Rebirth of Chinese Entertainment, starting with the strategy of 95 flowers to counterattack

Chapter 239 The Birth of a Top-Tier Celebrity (Part 95)

In June, Hangzhou was already as hot as a steamer.

The air conditioner in the practice room was humming loudly, but it couldn't dispel the beads of sweat constantly appearing on Yang Chaoyue's forehead.

"One more time!" The dance teacher clapped her hands, and the music started again.

Yang Chaoyue stood at the very edge of the line, and in the mirror she looked like a clumsy penguin.

The theme song "Pick Me" isn't particularly fast-paced, but her hands and feet just wouldn't obey her commands.

"Raise your hand, turn around, wave!" Wu Xuanyi next to her moved with fluid grace.

Yang Chaoyue had only raised her hand halfway when the music had already moved on to the next eight beats.

Her eyes reddened with anxiety, and her lips turned white from biting them.

"Yang Chaoyue!" the dance teacher suddenly shouted, "You've made a mistake again!"

The practice room fell silent instantly.

More than twenty girls stared at her, their gazes feeling like needles pricking her back.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Everyone, take a ten-minute break." The teacher sighed. "Yang Chaoyue will stay and do extra practice."

The teammates left in twos and threes, some muttering under their breath, "He's dragging the team down again..."

Yang Chaoyue stood still, her fingers tightly gripping the hem of her clothes.

Sweat streamed down my face; I couldn't tell if it was from the heat or from being anxious.

Suddenly, a tear fell to the floor with a soft "plop".

"I really can't learn it." She squatted down, buried her face in her arms, and her shoulders trembled.

Gu Yang's eyes lit up in the monitoring room: "Quick, close-up!"

The camera zoomed in, magnifying the girl's bright red nose and the teardrops clinging to her eyelashes on the monitor.

Gu Yang nodded in satisfaction: "Not bad, you finally managed to force it out."

Even when it was late at night, the lights in the practice room were still on.

Yang Chaoyue stood alone in front of the mirror, mechanically repeating the same actions. "One, two, three, four..."

She counted the beats quietly, her bangs damp with sweat and stuck to her forehead.

Suddenly, the door was pushed open.

Gu Yang walked in carrying a plastic bag: "Still not resting?"

Yang Chaoyue was so frightened she almost fell over: "B-Boss!"

Gu Yang handed her the bag: "Have something to eat."

Inside were still steaming hot pan-fried buns.

Yang Chaoyue's nose tingled, and she almost cried again.

"Why are you crying?" Gu Yang leaned against the barre. "Didn't you already cry during the day?"

“I’m so stupid,” she mumbled, taking a bite of her pan-fried bun. “No matter how much I practice, I can’t get it right.”

Gu Yang didn't say anything, but simply picked up the bottled water next to him, unscrewed it, and handed it to her.

"Boss" Yang Chaoyue suddenly looked up, "Am I really that bad? I promised you I'd do well, and I've been trying, really trying lately, but..."

The moonlight shone in through the window and fell into her wet eyes.

Gu Yang looked at the girl who resembled a small animal and suddenly reached out and ruffled her hair.

"Yeah! I saw it!"

Whether something is good or bad is not for others to decide.

After saying that, he turned to leave, but stopped at the door: "You just focus on your work, leave the rest to me!"

The moment the door closed, Yang Chaoyue's tears finally burst forth. She wiped her face forcefully, stuffed the remaining pan-fried dumplings into her mouth, and stood in front of the mirror again.

"one two three four……"

That night, the surveillance footage showed that Yang Chaoyue practiced until 3 a.m.

……

On June 8, 2018, the third episode of "Idol Producer" aired.

The third episode focused on the contestants' daily training, and Yang Chaoyue once again became the focus.

During practice for the theme song "Pick Me," she was clearly struggling to keep up with the rhythm, her movements were a beat slower than the other contestants, and she even broke down in tears, saying, "I really can't learn it."

But then the scene shifts to the training room late at night, where she's the only one still practicing, repeatedly performing the movements in front of the mirror, quietly counting the beats: "One, two, three, four."

On that day, the hashtag #YangChaoyueBreaksDownAndCries# garnered 1.5 million views and 9.1 discussions.

#YangChaoyuePracticesLateNight# has 1.8 million views and 12.3 discussions.

The hashtag ranking has risen to the top 20!

The online comments section exploded instantly.

"Although she's not very bright, at least she tried. Many people give up when they encounter difficulties in their work and studies, so Yang Chaoyue's perseverance is quite inspiring."

"I feel sorry for you that you kept practicing even though you were crying like that. It reminds me of when I was preparing for the postgraduate entrance exam. I was under so much pressure that I cried, but I still had to keep studying. I can really empathize with you."

"Is this some kind of sob story? If you're this bad, don't take up a spot! There are so many celebrities in the entertainment industry these days who have no talent but love to gain sympathy, it's really disgusting."

"Protect the village beauty, villagers, give her a piece of your mind! Yang Chaoyue hasn't bothered anyone. Hard-working people deserve respect. If you don't like it, don't watch."

"With this level of skill, she's participating in a talent show? My sister, who learns to dance in her spare time, is better than her. Isn't this a waste of an opportunity?"

"Maybe the production team edited it on purpose to create buzz. These days, variety shows will use any means necessary to generate buzz."

"Anyway, I saw the hard work of an ordinary person in her. Keep it up, and I hope she can make progress."

Although there were still quite a few people criticizing her, Yang Chaoyue's fan base surpassed 500 million on this day.

At 6 p.m. on June 22, 2018, when the opening music of the fifth episode of "Produce 101" started playing, countless viewers held their phones and stayed in front of their screens.

The barrage of comments exploded in the darkness, like restless fireflies before a summer night downpour.

The stage lights suddenly turned on, and under the pink and purple lights of the "It's All You" group, girls in sequined miniskirts filed out to the beat of the drums.

Yang Chaoyue's movements still carried a clumsy and awkward quality; her shoulders were stiff when she raised her hand, and the arc of her kick was half an inch shorter than her teammates'.

A few snickers came from the front row of the audience, but the live stream chat suddenly exploded with comments: "Help! She looks like a hamster with its fur standing on end!"

"That waist twisting looks like it's bending a steel bar, hahaha!"

As the interlude music suddenly slowed down, Yang Chaoyue tilted her head to face the camera, and the beauty mark at the corner of her eye trembled slightly with a wink.

The originally teasing comments suddenly fell silent for half a second, and were then flooded with "awsl" comments.

"Ahhh, Chaoyue sister!"

"Isn't it so cute?"

She seemed startled by the screams from the audience, her ears quickly turning red. When she missed a beat on the next move, she stuck out her tongue in a panic.

This unpolished, clumsy moment made the perfectly professional dancers on stage pale in comparison.

As the music came to an end, all the contestants struck their ending poses.

Yang Chaoyue seemed to suddenly remember something, her eyes curved into crescents, revealing two tiger teeth, and the corners of her mouth stretched so wide that they almost reached her ears.

This untimely, radiant smile, captured in a close-up shot by the director, is forever frozen in the viewer's phone photo album at 0.5x speed.

That evening, with the full support of Xinghe Media, nine-grid screenshots of her losing control of her expression began circulating on major social media platforms.

Some eyes widened like startled rabbits, while others pursed their lips and suppressed laughter like children stealing candy. The captions ranged from "Help, this is too real" to "From now on, the world of emojis has a new top influencer."

(End of this chapter)