Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

Another person I'm close to is Ahn Min-soo.

He's the youngest trainee, the maknae (youngest member), two years younger than me. He just joined not long ago, and he's thin and small with a soft voice.

He's very attached to me because the older brothers don't include him.

Although my Korean is not good, I can communicate with him by gesturing.

He treated me as the only person he could talk to.

He would come to me every time he got injured while dancing, and I would help him apply ice and put on kinesiology tape.

He called me "형 (brother)," and I replied in Chinese as "弟 (younger brother)."

He couldn't understand, so he just grinned foolishly.

He definitely looks like the youngest member.

After new people joined, I was no longer the youngest, and some people started calling me "brother".

It was a strange feeling – I used to call other people "brother", but when someone suddenly called me "brother", I didn't know how to respond.

But I got used to calling him Ahn Min-soo the most naturally, and after calling him that so many times.

I started teaching him to dance and helped him break down the moves. He didn't learn very quickly, but he was very serious.

Other trainees sometimes joke that "you two are like brothers."

At that time, I actually had a fairly pleasant time at Tsukine.

At least I have someone to talk to, something to do every day, and a goal—to debut with Ahn Min-soo and the others.

After debuting, you can start making money.

But as you know, South Korea has a very strong senior-junior culture, and bullying within a group is very common.

I don't know if what I experienced counts as bullying; it might just be a manifestation of cultural differences.

I could sense that some of my seniors didn't like me—not because I did anything wrong, but because I was too conspicuous.

This is normal; we are competitors.

I went from being a foreigner who couldn't dance to a trainee who ranked among the top in the monthly exams—I climbed that ladder so fast.

They felt it was unfair, thinking, "Why should he?"

In particular, there was a senior named Li Chenghuan. He was two years older than me and had practiced for longer, but his grades were always stuck in the middle.

After I joined, my ranking kept going up, while his kept going down.

He dislikes me, but he never says it outright.

He often pretends to be joking when he speaks, but I know he's not joking.

He said, "Chen Xu, your positioning is wrong here," but I clearly hit the beat correctly.

He said, "Chen Xu, your breath control is unstable when you sing, it makes me uncomfortable," but the teacher just praised me.

He just wanted to embarrass me and belittle me in front of others.

I endured it for a long time because I knew this was Korean culture—seniors are seniors, and juniors are juniors; the rules were set in stone.

If I want to stay in this industry, I have to learn to endure.

But then there was something I couldn't help myself to do.

Lee Seung-hwan has a very good relationship with the assistant teacher in charge of our group.

That teacher never really liked me, and I still don't know why. Maybe she just didn't like me.

They both started spreading rumors about me.

First, she told other teachers that I was slacking off in the practice room, then she told the assessment team that I cheated, and finally she even told the company's upper management that my relationship with Ahn Min-soo was "inappropriate"... in a bad way... an implication, you know.

They dragged Ahn Min-soo into it too.

When I received the pending notification, I was completely stunned.

Then Ahn Min-soo also received the same notification.

The two notices, apart from the different names, both contained only one line of reason: "Violation of trainee rules, pending observation."

Ahn Min-soo was young and couldn't understand it, so he cried very sadly.

I didn't really understand either, so I went to ask.

I went to ask the assistant teacher for the reason, and he said, "You know it in your heart." I said I didn't know, and he said, "You're getting too close to Ahn Min-soo, which is having a bad influence."

It was only at that moment that I understood why I couldn't debut and why Ahn Min-soo was implicated.

I was very angry at that time.

Why are some people allowed to spread rumors about others at will?

Why should such young children be subjected to such rumors?

Why do you hate me if it involves others?

That night, I ran into Lee Seung-hwan in the hallway when I returned to my dorm.

He leaned against the wall, smiling at me, and said, "Chen Xu, you don't need to work so hard anymore, since you're not going to debut anyway."

I know who did it.

I couldn't hold back, so I pinned him against the wall and beat him up.

They beat me up really badly—I'm so glad I practiced my floor work properly and have good arm strength, so at least in a limited time, I can beat someone up badly enough.

Lee Seung-hwan's face was covered in blood.

During that time, someone came to pull me away—it was Park Do-an, who later became the leader of the group.

My relationship with him is so-so. He sometimes uses his seniority to put pressure on me, but we get along fairly well.

Park Do-an grabbed my shoulder and said, "You're crazy."

Guess what I did?

I punched him back and pushed him away.

Later, the corridor was full of people. Teachers came, administrators came, and chaos ensued.

Lee Seung-hwan was taken to the hospital with a fractured nasal bone.

Park Do-an's lip was cut.

My hands were covered in blood as I stood in the middle of the corridor, not knowing whose blood it was.

Later, I was called into the office.

The company staff said, "Chen Xu, you hit someone, you're fired."

I said, "He's spreading rumors, why aren't you doing anything about it?"

They said, "We'll handle it."

The company is quite reasonable; no wonder they've managed the boy band so well.

Later I heard that Li Chenghuan was also fired—for spreading rumors, and the assistant teacher was also transferred away.

Fearing that this incident would damage its reputation, the company deleted all related records.

My name, my file, my performance evaluations—everything disappeared, as if I had never been here.

When I signed the withdrawal application, the person in charge said, "Once you sign, everything you have at Yueyin will disappear. Don't mention anything about this place when you go back; it's better for you and for everyone else."

I signed it. I left the next day.

No one came to see me off. Ahn Min-soo didn't know about this; he wasn't at the company that day.

I didn't tell him either.

We parted ways there.

Later, I returned to China, to my dad's house where no one lived.

I was just eighteen years old then, with no education, no proper work experience, and no skills whatsoever.

I stayed at home for about two months, spending my days sleeping, eating, and spacing out.

My dad came back once and saw me sitting in the living room. He looked confused and asked me, "Aren't you going to Korea anymore?"

I said, "I'm not going."

He didn't press further, simply saying, "Then you figure it out yourself," and left.

I really didn't know what to do at that time.

Then one day, I came across a job posting online—Banxing Entertainment is hiring dance teachers, requiring professional dance training experience, with no age or educational restrictions.

I included my year and a half at Yueyin in my resume, but I didn't go into details; I just wrote "trainee experience".

About a week later, I received an interview invitation.

I went there, stood in the practice room of Banxing, facing three interviewers, and said, "I can dance a segment."

I danced; it was the last dance I learned at Yueyin Dance School.

After we finished dancing, the three of us looked at each other, and one of them asked me, "How old are you?"

I said "eighteen".

He said, "You're only eighteen, and you already want to be a teacher?"

I said, "I've taught trainees younger than me, so I know how to teach them."

He paused for a moment, then said, "Then you can try it out for a month. If it works out, you can stay; if not, you can leave."

I stayed there.

Later, I taught Shen Yiheng, Han Yu, and many, many other people, and gradually became known as "Teacher He" to them.

It took me a long time to convince myself that I could indeed be a teacher, and that I was a pretty good one.

As for my father, he remarried when I was twenty.

He called me once and said he was getting remarried.

I said, "I know."

He said, "Then take good care of yourself."

Then the call ended.

He later moved to live with his girlfriend, and the old house was completely empty. I sold it and rented a new house.

I'm also contacting my mom less and less.

She would occasionally ask me on WeChat, "How have you been lately?" I would reply, "Pretty good," and then that would be the end of it.

She started her own family and had new children, and I gradually withdrew from her life.

Sometimes I wonder if I should be sad, but to be honest, I'm used to it.

Since I was six years old, I have been learning how to be alone.

That period was honestly very difficult to get through.

I often suspect that I might be someone who is disliked by my parents, has poor grades, a bad personality, loves to fight, and is not accepted by the group.

To be honest, I think I'm just a scoundrel.

But later, when I started teaching dance, I suddenly realized...

People can always find a way out.

You can live a good life on your own.

My parents have both remarried, so I can completely leave their lives and live my own.

After I turned twenty, I became the He Xu you know.

Jiang Yanbai, I don't want to talk about what happened in South Korea.

Because the past is the past, there's nothing to reminisce about.

You've heard it, so that's enough. There's no need to dwell on it anymore.

This is my story, and I've finally finished rambling on.

Do you have anything to say?