Chapter Fifty-Six: The Greatest Advantage
Ying Zhuo was stunned when he saw the name on the note. As he called out Meng Fanxi's name, he blamed himself for his bad luck. After all, he had always followed the Eternal Six Stars and was still biased towards them.
Generally speaking, the mentors are relatively conservative in their scoring of the performances that came before. Ying Zhuo watched Meng Fanxi being surrounded by his teammates as he walked out of the studio and silently cheered him on.
Meng Fanxi liked this order; it meant she wasn't the first to face the unknown, and the evaluation would end sooner, allowing her to cheer on her teammates with peace of mind.
The moment he was called was the start of the competition. Meng Fanxi followed the staff member calmly, maintaining a certain distance, adjusting his breathing and relaxing his facial expression so that he could immediately immerse himself in the song.
This is a grand song, and the singer must be fully committed and bring out all their emotions.
Meng Fanxi focused his attention and stepped into the testing room.
He wasn't particularly tense, nor particularly relaxed; he maintained a natural posture.
A fixed point was marked on the floor inside the room. Once you walked over and stood there, a song would play. He was prepared. He used his peripheral vision to measure the distance between the fixed point and the camera and calculated the angle for facing the lens.
Influenced by his past life as an actor, he used to subconsciously avoid the camera. However, after deliberate training, his understanding of the camera has helped him find the right angles.
The equipment is there, but simply looking directly at it doesn't mean you're looking for the camera. Your gaze needs to land on a perfect spot, and you need to make minor adjustments to your posture to get the most photogenic angle.
In just a few steps, Meng Fanxi made the most accurate calculations.
Standing at the designated spot, he stood tall and steady, his head slightly lowered, his thick eyelashes concealing his indifferent gaze, remaining motionless.
This is the posture of preparing for the song to play, completely different from Lu Ning's confusion when she first came in and her bewildered look as she stood at her post.
Inside the room where the mentor was, Fu Hanfei noticed Meng Fanxi's series of smooth and natural movements after entering the room. He raised his eyebrows, his eyes showing a hint of interest, but he didn't say anything.
The moment the music started, Meng Fanxi tilted his head up precisely at the right moment, his expression high-spirited and passionate, directly announcing the start of the performance to the audience, thus avoiding a start like Lu Ning's, where he didn't seem to be in the right state of mind.
In the dance tutorial video for the chorus, the dance teacher didn't design any head-raising details; they just started dancing directly.
After witnessing this scene, the teams watching in the studio secretly memorized the move and became even more engrossed in Meng Fanxi's performance.
Meng Fanxi knew his strength lay in acting, so he devoted himself to studying the lyrics and created a passionate story about a group, where the members became warriors in the song, protecting their camp.
He also shared the emotions from the story with his teammates, allowing them to experience them as well.
In the testing room, his voice was firm and loud, his enunciation clear and powerful, fully demonstrating his determination to "break through the endless darkness and pass through the storm of gazes". His movements were swift and smooth, and for a moment the sound of his sneakers rubbing against the floor even broke through the background music.
When he sang the line "The team is the camp, guarding the most moving camp after the struggle," he controlled his emotions, restrained his movements, and his eyes were filled with a sense of tragedy, as if he had lost a lot in the process of guarding.
His movements were well-paced and controlled. While his technique couldn't match the decades of experience of the dance instructors in the learning videos, the structure he designed and the emotions he conveyed in the dance far surpassed those in the videos.
None of the mentors called for a stop; they all watched the performance with rapt attention.
The following lyrics once again heightened the audience's emotions. Meng Fanxi's hair danced freely with the music, conveying a youthful, sunny, and passionate feeling directly to everyone in front of the screen.
As the chorus ended, Meng Fanxi smoothly created a finishing move, and the precise timing once again delivered an ultimate visual experience.
Inside the studio, the remaining five members of the Eternal Six Stars clapped enthusiastically with the joy of victory, which also inspired some trainees from other teams to start clapping.
In the mentors' room, the five mentors looked at each other, all of them seeing the amazement in each other's eyes.
"Meng Fanxi's dance skills may not be the best, but his stage presence and understanding of the songs are top-notch." Fu Hanfei did not hold back his praise. He thought that such top-notch abilities could only be seen in adult dancers who had experienced many ups and downs. The trainee in front of him made him look at him with new eyes.
Ye Ni said, "He has improved a lot since last time."
Zhu Lou agreed, "He's capable and hardworking."
The trainees didn't know about Meng Fanxi's live stream, but their mentors had heard about it. Zhu Lou, as a gossip enthusiast, naturally watched the replay of the live stream and was deeply impressed by Meng Fanxi's practice so late at night.
Tan Yi couldn't help but sigh, "The contrast is too obvious." In a way, it's also cruel to Lu Ning.
Yun Mengtao returned to the main topic, "Then let's begin the scoring. Please, mentors, score on your tablets."
Meng Fanxi returned to the studio feeling relaxed. He was very satisfied with his performance, and of course, he also reflected on a few areas where he could continue to improve next time.
He glanced naturally at the gazes directed at him, which now held more admiration and amazement than the previous scrutiny and jealousy.
This feels good.
I'm happy to receive recognition after performing with the team, and I'm also happy to receive recognition after performing solo.
After giving high-fives to his welcoming teammates, Meng Fanxi shared his experience with them.
The trainees who were selected next learned a lot from Meng Fanxi's performance. Some of them could still jump up and hit the beat, but almost none of them could complete the jump without being stopped by the mentors.
Fu Hanfei sighed: "Meng Fanxi raised our expectations, but these performances were a complete letdown."
Zhu Lou had stopped all of the recent ones, and he was a little disappointed, saying, "They're all too similar."
When he arrived at Fanna, he was quite confident. Instead of starting like Meng Fanxi, he stared straight at the camera and began when the music started.
His dance was powerful, skillful, and explosive. He performed a few more lines than the people before him, and just when he thought he would finish the performance, the familiar yet terrifying "beep beep beep" sounded.
Fanna stood frozen in disbelief, still in her dance pose.
This time, it was Fu Hanfei who pressed the stop button. He shook his head and said, "She has the potential and is a good prospect, but her dance intelligence needs to be improved."
He watched the dance battle clip between Fan Na and Meng Fanxi. Fan Na's personality still needs to be tempered. Out of a desire to cherish talent, he decided to give him a wake-up call.
Tan Yi also wanted to press the button, but Fu Hanfei beat him to it, commenting, "Your singing style needs improvement; it's a bit too plain."
With only the chorus performance and the mentors' frequent interruptions, more than half of the trainees had already finished their individual evaluations without anyone noticing, and not much time had passed.
Zhang Yang and Xu You have also finished their evaluations. They perfectly utilized their heavenly singing voices and dedicated performances, becoming one of the few trainees who were not suspended.
Next up was Jin Ziran, who walked out of the studio with a smile on his face.
Meng Fanxi didn't have high expectations. Now that the trainees ahead of him have shown their unique talents, it's hard to find a performance that can truly impress unless someone has exceptional skills.
But Jin Ziran had his doubts.
Inside the testing room, Jin Ziran stood with his fists clenched, waiting for the music to start.
As the music started, with a "whoosh," he opened his clenched fist upwards and forcefully threw out two glittering sequins.
Sequins scattered and slowly fell through the air, and he began to dance in the rain of sequins.
Everyone stared in disbelief, and Meng Fanxi almost blurted out "What?"
To everyone's surprise, Ye Ni couldn't help but laugh as she watched the sequins fall onto Jin Ziran's hair and body. "This kid is really funny."
Jin Ziran completed the performance perfectly.
Xu You covered his mouth and whispered, "He has quite a few tricks up his sleeve."
Ren Yuchen, the next person to be drawn, looked at the glitter scattered all over the ground: Is there anyone who will speak up for me?
Ren Yuchen and Lin Ruohe each brought out their own strengths, and the mentors had a high opinion of their group, so they completed their performance.
Only Gu Huailang in their team did not perform.
After waiting for a while, Gu Huailang was finally drawn.
He was the only member of their team who was told to stop when he only had two lines left to say.
Meng Fanxi and the others stared blankly at the screen. Gu Huailang seemed unsurprised, calmly bowed, and then walked out of the testing room.
Lin Ruohe frowned slightly: "It must be because of his expression."
Gu Huailang's skills were fine, but his expression was still a bit stiff. Meng Fanxi was puzzled: "He was fine during training. Is he afraid of cameras? That shouldn't be the case. There are cameras recording all the evaluations at the company."
When Gu Huailang returned, before anyone could ask him anything, he explained, "When I was dancing, I kept thinking about the comments I saw at the Dream Chasing Hut about 'stiff expressions,' and I couldn't control myself at all."
It was still a psychological issue, and Meng Fanxi took it to heart. The former movie star's expression was stiff, which didn't make sense at all. He had to think of a solution.
After everyone finished performing, the production team told everyone to go eat first, and then come back to prepare for the group evaluation of the verse.
The evaluation method is the same as the individual evaluation, but the order of appearance is in reverse order of the initial stage group ranking, that is, the last one is the first to appear.
Eternal Six Stars is number one, so it's the last one to appear.
After the makeup artist touched up each trainee's makeup and adjusted their clothing, the group evaluation began.
Ying Zhuo transformed into a temporary host, arranging for each team to go for the evaluation in order.
As soon as the recording began, someone raised a question: Paradox's team leader, Gao Xinyi, asked, "If we continue to broadcast the evaluation footage in real time like this, what if others take our ideas and use them?"
WONE's captain, Zhong Lifu, chimed in, "That's right. This way, the team that performs last not only benefits from the order of performance but can also adjust their team strategy based on everyone's dance."
The implication was that the last team to appear, Eternal Six Stars, had the biggest advantage, which was unfair to the other teams.
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