Esports world champion, debuted as the center of a talent show

The final few minutes of the game mission quietly slipped away as Jiang Zhiyu and the man in black engaged in a tug-of-war of endurance.

The countdown has reached its final ten seconds.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1—

"Mission complete! All trainees are prohibited from moving. Remain in your current positions and await staff to escort you back to the main city square for a unified calculation and ranking of fragment points!"

Jiang Zhiyu stopped and stood there, panting.

The man in black who had been following closely also slowed down, walking step by step to the side of the boy who looked tired but still had a smile on his face. Finally, he spoke: "Let's go, I'll take you back."

In fact, Jiang Zhiyu had already slowed down considerably at the last moment, but for some inexplicable reason, he also secretly slowed down his pace, following behind the other person at a distance that was neither too close nor too far.

Oh dear, I didn't complete the task, will I get penalized?

The man in black belatedly realized his mistake and began to regret it, slapping his thigh hard under Jiang Zhiyu's somewhat puzzled gaze.

Fortunately, Hong Liu wasn't a completely heartless director. After the man in black brought Jiang Zhiyu back to the main city, he only glanced at him briefly before letting him go and rest.

Jiang Zhiyu returned to the main city and sat down on the sofa in the rest area, only to find out that more than forty people had been eliminated in the past ninety minutes.

He sipped his water, listening to Yao Wei beside him chatter on and on: "Brother Jiang, you're amazing! I felt like my lungs were going to explode just watching you run like that. How did you do it? They all say they admire you. No one can escape after being caught and hold their own for so long! Let me tell you, I heard these men in black are all from the base. They're all strong and fast. I don't know where Director Hong got so many people from."

Yao Wei poured out his pent-up words, leaving Jiang Zhiyu no chance to speak. If the staff hadn't interrupted him, Jiang Zhiyu suspected he could have continued talking for another half hour.

"Contestants who have not been eliminated within 90 minutes and have found a fragment of inspiration, please gather at the front of the stage. We will be counting the number of participants."

Jiang Zhiyu walked to the front of the stage, took out the fragments of inspiration from his small bag, and handed them to the staff on site.

Staff members checked each trainee's inspiration fragments one-on-one, scanned and entered their unique codes, and projected them onto a large screen in real time, allowing everyone to see the real-time rankings intuitively.

The large screen rankings are updated in real time, eventually stopping at—

[First Place: Jiang Zhiyu (Quantity: 11)]

Second place: Ahn Joon-young (Number: 7)

Third place: Lu Renjia (Quantity: 6)

[…]

[That's incredible! Jiang Zhiyu was being chased for most of the time, yet he still won without a doubt.]

[Even in the treasure hunt mini-game, you need a huge lead to win? You idiot!]

[Jiang Zhiyu has a really strong will to win; he seems to be the kind of person who can't tolerate losing.]

[You look a little out of breath; Jiang Jiang must be exhausted.]

A staff member picked up the microphone, and the voice clearly resonated throughout the venue: "The list of eight team leaders for the second performance has been finalized. Now we will draw keywords for the original theme of the second performance. Team leaders, please come forward one by one."

Jiang Zhiyu followed the staff's directions and stepped forward. In front of him was a spherical lottery device with eight small balls scattered inside.

There was a circular opening at the top of the device. Jiang Zhiyu reached in and picked the one closest to him.

Open the small sphere; inside is a white paper strip.

He took out the note, opened it, and saw that there were only two words written on the white paper: day and night.

After all eight people had drawn the keywords for their respective groups, the staff did not reveal the specific content, but instead smiled mysteriously and said, "This time, the second round of group selection will be conducted in a blind selection format. You will choose your teammates without knowing the theme. The team leader has the right to refuse and adjust the selection."

The trainees below were in an uproar. This format was very disadvantageous to them. The overall difficulty of the second performance started to rise from the group selection alone, making people dread the difficulty of the original stage theme of the second performance.

"All trainees, please come up on stage and place your name tags on the back of the whiteboard under any of the team leaders' names. After everyone has made their selections, we will announce them publicly, and the team leaders will decide whether to approve them."

Jiang Zhiyu stood on one side of the stage, quietly watching the trainees come up one after another to make their choices.

The whiteboard was firmly separated by partitions, and its back was completely obscured, so neither the audience nor the team leaders knew who had chosen whom.

Deng Sushui stood in front of the whiteboard without the slightest hesitation. Her gaze fell directly on Jiang Zhiyu's name, and she raised her hand to firmly stick her name tag on it.

He had made up his mind long ago that no matter how many performances there were, he would definitely become teammates with Jiang Zhiyu at least once.

More importantly, Deng Sushui knew that as an actor crossing over into acting, he was not a professional idol and lacked stage presence. He needed the help of a captain like Jiang Zhiyu who could control the situation.

After affixing his name tag, he turned around and quietly retreated to the side counter. His movements were swift and efficient, without the slightest hint of unease.

Next to step forward was Yu Jin.

Yu Jin has an introverted and quiet personality and outstanding appearance, but he has always been in low-profile and is on the verge of being eliminated.

He is not good at taking the initiative to socialize and prefers to be alone. He made almost no friends in "Shining Project".

While queuing, he glanced at the eight queue leaders out of the corner of his eye and made up his mind. He stepped forward and, without hesitation, pasted his name on the back of Jiang Zhiyu's name tag.

Lin Sen didn't hesitate for a second, and without even glancing at his teammates' name tags, he directly stuck his name tag on the back of Jiang Zhiyu's name tag.

After completing the formalities, he winked at Jiang Zhiyu from afar and mouthed, "Jiang Jiang, let's cooperate."

As time ticked by, all the trainees made their choices.

The staff member stepped forward, checked the whiteboard content, and after a moment nodded to the backstage, indicating that the number of each group was within the limit and could be displayed.

Next comes the crucial team leader selection process. If there are any team members that you are not satisfied with or feel are not a good fit, you can move their name tags to the waiting area.

Trainees who are removed cannot choose again on their own; they can only be selected by the team leader from the waiting pool or randomly assigned.

The first group to be publicly announced was Jiang Zhiyu's group.

In front of everyone present, the staff displayed the name tags behind Jiang Zhiyu's name one by one and read out the names in turn: "Deng Sushui, Yu Jin, Lin Sen, Zhuang Sheng, Fang Shi, He Sen, Qi Sixian".

Wow, this group has a really high number of top-ranked players.

Is this Jiang Zhiyu's charm? Even though no keywords have been announced, many popular contestants still believe him directly.

With varying levels of popularity and skill, is this group really okay?

In terms of popularity, nothing matters in front of Jiang Zhiyu. As for strength, let's wait and see. After all, Jiang Zhiyu has the magic to make everyone train together...

[I've finally got Deng Sushui and Jiang Zhiyu's collaboration! These two barely interacted on camera! As a fan of both, I'm so anxious!]