Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

On stage, the chorus has begun.

The chorus arrangement of "After the Fireworks Die" is twice as loud as the verse.

The entire accompaniment unfolded in that instant, with drumbeats and strings overlapping, making the entire studio floor tremble slightly.

On stage, the six people danced together.

Zhou Wei's dance is still not very smooth, but it has his own style. However, the awkwardness in this song makes it seem like a kind of clumsy strength.

Lu Yiming was beside him.

He Xu didn't consider his dancing to be top-notch.

The core is still not tight enough; there are a few angles where the rotation could be made cleaner.

But his expression and his posture were all in sync with the mood of the song.

The second verse of the chorus features the highest note of the entire performance.

The arrangement skips a beat here, leaving only the strings gently supporting it from below.

Lu Yiming looked up and took the microphone.

Start singing.

"The city grew even darker after the fireworks died down—"

"The hug was still warm, but the heart had already grown cold—"

He Xu sat behind the monitoring console, watching the line on the audio waveform suddenly spike, and the entire monitoring room seemed to fall silent for a moment.

The sound was too bright, too clean.

Like a beam of light cleaving the night sky, it rose from the very center of the stage, struck the dome, and then spread out in all directions, landing on the shoulders of every audience member.

The audience remained silent for about half a second after the high note faded.

Then erupted a burst of screams and applause that were more enthusiastic than ever before.

Lu Yiming stood on the stage, his chest heaving, his fingers trembling slightly as he held the microphone.

But he didn't lower his head or avoid the camera; he just stood there looking in the direction of the audience, his eyes slightly red.

-

He Xu didn't know what Lu Yiming was thinking, but Lu Yiming knew.

When he stood on the stage, many scenes flashed through his mind.

He recalled sitting in a chair in his college dorm room, facing his old laptop, with a talent show registration page on the screen.

He hesitated for the entire afternoon, his finger hovering over the mouse, but he never pressed the button.

He wasn't trained.

He has no company, no teachers, and has never systematically studied anything; he simply loved singing since he was a child.

Singing in front of the mirror in the dormitory, singing in the bathhouse, humming a tune no one knows in a corner of the playground.

He had absolutely no hope when he signed up.

When he was notified that he had passed the preliminary selection, he even thought it was a scam text message.

During the initial stage evaluation, he stood on the stage and saw so many trainees from big companies below the stage, all wearing the same training uniforms, and their postures were all different from his.

He felt like a random passerby who had wandered onto a film set.

The night Lu Yiming was assigned to Class D, he squatted in a corner of the corridor and cried for a long time.

It wasn't because he felt wronged, but because he felt he might really be different from others—

Others have been training since childhood, while he started halfway through his career. That kind of gap can't be bridged by just saying "I like it".

But he didn't leave.

He didn't know why either.

It could be when He Xu was teaching him to revise the dance, it could be the bottle of water Li Bufan handed him when he forgot his lines, or it could simply be because—he couldn't bear to part with it.

I'll miss the heavy microphone on stage, I'll miss the contestants I ate with in the cafeteria, and I'll miss the practice room where the lights were still on at 2 a.m.

He stayed.

He stayed until the third public official position.

He spent twice as much time training as others. He trained while others rested and he trained while others ate.

When He Xu first walked into their group and said, "Don't suppress your high notes," he stood in front of the mirror for a whole afternoon until his voice became so hoarse that he couldn't make a sound.

And now, he stands here, on the stage of the third public performance, under the gaze of all the audience, and has finished singing that high note that he practiced countless times.

He heard the screams and saw the illuminated signs.

He thought, "I think I deserve to be here."

-

The lingering echo of that high note in the studio still reverberated in the air.

In the front row of the audience, a girl with her hair in a ponytail held up her phone with trembling hands.

She originally just wanted to record a video of Zhou Wei to post on her WeChat Moments, but at that moment, she found herself forgetting even how to breathe.

When Lu Yiming finished singing the last line, the boy next to her wearing a baseball cap suddenly stood up, and his light stick almost hit someone in the front row.

"Holy crap—" His voice mingled with the screams from the crowd, but those sitting next to him still heard it. "Is that that amateur kid?!"

No one answered him.

Because everyone has already stood up.

The stage lights shifted from dim to bright, and warm golden light poured down from above, enveloping the six figures in a soft halo.

Zhou Wei stood in the center, his expression still serious, but there was a very slight curve at the corner of his mouth.

Lu Yiming stood to his right, his chest still heaving.

He almost cried—but He Xu had told him, "Don't cry before the recording is over, or your makeup will be ruined and you won't look good on camera"—so he bit his lip and forcefully suppressed the rising bitterness.

The accompaniment for "After the Fireworks Die" is still coming to an end, with the strings slowly sliding down from high to low, like the last wisp of smoke after a firework has burned out.

The music stopped.

The cheers were deafening, almost lifting the dome off the stadium.

"Lu Yiming!!!"

"Aaaaaaahh ...

"That high note!!! Who recorded that high note!!!"

"What kind of treasure is he?!"

Lu Yiming's legs were still weak as he walked down the steps.

All he could see was the dimly lit gray corridor and the faint figures ahead.

He stepped down the last step, his foot landing on the floor of the waiting area, and almost slipped and fell.

"Are you alright?" Zhou Wei grabbed him and said, "Stand still before you go."

Lu Yiming looked up, his eyes already red-rimmed.

Zhou Wei looked at him, his lips moved slightly, but in the end he just patted him on the shoulder and said, "Cry."

Lu Yiming's tears finally fell.

Zhou Wei didn't say anything more and turned to walk towards the mentors' rest area—he still needed to change into his outfit for the next round.

Lu Yiming stood there, tears falling one by one onto the gray floor of the waiting area.

He raised the back of his hand to wipe his face, but new tears immediately welled up again.

Then he heard a voice from beside him, carrying a familiar, urgent concern—

"Lu Yiming? What's wrong? Why are you crying?!"

Li Bufan's voice came from the waiting area. He was wearing a black stage costume and had just rushed out of the rest area to wait for his turn. When he saw Lu Yiming's miserable state, he rushed over without saying a word.

Lu Yiming looked up and saw Li Bufan's face, which had just been made up.

"Li Bufan..." His voice was hoarse and trembling, "I sang it..."

"I know, I heard it! That high note was amazing! The whole place went wild! Did you hear it?!"

Lu Yiming nodded, then shook his head, a few tears falling onto Li Bufan's collar.

Li Bufan glanced down at his collar, where a small, dark water stain was visible.

"Hey—you—I just finished putting on makeup—" he said, but pulled the person into his arms.

Lu Yiming's entire weight pressed down on his shoulder, and his voice became hoarse from crying.

Li Bufan had one arm around his back, while the other arm hung in mid-air, not daring to put it down.

"...Don't get your face on my clothes, I'm going on stage soon..." His voice lowered, carrying a kind of indulgence that he himself didn't realize.

Lu Yiming's sobs muffled against his shoulder, nasal and damp with tears: "...I know..."

"I know you're still crying!"

"I couldn't help it..."

Li Bufan sniffed, feeling his eyes welling up with tears. "Alright, alright, stop crying, stop crying. If you cry again, I'll start crying too—my makeup can't be ruined, I just spent an hour getting it done!"

A burst of laughter came from the side.

Several contestants from the other end of the waiting area also gathered around, some handing over tissues and others handing over water.

"Alright, I'm going on stage now. Don't cry for too long, or your makeup will be ruined and people will think I bullied you."

"Go ahead," Lu Yiming nodded. "Good luck."

Li Bufan glanced at him to make sure he had really recovered before turning around and walking quickly toward the waiting passage on the side of the stage.

He took three steps, then turned back and shouted to Lu Yiming, "Your high note—it really is beautiful."

Then he ran away without looking back.

Lu Yiming stood there, watching his figure disappear into the passageway, and finally couldn't help but laugh out loud.