Chapter 42: Making a Trainee Cry! Part 2

The accompanying dance mentor, Kang Yu, smiled and asked, “Feeling a bit better now?”

Li Tingzhou took a gentle breath. “Yes, but not much.”

He couldn’t maintain the same standard as the resident mentors. Otherwise, the script designed for this Flying Mentor appearance would become meaningless. Some words had to be said by Li Tingzhou, but he had to find a triggering point—

He noticed this group remembered dance moves faster than lyrics.

The movement lines for the nine people were designed quite beautifully by the choreography team, but the transitions were too frequent, changing almost with every single lyrical line. At the busiest point, the center position was singing at the front while the other eight were all moving!

That knee-scraping sliding movement looked agonizing just to watch.

Also, clearly the dance movements also had design elements similar to a round, where one person was a beat behind, or a beat delayed—a more complex canon-style structure. Why could they grasp this rhythm, yet fail when it came to singing? The lyrics were allocated by position; each person only had a few lines to sing!

As this run-through ended, Li Tingzhou and Kang Yu walked in together.

The nine trainees, drenched in sweat, didn’t even have time to catch their breath before greeting the two of them.

Unfortunately, what greeted them wasn’t praise or encouragement, but Li Tingzhou’s blunt, almost cruel warning:

“I know some of you are holding onto a fluke mentality. You think that once you’re on stage, you’ll have your teammates singing with you, there’ll be the accompaniment, and there’ll be a backing track even louder than you. You think it doesn’t matter if you mess up these few lines. Just dance well, pay a little attention to detail, manage your facial expressions for the focus cam, and someone will buy it, right?”

“I want to say, if you start your career with this mindset, that’s a truly cruel thing for your fans. Because you’ll never improve again in your entire life!”

These words were truly heavy. Some people on the floor didn’t even dare to breathe heavily.

Even Kang Yu beside him looked at Mengmeng with concern, afraid he might let out another harsh remark.

“If they knew early on that your effort was just for show, would they feel their affection was misplaced?”

Li Tingzhou’s sleeves were rolled up. He slowly walked forward two steps, meeting their thoughtful or evasive gazes one by one. Of course, someone like Zhao Zhining, that silly young master, was already scared into guilt by Teacher Mengmeng’s few short sentences. He even looked a bit teary-eyed. After making eye contact with Li Tingzhou, he quietly wiped a tear under the guise of wiping sweat…

Kang Yu thought: Well, he’s already made one cry!

“I’m only on Training Island for one day and one night. You’re welcome to put on a show for me for this one day and one night. After I leave, before finale night, you can coast however you want, as long as the second the debut group is announced, you have no regrets and a clear conscience.”

“That’s it. Free time now.”

After dropping those words, Li Tingzhou and Kang Yu both left the practice room.

Over a dozen cameras inside instantly sprang to life, capturing the trainees’ micro-expressions.

Outside the door, Kang Yu laughed wryly. “Now you’ve done it.”

Li Tingzhou couldn’t smile. “They’re singing my song!”

Singing my song so terribly—the one who should be crying is me.

Considering the balance of the dance track’s performance, he had already made many concessions in the arrangement:

A vocal range comfortable enough for the trainees to sing, drum beats perfectly adapted to the rhythm. In the B-section chorus, considering the dance intensity, the lyrics were simplified down to just repeated words (with effects added, so singing them was optional). Even the bridge section that the All-Star Launch music team originally wanted as a killing part showcase—he deleted the lyrics and left only an instrumental interlude, also to make the performance easier.

Who knew? Maybe after debuting, they’d feel the toughest time was actually during the survival show.

~

After parting ways with Kang Yu and returning to his dorm, Li Tingzhou first received a call from Liu Lusi.

“How did your half-day go?”

“I’m going to tailor-make a song for First Sister as soon as I get back to thank her.”

First Sister’s merit here was truly immense!

Although he had indeed put in significant effort, First Sister had treated him with sincerity and tolerance from start to finish. Want a platform? She gave a platform. Want marketing? She gave marketing. Want cooperation? She cooperated. When necessary, she was even willing to be the green leaf that set off Li Tingzhou’s brilliance, perfectly embodying the idea of “If you do well, I do well, everyone does well.”

If he had rejected First Sister back then and gone to be a mentor on All-Star Launch, how miserable a person Li Tingzhou would be right now.

Shouldn’t he tailor-make a song for First Sister to properly thank her?

By now, after Sing My Heart Tonight Season 7 reached this point, the audience and fans had basically formed a consensus: Mengmeng was the personified golden finger that First Sister carried around with her.

But who still remembered what netizens initially discussed?

That First Sister was the benefactor of Mengmeng, this little second-tier band’s lead singer.

Ren Shiyu certainly wouldn’t care about this kind of public opinion reversal. But that didn’t mean Heartbreak or Mengmeng could truly forget their roots, act entitled, and simply take this current wave of public favor for granted.

The mentor dormitory was a suite-style structure. The bedroom balcony offered an unobstructed view of the sea.

Not far away stood a landscape lighthouse, one of the signature structures of the All-Star Launch production team. The light pillars on it, representing the trainees, had now dwindled to eighteen.

A very speechless kind of symbolism, but fans ate it up.

They often used super-telephoto lenses to remotely observe the island’s recording progress.

Whenever they stole some news, it would be secretly circulated. But soon, the secret was no longer a secret. For example, the news that Mengmeng flew to the island this afternoon as a guest was originally supposed to be announced on Monday, a workday. But because the telephoto cannons were just too powerful, while the trainees were still ruefully training late into the night, pondering Mengmeng’s piercing words, the news had already spread online.

Rebuilt Public Opinion Observation Room | Mengmeng Flying Guest Confirmed

————

[Mengmeng’s hair ruffled by sea breeze]x1

[Mengmeng arriving on the island]x1

Material stolen from the Star Two Group. These people are really besieging the island with their cannons! As soon as Mengmeng landed, he was instantly within cannon range. Even his eye bags are captured so clearly. Is his schedule really that packed?

1L: If Whale had stubbornly pursued Mengmeng back then, would Star Two have been more exciting?

5L: Absolutely. Mengmeng coming over would have directly suppressed that bunch of arrogant young masters.

9L: Those whose official height is 183cm better watch out. If you’re shorter than Mengmeng, you’re done. Stuff some height-increasing insoles into your sneakers beforehand.

14L: Laughing to death, that was the first thing I thought of too.

19L: Mengmeng’s on the island? How many days is he flying for? Will he still make it to the Top Five Vocal Concert?

24L: Absolutely will. First Sister can’t leave Mengmeng even for a bit.

30L: Besides that initial positioning song, Mengmeng has another song here, right? What’s the progress on the island now? Haven’t they started recording the final phase yet?

33L: You’re right. They’re already at the final phase. The next public performance is finale night.

39L: Why didn’t I notice before how amazing Mengmeng is? Star One gave a single to the female version, and it directly got upgraded to a double title track for their debut album. Star Two even has him handling a song for finale night. That’s a very crucial song…

42L: Wasn’t there a leaked file rumor before? Someone unpacked the lyrics, and it definitely wasn’t that. It should be a song with the same name, “BAD”. Pity the detailed registration info is hidden before release. Otherwise, we could’ve dug out a bit more info.

49L: The Star Two group show fans are screaming that the production team has gone crazy. Everything’s in chaos.

51L: That earlier joint siege incident really startled me a bit. Doing this kind of thing while still in a survival show… after they debut as a group, can their dynamics even be good? That’s genuinely a bit scary.

55L: Precisely why it’s interesting to watch.

59L: If you love studying boy group dynamics, you should watch Star Two. If you hate watching forced, fake harmony, you should even more watch Star Two. Time will prove its greatness!

63L: It’s already finale night so soon?

70L: Not really. Only the island’s internal progress is that fast. For finale night, both songs actually need to be practiced by all 18 trainees. So this round will reserve enough time. By the time the main episodes outside have nearly finished airing, it will perfectly coincide with the trainees completing their final preparations and live-broadcasting their debut night.

79L: Then Night Heart Seven is still more interesting, only a week’s time difference.

102L: So, where are the reviews for Night Heart Seven’s 4th Public Performance?

108L: Can I say this? I’ve been waiting, refreshing constantly, and then I searched the entire internet and found 0 reviews. I was so scared I thought my memory was faulty, that there wasn’t any 4th Public Performance that Saturday…

110L: You didn’t remember wrong. They signed a non-disclosure agreement.

116L: OK (Smoking emoji)

…

199L: Star Two’s official Weibo account officially announced the Flying Mentor. Guess who the silhouette is? So hard to guess, oh.

209L: Mengmeng-husband (Spicy emoji)

215L: The lower-rank circle suddenly has energy again. The middle-rank circle’s Super Topic discussions are also skyrocketing. Everyone is basically blindly trusting Mengmeng’s song.

219L: What if their pick actually chose Mengmeng’s song? Might still be able to turn things around.

228L: It’s a pity that positioning round song didn’t have an official audio source released. I used software to capture it and put it on local loop. It’s really powerful. The choreography team was ruthless too. Anytime a dance cover pops up on Douyin, I have to stop and watch it for three minutes.

240L: It’s not too late to pray to God Mengmeng now for his blessing.