Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

At two in the morning, the whole house was as quiet as if it were submerged underwater.

The lights in He Xu's room had long been off, and not a ray of light could be seen coming from under the door at the end of the corridor.

He rehearsed all afternoon today, and after returning home, he organized his choreography notes until 11 o'clock. He fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

The light was still on in Jiang Yanbai's room.

He wasn't reading or dealing with work emails—he was just leaning against the headboard, staring at the ceiling, his mind racing with a jumble of random thoughts.

He Xu recovered very well. His voice became clearer and clearer every day, and his dancing became more relaxed and relaxed. It was as if the surgery had given him a new look.

Jiang Yanbai should be happy.

He was indeed happy.

But the things he learned about his past from Jen would surface from time to time, like a small thorn stuck in his throat, impossible to swallow or spit out.

South Korea.

Moon Sound Entertainment.

The missing files.

The sixteen-year-old boy who smiled at the camera.

He wanted to speak several times, but swallowed the words back.

He Xu has been in a good mood lately, and he doesn't want to disrupt this rhythm.

I don't want to drag He Xu back into potentially unpleasant memories just when he's relearning how to speak properly.

So he just left it there, until he almost forgot about it.

Then there was a knock on the door.

Jiang Yanbai turned his head, and a narrow beam of light shone through the crack in the door, indicating that someone was standing outside.

Jiang Yanbai sat up in bed, stepped barefoot across the carpet, and opened the door.

Jen stood in the doorway, holding a thin laptop in her hands. The light from the screen reflected on her face, making her expression somewhat ambiguous.

"You're still awake?" Jen said, her tone not questioning.

"You weren't asleep either." Jiang Yanbai leaned against the doorframe. "What's wrong?"

Jen paused for a moment, then slightly raised the laptop in his hand, turning the screen towards him: "After talking to you about He Xu's past, I went to look into things in South Korea—I found some more things on Yueyin's old server."

Jiang Yanbai's gaze fell on the glowing screen: "...What?"

"It's still video," Jen said. "But this time it's behind-the-scenes footage from the fixed cameras in the practice room, as well as some everyday footage from the dorms—it was probably used by the company for promotional material back then, but it wasn't used anymore and has been sitting on an old hard drive ever since."

She paused, as if choosing her words carefully: "I read a few paragraphs. Some of the content... wasn't very good."

Jiang Yanbai's expression didn't change much, but the fingers he was using to brace himself against the doorframe tightened slightly: "What do you mean by 'not so good'?"

Jen did not answer immediately.

She turned her head and glanced towards He Xu's room at the end of the corridor—there was no light under the door, and it was very quiet inside.

Then she turned back, lowering her voice by half an octave: "I can't say—if you want to see for yourself, I suggest not by the door."

Jiang Yanbai glanced at her for two seconds, then stepped aside to clear the doorway.

Jen walked into the room, placed his laptop on the bedside table, pressed the space bar, and the screen lit up.

The scene shows a small practice room, with the camera fixed at a high angle from above, covering the entire space.

The image quality has the blurry, grainy feel characteristic of old-fashioned surveillance cameras, with slightly whitish edges, and a date stamp in Korean characters in the lower right corner.

Jiang Yanbai sat down on the edge of the bed, his eyes fixed on the screen.

The scene shows seven or eight teenagers, dressed in matching black training uniforms, standing in front of a mirror adjusting their positions.

They were all quite young, looking between fourteen and seventeen years old.

Standing in the very center was a tall boy with regular features and a prominent jawline; his posture exuded a natural sense of leadership.

Jiang Yanbai recognized him—Park Do-an, the leader of the boy group that Yueyin Entertainment later launched.

Next to Park Do-an were several boys who were also wearing training uniforms.

Some people were bending down to tie their shoelaces, some were stretching their wrists, and some were adjusting their expressions in front of the mirror.

He Xu was among them—sixteen years old, with hair a bit longer than it is now, hanging over his brow bone, and standing more relaxed than the others.

He was at the back of the crowd, his hands in his pockets, talking to a boy next to him who was half a head shorter than him.

The boy was looking up at He Xu, his expression a little nervous.

He Xu lowered his head and replied, his lips barely visible, but the short boy visibly relaxed after hearing it, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly.

The practice room door opened, and a man wearing a white polo shirt walked in.

He was around twenty years old, with a very short buzz cut and a cold expression.

He walked in without saying hello, but simply walked to the front of the practice room and stood in front of the mirror.

Everyone fell silent the moment he entered.

Park Do-an was the first to stand up straight, hands at his sides, and nodded slightly: "Hello, teacher."

The others repeated it, and He Xu also lowered his head.

The dialogue in the video was in Korean, and Jen had looked up a translator beforehand, pausing to translate from time to time.

The man scanned around: "오늘은『오아시스』 연습한다. (Practice "Oasis" today. If you have forgotten everything you learned last time, go out now.)"

No one spoke.

The music flowed from the speakers in the corner, with a fast tempo and dense drumbeats.

Seven or eight people moved at the same time, and their movements were quite synchronized—after all, they were already selected trainees, and their basic skills were all there.

He Xu was in the back row of the group, and his movements were cleaner than the others.

With the same wave, he can create a clearer sense of layering; with the same turn, his center of gravity is more stable when he lands.

As Jiang Yanbai watched He Xu, who was sixteen years old, dancing on the screen, that familiar yet unfamiliar feeling welled up up again.

Then came the accident.

When He Xu was doing a series of spins, his landing position deviated from the others—the short boy next to him seemed to have misstepped and moved half a step to the left in advance, just colliding with the landing point after He Xu's spin.

He Xu tripped over his ankle, lost his balance, and fell to his right.

His knees hit the ground first, then his elbows, and finally he fell sideways onto the wooden floor with a thud.

The music continued.

Park Do-an was the first to notice. He stopped and turned his head to look at He Xu, who was lying on the ground.

His expression didn't change much, except he frowned slightly, as if trying to figure out what was going on.

Several people nearby also stopped one after another.

The short boy was the first to squat down and reach out to help He Xu's arm: "Hyung! Are you alright?!"

He Xu lay on the floor, propped himself up with his elbows, and tried to stand up.

But as soon as he put force into his right leg, his brow furrowed sharply—his right ankle was twisted at an abnormal angle.

"Hiss..." He took a breath, not loudly, but you could tell he was gritting his teeth and enduring it.

Another, younger boy squatted down beside him, placing his hand on He Xu's back: "Hyung, bamme— (Brother, ankle—)"

Before He Xu could answer, the man in the white polo shirt had already walked over.

He stood before the group, looking down at He Xu lying on the ground, and then spoke, his tone a shade colder than before: "일어나. (Stand up.)"

He Xu looked up at him, his lips moving slightly: "발목이… (ankle…)"

"Stand up." The man repeated, his expression unchanged. "Don't stop practicing. Stand up if you're not injured."

The short boy was still squatting next to He Xu. Hearing this, he looked up and said in a slightly anxious voice, "선생님, 형발목이—— (Teacher, my ankle——)"

"야, 너는뭐야? (Hey, who are you?)" the man interrupted him, looking at the boy, "네가가르치는거야? 내가가르치는거야? 선배들앞에서참견하지마. (You teach or I teach? Don’t interrupt in front of seniors.)"

The boy shrugged, his voice caught in his throat, and he lowered his head without saying another word.

Park Do-an stood a few steps away, arms crossed, watching this scene.

He neither intervened nor spoke.

Another older trainee next to him—Jiang Yanbai later recognized him as Kim Kyung-kyu, the sub-vocalist of the boy group.

He clicked his tongue softly and said in a voice only a few people nearby could hear, "Why are they all crammed together? Taking up so much space."