54 Second Trial

November was another extremely busy month for Yuan Xiao.

Gu Yuchen's teammate Fu Daoyun was deceived by Yuan Xiao and brought onto Yuan Xin's ship. He originally came to the company to take a look, but for unknown reasons he started working four days a week at eight o'clock.

Gu Yuchen smiled: "Feeling fulfilled, second brother?"

Fu Daoyun didn't bother to be polite with Gu Yuchen. Teacher Gu's office now became the brothers' hideout. The usable area was immediately reduced by half, and the recording studio was seamlessly shared by the two of them. Whenever Yuan Xiao needed to find Gu Yuchen for something, he would go there at noon and see the two of them catching up on their sleep with one of them covering their face with something.

It still feels like those days.

We made songs together, discussed tunes together, and teased each other about the lyrics we wrote. All those years ago seem like yesterday. When those days come back, they are so beautiful that they make people addicted.

It didn't take long for Fu Daoyun to come to work reluctantly for the sake of Gu Yuchen's face, and then plan with Gu Yuchen to trick the other two over to complete Yuan Xiao's collection plan. Of course, it was also because Yuan Xin's new female trainees had strongly evoked some of his memories and obsessions during this period.

At the end of October, Yuanxin organized interviews for social recruitment trainees. After two rounds of screening, the recruitment of female trainees was completely completed by November. Starting from November 10th, 95 female trainees carefully selected by Yuan Xiaoqian will spend three months of the second phase of trial training in the original male trainees' practice room, which is on the 15th floor of Yuanxin.

Many of the original male trainees have left, which is understandable. Some of the remaining ones will represent Yuanxin in other talent shows next year. If they can debut as a group, Yuanxin will also sign new agency contracts with them.

The other part is trying to transform into singers and actors. Jiang Tong has returned to school and is reviewing and preparing for the art exam. Avery has gone into seclusion to write songs. Probably only Jin Zeyu in the company knows what he does every day.

A small number of younger members still insist on practicing, waiting for the next opportunity to debut as a group.

These trainees are now on the 14th floor. Surveillance cameras have been installed in the stairwell, and male and female trainees are absolutely not allowed to move between floors during training.

If you are found once, you will be warned. If you are found again, you will be directly advised to quit. Yuanxin is very strict in terms of rules and regulations.

During the tryout period, Yuan Xiao would still show up on time for the small tests and monthly evaluations just like the male trainees in the first period. It must be said that the female trainees were much less troublesome than the boys.

Yuan Xiao basically doesn't have to put on a stern face and scold the entire group from top to bottom like the male trainees did before. The girls are very self-disciplined, and all the trainees who came to Yuanxin Company in the second phase are here for debut. There are very few who treat the company as a summer class like in the first phase.

Yuan Xiao... doesn't really want girls to be so aggressive.

On the one hand, the trainees in the second phase have more time than those in the first phase. On the other hand, the girls selected in this audition generally have some basic skills. They are not like Jiang Tong and Yu Le in the first phase who had never had any experience before. Most of them are girls who are both talented and hardworking.

Yuan Xiao didn't mean to say that he hoped the girls wouldn't work hard, but after a month of tryouts, he still felt that the girls were more or less fighting on their own in their dormitories.

She also understood that with the first season of the show in front of them, it would not be so easy for the trainees in the second season or even thereafter to establish solid revolutionary friendships. People always have an instinct for psychological defense. The trainees will eventually face competition and separation. It is normal for them to be unwilling to establish a sense of belonging with the entire group, because it will be broken sooner or later.

Yuan Xiao thought that she had to think of a way to change the status quo and increase cohesion.

-

15th floor, practice room.

When the girls were taking a break, they mostly huddled together, chattering, or leaning against the mirror, doing some simple stretching while previewing what they were going to learn in the next class.

Xia Wentao hummed softly what the vocal teacher had taught in the last class, trying her best to sing every word of this love song in a lazy and lingering voice according to the teacher's requirements.

She is still struggling with her transformation recently. Xia Wentao has a strong opera flavor. Although her basic skills are extremely solid, no matter whether it is pop music or street dance, as long as it is not Chinese style, she will definitely look out of place to some extent. The adjustment is extremely painful.

Xia Wentao's baby legs, which she had developed since childhood, cannot be completely cured overnight.

The girl sitting on the floor next to her, biting on a straw and drinking water, was her roommate, Mo Shuangzhu, who was assigned to her on the first day she came to the company. When she sang, Zhuzi listened quietly, and if there was something wrong, she would hum a line and let her imitate and slowly adjust it.

When Mo Shuangzhu and Xia Wentao stand together, there is always a huge contrast between them. The young actress always stands very straight, as if there is always a rope hanging on her ponytail on her back, while Mo Shuangzhu seems to have no bones. As long as there is something next to her, she will either lean on it or lean against it. She is the type of person who would rather lie down than sit.

When they first started living together, they couldn't even coordinate their schedules. Xia Wentao had been getting up early to practice her acting skills for all her years, but Mo Shuangzhu was a night owl who never slept at night and never got up in the morning. Midnight was her absolute domain.

It took several days of training together for the two to gradually adjust to the time difference.

But the amazing thing is that two people with such a big gap between them became good friends almost naturally from the first time they met, and hardly encountered any conflicts.

Perhaps it was because Mo Shuangzhu was inspired the first time he heard Xia Wentao say that she was a professional in opera, so he immediately asked her to help him sing a sample from the traditional Chinese style demo she had written before. It was the first time he listened to opera singing at such a close distance, and he was mesmerized by the three-dimensional surround voice of the female role.

Or maybe it was because Xia Wentao saw her roommate's absolute pitch, so he was open with her and could point out all the problems in her vocal lessons. After the big classes, he would give her private lessons and never complained about the hard work.

Most of the girls in other dormitories were the same. When they first lived in the company dormitories, they were more polite than each other, for fear of causing trouble for others. They were also embarrassed to trouble the dormitory managers and selection officers. Yuan Xiao had heard several employees say privately that girls were much less troublesome than the previous guys.

As usual, everyone took the vocal class together, and they were not allowed to go back to the dormitory after the class. Xia Wentao stayed behind to practice more, while Mo Shuangzhu had to go to Teacher Fu's composition class.

Among the trainees of the second phase, even including the boys of the first phase, Mo Shuangzhu is the only one with a professional background in composition. He just hasn't finished his university courses yet. Now he is studying in the company while continuing to take correspondence university courses to participate in the second phase of training.

Composing music requires both profound knowledge of music theory and genius inspiration. Given the number of songs Fu Daoyun has written, it is more than enough for him to guide them.

When she first met Yuan Xiao, she was quite unkempt, wearing black-framed glasses and just washing her face. She had been writing songs until midnight the day before, and her dark circles under her eyes had not completely disappeared. But it was also obvious that she was a very pretty girl, and the plain dress suited her very well.

Mo Shuangzhu's face looks very well-defined, with a slightly high brow arch and soft almond-shaped eyes, which well neutralize her tough bone structure. She is a little thinner, and when she wears glasses, she looks a bit cold and bookish. When she leans against the door, she reminds people of a green bamboo sticking out of the window of a pavilion in the south of the Yangtze River after the rain.

Simply put, Yuan Xiao feels that Mo Shuangzhu is a very sisterly type. Her age is also relatively older than this group of trainees, but to be honest, if you don't look at her age, it's easy to mistake her for being more mature.

Mo Shuangzhu participated in the audition interview organized by Yuan Xiao in the school. He didn't say much during the interview. Since it was a composition department, he conquered everyone with just one song.

Yuan Xiao still remembers it clearly. She was the only contestant who applied for an electronic keyboard that day. She sang the climax of an original song in 90 seconds. In the additional test, she also took out several self-composed songs of different styles. Yuan Xiao even felt a bit like when she first met Gu Yuchen, who had a rich family background that could never be fully drained.

It would be wrong not to sign this.

Her preference is for electronic traditional Chinese style, which is one of the reasons why Mo Shuangzhu was arranged together with Xia Wentao. The selection team of Yuanxin has taken this into consideration when arranging the rooms.

After the tryouts began, Yuan Xin's makeup team redesigned the image for these trainees, styling their hair more neatly and giving them a clean and smart look, making them stand out in the crowd.

After coming to Yuanxin, Mo Shuangzhu no longer had to stay up late. She was the type who never exercised. From the first day of the tryout, she felt exhausted every day. She took turns with physical education and dance classes. As fragile college students, they could be easily defeated by any difficulties. Even the frequency of opening the computer used for mixing was greatly reduced. After returning to the dormitory every day and simply washing up, the only thought in her mind was to go to bed.

Xia Wentao came back a little later than she did. After washing up, Mo Shuangzhu was already lying on the bed. She asked softly, "Zhuzi, are you asleep?"

"Well - not yet, what's wrong?" Mo Shuangzhu had just laid down and hadn't fallen asleep yet, but it was almost time. She was really impressed by the dancing she had practiced every day in the past few days. With her little physical strength, she was living in dire straits every day.

"I passed by the election management sisters and they were having a meeting this evening. They said they would organize us to go out and play in the next few days." Xia Wentao couldn't help but share the news she had just heard with her roommates tonight. The life of a trainee is so monotonous, boring and hard. Even the girls are looking forward to the day when they can relax.

"Going out to play?" Mo Shuangzhu's consciousness, which was about to fall into chaos, was slightly awakened by this good news, and he became more energetic: "Did you hear where we are going?"

"If it's a sports meet, forget it. Ah - when will the three months end? I really want to rest. I want to lie down in the dormitory for a day. Just lie flat on my back."

Although Xia Wentao is not as physically weak as Mo Shuangzhu, she is a female warrior. In terms of physical fitness alone, some male trainees are not as good as her. However, she is under great mental pressure. It was okay when she was dancing those simple girl group dances before, but now she can't get rid of the opera flavor with the professional pop music and street dance basics training. She has been the most outstanding opera seedling since she was a child, and has never been called on so many times by the teacher in every class in her life.

She didn't intend to give up, she was just tired.

"No, I just heard a little bit. They were discussing how many cars we should hire for nearly a hundred people." Xia Wentao raised her hand and gestured, "It was a bus. I don't think it would go to places very close."

"A scenic spot?" Mo Shuangzhu's heart died again, and he lay straight on the bed. "I don't want to go to a scenic spot. Every day when I wake up, I feel like my legs are no longer mine. It's too difficult. Dancing is really too difficult. It's harder than math."

What is a scenic spot? Is it a place that requires a lot of walking?

Xia Wentao was amused by her: "We definitely can't go to the scenic spot. There are so many of us, and we are trainees of Yuanxin Company... It will be very troublesome if someone recognizes us. Hey, I heard that Leng Ci had a fan club set up for her the day she joined the company."

The news that Yuan Xin was recruiting female trainees had been circulating on the Internet. On the day the trainees reported for work, people who had been looking forward to Yuan Xiao forming a girl group of course immediately noticed the news of the new female trainees coming to work through the photographers and fans who were waiting downstairs of Yuan Xin. Among them, Leng Ci was undoubtedly the most watched one.

After her work photo was posted on the public social media platform, it almost instantly became a natural low-level trending search. The real-time square was full of people asking which new celebrity she was. Most of the girl group fans who saw her photo almost tacitly assumed that she would definitely occupy a place in the final debut position of the new girl group Yuanxin.

As long as Leng Ci is not just a pure vase, no company would be willing to let her not make a debut just based on her face.

These trainees are almost all aware of each other's strengths. Xia Wentao asked herself that she would be dazzled for a while when she occasionally looked at Sister Ci's face, not to mention when Sister Ci was singing and dancing. No one would not fall in love with her.

Yuan Xiao was right. Trainees for girl groups should be pretty. Pretty girls feel relaxed and happy looking at each other. Pretty girls love pretty girls. Xia Wentao felt that she was so happy after coming here that she didn't want to leave. But the pressure was really great. No one could really stand out from the crowd and be sure that they would definitely make it to the debut position.

"... Don't you have one too... I hope not to go to the scenic spot... It would be best if I could take a day off and then go for a massage--" Mo Shuangzhu was awakened briefly and then gradually turned off the phone. It was really not going to work. Yuan Xiao's requirements for girls like them were no less than those for boys. They also needed physical fitness, vocal music, creation, dancing, and musical instruments. They had to get up early tomorrow.

As long as you want to learn and pass the test, Yuanxin Tutorial School will teach you everything.

Xia Wentao also curled up in the quilt and curled her eyes: "Go to sleep, you should know tomorrow. Good night Zhuzi."

"…Goodnight Peach."