0713: You who shine in the parallel world

One thousand lucky viewers, selected through a series of phone screenings, stood in different areas with their respective number plates, eagerly awaiting the premiere of the third season of The Pikes.

Staff members have just informed them that the stage curtain will be raised in five minutes.

Although the audience members of the show were selected by the production team after a rigorous background check to confirm that they were not biased towards any of the brothers present.

However, where there's a will, there's a way. For the fans who signed up, creating a social media account that doesn't reflect their fandom is too easy, and they've already figured out the routines for the show's questions through two seasons of experience.

Moreover, there are scalped tickets.

Therefore, not all of these thousand audience members were casual viewers; they were more or less fans of the artists present. This was one of the important bases for Wang Yaoqing to consider the popularity of his team members when forming his team.

After observing the rehearsal status of all participants on the eight stages over the past two weeks, the production team, after careful consideration, finally determined the final allocation of the first and second halves of the competition yesterday and adjusted the final competition rules for the first public performance.

The performance rules are not announced in advance, but are constantly adjusted as time goes by and the actual situation becomes clear. This seems to have become a routine for Pike.

To put it bluntly, it's just to make it easier for the production team to operate behind the scenes. Yu Yu chuckled and shook her head when she saw the rules finally displayed on the big screen.

Both teams that ranked first in the first and second halves of the competition were safe, and the person with the highest audience popularity in each team will become the MVP of the round and enter the candidate list for the final group formation night X-Fire. As for how the most important titles, including X-Fire, will be evaluated on the final group formation night, the production team has not announced.

The claim that the remaining six teams out of eight will all be in danger is just something to take with a grain of salt. The production team already has a list in mind for "all" of the members; the brothers with the highest popularity ratings won't be eliminated, only the two with the lowest ratings will temporarily leave the stage.

Upon seeing the words "Temporarily leaving the stage," Guan Zhibin, sitting in the middle, felt a pang of anxiety and gripped Yu Yu and He Zhancheng's hands tightly.

His popularity wasn't high during the initial performance, and if he doesn't make some new breakthroughs today, he might be eliminated in the first performance...

“It’s OK, Kenny.” He Zhancheng patted his hand. “Our stage is the most groundbreaking.”

"Besides, the arrangement and choreography are tailor-made for our voices and physical abilities, and you have us two teammates behind you," Yu Yu said with a smile, trying to comfort us.

“That’s right, I have a music master and a dance master by my side.” Guan Zhibin nodded, as if trying to convince himself.

He was just a little nervous offstage, but once onstage, he knew deep down that their stage was the best.

After Qi Sijun introduced the notaries present and gave his opening remarks, the first performance to take the stage was "Drifting".

That's right. After careful consideration, the production team decided to put Wang Yaoqing's group on stage in the first half.

They originally thought that the "Drifting" group, with five popular artists and the most popular song in their possession, would be a sure thing to take the TOP 2 spot in this performance. Moreover, the song was backed by the original singer, a musician who influenced an era of Chinese music.

Who would have thought that the rehearsals over the past two weeks have not gone as well as expected?

Wang Yaoqing was trying to cultivate a hardworking image, but he overestimated his physical endurance and underestimated the intensity of the "Drifting" stage. As a result, he had to get acupuncture due to a leg injury during rehearsals, and his leg is still swollen.

As for the other four, Shin's willingness to sing and dance is just a gimmick. He's too tall, which puts him at a disadvantage in dancing. In addition, he's a genuinely uncoordinated calisthenics athlete, not the lazy bum who always talks about calisthenics.

Zhang Dongliang and Wei Zheming have some dance background, but unfortunately, that background is just a drop in the ocean compared to the difficulty of the dance in "Drifting".

Bo Yuan alone couldn't possibly support a stage for five people. He not only had to tutor the others in private, but also practice singing. He lost a lot of weight in two weeks and suffered a lot.

After watching their final rehearsal, directors Chen Qiyuan and Chen Weilun could only offer the person in charge some advice: given the level of performance of "Drifting" in the rehearsal, it was absolutely impossible for them to win first place in the first half.

There was a real monster in their half, a monster that hadn't drowned yet.

Even if they appear later in the show, and have already been impacted by the explosive performances of the first half, the audience who have been standing for three or four hours might give them even less firepower.

This situation put Wu Mengzhi in a difficult position for a moment. She knew that Wang Yaoqing, who joined Pi Ge as an actor, would not be able to maintain his high popularity for long once his flaws were exposed after staying on the music stage for too long. However, she did not expect that his team would be in such a precarious situation after only one performance.

Although the show provided a shield for him and others, and although playing it safe is a strategy, keeping yourself so low-key that you're at the bottom of the list doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would lead to you winning X-Leader or X-Fire.

Their private contracts have already guaranteed their final group spots and titles. If the few pre-selected members perform too poorly in the early stages, the production team will have to constantly adjust the rules and strategies to trip up the others.

Of course, the advantage of this is that the audience is not stupid. They can understand the behind-the-scenes script. As the discussion and traffic increase, the popularity will also increase. They never care whether the popularity is good or bad. Moreover, they have a lot of online trolls and media partners.

"What about Lin Zhiying's group? Although Lin Zhiying has just recovered and her condition has dropped drastically, she has a lead singer and a behind-the-scenes musician, so she should be pretty good, right?" Wu Mengzhi asked again.

“From a musical point of view… it’s just okay, much better than ‘Drifting.’ Xu Liang has a copyright library, so he doesn’t have to worry about choosing his own tracks,” Chen Weilun replied.

Wu Mengzhi breathed a sigh of relief. She kept the task assigned by the executive producer in mind and said to Guoguo, "Then let Wang Yaoqing perform in the first half. At least he'll be the first to appear, and the audience will still be interested and willing to give him tickets."

"Oh, right," she said, as if suddenly remembering something, and changed the subject, "Hu Yanbin had a bad start on the first stage, so we still need to keep an eye on them this time. As for Wang Yaoqing... he can play the victim, many people fall for the comeback story."

"If Lin Zhiying really can't hold on, let's give up on her for now. We already gave her the biggest show for her first stage, so it would be a bit contrived to bring her back for the second performance. I heard that Wang Yaoqing's last stage performance of 'Up and Down the Mountain' was pretty well designed? We can check it out on stage then."

Guoguo thought for a moment and nodded.

Thus, the hidden order of the first performance was secretly determined by the production team.

As they had anticipated, the "Drifting" performance did not live up to expectations. Even with the speed reduced and the dance moves simplified, most of the time, except for Bo Yuan, they failed to deliver the level of energy expected on the stage.

Many audience members might think this was the fault of the production team's haphazard changes, and that the stage effect would have been better if the speed hadn't been reduced and if a better stage setting had been used instead of the inexplicable coal mine.

But is it possible that if they performed at the original speed, their singing and dancing would become disconnected?

Yu Yu, who was waiting in the wings for her turn, immediately saw the problem.

It's not easy to learn a five-star level dance from scratch in two weeks. The original speed version of "Drifting" is also difficult to sing and perform with power. You can only convey power through the scene.

This is a music competition, not a "Dancing Miracle." No stage performance can be separated from music. In a limited time, you have to learn both dance and vocal music at the same time. If you focus too much on dance and neglect vocal practice, the effect will be greatly reduced.

Therefore, when learning the dance "Suspended", no matter how hard it was or how much time was spent on the dance, Yu Yu would practice vocal music with Guan Zhibin and He Zhancheng every day, or rather, give them vocal music lessons.

In the final few rehearsals, they sang and danced at the same time. They needed to maintain their breathing rhythm while making large movements, which was much more difficult than learning vocal music while sitting still.

As expected, during the segment where Xiao Qi interviewed and campaigned for votes after the performance, Wang Yaoqing mentioned the severity of his leg injury. Although he said it was an actor's duty and what he should do, his tone and demeanor were not well controlled and seemed somewhat deliberate.

The final score of 836 points proved that the program team's ranking strategy was correct.

As the first seeded clan to appear, after their firepower ratings are announced, they will sit in the spectator area and wait for the other teams to perform.

However, the firepower of subsequent teams will not be announced on-site. The screen will only show whether their score exceeds that of the previous group. If they win, they will replace the previous group in the spectator area. If not, they will return to the backstage area.

Not disclosing scores can sometimes make it easier to manipulate the results behind the scenes.

After "Drifting" ended, the staff went on stage to rearrange the venue, while the backstage staff came to the backstage lobby to remind the next group to prepare to warm up their voices.

The three members of the "Suspended" group stood up, and the others stood up to applaud and cheer them on.

"Go, Little Fish!" Wang Yuexin shouted, rushing over and jumping onto Yu Yu's back. Yu Yu carried him around a few times, and only when they reached the door and were about to leave the backstage area did Wang Yuexin struggle to jump down.

"Enjoy the stage," Chen Chusheng sincerely wished.

"Go and shock them!" Zhang Yuanchun shouted, throwing a punch.

“You only need to bring up your rehearsals and you’ll be invincible.” Yu Haoming clapped his hands.

Amidst her brothers' well wishes, Yu Yu waved her hand and said, "Alright, stop seeing us off. We're almost at the safety exit. It's not like we're never coming back. But I think you might have to wait a long time to see us again."

His implication was clear: they would remove "Drift" from the honorary seats in the spectator area, allowing them to sit comfortably on the high platform and wait for the next challenger.

The discussion among the audience about the "Drifting" stage has gradually subsided. Due to the long setup time between the two stages, many people have already sat on the ground to conserve their energy for the upcoming challenge.

When they heard that the next performance would be "Suspended" by Yu Yu, Guan Zhibin, and He Zhancheng, many people were dismissive, thinking that they could continue to be lazy and not pay too much attention to the next performance.

After all, in their eyes, the song "Suspended" no longer held any surprises.

A very small number of people have high expectations for He Zhancheng's dance. They heard that he performed well on the initial stage, so they searched for him privately and learned a little about his frenetic dance style. They were curious about how he would handle this song that was completely different from his own style.

Many people had no idea who He Zhancheng was. After asking around, most of them were also clueless.

The name Guan Zhibin was somewhat familiar to them; they had seen him in TV dramas and knew he had a handsome and cute face that didn't look his age. As for his songs? They probably heard more gossip about him and his "roommate" than they had heard his songs.

Perhaps for the audience, the most famous member of the "Suspended" group is Yu Yu, who likes to slack off. There's no way around it; his performance of "Bird of Paradise" was too stunning, and he's also exceptionally handsome. Several variety shows featuring the re-employment boy group have also been quite popular, making it hard for the young people in the audience to forget his name.

However, he is usually too low-key and has not produced many works. His travel shows are too exciting, and his group variety shows are also very entertaining. When viewers see him, they will subconsciously look at him with the eyes of a variety show viewer, even though his voice is indeed like a heavenly sound.