0713: You who shine in the parallel world

At first, Uncle and Li Jiuzhe didn't understand why Su Xiaoding reacted so strongly. Before they could figure it out, Chen Chusheng took them to the rehearsal room next door to practice "Walking Fish".

Although Chen Chusheng usually appears calm and unassuming, he takes the stage very seriously, and his seriousness goes beyond mere words.

As a mature and professional singer-songwriter, he pays attention to every detail, so even though rehearsals are tough, Lao Jiu and Li Jiuzhe are quite willing to follow Chen Chusheng's arrangements.

This also meant that during their vocal training over the weekend, they basically had no time to visit the neighboring "Investigation" studio.

It wasn't until team leader Chen Chusheng suggested that they listen to the vocal parts before the closed-door dance training for "Under Investigation" began that the two had the opportunity to "visit" the training room next door with Chen Chusheng.

My uncle couldn't help but joke, "Look at this mess, it's like we're two different teams. For two days, we haven't even gone inside each other's rooms. We're in the same group, and we have to be very polite to each other when we go to the training room on another stage."

"Don't be so polite, don't be so polite, come on, Uncle and Uncle, sit here," Yu Yu said, pretending to invite her uncle and Li Jiuzhe to the sofa. "Young man, what are you standing there for? Hurry up and ask the guests if they want some dragon fruit?"

Chen Chusheng readily picked up a dragon fruit slicer and grinned, revealing a shark-like expression: "Would you two uncles like some fruit?"

Yu Yu was clearly referring to Chen Chusheng's ice-breaking method after the successful team formation in the second performance: offering fruit to the older brothers. Chen Chusheng understood Yu Yu's meaning and even joined in the fun.

The uncle, who was deeply impressed by his behavior, immediately understood and burst into laughter on the sofa, while Li Jiuzhe was still wondering why he was called the "little uncle".

Wang Yuexin put her hand on Li Jiuzhe's shoulder and explained, "Because your name has the character 'Jiu' in it, you are the youngest uncle."

"Ah, I see. I am an uncle, my great-uncle is an uncle, and we also have Yaoqing, who is an uncle. There are many uncles in our Pi Ge." Li Jiuzhe seemed to have discovered a new continent.

"Of course, maybe in the end when Brother Pi is gone, all of us will become a big family of uncles, aunts, and great-uncles." The old man said, rattling off a string of words while sticking a piece of dragon fruit into his mouth.

The dragon fruit was a deep purplish-red color and looked quite sweet, so it was the fastest to be eaten among this pile of cut fruit. Only a small portion was left, revealing the bottom layer of dragon fruit juice that could almost be used as paint.

There were other fruits on the table, including cantaloupe, strawberries, jackfruit, and more—quite a variety.

Of course, the training room next door also had these fruit cuts. Yu Haoming ordered two portions when he ordered takeout. However, the fruit in their training room was basically untouched. They practiced a few times and then ran over to check on the rehearsal of "Under Investigation".

"You guys had pretty good food during rehearsals," my uncle said. "You've eaten more than half of this dragon fruit. You've eaten a lot of it. This stuff stains your teeth and tongue quite easily. You have to cover your mouth when you talk after eating it."

As he was talking, he suddenly noticed that the faces of the people on the "Investigation" stage, or more precisely, the four people other than Yu Yu, looked a little off. They seemed to want to laugh but also wanted to cry. Huang Pinguan even coughed a few times for no apparent reason.

"What's going on?" Uncle asked, puzzled. Then he noticed that Su Xiaoding's "lip color" was the darkest. "Could it be that Xiaoding ate the whole box?"

"It's nothing, of course not." Yu Yu smiled and answered for Su Xiaoding. "It's just that you hit the nail on the head, Uncle. Dragon fruit is easy to dye, so it can also be used as a teaching aid."

"?" The uncle and the "younger uncle" looked completely bewildered.

Chen Chusheng was not surprised.

"The stain will reach the base of the tongue, which makes it easy to observe the degree of opening of the inner mouth. Xiao Ding has made great progress now."

The bewildered but impressive uncle and Li Jiuzhe glanced at Su Xiaoding, who was grinning at them and showing off her red teeth, and then at the three others who were trying to suppress their laughter, their teeth stained to varying degrees. They couldn't help but clap their hands. It was Yu Yu, this big "internet celebrity" who had traveled all over the world, who knew how to pull off some tricks.

After chatting for a while, we got down to business.

Since the five members of "Under Investigation" have only rehearsed the vocal part so far and the dance has not started yet, only Chen Chusheng needs to stand in the front corner with his phone to record, while the other two uncles are just there to listen in.

As for the music, Yu Yu's modified organ couldn't be placed in the training room, so apart from using the keyboard to help on the spot, Yu Yu mostly relied on a music player to play the music.

Despite the simple setup, the moment the music started and Yu Yu set the tone, the entire song's atmosphere instantly changed.

Especially when the sound of the pipe organ appeared, the exhilarating feeling of mercury flowing from the soles of their feet straight to the top of their heads, and the extremely elaborate oil paintings of the Baroque period flashed through their minds, causing their uncle and Li Jiuzhe, who were sitting on the sofa in amazement and completely immersed in the music, to jump up from the sofa.

Until the very last note, neither of them could believe that the song was already over.

This piece, with its arrangement, should have been performed in a theater for two or three hours to do justice to its quality. Instead, it ended in just four and a half minutes. Isn't that a bit too extravagant?

After a long pause, the audience, having regained their senses, gave a warm round of applause.

Lee Ji-hoon frankly stated that he can't think of any other word besides "spectacular" to describe the feeling of this song, and he might even burst into tears if he said a few more words.

His uncle was even more blunt: "Teacher Yu, what's wrong with your brain? Is this a piece of music that a human could rewrite? Huh? First there was 'Suspended,' now there's 'Under Investigation.' I won't be surprised no matter what kind of artwork you come up with next. We're all in the music business, how come there's such a big difference? How did you develop such low musical intelligence and singing ability?"

"I honestly think you're not human anymore. Are you perhaps the god Nuwa? Nuwa sculpted clay figures, and you sculpted their voices. It's only been a week, and our Xiaoding is like a completely different person. Could it be that you're Su Xiaoding's twin brother, Su Xiaobing? One of you can act, and the other can sing?"

Actually, it wasn't just Su Xiaoding; the others had also clearly made progress to varying degrees. However, Su Xiaoding was his uncle's brother, and his initial foundation wasn't very good, so his progress was incredibly rapid. Therefore, his uncle only teased Su Xiaoding at this moment.

Su Xiaoding was both amused and exasperated: "Then do I have two older brothers, one named Su Xiaojia and the other Su Xiaoyi? That's why I said before that learning from Brother Yu was a great thing. With the results we have now, all the hard work was worth it."

"Xiaoding, it's good that you have this awareness. Let's review the video."

Yu Yu moved closer to Chen Chusheng to watch the video he had just taken on his phone, and waved enthusiastically to the other teammates.

"Brother Sheng, what did you think of our take just now?"

"Fantastic!" Chen Chusheng didn't hold back his praise, complimenting everyone before continuing, "However, I still remember a few small details that we can discuss together. The first one is here..."

The eight people brainstormed together, and the discussion proceeded quickly because neither the person making the final decision nor his deputy was the type to hesitate.

After Chen Chusheng and Yu Yu's group of five finished their discussion, he immediately returned to the training room with his two partners. It was likely that he was spurred by "Under Investigation" to continue investigating how fish walk.

After listening to their teammates' rehearsal, Lao Jiu and Li Jiuzhe were relieved. Lao Jiu, in particular, knew what it meant for Su Xiaoding to break her bone at this critical juncture. Although he didn't say it outright, he was worried that the show would find an opportunity to eliminate Su Xiaoding, so he had been taking good care of her in the team.

Previously, Su Xiaoding's vocals were the biggest weakness in Chen Chusheng's team, but Yu Yu actually made up for this weakness as much as possible in just over a week. Uncle Lao is even certain that as long as Su Xiaoding performs normally at the level he just rehearsed during the performance, he will definitely amaze many audience members. His rapid progress after just one performance will ensure that his popularity rating will not be at the bottom.

The production team couldn't eliminate him based on that.

As for the dance part, Yu Yu had previously entrusted He Zhancheng to help adjust and simplify the choreography. This afternoon, He Zhancheng will be able to show the results to Yu Yu. If nothing unexpected happens, the five brothers of "Under Investigation" will soon enter the dance training camp with early mornings and late nights.

With He Zhancheng's help in the adaptation, team leader Chen Chusheng felt much more at ease. "Under Investigation" had already demonstrated its potential for a perfect stage performance, so they couldn't afford to relax on their other stage. Chen Chusheng felt the pressure, but he thoroughly enjoyed the motivation it brought him.

The eight members of Chen Chusheng's team are now relieved, but the production team is not at all at ease.

It wasn't just because Yu Yu's adapted song, submitted a week later, that made "Under Investigation," a stage that was originally planned to be in the middle to lower ranks, a hot candidate for the top stage. It was also because if things continued to develop like this, Su Xiaoding, who was supposed to be eliminated in the script, probably wouldn't be able to leave for the second performance.

After all, judging from the current level of rehearsal, there are many people who deserve a red card more than Su Xiaoding, some of whom are even to the point that the production team should start considering turning up the backing sound for them when they perform.

What the hell is Yu Yu? How did he do that? Although he was quite successful in training Guan Zhibin and He Zhancheng during the first performance, the production team didn't plan to eliminate them at that time, so they didn't pay much attention to it. But when they were about to eliminate Su Xiaoding, they were dumbfounded—normally, it would have taken Su Xiaoding at least half a year to train to his current level, right? How could he have become a completely different person in just over a week?

They had also seen the conversations in the group chat. It was clear that Yu Yu was a very strict musician who paid great attention to teaching methods when it came to stage performances. However, Su Xiaoding couldn't have made such rapid progress based on that alone. They must have had quite a few private conversations as well.

These are just private chat logs between the artists; they can't possibly be released to the production team.

What annoyed Guoguo even more was that she suddenly realized that the production team seemed to have been tricked by this slippery fish.

When they first held a group meeting with the production team, their implied meaning was that they would make major changes to the song "Under Investigation," not only to the melody but also the lyrics. That's why the production team cautiously told them that they had the right to make changes (to the arrangement), intending to wait until they finished before telling them that they couldn't change the lyrics, so that they could readjust and rush to finish.

The final product that Yu Yu submitted was a completely different piece of music, but the lyrics remained unchanged, as if she had guessed that the production team was going to play a trick on them.

Compared to Yu Yu, Zhang Yuan, Wang Yuexin, and Yu Haoming are all well-behaved. Guoguo even thinks that Chen Chusheng is quite easy to deal with.

Of course, she would soon find out that while the three well-behaved babies could cause trouble, the sharks and fish were not easy to deal with either.