Can not doing what one wants be called rebirth?

Chapter 397 407. Towards a Bigger World

"You know what, I've seen a lot of Xinxin crying."

After toasting each other, Mr. Lu showed no intention of attending the next round of the celebration banquet.

After saying goodbye to the big names from different fields and industries, Lu Jincheng quietly left the scene with two "family members" at the celebration banquet.

"Boss Lu~ I'm not a crybaby!"

“It’s just that sometimes, I just can’t stand it.”

In the second half of socializing, when there is no need to wear a mask, it is more convenient to talk to family members.

Star City is also known as the "City That Never Sleeps" as there are businesses open at any time of the night.

The three of them walked along the roadside and found a small bar with a private room, where they sat down and chatted.

Whether it is Miao Keyan or Sun Xin, the well-known female anchor and the amateur female college student, they are gradually accepting the change in their identity.

When they walk on the roadside, even at a barbecue stall with only a few people, they can be recognized at a glance.

Look! It’s the face from the variety show!

"You don't know. You can't tell from the editing in the show. We were often asked to sing and dance all the time. We were simply not human beings."

There were many big names at the celebration banquet just now. Sun Xin raised his hand and called the waiter over to bring two more plates of snacks.

She wasn't full at all.

“It’s really hard.”

Miao Keyan nodded.

"I heard from Director Sun that the original program design was not like this, but it changed later."

"It is an extreme test. This is the most extreme and unreasonable thing you can encounter in this industry."

One of the core purposes of "Goddess 101" is to test people's coping mechanisms in extreme environments.

There has never been a singer who sings and dances from the beginning to the end, but the theme song of "Goddess 101" requires all girls to do so.

Sun Xin has never faced this kind of pressure before, and her coping mechanism is often crying.

I cried because I couldn’t learn the theme song; I cried because the clothes I was required to wear for the show were too short and exposed my belly; I cried because I couldn’t wear colored contact lenses or draw my eyebrows properly.

Netizens questioned that she was crying to gain sympathy, but she felt very wronged and it was just a habit for her to vent her emotions.

Her roommates who came to "Goddess 101" with her rushed to comfort her when they saw her crying, but later they got used to it.

Miao Keyan feels that crying, shopping, drinking and having sex are all the same thing.

They are all ways to regulate emotions.

[Xinxin, it’s okay if you cry. My boss said that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both love to cry.]

But "Goddess 101" is not Dianjin Media, and there is no considerate boss here who thinks it's okay for girls to cry.

The main themes here are hard work, competition, and tenacity. No one wants to be labeled as weak and incompetent.

Even if I am under a lot of pressure, I have to vent away from the camera.

"And the editing of the program was intentional. It was clear that Xinxin was not the only one crying."

When there are no outsiders around, Miao Keyan always performs some habitual actions.

As soon as the waiter closed the door of the box, she stood up and sat next to Lu Jincheng, took the tools to open the bottle, and slowly extinguished the bubbling alcohol bubbles.

By the way, he rolled up his sleeves and peeled the edamame pieces from his snack.

"Some people would spread towels on the toilet floor, sit together with five or six people, and chat for hours to comfort each other. Some people would lock the toilet door and cry alone all night."

The contestants later summed up a rule: if someone disappeared for a long time, they would go to the toilet to look for him/her.

Even Miao Keyan, who is recognized by everyone as a strong man, sometimes feels uncomfortable.

In the seventh episode of the show, there was a performance segment called "What You Don't Know About Me", and she felt confused at first.

I can’t think of anything about myself as a host on a public platform that others don’t know.

She felt extremely embarrassed when the program team suggested a route for her, but she did it anyway, but the results were not good.

The director and the audience are unaware of the inner discomfort and awkwardness.

As a high-ranking player, in addition to training, Miao Keyan often needs to cooperate with the program sponsors in advertising shoots.

When there are too many advertisements, she would get angry, close the door of her dormitory, and curse the overwhelming advertisements, but after cursing she still has to go to shoot.

The other contestants felt nothing but envy and admiration.

[Miao Miao can certainly realize that these photo shoots and interviews are good for her.]

She just felt very tired.

"Thank you for your hard work during this period."

Although he had said these words several times at the celebration banquet, the occasion of the toast changed and Lu Jincheng's tone was completely different.

One is politeness, the other is heartache.

He stretched out a hand, first tapped the back of Miao Keyan's hand, and then gently patted her shoulder.

With 24-hour non-stop live broadcast, there will always be people who cannot bear this kind of all-round peeping and use their hats to block the cameras in the dormitory.

At first, when there were many people, this kind of resistance was tacitly tolerated.

But after several rounds, fewer and fewer people stayed, and in order to ensure there was enough material for the program, the program team no longer tolerated it.

Whenever a dormitory camera is blocked, election officials will receive a call from the monitoring room and be asked to enter the room and remove the hats.

The program team wants the contestants to realize that this is irresponsible.

A long note was posted at the elevator entrance of the contestants' dormitory, with the words written on it in black pen: A true goddess dares to face the camera.

Turn left into the corridor, there is a notice on the wall: Please do not block the dormitory camera. If you do not have reality show material, you will be at your own risk. This concerns your future, so please consider it carefully.

"Any rules of the game will put some pressure on the contestants. I think this is the first step for you to become an artist."

This cruel competition system with a "battle royale" color is the baptism that girls must endure if they want to gain a foothold in the entertainment industry.

"Whoever can bear it in the end will come out."

Lu Jincheng smiled and gave a thumbs up.

"So, what I want to say most is congratulations to you."

"You can complain all you want tonight, but after today, there won't be any more Worry-Relieving Shops where the boss will personally receive you."

"Then I won't be polite. I can't compare to the champion, Sister Miaomiao. She can really endure hardships."

"Hahahaha"

Sun Xin turned his head, looked at the helpless expression of Miao Keyan opposite him, grinned and chuckled.

"At the beginning, I couldn't cry or laugh."

She didn't dare get too close to her favorite popular contestant, for fear of being misunderstood by fans as trying to gain popularity.

"When two popular people get along well, they are called a couple. When a less popular person gets along well with a more popular person, they are called a 'flip' by netizens."

She found that the only recognizable thing about her was the heart-shaped braid on her head.

So I didn’t dare change my hairstyle, for fear that everyone would forget about it.

But then someone asked why he always had the same hairstyle, so for the next week Sun Xin got up half an hour earlier and changed his hairstyle every day.

What caused her the most pain was a performance.

She and another contestant argued for three hours over who would stand at the front in two eight-beats, and neither wanted to give in.

“If there were no cameras, I would really want to swear!”

In the end, she still couldn't win the fight, and after returning to the dormitory, she cried in the toilet until two in the morning.

"Actually, losing this is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that I feel like I have become a terrible person. I argued with someone for three hours just for two eight-beats. I wonder if I have become a bad person."

If we only talk about singing and dancing skills, Sun Xin is undoubtedly a burden compared to most girls.

In her first appearance on the show, she danced to the beat and made the wrong moves.

As for singing, the vocal teacher's evaluation is: you can give her zero points or negative points.

She couldn't tell when the beat started, so she could only count to herself one, two, three, four, and then start singing when she reached four. Whether she got the beat right basically depended on luck.

She couldn't tell Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si, she could only feel whether it was a rising or falling tone.

But when others were worried about their lack of popularity, Sun Xin miraculously got through the first few stages by clinging to Miao Keyan's thighs.

Her Hunan-flavored plastic surgery is quite funny, and she has a round face, which makes her very popular with the audience.

Supporters think that Sun Xin's rise to the top means that no matter how poor his conditions are, he still has the hope of competing with the strong, and that he is "making his dream come true." The more he is ridiculed for his professional ability, the higher Sun Xin's ranking becomes.

Fans desperately voted for her to express their protest against public opinion.

Caught in the whirlpool, Sun Xin became more and more timid.

The random re-assignment of dormitories in each round was her fearful moment, as she was afraid of being assigned to the same dormitory as other contestants who were too different from her.

She was once assigned to the same room with the most popular champion at the time, but she insisted on sleeping on the floor in Mu Keyan's dormitory.

"When I went back and saw their shoes, clothes, and expensive bags scattered all over the floor, and I had a 59-yuan bag on my back and put it on the table, I felt like this was not my world."

She likes being with Miao Keyan.

Because she felt that although Sister Miaomiao's food, clothing, housing and transportation were equally luxurious, she was very easy to get along with, good at discovering the strengths of others, and always affirmed herself.

The pace of "Goddess 101" is too fast and Sun Xin can't keep up.

When she first arrived, she chatted with Miao Keyan in the dormitory. She didn't care about the ranking, she just wanted to see the world.

See how good others are and learn from them.

But she found that when dancing, it was not only her roommate, the dancing master, who stood out.

Many people already know it before the teacher teaches them.

When learning the theme song, some people can sing it after listening to it twice.

"Boss Lu, at that time I thought, oh my god, what kind of people are these, gods!"

Fast is the unanimous feeling of the players and staff.

The training is fast, the elimination is fast, and the group is formed quickly. It takes two or three years for the traditional trainee system to complete the process in just a few months.

In fact, accelerated growth is one of the main themes of "Goddess 101".

Chief Director Sun Li once said: [In two or three months, all resources must be intensively bombarded to make people quickly know her, remember her, understand her, and like her. ]

With the previous method, one person would be launched every one or two years. Who knew?
As time went on, it was quickly submerged.

In fact, you can only choose one between normal growth and the benefits brought by rapid fame.

Photographer Xiaota is the official photographer of Mango TV. He comes to the "Goddess 101" castle every other week to follow the girls' daily lives.

As early as 2005, he was in Sun Li's team and filmed Chun Ge's "Super Girl".

More than ten years have passed, and he feels that the shooting method has not changed much, but people have changed.

Back then, it took two or three months to feel the slightest changes in the contestants, but now it’s like they’ve become a different person in just half a month.

He sighed at the celebration party.

[They unconsciously accelerate their maturity, but often after becoming mature, you don’t know what the most precious things are, and they are lost without you noticing.]

This is a bit regrettable, but it is the current situation of entertainers in the entertainment industry.

He is a professional photographer and doesn't want to take pictures of things that are "bright and far away from people" when the light is emitted.

But when he came to shoot for the second time, he found it difficult to capture the innocent look in the girls' eyes.

Once facing the camera, they immediately switch into star-like status.

To some extent, this is the result of the training.

She knows what photographers usually want, and she knows what to give you.

Some girls quickly realized and accepted the impact of extreme environments on people.

In the middle of the show, Sun Xin was invited to participate in Yang Shulin's event, and the organizer gave her two lipsticks.

She gave one to Miao Keyan.

She wants to be someone who can take care of others, but in reality, she still cries often.

She cried several times because she couldn't draw her eyebrows properly.

However, she learned to turn her back and cry secretly so that the camera wouldn't capture it.

When Lu Jincheng asked what the "changes that have led to this point" specifically referred to, she thought for a few seconds.

"It's like I've lost some of my freedom."

“When I feel sad, I can’t express myself freely. I just want to show my most optimistic side and force myself to grow faster.”

"I need to learn more from Sister Miaomiao in this regard."

"By the way, Mr. Lu, have you seen the dark circles under my eyes?"

"Um no."

The lights in the bar were dim, and even though Lu Jincheng got close to the girl's profile, it was still difficult to see the details.

"I covered it up with concealer. I only slept three hours a day during this period!"

As the day of the finals draws closer, in the final countdown, she has to make one last effort for her marginal chance to form a group.

But what is the meaning of hard work?
Sun Xin didn’t know.

She only knows that what she wants most is acting because she thinks the costumes are beautiful, followed by participating in variety shows, and what she least wants to do is singing and dancing.

"At that time, I just hoped that the show would end soon so that I could leave in a dignified manner! I have never been so desperate about dancing and singing."

But she still forced herself to persevere to the end.

"Yes, Xinxin really worked hard in the last few days. She almost went crazy."

In Miao Keyan's eyes, she slept three or four hours a day in the final stage, practiced until she became drowsy, closed her eyes, and kept singing, and sang until she fell asleep on the floor.

Before the debut night, the dance teacher led the contestants to rehearse the group song, which lasted from 1pm to 6am the next day.

During this time, some people complained, threw tantrums, and some sneaked away.

Sun Xin was one of the three people who remained until the end.

So much so that the dance consultant couldn't help but post a message on WeChat Moments.

——I picked Miao Keyan, Sun Xin and Xu Jie, because they won my respect last night. I just admire that in this kitsch era, they still have the spirit of doing great things.

"interesting."

Lu Jincheng took the phone screen handed to him by Miaomiao, looked at the circle of friends, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.

He didn't expect that the cheerful supporting actor he casually signed could actually reach such a position with Miao Keyan.

As for Miaomiao's future, Mr. Lu never worries.

According to normal rules, although Miao Keyan is popular, she still has shortcomings in her professional ability. She needs at least another one or two years of training to reach the traditional debut standards.

Being famous nowadays is a double-edged sword.

Debuting means being held to the same standards and having less room for growth.

If you can't reach professional standards within the time required to maintain the heat, there will be no second chance.

But in Mr. Lu’s memory, there are massive resources from another world.

He has enough confidence to push Miao Keyan to a higher and farther position.

"Okay, that's enough for the complaints."

The three of them ate and chatted, and time slowly passed towards twelve o'clock in the morning.

Lu Jincheng looked at the green submariner on his wrist, waved to the two of them, stood up and walked towards the hotel where they were staying.

"Xinxin, which floor do you live on? You go up first. I'll give you a few days off to adjust yourself."

"Yeah, thank you, Mr. Lu!"

Holding the elevator handle, Sun Xin's feeling of weightlessness quickly spread throughout his body.

This scene reminded her of the night before when she came down from the dormitory and went to the rehearsal room two hundred meters away after practicing all night.

As soon as she walked out of the dormitory door, a group of fans holding cheering banners rushed over to cheer her on.

She nodded, lowered her head and continued walking forward.

Behind me, a girl from a distance suddenly shouted:
"Xinxin, you have to work harder!"

"Go see the bigger world!"

Sun Xin paused for a moment and almost burst into tears.

But she still held back, turned around and said with a smile:
"thanks, I will."

(End of this chapter)