Seeing the trainee named Chu Yu finally lift his foot and start walking toward them, the others remembered the rumors about him bullying and framing his peers. In perfect unison, they pushed against their chairs and retreated several steps, looking for all the world like underlings clearing the best seat for a triad boss.
Normally, a trainee this good-looking would be extremely popular with his colleagues. High visual appeal meant high attention. If you buttered him up, made friends, and clung nearby, you might even steal a few shots. When you were still unknown, every second on camera was precious. Every additional chance to show your face meant a little more buzz and another possibility of going viral compared with everyone else.
Chu Yu was probably the sole exception. His status in the camp was like Consort Hua in a palace drama: openly, brazenly vicious, completely secure in the knowledge that the other trainees could do nothing to him. It was as if some toxic miasma surrounded him. The moment other trainees saw him coming, they automatically gave him a wide berth, afraid they would lose a layer of skin before managing to borrow any of his popularity.
"This is Chu Yu from Tianxing Entertainment. Until the class placements, he'll be grouped with the four of you. You can introduce yourselves to one another first," the staff member informed them in a businesslike tone.
A faint, unreadable curve appeared at the corner of Chu Yu's mouth. The others looked over and all interpreted it as a contemptuous, superior sneer at the common masses.
Someone as popular as him, with an existing fanbase, probably looked down on trainees from little companies like theirs. He kept his eyelids lowered and could not even be bothered to look at them. Obviously, he despised them.
Terrifying. He did not even bother pretending. Had he already planned exactly how he would frame them after they formed a team, leaving them with no one to ask for help and nowhere to escape until they had no choice but to withdraw early?
Xie Man—the trainee who had told the others about Chu Yu's scandals—was already building conspiracy theories in his head. The more he thought, the more real and frightening they became. His breathing even quickened. He had already planned how, after withdrawing, he would report Chu Yu to the production team and fight him to mutual destruction.
He absolutely could not bow to evil forces! He had to resist to the death. Justice would eventually come to his side!
Then Xie Man heard the exact same voice as before, only louder and even more excited, like a rubber screaming chicken suddenly going out of control:
[AAAAAAAAAH SELF-INTRODUCTION! A SELF-INTRODUCTION? SELF-INTRODUCTION!! WHY DID HUMANITY INVENT SELF-INTRODUCTIONS?!]
The staff lady could not help lifting a hand to rub her ear, feeling that her fragile eardrum had just suffered unforgettable trauma.
"…" The trainees exchanged looks. In one another's eyes, they could see equal parts alarm and incomprehension.
What the hell had that awful noise been just now?
Surely they were not all hallucinating together. It wasn't as though they had gathered to eat wild mushrooms.
And that voice was…
"Chu Yu, you can introduce yourself first," the staff member suddenly said.
The instant she finished speaking, the vicious villain before them, creator of horrifying rumors, master of intrigue, scheming trainee Chu Yu—started walking with his left arm and left leg moving together.
[Heehee, self-introduction. Haha. First one to introduce himself. Heeheehee… Did I just walk with the same arm and leg together? So embarrassing. Let's pretend nothing happened.]
The corner of Chu Yu's mouth curved into an almost invisible smile of total resignation. The others already could not bear to look at him. One or two even clutched their heads and began questioning reality.
Jing Yan watched Chu Yu approach him all the way. Finally, as though making a major decision, he cautiously tested the waters with a greeting. "Hello?"
The air went silent for one second.
[All departments, attention. Lights and cameras in position. I'm about to open my mouth!]
"Hello."
After hearing Chu Yu's reply, everyone fell silent.
That voice was exactly the same as the screaming chicken they had heard before.
Brother, do you know that whenever you lose your mind, the entire hall gets a live broadcast?
…
Perhaps because the staff member had told Chu Yu to introduce himself first, he felt he ought to say a few more words. Yet after standing there for ages, he still could not squeeze out more than two. The contrast between his slow-motion speaking speed and the Gatling-gun stream of thoughts rattling out of his mind could not have been sharper.
"…My name is Chu Yu."
[Nineteen years old. Good at sleeping. Profession: slacker. Side job: loafer. I can eat when hungry and drink when thirsty. On rainy days, I can take an umbrella home by myself, though I get lost easily—why do humans have to open their mouths? How has the human tech tree still not unlocked direct brain-wave communication when people meet face-to-face?]
"…From Tianxing Entertainment."
[Not Dixing Entertainment and not Tianyue Entertainment. As for why it's called that, excellent question. I don't know either. I'm just a little boy who won't stop babbling inside his head because he's nervous.]
…So noisy.
Yet right now, several people were facing one another and not a single person had opened their mouth. From floor to ceiling, the entire hall radiated dead silence.
…And so quiet.
[This is so awkward, so awkward. I literally just repeated what the staff lady already said. It's hard for people to learn anything about me from only those few words—but opening my mouth is genuinely exhausting.]
It's okay, brother. You've already revealed your entire family background through brain waves. We understand you extremely well now.
[Why isn't anyone talking? Why isn't anyone talking? Tell me, AAAAAAH, why isn't anyone talking? Did I make it awkward for everyone? Did I make it awkward for everyone? Being the king of killing conversations is my destiny, I understand, hahahahahahaha sob sob sob sob.]
The trainee with the textbook face of an aloof beauty coolly touched his hair.
That's not it, the other trainees answered internally. They were merely doubting the truth of all the earlier scandals. The little boy in front of them, who looked ready to lose his mind and shatter because no one was responding, seemed like a creature from another dimension compared with the professional male Consort Hua they had imagined from Palace Drama: Survival-Show Edition. The instant Chu Yu's inner voice began, the entire genre of the hall changed, from a gloomy political thriller full of schemes into bizarre absurdist comedy.
[Whatever. I shall make my elegant exit, like a proud rose that never reveals its sorrow in the storm.]
"…I'm going to the bathroom." Chu Yu stood up and headed toward the corridor with an expression that looked aloof to anyone who did not know him and dazed to anyone who did.
If they had not heard those inner screams loud enough to split eardrums, they might have assumed there was some deeper meaning behind what Chu Yu said and did—perhaps a threat, perhaps sarcasm. Now, though, they could somehow read the helplessness unique to terminal social anxiety in the one-pixel smile at the corner of his mouth.
"…Did you guys hear that?" Once he had gone far enough away, Jing Yan cautiously asked the trainees around him.
"You heard it too?"
"I thought I'd gone deaf."
"I thought I'd gone crazy."
"I thought I'd eaten wild mushrooms… Is he actually going to the bathroom?"
"Uh, I think the bathroom is the other way. He went in the wrong direction."
"I'm a little worried about him."
"Me too."
"Let's go check on him."
"Okay."
"Okay."
Just like that, several trainees stood up in unison and headed in the direction Chu Yu had gone, completely forgetting that a few minutes earlier they had been huddled together whispering about what a terrifying, evil final boss of the camp he was.
At the other end of the long corridor.
The System struggled free from its crashed state and weakly called, "Host…"
Sorry. Did I scare you just now?
The System closed its eyes. Its eardrums still seemed to ache faintly.
Now it finally understood why, after learning that the System could hear his thoughts, the first thing this person had said was, It might get a little noisy for you.
So it called weakly again, "Host…"
Chu Yu was flipping through the original plot in his mind. The novel said the trainees would not only live with their newly formed teammates and rehearse performances together, but after class placement they would basically spend twenty-four hours a day around their teammates. Cameramen would also launch surprise attacks to film daily vlogs. The trainees had to smile, greet the camera, and show themselves off whenever they saw a lens—
Introvert hell. Destroy it.
Show what? His special talent of losing his mind on the spot and then lying down to sleep?
He had just shut the book in a daze when he heard the System call inside his mind. "What's wrong?"
"The mission-card blind box from above arrived. Draw one."
"Is there a mission card for immediately collecting my boxed lunch and dying?"
"…There actually is, but it's the lowest grade and the rewards are small. Drawing that one would count as terrible luck. Every player I've guided has hoped to draw a rare SSR card, with the highest possible reward ceiling."
Oh. So rounding it off, the card he wanted was basically an N card. But after so many years of being cursed by bad gacha luck, his terrible luck felt reassuring. He ought to be able to draw the card with the lowest rarity.
Holding onto that inexplicable shred of hope, he selected a box in his mind and opened it.
Mission: Defy Fate and Become the Protagonist.
Maximum Reward: Extremely High.
Specific objectives: Reach the top five in camp popularity within one month; reach the top three within two months; reach 100 Judge Favorability, 200 Trainee Favorability, and 300 Audience Favorability; by the end of the show, achieve "Top Two in Fan Voting, High-Rank Debut."
Note: Top-tier SSR card exclusive to cannon-fodder characters. Chosen One Dark-Horse Script. Congratulations, baby, you've hit the jackpot~
Crack.
He heard the sound of his heart dying.
A calm, exhausted smile spread across his face. He turned his head toward the bright, breezy scenery outside the window. His thin lips parted and released a single syllable: "6."
His luck was truly rotten beyond belief.
Defy fate and become the protagonist. Him? Cannon-Fodder A, who danced like he was doing calisthenics and had spent eight hundred years hiding at home without seeing daylight or people?
Forget fighting his way through a crowd of professionally trained singers and dancers to take first place. If he could face an audience without his tongue tying itself into knots, twisting sideways, or stammering for half a day before producing nothing but a filler sound, that would already count as tremendous progress.
What doesn't kill me should honestly just kill me.
Either every audience member who voted him upward had gone blind, or some top-tier social butterfly who excelled at both singing and dancing suddenly possessed him. There was no third possibility.
He might as well ask what happened if he failed the mission. Then he could make funeral arrangements early and lie flat.
"D-don't think like that yet," the System said nervously after sensing his meaning. "Heaven never seals off every road. As long as you work hard, there will always be hope."
Mm, you're right, Chu Yu replied internally. Then he changed direction:
What happens if I don't finish the mission?
"…The worst outcome is that you're eliminated in the first round, after which the Book Transmigration Bureau evaluates your result. If you pass, you're sent into the next world. If you fail…"
"No. You have to roll probability on another card draw."
You should just kill me.
