Chapter 29
Shangguan Huaijin stood up again with everyone's help. She put the floating Lingqin back to its original position and waved her hand with a smile, indicating that everyone should continue practicing. "Let's practice the group dance first. Don't worry, I will practice my part privately and will definitely not delay everyone's progress."
Then everyone began to move again, led by Die'er. Time flew by on the screen, and the audience watched them practice from noon to midnight. Only when everyone could follow the beat and complete the next dance when the music started did Die'er stop:
"Let's stop here for today. We'll have some music and singing tomorrow. You've all worked hard, so go back and rest."
All the team members were already sweating profusely from training. Even the Qigong practitioners were so tired that they didn't want to talk. Everyone said a simple goodbye and couldn't wait to go back to the house to rest.
Die'er stood there, looking at Shangguan Huaijin, who hadn't moved. "Huaijin, you should rest for a while. We'll practice your dance moves later."
Shangguan Huaijin shook his head. "I'll familiarize myself with it a few more times first. I have a more demanding task tomorrow, and I can't let myself slow down everyone's progress."
Seeing her persistence, Dier didn't try to persuade her any further: "Then I'll help you."
"Die'er, you should go back and rest early." Shangguan Huaijin walked over and pushed Die'er out the door. "You're only at the third level of Qi training. Your legs were shaking just now, right? I can still hold on. I've memorized the techniques you mentioned, so you're fine."
"Then don't practice alone for too long. We'll be back tomorrow..."
"Well, don't worry, I'll practice for another quarter of an hour and then go back." Shangguan Huaijin said as he pushed Dier out the door. The room that was bustling just now became quiet in an instant.
Shangguan Huaijin sat down silently on the ground with the se, and began to call out the rhythm himself, imitating the standing fairy posture: "One, two, three..."
This is her key posture from sitting on the ground playing music to flying in the air. It must be done smoothly, gracefully and elegantly, otherwise she will not look like a fairy by the water, and the stage effect will definitely be greatly reduced.
"One, two, three..." She lost her balance again when she stood up, and her whole body fell backwards to the ground, but Shangguan Huaijin did not pause at all. She just wiped the sweat from her forehead and immediately stood up and started again. The ticking sound of the clepsydra fell drop by drop, and she practiced boringly over and over again, as if she was competing with someone, failing again and again and getting up again and again.
"Ms. Shangguan...it's almost been an hour..." Some fans who like her felt so distressed.
"Your knee must be bruised from the fall just now. Why don't you take a rest?" Others felt the same pain.
"No, it's okay. She's a cultivator now, so she probably won't..."
"But not getting hurt doesn't mean it won't hurt. I feel so bad for her. This move is too difficult for beginners. It's not her fault that she can't learn it."
Wang Zhicai and his companions also felt sad when they saw Shangguan Huaijin falling and getting up again and again. These wealthy young men were the best at being gentle and considerate to women, and when they saw the scene in front of them, they wanted to get into the screen and help the person up.
"Alas, Miss Shangguan didn't have to endure such hardships..." A second-generation player who often hung out with Wang Zhicai slapped his thigh. "Even if she doesn't dance well, can we really just ignore her? Even if she only plays music, I'll still vote her for first place!"
"Maybe Miss Shangguan is unwilling to accept this!" Wang Zhicai felt bad as he watched the indomitable Shangguan Huaijin on the screen: "Even if he knows that his dancing is not as good as Liu Pianpian, he just can't accept this."
He had actually had this feeling before.
Everyone says that he is lucky. He was born as the youngest son of the Wang family. His elder and second brothers were talented and just took on the family responsibilities. He was born to enjoy life. Even though his talent was mediocre, his family used elixirs to help him reach the foundation-building stage. He had an endless supply of spiritual weapons and magic treasures that others had tried hard to obtain. With such a carefree life, what else could he not be satisfied with?
But no one is born to be a good-for-nothing second-generation rich kid, and he had tried hard to cultivate himself in the early years.
However, he was born with mixed spiritual roots, and his comprehension and physique were almost ordinary. He could not reach the realm that his elder brothers could reach in a month after practicing, but he worked hard day and night for a year and still could not catch up. In a family full of geniuses, his existence was simply a joke. Later, he gave up, escaped, pretended to be indifferent, and fled to the city that never sleeps far away from home to live a carefree life.
With such poor talent, even trying hard becomes a shame that he is too embarrassed to talk about.
A second-generation rich man who has no ambition sounds better than a mediocre person who tries his best but still achieves nothing. At least he is not as pitiful.
So he could understand Miss Shangguan's unwillingness, as he had also experienced the feeling of falling and getting up again and again.
The audience outside the screen watched with mixed feelings as Shangguan Huaijin practiced from late at night to early morning, before he finally completed the dance moves more smoothly.
"Finally, I succeeded!" Shangguan Huaijin didn't have time to be happy. Suddenly, she felt a pain in her ankle. She sat on the ground and gently lifted up her trouser legs. Her bruised and swollen ankle was particularly obvious against her fair skin, and the audience outside the screen all gasped.
“Dancing isn’t easy…”
"That's right. I used to look down on the female cultivators of the Hehuan Sect, but it turns out they work much harder than me."
"If these weak women are working so hard, how can we young people stand still?"
"That's right! I feel like I'm not worthy of Miss Shangguan if I don't work hard!" A long-lost sense of fighting spirit was aroused in Wang Zhicai's dry heart.
The injured Shangguan Huaijin remained calm and took out the elixir calmly to apply on his swollen legs. When he finally finished all this, he looked up and saw that it was already dawn.
There was still an hour left before everyone would rehearse together. Shangguan Huaijin sat on the ground and stretched his calf, which had recovered as it had just recovered. He planned to go back to the dormitory to rest and recharge his energy.
The door of the next room opened almost at the same time as hers. Shangguan Huaijin was startled and turned around to find that it was Tieying who had come back after being eliminated.
"You have actually practiced until now?" she asked directly in surprise.
"Yeah." Tieying lowered her head shyly: "I can't dance. My body is too stiff and I can't keep up with everyone else..."
Shangguan Huaijin then remembered that compared to most of the beautiful and healthy girls here, Tieying had probably never received any training in music or dancing before. Her only singing voice did not have many audiences, so it must be quite hard for her to be in such a team.
"You..." She hesitated, "Don't push yourself too much. Your body is not as good as ours, who have already entered the Qi training stage. You should take it easy as a mortal."
"Yeah, I know. I'm just standing in the corner anyway, so there's not much pressure." Wang Tieying forced a smile, turned around and ran away without looking back.
Just when the audience was discussing whether Shangguan Huaijin could finally successfully perform such a difficult dance move, the camera suddenly turned to Tie Ying's team.
Audience: ...
A brace, right?
Some things cannot be achieved by just trying your best. Although Miss Tieying tried very hard to keep up, she still performed terribly in training the next day.
"Tieying! What's wrong with you?" A girl next to her was so angry that her eyebrows raised: "You should bend down here! Bend down! The competition is about to start, and you..." Considering that there was still Lingying Stone recording here, she swallowed the second half of the sentence and just stomped her feet angrily.
"I'm sorry, I've tried my best, but I can only bend here..." She has been fishing and pulling nets for many years, and her arms are very strong, but bending down is really too difficult for her.
"Everyone, calm down and don't worry!" Baby Ye quickly came over to smooth things over: "Tieying is good at singing, why don't we just let her sing!"
"Baby, but the other teams are all good at singing and dancing. I passed by Liu Pianpian's dance studio before, and they were amazing. Their bodies were as soft as silk, and they sang lingering songs while dancing... If this goes on, we're definitely going to lose!"
The girl was clearly under immense pressure, crouching on the ground in a state of collapse. "We'll be eliminated if this continues, wuwuwu..."
Her sudden burst of tears left the other members of the team at a loss. The camera also shifted to the dejected or angry faces of each member. Tieying felt guilty and didn't know what to do. She could only keep admitting her mistakes: "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, I will try my best..."
It was obvious that this makeshift team was about to fall apart under the intense pressure.
"What should we do now? If this continues, the team will not be able to train?" Some viewers also began to worry.
"That Tieying is such a jerk! I hate her so much! Why would she come back if she doesn't have the ability?"
"This, this can't be blamed on her, right? She got in here to sing, and she practiced just as late as Miss Shangguan yesterday. She's done her best, right?"
"Why is Zhizhi crying now? What's the point of crying?"
"Don't be like that. If you were under that kind of pressure, you might be worse than her!"
Faced with such a chaotic situation, even the audience watching the show were about to join in the quarrel. Suddenly, Baby Ye on the screen squatted down. She first took out a handkerchief to wipe Zhizhi's tears, then took out a small wooden statue she carried with her and showed it to her: "Don't cry, look at this, I have a way for us to win!"
"Really?" Zhizhi raised her head with sobs: "But it's already like this, what should I do..."
Even the other team members looked over curiously. Baby Ye shook the wooden statue in his hand seriously and said, "It's because of this! This is my family heirloom. I was able to be accepted into the Hehuan Sect and become a popular contestant because of this!"
"A family heirloom... Baby, so you have this at home!" Thinking of Baby Ye's good fortune, Zhizhi easily believed this statement: "Then, how exactly are we going to use it?"
"This magic weapon is called the Eight Treasures Ebony Statue. It absorbs effort and returns luck. Simply put, after worshipping this statue, the harder we work, the luckier we'll be!" Baby Ye said as he held up the statue in his hand and showed everyone the small divine tablet it held high.
"Do you see this sign? When our hard work and sweat turn it red, our wishes will come true!"
Tieying was a little skeptical: "Really? Really? But this is ebony, right? Can it really turn red?"
"Of course!" Baby Ye nodded confidently, "I've used it many times, and every time I try hard enough, it turns red. The reason it hasn't changed is because we're not trying hard enough!"
"Hmm...Baby's luck was really good before. For example, Miss Huang Li, who was ranked seventh, somehow ended up here with her."
"Yes, and before that, she was the last one to sit on the chair at the Ascension Stairs, and no one challenged her afterwards..."
"And she's a popular contestant! Does that mean this statue is real?"
Zhizhi finally stopped crying, and the despair was no longer on the faces of the other contestants. They looked at the unremarkable statue in Ye Baobao's hand with shining eyes, like a traveler seeing an oasis in the desert.
"Anyway, those who don't try their best have no right to complain about their fate!" A smile appeared on Ye Baobao's doll-like face, and two dimples appeared on her face. She pulled Tieying and Zhizhi, who were squatting on the ground, up with one hand each.
"Hurry! There's still time. If we don't have talent, we can use hard work to defeat them. If hard work doesn't work, we can use luck to defeat them! With this determination and will, let's hold hands and move forward together!"
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