Jian Yunxian chuckled on the other end, her breathing coming through the microphone and piercing Yi Heye's ears.
Yi Heye gripped the microphone, gritting his teeth, wanting to travel back in time and tear this person's mouth apart.
This is terrible... My skills in pretending to be a couple with Jian Yunxian are becoming more and more refined.
"Okay." Jian Yunxian replied, suppressing a smile. "Then you must do your best and take care of yourself over there. Don't neglect yourself."
Yi Heye rarely received any attention, and for a moment he felt a little touched. Then he thought about his own life – eating and drinking well, watching "Shaun the Sheep" in class, and slacking off in the cabin when practicing.
There is no one in the world who would treat himself worse than him.
But with a quiz tomorrow, all he could think about was Sean's sullen face. Yi Heye pinched his brow and sighed.
"Is something bothering you?" Jian Yun asked casually. "You can tell me about it."
Yi Heye glanced at the surveillance camera, then at the confidentiality agreement, and thought, "How do I explain this? How can I explain this?"
But Jian Yunxian's patient waiting made Yi Heye, who was full of worries, unable to resist his temptation again—he really wanted to confide in him and get his help in coming up with some ideas.
So he beat around the bush and said, "Well, our factory is holding an assessment tomorrow..."
Jian Yunxian immediately said, "Wow, then you should do your best! You've just started your new job, so you must get a great start!"
Yi Heye shut his mouth. He suspected that the person was doing it on purpose, but he had no evidence. At this moment, he only felt the pressure on him increasing.
After gritting his teeth for a long time, Yi Heye still said, "...but I don't know anything."
Jian Yunxian asked dramatically, "How could this be? Are all the others as clueless as you?"
Yi Heye's forehead veins started bulging: "Because I was daydreaming in class..."
Jian Yunxian began to reprimand her passionately: "What were you doing in class? How could you be daydreaming?"
Yi Heye was certain that he was deliberately provoking him—how could this person not know why he hadn't been paying attention in class when he had personally put on the cartoon for him?
That bitch!
He felt a faint crack appear on the communicator from his grip.
But even though he remained tactically silent, Jian Yunxian was still willing to walk right into his line of fire.
Yi Heye could even picture the affected expression on his face when he opened his mouth: "Xiao Ye, how can you be independent and self-reliant like this? If it really doesn't work out, just go home..."
Yi Heye took a deep breath, then smiled at his phone and said, "Let's break up."
Then, in the instant Jian Yunxian choked, she slammed down the phone.
He was furious. Yi Heye shoved the communicator back into its case and stormed back.
He must have lost his mind to come up with the idea of asking Jian Yunxian for advice.
Yi Heye felt the veins on his forehead throbbing. He walked back to his dormitory and lay down.
Screw the exam. Yi Heye pulled the covers over his head, completely giving up on himself.
As soon as I snuggled into bed, I heard someone knocking on the dormitory door.
Yi Heye frowned as he went to open the door, only to find that standing there was Xiao Wang, the talent scout who had discovered him.
To be precise, it was Mr. Jian Yunxian, Xiao Wang's scheming and annoying fake ex-boyfriend who had stolen his body.
Looking into Xiao Wang's sincere, bright, and clear emerald green eyes, Yi Heye's expression plummeted from zero degrees to minus ten degrees.
After he turned off his headset and put on gloves to create physical separation, Jian Xiaowang immediately grabbed his wrist: "Don't be angry, I was just joking."
Yi Heye coldly raised his hand: "I can't take a joke."
Without thinking twice, Jian Xiaowang grabbed Yi Heye and ran outside, saying, "Come on, I'll take you to review."
Yi Heye glanced at him and hesitated for a moment.
Then he saw that guy shamelessly smile at him:
"And incidentally, let's try to salvage our recently dead love."
Author's Note:
Mei Zong is dedicated to increasing the difficulty of the strategy.
Chapter 106, number 106
Damn it, is there a racetrack in this guy's mouth? When did they even have love between them?
When Yi Heye was dragged away, his fists were rock hard. If it weren't for the fact that this person was using someone else's body, Yi Heye might have given him a severed hand.
But perhaps having truly developed an immunity to Jian Yunxian's persistent coaxing, Yi Heye only slightly hardened his fist before tacitly allowing his boundless antics—
He really couldn't care less about anything else right now; he just wanted to prepare for tomorrow's exam as quickly as possible.
As they walked, Jian Yunxian explained the exam format to him.
"Tomorrow's quiz, simply put, is an assessment of the trainees' personal charm," Jian Yunxian said. "The candidates will first give a self-introduction. There is no fixed topic; you just need to show the side of yourself that you are most satisfied with."
Yi Heye felt a tightness in his heart—the most terrifying thing is having no issues to address; overly broad requirements only made him think of performing a live demonstration of dismantling an AI with his bare hands.
"After the presentation, the judges on site and the audience in the live stream will score the presentation simultaneously. The judges on site will score 30% of the total score, and the audience in the live stream will score 70%. The former is out of 10, and the latter is calculated based on the popularity of the live stream."
“This mini-exam will eliminate three candidates, and the results will directly affect the final debut assessment—so it’s a crucial exam,” Jian Yunxian said. “It’s just one night, let’s discuss how to showcase your personal charm tomorrow.”
Yi Heye had no other choice but to grit his teeth and follow Jian Yunxian.
Soon, Yi Heye was led by Jian Yunxian to an empty practice room—it looked like a dance studio, with mirrors hanging on the walls, an empty floor, speakers and microphones in one corner, and photography equipment in another.
Yi Heye walked in and looked around, feeling a little unsure. The next second, he saw Jian Xiaowang dragging the speakers and microphone over from the corner of the wall.
"If you want to be an artist, of course you have to practice singing and dancing." Jian Yunxian, with Xiao Wang's ordinary face, really looked like a simple and unpretentious working guy in the entertainment industry.
Upon hearing this, Yi Heye choked up and took the microphone like a block of wood.
"I..." He was about to struggle when Jian Yunxian said, "Let's get a feel for you from all aspects first, and determine the specific direction we need to present tomorrow."
With sound reasoning and evidence, Yi Heye had no way to refute it.
He looked down at the microphone and hesitated, saying, "I can't sing..."
“I’ll pick one you can definitely sing! We can sing along with the original singer first.” Jian Yunxian’s confidence made Yi Heye inexplicably nervous.
Then, Yi Heye saw this person stand solemnly in front of him, adopting the demeanor of a conductor, and with a wave of his hand, the sound system burst forth with a prelude that would blow the heavens off—
"Clang clang clang clang clang! Clang clang clang clang!!"
Jian Xiaowang waved his hand: "Ready, sing! The great river flows eastward, the stars in the sky point to the Big Dipper...!!"
As Jian Xiaowang's expression grew increasingly excited, Yi Heye's gaze gradually shifted from panic to being filled with murderous intent.
Jian Xiaowang blinked, pressed the pause button, and then stood up straight obediently: "It seems you really can't sing."
How could there be such an infuriating person in the world? Yi Heye clenched his fists so tightly they cracked, thinking to himself, this guy really can do whatever he wants just because he has that handsome face that he's trying to maintain his idol image.
Under Yi Heye's restraint, Jian Yunxian's interest was piqued again, and she tried to coax him into singing along:
"If you suddenly sneeze, it must be because I'm thinking of you..."
Jian Yunxian was using Xiao Wang's body to sing sweet love songs to himself. The scene was incredibly bizarre, but this guy seemed to have magic powers, singing sweetly to the accompaniment:
"Oh Bye, say less. I want to spend more than just one day with you, more than that, something I'd do willingly—"
When she sang the last two words, Jian Yunxian handed the microphone to Yi Heye.
Yi Heye didn't react in time, and subconsciously took the last two words: "...I love you."
The moment he opened his mouth, he realized he'd been tricked. The song was so smooth that he had no chance to react.
Yi Heye's ears started burning uncontrollably again, not only because he said "I love you" to Jian Yunxian, who had a small face, but also because he realized that his words were completely different from the original tone.
Even Jian Yunxian himself wasn't surprised; instead, he looked completely bewildered, as if he had no idea what had just happened.
There was a silence that lasted about half a minute before Jian Yunxian tentatively asked, "Were you singing seriously just now? Uh, I mean... was there a bit of a joke involved?"
Mr. Yi Heye, who was absolutely tone-deaf, couldn't hold back any longer. Only now did he realize that the problem definitely wasn't with Jian Yunxian. Or rather, Jian Yunxian's reaction to his performance had already been very accommodating.
With a pained expression, he pleaded, pulling the microphone from Jian Yunxian's hand, "Stop! Spare me, and spare you too."
"I really can't sing," Yi Heye said sincerely. "...And of course, I can't dance either."
He admitted that he was just a pretty face who got to where he was, and that he really didn't have the talent for this line of work.
Yi Heye thought to himself that if he were to use his tone-deaf voice in the assessment, he would probably not only not get any extra points, but he would also lose all his points.
—For the long term, Yi Heye decided to give up when it was time to avoid making things worse and getting blacklisted by the entire entertainment industry.
After a fruitless effort, Yi Heye was somewhat dejected.
He didn't intend to slack off, but unfortunately, his abilities simply didn't allow him to achieve much.
At this moment, Jian Yunxian patted his shoulder through his gloves and said, "Get a good night's sleep tonight. Some things will just work themselves out."
Looking into his familiar emerald green eyes, Yi Heye wondered why, despite it being just a simple word of comfort, he seemed to feel truly at ease and less anxious.
That night, Yi Heye, who was facing imminent disaster, surprisingly slept well, so much so that he was almost late for his exam the next morning.
After quickly finishing his breakfast, he went to the exam hall with Xia Tian to wait for their turn. There weren't many new students in this batch. They gathered in a classroom and drew lots to determine their exam order.
Yi Heye originally thought that he would be free as soon as he finished the exam, but he didn't expect that God would put a huge pot lid on him as the grand finale.
He looked at the number "15" on his hand, sitting outside the examination room, feeling that every breath he took was torture.
Among this batch of newcomers, it seemed that only he and Xia Tian were grassroots players without professional training. While the two of them were rubbing their hands together and whispering about how to play the "loser" pose, the other students started singing and stretching.
Yi Heye watched helplessly as the boy next to him twisted his legs behind his head, making even his hard bones crack in fear.
The exam started soon, and Yi Heye watched them walk into the examination room one by one.
The soundproofing of the exam room door wasn't very good, which only increased his psychological burden. He could hear professional and beautiful singing voices and powerful accompaniment coming from inside. Everyone was very well prepared. Even Xia Tian had decided to go in and sing a song a cappella later. He was the only one in the world who hadn't even thought about what he was going to perform.
This isn't just realizing you haven't studied when you're in the exam hall; it's realizing you can't read a single word when you get the exam paper.
Yi Heye watched as everyone came and went, some happy and some sad, and could only sit there with his mind blank.
"Candidate number fifteen—"
Finally, the announcement from inside sounded like a death knell. Yi Heye stood up in grief and indignation, looking like a hero going to his death.
Perhaps this is the last time he will stand here. No matter how he thinks about it, Yi Heye is convinced that he will definitely be the one eliminated from the three.