Star Art Soldier 6
After the meal, the team leader took them to the conference room for a meeting.
"In the ten days before arriving at the Border Star Cluster, each of your groups must prepare one second-tier performance and one third-tier performance. Tomorrow, you will discuss and decide on the content of your performances. Submit your performance report to me by tonight so I can arrange your schedule. Do you understand?"
"Understood."
"According to the requirements of our superiors, we must also have a first-class large-scale performance on the ship during these ten days. I collected the soldiers' opinions before departure, and most of them want to see a musical. After discussing it with the superiors, I decided on the first episode of the musical Red, White and Roses."
"This is your first large-scale musical performance since joining the fleet. How well you perform will have a significant impact on your future promotions. First impressions are crucial, whether with leadership or soldiers. If you don't leave a good impression on them in your first musical, it will be very difficult to redeem it later. Consistently poor performances in musicals could lead to your early retirement. You've all trained hard for years to finally graduate and become art soldiers. No matter the size of the performance, you must give your heart to your performance to live up to all the training you've put in."
"Okay, I won't say much else. You must have heard enough of this in school. Next, let's decide which group will be responsible for the main performance of the musical. Do you have any nominations or recommendations?"
"Team leader, I recommend our team leader Elman to play the leading role. When he was in school, his acting skills were highly recognized by his teachers. He also won awards for singing and dancing." said Legi, the deputy team leader of Group 2.
"Leggi recommended Elman to play the leading role. Are there any other people who recommended themselves or were recommended?" asked the squad leader.
"I recommend our team leader Luo Xi to play the leading role." Lin Ya said, "The character of Red and White Rose is set to be a stunning beauty. Of all the people here, only our team leader's face can be called stunningly beautiful."
"What's the use of just having good looks? The role of Red and White Rose requires not only good singing and dancing, but also great acting skills. When your team leader was in school, he only won many awards for playing musical instruments, but never won an award for musicals." Legitimate said to Lin Ya.
Lin Ya said, "You seem to have deliberately overlooked the fact that our team leader won awards for singing and dancing when he was in school."
"I've already said that a musical requires not only good singing and dancing, but also excellent acting. Is your team leader as good as ours? And our team leader has won awards for both singing and dancing," said Laiji. "This musical is our first large-scale musical since joining the fleet. It's crucial to the impression our entire group leaves on the soldiers and leaders, so of course we have to give the right people the leading roles. You want to perform well? There will be plenty of opportunities in the future. Do you really want to steal the spotlight now and lower the overall level? Don't be so selfish."
"Yes, as the squad leader just said, this large-scale premiere is extremely important. It's crucial for the leadership and soldiers to have the first impression of us. For such an important performance, of course, we should have those with the strongest overall abilities to represent us in front of the soldiers and leadership," said the team leader. "We, the arts soldiers without any background, can only rely on our abilities to stand out and earn promotions. That's different from you, who have backgrounds and can afford to perform less well."
Lin Ya turned to look at Tao Yuan. He was of course dissatisfied with what they had said. But even if he had a thousand words to say in response, it all depended on Tao Yuan's confidence in the role.
Tao Yuan said, "Have you seen my performance? How can you be so sure that my acting isn't good enough? Why don't you ask the leader of Group 2, our acting teacher, what he thinks of our acting skills?"
Everyone turned their eyes to Elman.
Elman didn't respond to Tao Yuan's question. Instead, he said, "There's no point in arguing like this. Since we're all assigned to the same team, we should be united and work together. If we keep arguing, sooner or later it will lead to hatred. Everyone should be calm and for the sake of fairness, let's decide by voting."
Tao Yuan sneered inwardly. He had been silent until his people on his side had said so much, and only after he pressed him further did he speak up, pretending to be a good person. He even said something about deciding by voting for the sake of fairness. With so many people on their side, they didn't even need to vote; they already knew the result.
The squad leader had previously led two batches of new art soldiers and was accustomed to such arguments. In serious cases, there were even verbal abuse and even near-fights. Today's arguments were nothing. When Elman said the decision would be made by vote, he didn't speak immediately.
Tao Yuan hadn't originally wanted to argue. His most important mission in this life was to capture Zuo Lei's heart. He didn't really care or have much interest in starring in a musical. Even if he missed this opportunity to perform, there would be plenty of others in the future. But he couldn't stand Elman's hypocrisy and decided to challenge him.
"I agree with a vote," Tao Yuan said. "But we won't vote within the team. We'll let the soldiers vote. As for the voting method, we'll see who gets the most support after the small performance. That person will get the leading role."
"I also think this method is the fairest." Lin Ya said immediately, "Our performance is for the soldiers to see, not for us to watch internally. Of course, it is fair to let the soldiers decide."
Elman and the others looked at each other and said nothing.
"Why?" Lin Ya gave a mocking smile. "Don't you have the confidence to agree? Or are you just relying on your numbers to only hold an internal vote, and when the time comes to see the real deal, you immediately back down? I say, you're backing down a bit too quickly."
"Don't be so harsh. What do you mean we're scared? Can't we just give it a little thought?" Leiji said stubbornly.
"Heh, so I say that speaking harshly is unfair? Then what about what you just said?" Lin Ya said with a smile.
"I think this is a good approach, I agree." Elman said this was the only answer he could give.
Lin Ya smiled and looked at the squad leader.
The team leader said, "Since you all agree, it is decided. The meeting is adjourned."
The squad leader cannot be too biased towards the art soldiers with backgrounds, otherwise it will cause dissatisfaction among those without backgrounds, but he cannot be too biased towards the art soldiers without backgrounds either. Therefore, it would be best if they could come up with a method that both parties agree on.
Everyone left the meeting room one after another. Several representatives from Elman's side went to Elman and Legi's room and talked about what had just happened in the meeting.
"Isn't he just a little better looking? I don't know what he's so proud of. Not every soldier is so superficial and only looks at appearances."
"That is to say, the appreciation level of today's soldiers is much higher than before. Just being good-looking is no longer enough. Talent and performance are what matter most."
"You clearly don't have the ability, but you insist on stealing the limelight. You'll end up getting us into trouble later."
"Erman, you absolutely cannot lose to him this time. You must take the lead role in the musical and severely suppress their arrogance. They will naturally not be so arrogant in the future."
"Yes, Elman. Although strength is more important in the long run, first impressions still give the advantage to those with better looks. Your performance this time must be able to attract those soldiers and gain more support than Roshi. We will do our best to cooperate with you."
"Don't we each group have to prepare two performances? When we perform, we can subtly promote Elman and get those soldiers to support him."
"This is a great idea. Whether it's the premiere of the musical or all future large-scale musicals, we must unite and absolutely not let them steal the show."
Although Elman said nothing, what these people said was exactly what he was thinking.
After Tao Yuan and Lin Ya returned to the room, Lin Ya also spoke unhappily about those people.
"There are clearly regulations now in place that all promotions for arts soldiers must be based on various evaluations and accumulated scores. If the evaluations aren't good enough and the scores aren't high enough, no matter how strong your background is, you'll have trouble getting a higher promotion. Yet, they still think that because we have good backgrounds, we should give them all the good opportunities. This mentality of, 'My background is weak, so you should give in to us,' won't stop until it's too late."
Tao Yuan curled his lips and sneered, "It's impossible to completely stop. No matter what era, there are always people who only think from their own perspective. It's impossible to stop such people from thinking from a single perspective."
"Whether in school or joining the fleet, the requirements for those of us with backgrounds were much stricter than for them. We've all gone through years of hard work and training, and the scores we had to achieve were two levels higher than theirs. This was to prevent them from feeling unbalanced, thinking that those of us with backgrounds had better conditions and received better training, and had a higher starting point than them, so all kinds of rules were set for us. But they still felt unbalanced, thinking that we should be given way. It was all because of those rules that they'd been spoiled."
"Regardless of whether there are regulations or not, they all think this way. On the one hand, they want to get on our side, but on the other hand, they think we should give in to them. When some of them really stand on our side in the future, their ideas will be different from now," said Tao Yuan.
The more Lin Ya thought about it, the angrier he became. He said to Tao Yuan, "Whether it's this time or in the future, we can't give them the opportunity no matter what. Everyone should rely on their own abilities, and whoever is capable should be the one to take the lead. Bring out all your abilities, and this time, no matter what, you must get more support than Elman."
A long time ago, because the art soldiers were very popular in the army, some soldiers spent money to buy gifts for them in order to pursue them, and a culture of comparison was formed. Some soldiers used all their savings to buy gifts, which caused a very bad influence.
Later, a regulation was issued prohibiting soldiers from giving gifts to the art soldiers. However, after much effort by the soldiers and repeated discussions with the leadership, the gifts were changed to virtual items, paid for by the army, and soldiers were not allowed to use their own money to give gifts.
The so-called virtual gift means that every soldier has three chances every month to vote for his favorite art soldier.
These virtual gifts can be cashed in. While the value of a single gift is minimal, a particularly popular art soldier can earn a significant amount, essentially a bonus from the soldiers. For an art soldier, the number of gifts he receives not only reflects his popularity, satisfying his vanity, but also serves as a proxy for his performance, significantly impacting future promotions.
The artists without backgrounds wanted to make Elman, whom they considered the most outstanding, stand out. They hoped that once Elman became the most popular among the soldiers, they would have more opportunities to perform. Since the soldiers had a lot of say in who to watch, if Elman got more opportunities to perform, even if he played a supporting role alongside them, it would be a chance to show himself and get attention.
Elman and those who supported him wanted to get the chance to perform in the first-class musical for the first time, and Tao Yuan was not going to give this opportunity to them, so everyone had to rely on their own abilities to see who could perform better and attract more soldiers.
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