storyline was added after the PK that day.

After the performance, the audience erupted in applause.

The trainees in the lounge also clapped and cheered.

Xia Xinyan's group performed the dance very well overall, and her teammates did not make any more mistakes. However, Mu Zhi felt that Xia Xinyan's leading lady aura was a bit too strong, and all the highlights of the dance were on her alone.

After the two dance groups finished their performances, the contestants were invited onto the stage together.

After the mentors' comments, the voting process will begin.

In fact, the outcome of the competition between Xia Xinyan's group and the other group is already obvious.

Mu Zhi noticed that the other trainees were very excited and looking forward to this segment.

"Do you guys think Xin Yan's top fan will show up this time?"

"Probably. After smashing so much last time, this rich 'national producer' is probably a true fan of Xinyan!"

"Rich fan, I'm so hungry! I want one too!"

Hearing the hushed conversations around her, Mu Zhi remembered.

Each performance in this season's show is broadcast live, and like live streaming platforms, a charity tipping function has been enabled. To prevent minors from participating and fans from competing with each other, a high threshold has been set. The only gift item that can be tipped is a "spaceship" (minimum of 10), and contestants can receive corresponding likes.

During the first performance, a wealthy fan gifted Xia Xinyan 50 ships, which is equivalent to 500,000 RMB.

It contributed 50,000 likes!

Xia Xinyan's ability to become the most popular person is inseparable from the support of this wealthy fan.

Speak of the devil, and he appears! Before the PK results were revealed, a live-stream reward interface was projected onto the stage. Named "H," the mysterious tycoon fan with the system avatar appeared again. The special effects flashed for a while before stopping. Statistics showed that this time, another 50 "spaceships" were sent to Xia Xinyan.

Xia Xinyan's likes increased by 50,000!

All the money from online live stream donations will be donated to charity.

This wealthy tycoon's high-profile support for Xia Xinyan prompted Xia Xinyan's fans in the audience to excitedly shout her name.

The trainees in the waiting room exclaimed in envy, "Wow!" The massive support greatly boosted the fans' morale. Previously, some fans of other groups had questioned whether it was Xia Xinyan's fans using registered accounts to generate hype, but this time, with another 500,000 yuan spent, they were immediately silenced.

If fans are pooling their money to throw money at idols just to get 50,000 likes, it's not worth it. They might as well buy accounts and likes to support their idols' debut.

So this wealthy fan is truly a "wild fan" of Xia Xinyan. Other fans would spend their money wisely and wouldn't participate in the battles, so this segment became a special support show for Xia Xinyan.

The other dancer was relegated to the background throughout the entire performance.

Host Guan Qi'er quickly steered the conversation back to the voting topic. The results of the competition were in: Xia Xinyan's group received 1,328 votes, while the other group received less than 500 votes, a significant difference.

It was almost time for Mu Zhi's group to go on stage, and the six of them got up and left the waiting room together.

After sitting and recording for so long, my body is getting stiff.

After touching up my makeup backstage, I only had a few minutes left before going on stage.

Seeing Mu Zhi warming up, Zhou Jingzhu asked curiously, "Are you nervous?"

"I'm not nervous."

With her performance about to begin, she was too lazy to maintain a tense persona, lest she put pressure on her teammates. In fact, Mu Zhi was quite excited about performing on stage soon; after practicing for so long, it was time to test her skills.

Zhou Jingzhu seemed to be deep in thought, feeling that Mu Zhi was truly different now.

Hearing this, Lü E, who was standing nearby, scoffed dismissively.

If it weren't for the cameras filming, she would have retorted: "Don't hold us back!!"

During the week that Mu Zhi was on the same team, Lü E had to admit that Mu Zhi's practice in the training room was quite good and she had indeed made a lot of progress, but her performance level was not particularly amazing.

Mu Zhi is not a stage-oriented contestant.

So what if you practice well in private?

Whether he'll make another mistake and slack off this time is uncertain!

This season's producers value the contestants' abilities more. Although Lü E was extremely unhappy that Mu Zhi's votes were ahead of hers, she didn't really take the pretty-boy Mu Zhi seriously. Tonight, her target was Zhou Jingzhu, hoping to compete for the top spot in popularity within her team.

"Finally, let's welcome tonight's headlining dance group, the 'Not only beautiful, but also have a fun soul' team!"

When Mu Zhi heard the host announce the team name, which was both strangely confident and childish, a burst of laughter erupted from the audience. She felt so embarrassed that she got goosebumps. She rubbed her arms and followed Zhou Jingzhu onto the stage.

What's even more awkward is that they have to introduce themselves while wearing this team name.

For the contestants, each self-introduction on stage is quite important. They rack their brains to come up with funny moments for themselves, hoping that the national producers will remember them.

When it was Mu Zhi's turn to give her introduction, her look tonight was quite different from her previous appearances, which drew cheers from the fans in the audience.

Mu Zhi forced a smile and said, "Hello everyone, I'm Mu Zhi from Xinghe Culture. If beauty is a mistake, I've just made the mistake that every woman in the world wants to make."

All four mentors couldn't help but laugh when they heard this.

When the camera cut to the audience, a chubby girl shouted, "Meizhi, stand up straight and charge for us!"

His voice is incredibly loud and has a very strong penetrating quality!

Upon hearing this, Mu Zhi was taken aback at first, then smiled and nodded: "Received."

Viewers in the live stream were mocking this scene in the chat.

"That vase-like branch has such inexplicable self-confidence, it's ridiculous!"

"Let's come and see the joke about the vase branch (not really)."

"Is Waste Branch going to slack off on stage again tonight?"

"Still dare to stand in the center? Are you playing the role of a sacrificial lamb or are you just as fearless as a dead pig that's not afraid of boiling water?!"

"It's starting, everyone mute your microphones!"

There were other girls performing, so the comments in the live chat were temporarily suspended.

"Beautiful Skin," it's showtime!