Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

The moment the spotlight fell, Yang Sheng stood in the center of the stage, his heart feeling as if it had been squeezed and then released.

He heard his name surge from the audience—"Yang Sheng!!! Yang Sheng!!!"

The sound waves pressed down from all directions at the same time, hitting his eardrums, flowing down his spine, and finally landing on the slightly warm stage floor beneath his feet.

But he didn't move immediately.

He is waiting.

The intro is a four-beat electronic sound, deep and surging, like something slowly gathering power in the darkness.

He leaned slightly forward, his weight on the balls of his feet, and waited quietly.

He thought about many things during those four beats.

I remember that afternoon three years ago.

At the age of fourteen, he was admitted to Banxing from a local dance class.

During the interview, I performed a dance I choreographed myself, but the movements were immature and the technique was rough.

He Xu sat at the far end of the judges' panel, holding a pen in his hand, his expression unchanged, and only said, "His basic skills are too poor, but he can practice."

He initially thought that "you can practice" was just a polite remark.

He later received a message informing him that he would be training with his companion star next week.

He has hardly rested since then.

I get up at 6 a.m., arrive at the practice room at 6:30 a.m., and leave at 11 p.m.

Sometimes I practice until too late, so I just lay a jacket on the floor and sleep, only to be woken up by the cleaning lady the next day.

He practiced for three years.

More than a thousand days and nights, more than almost any other trainee of the same age.

He breaks down each dance into its smallest parts, meticulously working on each eight-beat segment and refining each movement individually.

How many times has He Xu cursed him?

He couldn't remember.

But he remembered that every time He Xu finished scolding him, he would stand there and watch him redo it, making sure he had corrected it before leaving.

He still remembers the day of his debut performance, when he stood on the stage and sang the last line.

When the screams from the entire audience surged up like a tidal wave, he felt as if he had finally grasped something.

That feeling of "I deserve to stand here".

—But that's not enough yet.

He wanted the feeling of "I should have been here all along".

He took a deep breath, and the last measure of the prelude ended.

The collar of his dark red stage costume reflected a shimmering light under the spotlight. He exerted force from his spine, and his whole body sprang out like a spring compressed to its limit.

The first movement is to turn around, land, and kneel on one knee.

At that moment, he spoke.

"Burning through the shell of this night—"

The voice was pushed out from the chest, carrying a weight of something that had been suppressed for too long and was finally being released.

Every word was pronounced with great emphasis, yet without sounding overly forceful, as if all the unspoken words of the past three years had been poured into these few lyrics.

The dance didn't stop.

He performed a floor move followed by a spin, a jump, an opening in the air, and landed steadily with his earpiece pressed firmly against his lower lip.

"New bones grow from the ashes—"

The chorus bursts in, with drums and strings unfolding simultaneously.

He increased the range of motion, performing three rapid rotations in succession, each landing precisely on the heavy beat.

At the same time, his voice rose half a tone, but his breathing remained steady, as if it were being supported from within by some kind of force, and it would never dissipate.

"I climbed up the ruins—"

The screams erupting from the audience pierced his earpieces, but he couldn't make out what they were shouting; all he could hear was the dense, scorching sound waves enveloping him.

The second verse of the chorus features a series of backflips followed by a landing spin.

The moment he jumped, the image that flashed through his mind was that of his teacher yelling at him in the practice room—"Core! Tighten up! Don't float!"

He gritted his teeth, tightened his waist and abdomen, spun around in the air, and landed on one knee, supporting himself on the floor with his elbow, while raising his other hand high with his fingers spread.

"This time I will not back down—"

He poured all his energy into that last sentence.

The high note traveled from his chest all the way to the top of his head, like a beam of light cleaving through the darkness, exploding above the heads of the three thousand people in the audience.

Stationed.

The screams from the audience reached their peak at that moment.

Some people stood up, some held up light boards and cried, and some covered their faces and screamed.

Yang Sheng couldn't hear what those voices were shouting; all he could hear was his own rapid breathing and heartbeat.

He wants to debut as a celebrity.

When he was fourteen, he first stood in the practice room of Bansung and danced in front of the mirror, and that's when he decided he wanted to debut.

He wanted to stand in the spotlight, wanted everyone to see him, and wanted to prove that the skinny boy from the countryside could also reach this position.

He turned his head, his gaze sweeping over the dense array of light boards in the front row of the audience, without lingering on any one of them.

He wanted to debut, not for anyone else, but for himself.

When he finished the last movement, he stood still, his chest heaving violently, sweat dripping down his jawline.

The spotlight shone on him, casting a long shadow onto the huge LED screen behind the stage.

Then he heard it.

The entire venue was chanting his name.

He lowered his head, facing the floor, and gave a very slight smile.

Then he turned around, his steps steady, each step firmly planted on solid ground, and walked into the shadows of the waiting area.