Chapter 114 Guardian
Although the recording of the Fifth Era has ended, the trainees are not idle.
According to the current broadcast schedule, the eighth episode, which is the third public performance, will be broadcast two weeks later, on February 19.
A week after the third public performance, that is, on February 26, the ninth episode of "The Fifth Era" - the group formation night live broadcast - will be broadcast.
And now, there are less than three weeks left until the group night.
So as soon as they landed in Beijing, the company car took the trainees straight to the company and started a meeting.
The content of the meeting was the process and song selection for the group night.
In addition to the group performances on the group formation night, for the first time in history, each trainee will have a solo solo stage.
During the four years or so of training, the trainees have had some solo performances, but these were either for rewards or specially arranged by the company. Generally speaking, unless one is very talented and popular, it will not be their turn.
On the night of the group formation, no matter who they are, everyone will have a solo stage.
When the news came out, Ding Ling saw that everyone's eyes lit up.
She can understand everyone's yearning for a solo stage. After all, in a group program, each person can only get a few singing parts, and the corresponding camera shots will also be very few. Popularity and camera shots are not completely equal, but if there are few shots, it is indeed unlikely that popularity will be high.
If he has more screen time, even if he doesn’t have that many die-hard fans, there will be many more people who know him.
So it’s easy to get the equation: weight = lens = popularity.
But on the night of the group’s formation, can such a solo stage be considered a reward?
Ding Ling sighed silently in her heart.
"You have three days to decide on your song selection." Ding Ling circled the date three days later on the PowerPoint presentation. "You must submit your song selection before this time. If you're unsure, you can ask the teachers at the company. Everyone will be happy to help you."
This is the last appearance as trainees, and all trainees have unprecedented autonomy.
Song selection, style, choreography, arrangement, costumes, stage props... As long as you have ideas, you can give them to the company, and we will satisfy any need.
As Ding Ling explained, some people's expressions became more excited, while others went from anticipation to confusion.
Complete autonomy is sometimes not freedom, but a shackle instead.
Such situations can also reflect each person's character.
For example, Bai You and Cang Zizhen, both of them have always been independent and have their own ideas. The expressions on their faces at this moment clearly show that they expect more.
There was no anticipation on Zhu Xiangming's face for the time being; he just looked excited and found it interesting.
Qiu Yuge fell into deep thought and had already started thinking.
Yin Hongxue was in an environment without any cameras recording, and her expressionless face during the meeting made it difficult to tell what she was thinking.
Wu Anyi and Cong'an looked confused and it was obvious that they didn't have many ideas.
Jiang Mu seemed eager to try. Perhaps in many moments in the past, he had been imagining himself performing a certain song.
Wang Mingzhi had a playful smile on his face, but no one knew what he was laughing at.
Luo Wenbo was also smiling, but his smile looked a little fake.
Ding Ling's eyes swept over all the trainees one by one, and finally stopped on Lu Yao.
Just put it down gently and it will be taken back.
Lu Yao had no need to observe.
Design a one-person stage yourself?
——I guess you want to watch the family concert of "Flowers".
Isn’t this easy for Lu Yao?
Once he takes action, will others still be able to fight?
Oh, no, no, the group formation night is not a competition, but a stage for the trainees to show off. The trainees don’t have to fight, everyone will be on stage to show what they have thought and learned in the past few years, as a perfect curtain call for their training career.
It is also a brand new beginning for the debut group.
After the meeting, all arrangements for the day came to an end. The trainees went back to their homes. Ding Ling was busy with the staff. When she had some free time, she turned around and saw Li Qiang and Xu Bin, and then she remembered something.
"Where's Lu Yao?"
Everyone else went home, where did Lu Yao go?
Li Qiang: "Back to the dormitory."
"Oh." Hearing this, Ding Ling turned back to continue her work with peace of mind. But halfway through, she felt something was wrong and went back to find Li Qiang: "Haven't you been with me the whole time? Who sent Lu Yao there?"
As the life assistants of the fifth generation, Li Qiang and Xu Bin are directly responsible for all the life matters of the fifth generation.
If you want someone else to take over temporarily, make it known in advance to avoid confusion.
Li Qiang smiled bitterly, and Ding Ling's heart suddenly skipped a beat.
Sure enough, the next second Li Qiang said something she didn't want to hear at all.
"He went back on his own."
Go back by yourself?
They were just a few simple words, but Ding Ling felt that there might be some problems with her understanding.
"What do you mean?" She seemed to not understand.
"That is, he left the company and went back to the dormitory alone."
Ding Ling: "Take a taxi?"
Li Qiang shook his head: "I walked back."
Ding Ling opened her eyes wide: "Is he crazy?"
Such a long walk, at least half an hour, back from the office? Was Lu Yao worried that he wouldn't be discovered by fans and thus be surrounded? Did he have no idea of his current popularity? Did he think he could walk alone now?
If she had taken a taxi, Ding Ling could have comforted herself, but she actually walked back alone...
"Are you crazy?" She looked at Li Qiang in disbelief. As an employee of the company for many years, Li Qiang actually let the trainee go home alone?
Li Qiang's smile became even more bitter: "He has been like this since the beginning of the year."
Ding Ling doubted her ears.
"After the second public recording was finished, he always came to the company directly as soon as he got up in the morning." Li Qiang still remembers that cold day. When he woke up to the sound of the alarm clock in the morning, washed up, went upstairs to look for Lu Yao, but found that there was no one around. The coldness in his heart warmed up for a moment when he saw the message sent by Lu Yao, but then fell into a cold mood again.
Then he drove to the company in a hurry, and when he saw Lu Yao sitting quietly in the vocal room working on the computer, all kinds of emotions such as relief, fear, worry, and anger suddenly came over him.
In response to his questioning, Lu Yao gave his own answer that night.
"That night, he took me to demonstrate his commuting process." Li Qiang briefly elaborated on the unimportant prelude and then got straight to the point: "He ran to the company, and he ran so fast that I couldn't keep up at all."
At this point, Li Qiang was reluctant to admit this fact, but the fact was the fact, his running speed was far behind Lu Yao.
Although it's a bit embarrassing, it's not shameful.
After all, Lu Yao's physical fitness is well-known to be good.
"So I don't think there's anything to worry about." Li Qiang finally concluded.
With Lu Yao's speed and strength, he can easily shake off fans when he meets them, and he can easily solve troubles when he encounters them.
What's the use of these adults picking up and dropping off Lu Yao other than wasting his time?
After hearing this, Ding Ling was skeptical.
It's not a suspicion of Li Qiang, and certainly not a suspicion of Lu Yao, but a natural suspicion of things that I haven't confirmed.
Just like having to make family members stand up and confirm whether there is a remote control sitting under each other.
That night, after finishing work, Ding Ling volunteered to work overtime. She took Li Qiang and Xu Bin's car to the dormitory and asked Lu Yao to demonstrate his way to work.
Although this request was abrupt, in order to simplify future work procedures, Lu Yao readily agreed to Ding Ling's proposal.
After getting dressed neatly, he started his 'work journey' with Xu Bin and Ding Ling.
Li Qiang stood at the gate of the villa and watched the figures outside disappear before he slowly turned around and went back to his room.
Everyone has left, which is good. Now he can take a shower while everyone is away, and then have a good sleep.
Ding Ling, who followed Lu Yao out, was so out of breath that she could not move before she even left the community in just two minutes.
No, how come Lu Yao runs so fast?
Ding Ling covered her chest with her hands, her heart beating violently. Every breath she took was like ice-cold air, which made her heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys ache. But at the same time, her limbs were constantly getting hot from running just now. The cold and hot made Ding Ling feel very painful.
But what was even more painful was the figure in front that had become completely invisible.
No, is this how Lu Yao went to work every day?
That’s true, it’s impossible for any fan to catch up.
Ding Ling bent down and panted towards the ground.
The last time she ran so hard was the school's 800-meter physical test, and now... she remembered it all.
All the long-lost pain came to my mind.
Ding Ling sat down on the roadside flower bed, took out her cell phone and started sending messages to Xu Bin.
After a while, she saw Lu Yao approaching quickly.
The swinging ponytail is full of youthful energy.
It’s good to be young.
Running to work in the morning and evening? Safe, absolutely safe.
Back then, Ding Ling was also an excellent student who walked to school alone in the first grade of elementary school.
Parents picking up their children? How is that possible?
Safety concerns? No worries at all.
Now I have never even thought about worrying about the safety of going out alone.
When did she become such a mother?
Lu Yao is a high school student!
Isn't it normal for high school students to go to school alone?
Not to mention that Lu Yao was not going to school, but to work.
This is a society ruled by law. What's unsafe about high school students going out alone?
Ding Ling felt that she was a little unreasonable in the afternoon.
"If you are in a hurry in the future, it's okay to go alone. Just send a message and let me know." Ding Ling said this to Lu Yao who stopped.
After that, Li Qiang and Xu Bin never received any calls from Lu Yao again.
After hearing Li Qiang's report, Ding Ling was not surprised at all. Instead, she felt a sense of relief that it was as she expected.
But, alas, Ding Ling didn't know what to do.
"Okay, I get it, go ahead and do your work."
After Li Qiang left, Ding Ling immediately wrote down the questions that came to her mind in her notebook.
And on this page of paper, a lot of questions have been densely recorded.
Ding Ling read it through again, fearing that she had missed something.
Ding Ling breathed a sigh of relief only after she was sure that every question remained clear in her mind.
I took out my phone and started checking the time.
Today is the day when Lu Yao’s legendary guardian will come to the company to sign the contract.
And she is finally going to meet Lu Yao's guardian.
She had too many questions about Lu Yao that she didn't dare or couldn't bear to ask directly. She hoped that today's meeting with his guardian would help resolve her doubts.
*
Lu Yao's guardian arrived on time.
Instead of asking anyone from the company to pick him up, Lu Yao specified a time in advance, and his guardian appeared outside the company gate on time.
It was not until Ding Ling and Lu Yao brought people to her office that she realized that someone had arrived.
Her original intention was to meet with the guardian alone, but Lu Yao had no intention of leaving, so she had no choice but to let Lu Yao stay and discuss the contract and subsequent issues together.
And downstairs, a group of trainees were also talking about this matter.
They were practicing just now, and suddenly Lu Yao said that he had something to do and had to leave first. Then, facing everyone's confused faces, he left the practice room.
Qiu Yuge and Cangzi looked at each other. They knew today's schedule very well. Lu Yao's class schedule was the same as theirs. Were there any other arrangements?
Human curiosity is like this. It turns out that it was common for Lu Yao to leave the practice room directly, and no one was curious.
But today Lu Yao said he had something to do before leaving, which made people inexplicably curious.
Suddenly, they stopped practicing, dancing, and singing. Some looked around at the door, some looked down at the window, and some checked their class schedules on their phones. Everyone was trying to find out the reason why Lu Yao left.
The last person who went to the window successfully found some clues.
"Lu Yao went outside." Huang Xi saw the open door of the company downstairs at a glance.
He looked again and saw a person standing outside the gate. Because of the height, he couldn't see the person's face clearly, but could see the top of the head and recognize that it was an old man.
Lu Yao opened the door and welcomed the old man out.
The fans who were waiting downstairs of the company suddenly caused a small commotion, but Lu Yao opened the door, greeted the old man, and closed the door too quickly. The fans didn't even have time to take out their phones before Lu Yao had already entered the company building. The fans ran out of the door, but were signaled to stay away by the security guard at the door.
When the others heard Huang Xi's voice, they hurried to the window to look down, but time passed too quickly. When they came over, they only had time to see the restless figures of a group of fans.
Lu Yao really went downstairs and did pick someone up.
Now a new question arises: who is this person?
Now everyone doesn't know whether they should be curious or not.
Qiu Yuge and Cang Zizheng looked at each other again, smiled faintly, and didn't say anything, but they both knew what the other meant.
"Let's practice first." Qiu Yuge spoke first. "Time is running out, and we haven't finished learning the dance yet. Although Lu Yao is not here, he will be able to catch up with us quickly after he comes back. If we practice a little more, he will be more efficient when he comes back."
Qiu Yuge's words were like a slope, and everyone immediately followed down.
No one cared about what happened to Lu Yao anymore, and they just continued practicing.
Music started playing in the practice room, and in front of the mirror stood a group of trainees practicing intently. For the upcoming group night, they had been studying and practicing hard, trying to show their best condition on the night.
They just said they would continue practicing, but when they looked at each other from time to time through the mirror, they found that neither of them seemed to be concentrating very much.
With a change in formation, Bai You and Qiu Yuge collided with each other with a bang.
"Are you okay?"
Zhu Xiangming and Yin Hongxue moved quickly, each helping one person. At this critical moment, they couldn't afford to get hurt before the group's formation night.
Bai You covered his head and waved his hands, "It's okay, just a little dizzy."
Zhu Xiangming grimaced, empathizing with the situation. How could this be alright? The sound of the collision just now was really loud.
He went to see Qiu Yuge.
Qiu Yuge closed his eyes in pain, covering his bruised chin. After a long while, he spoke vaguely, "My tongue was bitten. It should be fine, but it hurts a little."
As soon as these words were spoken, everyone couldn't sit still anymore.
In an instant, a group of people surrounded them, and the noise was scattered.
"Tongue?"
"Is it bleeding?"
"Is the bite big?"
Even Bai You, with a dizzy head, squeezed in front of Qiu Yuge.
"How can biting your tongue be okay?" In TV dramas, people always commit suicide by biting their tongues!
Biting your tongue is definitely a big deal!
Qiu Yuge: ...
Faced with such enthusiastic concern from his friends, Qiu Yuge didn't want to talk much.
Finally, Qiu Yuge stuck out his tongue. A group of people used their cell phone flashlights to study Qiu Yuge's tongue for a long time. After confirming that the bite wound was very small and they might not have discovered it any later, they put away their worries.
But this time, no one talked about practice anymore.
The lesson from the previous experience is right in front of you, and you are practicing again now. Are you afraid that the collision just now was not hard enough?
It was obvious that everyone's attention was drawn to Lu Yao and the strange old man. No one could concentrate on practicing until their curiosity was satisfied.
So Qiu Yuge took out his cell phone and checked the class schedule.
"The next class is at 4:30, and now it's 4:08." This means they have 22 minutes to discuss this topic.
A group of people sat directly on the floor of the practice room, forming a circle. Bai You was the first to raise his hand: "Is that old man a relative of Lu Yao?"
Lu Jianian sighed silently.
Seeing that Bai You was the first to speak, he thought the other party would make some unexpected discoveries, but the result was just this?
He doesn't even want to talk.
Qiu Yuge opened his mouth to answer, but his tongue was still a little inconvenient, so he nudged Cang Zizheng with his arm, signaling him to speak.
Cang Zizhen: "Probably not."
"If he still has relatives, the person who adopted him would not be his master."
Bai You remembered.
Indeed, the person who had been taking care of Lu Yao was not any of his relatives, but a person whom Lu Yao called master.
No one has ever asked about Lu Yao's past experiences.
Lu Yao’s past was too tragic for them, and just thinking about it was an offense.
Even sitting here and speculating now, everyone's expressions are very heavy.
Zhu Xiangming said, "He should be Lu Yao's fellow villager, right?"
The others looked at him.
"Lu Yao would receive express deliveries from time to time, and after receiving them, he would have new clothes. I have never seen anything like his clothes online. Besides, he doesn't have online banking, so he can't shop online, so those clothes must have been sent to him by people from his hometown. Didn't Lu Yao say that his clothes are ethnic costumes?"
Although the others are minors and do not have online banking, they can use their parents' accounts.
Lu Yao was unable to open an account himself, and using the accounts of his staff was inconvenient.
Bai You suddenly realized, "You're right, Lu Yao doesn't have online banking."
If Lu Yao shops online, we just send him the link and he pays.
Everyone: ? ?
Is this the point?
Well, whether it is the point or not, there is now another more likely guess.
Wang Mingzhi sighed. "How could it be just a fellow villager? Why would a fellow villager come to the company?"
Bai You's eyes lit up: "Yes! Why are fellow villagers coming to the company?"
Wang Mingzhi clicked his tongue even louder.
Being agreed by the idiot Bai You made me feel even worse.
Cang Zizhen hesitated and said, "Is he Lu Yao's guardian?"
As soon as these words were spoken, everyone suddenly quieted down.
Lu Yao's parents, family, life, and even his current life alone in the dormitory are all topics that they tacitly agree never to discuss.
The first topic they talked about today was an area they had never touched upon before.
The word "guardian" made them feel very cold and indifferent.
This should be the most intimate relationship between parents and children, but in Lu Yao's case, it was just cold legal provisions.
Cong'an's little face wrinkled up and he couldn't speak.
Bai You was shocked at first, then suddenly realized. His expression changed several times, and finally stopped at biting his lip helplessly.
The discussion started out of curiosity but ended in vain.
They have too many questions about Lu Yao that they can't express.
I don’t want to ask, I don’t dare to ask, and I’m afraid to ask.
Many things are hidden in our hearts and minds, as if they don’t exist and as if we don’t care.
Deceiving others is deceiving yourself.
Qiu Yuge didn't ask everyone to get up and practice again. Although time was tight, after all, they didn't lack these twenty minutes.
So it was very strange in the practice room, a group of people sat in a circle, staring at each other, but no one spoke, and then they felt awkward and just looked at the ground.
Picking at my trouser legs and shoelaces, I discovered for the first time that there are so many ways to tie shoelaces.
So he started talking nonsense again.
Until the door of the practice room was opened.
The sound of the door opening made everyone look up.
Lu Yao pushed the door open and walked in from outside.
Behind him followed Ding Ling and a strange old man.
Everyone immediately thought of the old man Huang Xi had just seen.
"This is the practice room." Lu Yao stood by the wall and introduced to the old man: "These are the trainees." His hand passed over the people sitting on the ground.
Everyone stood up at once.
He looked at Lu Yao and the old man behind him stiffly.
The old man looked to be in his seventies, with wrinkles on his face showing the traces of time. His skin was a little dark and he was very thin, but his eyes were particularly bright and the smile on his face looked very kind.
Her hair is slightly long and is tied into a bun at the back of her head.
The style of the clothes she was wearing was very similar to Lu Yao's, but the color was not as bright and the material looked thicker.
He smiled and looked around the practice room, then looked at the trainees again, then looked at Lu Yao and nodded: "Okay."
The old man's sudden arrival aroused everyone's curiosity.
They stared at the old man, trying to find some clues from him, but in the end they saw nothing.
After hearing the old man say "OK", Lu Yao turned around and left the practice room. Ding Ling and the old man followed him. But after a while, the practice room became quiet again, as if Lu Yao's appearance just now was an illusion.
Apart from the open door, no trace was left.
"Just left like that?" Wanyuanzhou was confused. "What are you doing?"
Introduce them to the elderly? Or introduce the elderly to them?
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