She debuted after having a child with a celestial being.

Jin Yihan took off her headphones, stood up, and walked to the mirror.

Gan Junyan jumped up from his chair.

Zhou Tengyang nudged Wan Yuxian, and the two of them stood up together.

Jiang Dahe tossed his phone into the corner of the wall. The phone bounced once on the floor and the screen went dark.

The music started playing again.

The intro to "Dream" exploded in the practice room.

Some people were unfamiliar with the movements, some were stiff, and some almost bumped into the people next to them while spinning around. Li Quanzhe even bumped into the person next to him because he couldn't distinguish left from right.

Xiao He didn't say anything more, stood at the front, and sang the lyrics from beginning to end.

He demonstrated each word, and behind him, eleven people slowly followed his voice.

For the next few days, we practiced until the early hours of the morning every day.

The corridor was dimly lit, and some people were so sleepy they could barely keep their eyes open, dozing off against the mirror while holding their water cups.

Someone was sitting on the ground with lyrics paper spread out on their knees, their lips moving, but their eyes were already closed.

In the early morning, individual interviews with the trainees began one after another.

The camera was mounted in a small room at the end of the corridor, with a red indicator light on.

The production team called each person in one by one and asked them the same questions: Are you nervous? Do you have confidence? How would you rate your team?

Lu Chenyu sat in front of the camera, her hair still wet, the sweat from her dance practice hadn't dried yet.

"At first, I really didn't want to train. No matter how I competed, I couldn't beat them, and I felt like I had no hope at all in this show. Before I came in, I even thought that if I was eliminated, so be it, it would be a relief."

He paused, then looked down at his hands. His fingers were still wrapped in bandages; the skin had been chafed from practicing the dance moves for the chorus.

"But Brother He told us to treat this as our last performance. He said he wrote 100 original songs when he was in college, but he never released any of them. He's been waiting for an opportunity for four years and he's still waiting. What are we waiting for? We don't even want to practice a single song."

He looked up at the camera, and his expression changed.

"Practice makes perfect. We're going to be eliminated anyway, so why not give it our all? Even if we end up packing and leaving, those few minutes on stage were earned through our own hard work, so it's not a loss."

Jin Yihan walked in and out, saying only four words to the camera: "Just do it."

The recording for the 60-to-35 round took place three days later in the evening.

The twelve groups took turns performing on stage.

Xiao He's "Dream" ranked fourth in Group A. He led the team with the weakest foundation in the entire competition: Li Quanzhe, Jin Yihan, Gan Junyan, Lü Chenyu, Zhou Tengyang, Wan Yuxian, Jing Peiyao, Jiang Dahe, and Xu Heni, a group of teenagers struggling on the verge of elimination.

As they walked up the steps, some people were shivering, not from the cold, but from the fear of messing things up if they opened their mouths.

The intro explodes, and low-frequency bass lines surge up from under the floor, making your chest tingle.

Twenty seconds into the show, Xiao He's in-ear monitor started malfunctioning; the background noise in his right ear suddenly turned into a sharp, electrical scream.

The show's producers pulled another stunt: he remained expressionless and continued performing.

Before the chorus, my left ear went completely silent.

He couldn't hear any of the accompaniment tracks on stage that required in-ear synchronization.

Only the cheers of the audience, mixed in with the huge spatial reverberation, were a full beat behind the accompaniment.

If he follows the audience's calls, his movements will be a century slower than the beat.

He reached out, took both in-ear monitors out of his ears, and threw them on the ground.

The headphones bounced twice on the floor, their brightness glaringly apparent under the stage lights.

His only source of eavesdropping is gone.

But he kept jumping.

A few days ago, he sat in the corner of the practice room with his headphones on, next to the mirror, listening to the same chorus over and over again.

When asked why he didn't wear it while dancing, he simply said, "I want to make this song a muscle memory."

Xiao He had anticipated the earpiece problem.

On stage right now, everything that had been honed in my bones over those few days is now in my muscle memory.

The body's rhythm was perfectly synchronized.

Li Quanzhe saw the two in-ear monitors thrown on the ground behind him, and his heart skipped a beat. He almost forgot what he was doing.

As the music ended and the last drumbeat fell, the movements of the seven people froze simultaneously.

His chest heaved, sweat dripped onto the floor, and the entire room fell silent for a moment.

Screams, applause, and people standing up to clap.

This group had the weakest foundation, yet they produced the most stable synchronized dance of the entire performance.

The other groups performed in turn, and the mentors' comments could be heard from the corners.

Fan Chenchen won first place in the Rap category with his explosive rap performance of "Very Good," and his eyes welled up with tears of excitement on stage.

Zhu Zhengting's performance of "Sheep" showcased his modern dance skills, securing first place in the Dance group. Cheng Xiao's line, "You are my pride," brought tears to his eyes.

Bi Wenjun's rendition of "I Will Always Remember" captivated the entire audience from the very first note, with its powerful and penetrating chorus.

Xiao He and Bi Wenjun tied for first place in the Vocal group.

Adding the 5 votes for the group leader, the total number of votes is 15.

A steep, cliff-like ascent to the summit.

Without a company background or a large following on Weibo, they managed to suppress a script that capital wanted to eliminate.

The second episode aired on the first Friday after the location assessment recording ended.

After the second episode aired, new viewers who hadn't seen it before flocked in from all directions, while older viewers who had seen it were busy recommending it and criticizing it, trying to explain exactly what happened on this stage.

The storm offstage was even fiercer than the storm onstage.

Cai Kunkun's self-introduction video received an explosive number of views on the day the main program aired.

Grey overalls, a middle parting, and the line "I like singing, dancing, rapping, and basketball," accompanied by a clip of him dribbling with flair during the song "Just Because You're Too Beautiful," instantly swept the entire internet.

Starting from the top of Weibo's trending topics, the hashtag "Cai Kunkun's self-introduction" spread rapidly, with comments full of "overalls" and "middle-part hair." Amidst the sea of ​​Korean-style trainees at the time, a boy wearing overalls and playing basketball was surprisingly remembered.

But they are only remembered.

Xiao He's self-introduction was also broadcast at the same time.

On the screen, he was wearing a simple white T-shirt and holding an old guitar borrowed from the production team.

He looked at the camera and said that he had written a hundred original songs, but had never released a single demo.

Then he lowered his head and played a piece.

The melody is clean, and the lyrics are like a monologue on a late-night radio show.

"I have never seen a village where the aurora borealis appears, nor have I ever seen anyone set off fireworks in the middle of the night."

The first line of the video was captured and edited into short videos across the internet, flooding Weibo's homepage with requests for the audio source, and being wildly shared in WeChat Moments and university groups.

But the direction of fermentation is different from Cai Kunkun's.

Some people started listing data: "If you really write a hundred songs, that's an average of twenty-odd songs a year, or two songs a month. That's more output than many debuting singers. Is that just bragging?"

"One hundred songs, and not a single one released? That's really pathetic."

"It feels like she's trying to cultivate a 'talented' persona."

A comment scrolled across the screen: "How can you prove it's a hundred songs if you haven't posted them?"

"I didn't realize how good it was; I could write a song like that too."

In the dormitory, Chen Linong held his phone up to Xiao He.

The comments are still refreshing.

"Holding an old guitar, a hundred demos, not a single one released, I inexplicably feel like crying."

"Finally, I've seen someone talented."

The ranking of the top 60 to 35 was announced after the second round of position evaluation recording was completed, and was finally announced at the end of the second episode. The last 35 people were eliminated, and only 35 people advanced.

Zhang Yixing stood in the center of the stage, the script in his hand reflecting light slightly.

Third place: Fan Chenchen.

The extra votes for first place in the Rap category pushed him up one position.

His lips moved, as if he were saying something he had been holding back for a long time. When he walked to the center of the stage, he bowed ninety degrees to the camera and didn't straighten up for a long time.

After suffering infamy in the previous episodes, they finally managed to salvage their shattered reputation.

Before the second place was announced, the entire audience was silent for several beats.

Second place, Justin.

Justin stood frozen in his chair, his eyes suddenly reddening when he heard his name called.

She managed to hold back her tears as she approached the center of the stage, but her voice still trembled: "Thank you... thank you..."

Zhang Yixing announced the first place winner: Cai Kunkun, whose popularity vote still showed a commanding lead.

When Cai Kunkun came out from backstage, he had his hair parted in the middle and thanked everyone again: "Thank you to every producer who voted for me and to every IKUN. This first place is something you earned for me."

Fifth place, Zhang Yixing read out Xiao He's name.

This ranking has fallen again, but fortunately, we haven't been eliminated.

Popularity is currently Xiao He's biggest weakness.