Chapter 71 Shengjing Entertainment "Matching begins now!"...
Shi Yu's conjecture was quickly verified.
"Yun Yi!" A muscular man with brown skin walked up to Yun Yi from the crowd, put an arm around Yun Yi's shoulder, and said in a very familiar manner, "How about we collaborate on the next stage? You see, we're both quite popular, and our collaboration will definitely get double the votes."
Shi Yu recognized the person as Zhao Fu, who was currently ranked second on the popularity list.
However, Zhao Fu was a full thousand points behind Yun Yi, who ranked first. Zhao Fu's right palm was still bandaged, and blood was seeping out from under the bandage. There were also bruises on his face, which were left from the previous stage. The names of the trainees who performed with him on stage had turned gray.
Yun Yi calmly removed Zhao Fu's hand, took two steps back to distance himself from Zhao Fu, and said, "Brother Zhao, let's forget it. My stage style is not the same as yours."
Zhao Fu, his muscles bulging, crossed his arms over his chest and threatened in a chilling tone: "What, do I have to talk to your advisor before you'll agree?"
Yun Yi looked extremely tired; even makeup couldn't hide his dark circles, and the light in his eyes had dimmed. He had lost a lot of weight. Maintaining first place was no easy feat, and this was probably not the first time he had experienced such a situation. Yun Yi said, "Then Brother Zhao, go and talk to my mentor."
Yun Yi has been working hard to maintain his first place, which suggests that his main mission may also be to "debut in the center position with the first place score".
The fact that Zhao Fu was so eager to get Yun Yi to perform suggests that this might also be his main mission.
The system not only forces one hundred players to fight tooth and nail for seven debut spots, but also makes some of them fight tooth and nail for first place.
Everyone knows that going on stage with Zhao Fu is not just a simple performance; you might get punched to death. Yun Yi can refuse because his grades are the best among all the trainees. Top students get preferential treatment from the mentors, but other trainees don't. This also explains why those trainees whose names have been grayed out have no choice but to go even though they know they're going to their deaths.
While Zhao Fu was inviting Yun Yi, other people were also inviting some seemingly weak and easy-to-bully trainees to perform on stage. Some refused, some didn't dare to refuse, and some couldn't refuse because their mentors were around. Another performance ended on stage, and cleaners were wiping away the blood.
The ecosystem for trainees has become chaotic.
In the current situation, it's hard to say what kind of performance is needed to get a high number of votes.
He can't get attention by resorting to bloodshed, violence, or sexual innuendo.
The lobby loudspeaker then announced—
"Attention, trainees!"
"Attention, trainees!"
Jerry's voice came over the loudspeaker: "To ensure the quality and entertainment value of the stage, and to provide the audience with a more spectacular stage, the trainee free stage is now over! From this moment on, trainees will be randomly matched by the system to perform on stage. Matched trainees can perform in collaboration or in a competition. After the performance, the audience will vote."
"We will have duo stages, trio stages and quintuplet stages, with each stage performance lasting ten minutes. Today's performance is a duo stage, while the trio and quintuplet stages will take place tomorrow and the day after."
"Matching now!"
The trainees' names scrolled across the large screen, and everyone held their breath, staring intently at the screen.
Matching by the system involves a high degree of uncertainty.
Who knows if the person you're matched with is your friend or your enemy?
A dozen seconds later, the scrolling text stopped:
Qi Xue VS Qiu Xiaoyuan
The chat screen switched to the stage interface, and Qiu Xiaoyuan and Qi Xue went on stage.
Qiu Xiaoyuan was dressed in a blue cloth shirt and cloth shoes, a typical outfit for a female college student in the Republic of China era. The stage backdrop was a blue stone path in the rain. She was walking in the rain with an oil-paper umbrella when suddenly, a hand with red nail polish reached out from the alley, grabbed her neck, and dragged her into the alley.
The oil-paper umbrella fell from her exhausted hand, landing at a clever angle that perfectly blocked Qiu Xiaoyuan's upper body. The audience could only see Qi Xue, dressed in a black agent uniform with heavy makeup and a cold and aloof expression, and Qiu Xiaoyuan's two feet, which went from struggling to quiet down and finally became motionless.
Both of them received a high number of votes after the performance.
Qi Xue and Qiu Xiaoyuan are currently ranked outside the top fifteen, but this performance has allowed them to steadily rise one place in the rankings.
Qi Xue initially ranked third on the stage, but has now fallen to outside the top fifteen. While her performance seems increasingly weak and vulnerable, she is actually concealing her true abilities. Just like on this stage, everyone knows that audiences prefer more violent and stimulating acts than those performing typical singing and dancing. They perform such acts for the audience, but without actually producing any bloodshed or violence.
Qi Xue is very smart.
Of course, Qiu Xiaoyuan, who immediately latched onto Qi Xue's coattails upon entering the game, was also very clever.
Shi Yu even felt that even if he hadn't accompanied Qiu Xiaoyuan into this instance, Qiu Xiaoyuan could have cleared it on her own, and that his presence actually increased the game's difficulty.
Qi Xue and Qiu Xiaoyuan's performance gave Shi Yu some inspiration.
Perhaps, he could also perform in stage plays?
However, the performance style has changed, making it impossible to determine who the matched partner is, and rehearsing a stage play is also impractical.
As Shi Yu was thinking, he noticed his name popping up on the big screen—
Yun Yi VS Shi Yu
They exchanged a smile in the crowd and breathed a sigh of relief.
The live stream initially had only 90,000 viewers, but within seconds of the matching message appearing, the number jumped to 120,000 and continued to rise. By the time the two officially took the stage, the number of viewers had reached 200,000... This had never happened before; the highest number of viewers in the previous live streams was just over 100,000.
The recent stage performances have all been aiming for adrenaline-pumping visuals, while their performances are just conventional singing and dancing.
A circular light shone in the center of the dark stage.
Yun Yi, dressed in a black silk shirt and trousers, sat in the center of the stage with his legs curled up. He was barefoot, his face buried in his knees. As the music began, he slowly raised his head and looked into the distance. He wanted to stand up, but his hands and feet were bound by ropes.
He struggled, resisted, fought... Despite being bound by ropes, every movement he made was graceful, like a butterfly caught in a spider's web. Even though he was trapped in a deadly situation, he still did not give up his desire for life.
However, how could a tiny butterfly fight off its natural enemy? The more it struggled, the tighter the spider silk entangled it, until finally the silk slowly gathered and wrapped it into a cocoon.
Just then, the music stopped abruptly.
In the shadows of the corner of the stage, there was a grand piano. When the performance began, Yu was sitting in front of the piano, wearing a snow-white tailcoat and a dark bow tie. His slender, fair fingers danced on the black and white keys. His figure, along with the piano, was hidden in the darkness until this moment when he slowly stepped out of the darkness.
With black hair, snow-white skin, cold eyes, a tall and slender figure, and a cool and aloof temperament, his feet shimmered with starlight as he walked slowly, making it seem as if his whole being was glowing.
Like a prince in a fairy tale, he walked step by step to the princess in distress and untied the ropes binding her.
Even though the butterfly, having broken free of the spider's web, is covered in wounds, its free dance is all the more captivating.
As the dance ended, the vote counts for the two contestants appeared on the big screen.
Yunyi: 54326
Shi Yu: 186478
The votes were converted into points at a ratio of 100:1, which is 1864. Adding the previous 815 favorability points, Shi Yu's favorability points have now risen to 2679, and his ranking has jumped from the bottom ten to the top twenty-second place.
After a moment of silence, the hall erupted into a cacophony of voices.
"Shouldn't Yun Yi have contributed more? Even if this is a collaborative stage, their votes should be neck and neck, right? Is Shi Yu a nepotism case? That's just outrageous!"
"It's not because of connections. You forgot, the NPCs in this game are judged by their looks. During his initial performance, his votes skyrocketed just because his mask fell off."
"Wait, didn't you guys notice his likes/dislikes are off? If I remember correctly, this is his first time performing on stage these past few days, right? Even if he got first place on his debut stage, he still has dislikes/dislikes. Shouldn't the dislikes/dislikes be cleared first after exchanging points? Why did he add them all to his likes/dislikes? Doesn't he need to clear his dislikes/dislikes?"
"...Do you think he might have cleared the aversion value using some other method?" After a long while, a weak voice spoke up.
Then the small circle fell silent.
When Shi Yu returned to the hall, the discussions about him had ceased.
But Xiao Jue, who had been in the hall the whole time, heard all of these sounds.
Shi Yu returned to the hall with Yun Yi. Along the way, the trainees they encountered seemed to be subtly observing him, as if they were seeing him for the first time. However, when he looked over, they would look away and pretend to be admiring the scenery.
During this time, Yun Yi muttered to himself, "My luck is really bad..."
Shi Yu didn't hear clearly and asked Yun Yi, "What did you say?"
Yun Yi shook his head and said it was nothing.
Yun Yi's accumulated favorability score is 4868, still ranking first.
But Yun Yi knew very well that as long as Shi Yu performed on a few more stages, he would soon surpass him. If Shi Yu prepared his stage performances carefully, he wouldn't even need that many; one or two stages would be enough for him to surpass him.
He and those who risked their lives to win votes seemed ridiculous to Shi Yu.
The task the system assigned him, "to debut as the center of attention with the highest score," was also ridiculous.
Because as long as there is elm.
No one can complete this main quest.
"Let's go," Shen Su said to Shi Yu.
Shi Yu told Shen Su to wait a moment, then asked Yun Yi, "We just finished performing, so it shouldn't be our turn for a while. How about we go get some late-night snacks together?"
Actually, having a late-night snack was just an excuse. He and Yun Yi had a very pleasant collaboration, and they could continue to work together. He wanted to call Yun Yi to discuss their next strategy. There would be three-person and five-person stages later, so if they were accidentally matched with another group, they would have a way to deal with it.
Of course, besides Yun Yi, he also planned to invite Qiu Xiaoyuan and Qi Xue.
The game was already halfway through, and there were quite a few people forming teams at this point, so his approach to Qiu Xiaoyuan at this time wouldn't arouse suspicion.
However, Yun Yi refused: "No, I'm not hungry yet."
Shi Yu paused for a moment, thinking that Yun Yi might not have understood his meaning, so he made the invitation clearer, "So, do you have anything later...?"
"I'm busy, I have to practice dancing." After saying that, Yun Yi turned his face away and stopped talking to Shi Yu.
Even though Shi Yu was slow-witted, she understood that Yun Yi meant he didn't want to cooperate with him anymore.
He respected Yun Yi's thoughts, so he wouldn't bother Yun Yi again.
His original intention to find Qiu Xiaoyuan also faded somewhat.
Perhaps Qiu Xiaoyuan doesn't need him. The girl has her own ideas, and she would be safer with Qi Xue. He, on the other hand, seems to have become the target of everyone's criticism. Getting close to Qiu Xiaoyuan now might bring her unnecessary trouble.
Therefore, in the end, only Xiao Jue and Shi Yu left the hall together.
After the two left, an arm was put on Yun Yi's shoulder again.
"Brother Yun," Zhao Fu said, hooking his arm around Yun Yi's shoulder as if struck by a sudden inspiration, "I know you're unhappy, and I'm unhappy too. What right does he have? Is it because he's a pretty boy?"
"It's alright, we brothers have a plan..." As he spoke, Zhao Fu put his arm around Yun Yi and headed out of the corridor, followed by several henchmen reeking of cigarette smoke.
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