Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

The day before the theme song audition, the practice building was filled with an atmosphere of impending collapse.

Some people practiced dancing in front of the mirror, some practiced the melody against the wall in the stairwell, and some sang the same line fifty times but still broke into a chord, squatting on the ground scratching their hair.

He Xu also encountered trouble.

It's not a dance.

Dancing is as natural to him as breathing; he can dance "Uncharted" three times in a day without even breaking a sweat.

The troublesome part is singing.

The damage to the throat is magnified infinitely when singing.

Class A practice room.

He Xu stood in front of the mirror, holding a lyric book in his hand, his expression even uglier than when he was yelling at five hundred students.

The accompaniment began.

He took a deep breath and began to sing the first line.

The practice room fell silent for a moment.

Then--

"Pfft—" Li Bufan was the first to spit out the water in his mouth.

Lu Yiming took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them back on to make sure he hadn't mistaken the person.

The three people from Banxing Entertainment stood in the corner, their expressions indescribably complex—they wanted to laugh but dared not, wanted to cry but could not.

Wang Yijun leaned against the wall, a subtle crack appearing on her usually indifferent face.

There are no problems with He Xu's lyrics, rhythm, or melody.

The problem lies in the pitch.

He finished singing the first verse and then stopped.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice even lower than when he was singing.

No one dared to speak.

Li Bufan coughed and raised his hand: "Brother He Xu...did you lower your tone just now?"

"It's gone down," He Xu said.

"How much has it dropped?"

"An octave."

"...More than that," Li Bufan said cautiously. "I feel like it's dropped by more than an octave."

He Xu glanced at him.

Li Bufan immediately shrank back: "That's not what I meant! It's just... that key is really too low! The kind of key that a normal person can't sing."

He Xu didn't say anything.

He knew it in his heart.

The original key of the theme song was too high for him.

Not only could he not sing high notes, he was completely incapable of singing them—his vocal cords couldn't take it.

If you exert even a little force, your throat hurts as if it's being rubbed with sandpaper.

So he could only press down.

Pressing down so hard that chest resonance almost disappears, the sound sounds like it's coming from underground, and the person next to you feels chest tightness when they hear it.

"I'll try again," He Xu said.

The accompaniment started again.

This time he tried raising the pitch a little bit, and just as he reached the first line of the chorus, a sharp pain shot through his throat.

He frowned, his voice faltered, and he simply stopped singing.

He Xu closed the lyric book and threw it into the corner.

"I'm not practicing anymore."

He picked up the mineral water bottle and took a big gulp.

"Brother He Xu..." Lu Yiming whispered, "How about we try something different? How about using a falsetto?"

"Falsetto can also damage your voice," Wang Yijun said, leaning against the wall, a rare occurrence for her.

Everyone looked at him.

Wang Yijun's expression remained indifferent, but there was something more to her tone: "For people whose vocal cords have been injured, falsetto is more likely to cause secondary damage than natural voice."

He paused, glanced at He Xu, and said, "If this is your situation..."

He Xu neither denied nor admitted it.

He simply grunted in agreement, screwed the cap back on his water bottle, and said, "Let's continue dancing this afternoon."

It means: Let's put singing on hold for now.

-

In the afternoon, the door to the practice room was pushed open.

Music producer Zhou Wei walked in, holding a tablet in his hand, with a serious expression, seemingly in a bad mood.

"Class A, let me hear your vocal performance."

The contestants immediately tensed up.

Zhou Wei is known in the industry for his strictness, with an almost obsessive demand for pitch and breath control.

Listen to them one by one, and comment on them one by one.

"The breath is too shallow."

"The pitch is off."

"She's not in a good mood."

"Let's do it one more time."

When it was He Xu's turn, Zhou Wei glanced at him.

"You, sing the chorus once."

He Xu picked up the lyric book and stood in front of the mirror.

As the accompaniment began, he started singing the chorus that had been interrupted earlier.

The pitch remains lower.

Zhou Wei frowned after hearing a couple of sentences.

"stop."

He Xu stopped.

"What are you singing?" Zhou Wei's tone wasn't harsh, but every word felt like a needle pricking. "This is the chorus, the emotional high point of the whole song, and you're singing it even lower than the verses. Do you think that's appropriate?"

He Xu didn't say anything.

"Again. Don't lower the key, sing it in the original key."

He Xu sang in the original key.

"This is my uncharted ground

... "

In the first line of the chorus, the moment the pitch went up, his voice sounded like it was stuck on something.

Unlike a cracking sound, it's a distinct, unnatural sense of breakup.

It's like a piece of cloth being ripped open, with rough edges that are painful to look at.

He finished singing that line and then stopped.

Zhou Wei's brows furrowed even more.

"continue."

He Xu glanced at him, offered no explanation, and continued singing.

"The arc that tears apart gravity"

... "

The second phrase's pitch still hovers around E5.

His voice began to tighten, and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down unusually frequently, as if he were swallowing something.

The other contestants exchanged uneasy glances.

"Let every question become a burden..."

The third sentence.

He Xu's voice suddenly stopped.

He can no longer produce that sound.

Instead, a series of low, suppressed coughs were heard.

He turned his head away, covered his mouth with the back of his hand, and coughed three or five times. The sound was not loud, but each cough was muffled in his chest, as if it was squeezed out from a very deep place.

The practice room was so quiet that only the hum of the air conditioner could be heard.

"It's okay." He Xu lowered his hand, his voice even hoarser than before, almost inhuman. "Let's try again."

Zhou Wei looked at him, his gaze deep, and said nothing.

The accompaniment started again.

"What exploded under the spotlight was—"

He managed to get through the first four sentences, but his voice broke again on the fifth.

He coughed more frequently than before, rested his elbows on the mirror, lowered his head and coughed a few times, his shoulders trembling slightly.

"Brother He Xu..." Lu Yiming couldn't help but speak.

He Xu raised a hand, signaling him to be quiet.

Zhou Wei showed no intention of stopping.

"Continue," he said, his voice cold.

He Xu glanced at him and stood up straight again.

The accompaniment started again.

This time, he held on until the very last line of the chorus.

But the sound no longer resembled a sound.

When he hit the last high note, his voice completely cracked.

Like a string stretched to its limit, it finally snapped at the highest point, emitting a final, hoarse sound.

Then came the cough.

It was more intense and more uncontrollable than before.

He Xu bent over, one hand supporting his knee, the other hand covering his mouth, coughing so hard that his whole body was trembling.

Zhou Wei stood there, watching He Xu bend over and cough, his lips pressed into a thin line.

The coughing finally subsided.

He Xu straightened up, his eyes reddening.

Zhou Wei stared at him for a few seconds, then placed the tablet on the table with a soft, steady sound.

"What are you doing?" Zhou Wei's voice wasn't loud, but each word was enunciated clearly. "Trying to fight the original tune with your voice?"

He Xu didn't say anything.

"I told you to sing in the original key, not to sing yourself into the hospital." Zhou Wei took a step forward, his brow furrowed. "You know your voice isn't good, so why didn't you say anything?"

"I told you," He Xu's voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible, "I told you I can't sing."

You said "It's okay," not "You can't sing."

He Xu pursed his lips but didn't reply.

Looking at him like that, Zhou Wei felt a tightness in his chest.

He wasn't unaware that He Xu had a problem with his voice—you could tell from his voice on his first stage performance that his vocal cords had been damaged, and it was irreversible.

But he didn't expect He Xu to stand firm.

"Do you know what annoys me most about you?" Zhou Wei's voice was low, but the annoyance only intensified. "You know perfectly well you can't do it, yet you still force yourself. And when you do, it doesn't work, and then you say 'it's okay.' What are you trying to prove?"

He Xu looked up at him.

There was no anger or grievance in those upturned eyes, only an indescribable weariness.

"Because I can't just say I'm not going to sing anymore," he said in a low, husky voice. "If you ask me to sing, I'll sing."