Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

After the dance was finished, Zhou Wei called everyone to the center of the practice room.

"The dance is over, now let's listen to the vocals." He pulled out a chair and sat down, holding a tablet in his hand. "Let's go one by one, starting with the vocals."

Lu Yiming was the first to stand in front of the mirror, clutching the lyric book in his hand, his knuckles turning white.

"Don't be nervous," Zhou Wei said. "Just sing the chorus, and I'll listen to your pitch."

Lu Yiming took a deep breath and began to sing.

The moment the sound came out, it felt as if the air itself had been purified.

Clear, clean, and natural.

He handled the high notes in the chorus very cleverly—using a near-mixed voice technique to throw the sound upwards, making it sound effortless yet very penetrating.

Zhou Wei narrowed his eyes, somewhat surprised.

He listened to the whole thing, but didn't comment immediately. Instead, he looked down and wrote a few words on his tablet.

"Your pitch is fine." He looked up at Lu Yiming. "Your breath control is steady too. But you rushed through the transition in the second line of the chorus. You could slow it down and let your voice linger on that note for an extra half beat."

He stood up, walked to Lu Yiming's side, and drew an arc in the air with his hand.

"Look, the melody goes like this—first it goes up, then it goes down, then it goes up again. When you sang it just now, you went up and then went straight down; you didn't stand firm at that turning point in the middle."

Lu Yiming watched his gestures carefully and nodded.

"Let's do it one more time."

The second time, Lu Yiming adjusted his approach according to Zhou Wei's instructions, pausing for an extra half second on the transition note, which immediately brought out the layering of the sound.

Zhou Wei nodded, a rare occurrence for him: "Okay. Next, Yan Chen."

Yan Chen's vocal style is completely different from Lu Yiming's.

It is richer and more stable, with a bass sound that has a chest resonance quality.

But the high notes in the chorus were clearly difficult for him.

When singing high notes, the voice becomes tense and doesn't sound relaxed enough.

"Your low register is very good," Zhou Wei said after listening, "but your high register is too tight."

Yan Chen pursed his lips and remained silent.

"Try to lower your breath." Zhou Wei walked up to him and placed his hand on his abdomen. "Start from here, not from your throat—can you feel it?"

Yan Chen sensed it for a moment and nodded.

"One more time, the chorus starts from the line 'We are the Blade'."

Yan Chen sang it again, and this time the tension in the high notes was significantly reduced, but the penetrating power of his voice was also somewhat weakened.

Zhou Wei frowned but did not correct him further.

"That's enough. Go back and practice your breath control more. Next, rap."

Lin Siyuan and Zhao Tianyu stood in front of the mirror, looked at each other, and spoke at the same time.

The requirements for rap are different from those for vocals, with a greater emphasis on rhythm and clear pronunciation.

Lin Siyuan has a good sense of rhythm, and he hits each beat precisely, but his pronunciation is too sticky, and the ending sounds of some words are drawn out too long, making them sound not crisp enough.

Zhao Tianyu is the opposite—his pronunciation is clear, but his rhythm is weak, and he is noticeably half a beat slow in several places.

After listening, Zhou Wei remained silent for two seconds.

"You two complement each other perfectly," he said, his tone carrying a sense of helplessness, as if he didn't know whether to praise or criticize. "Lin Siyuan, your pronunciation, make sure the ending of each word is quicker, don't drag it out. Zhao Tianyu, your rhythm, go back and practice with a metronome, beat by beat."

The two nodded together.

"Now, let's go over the chorus together." Zhou Wei dragged the progress bar back. "Vocal and rap together, starting from the first line of the chorus."

The six people took their positions, and the music started.

Lu Yiming and Yan Chen's voices overlapped, Lin Siyuan and Zhao Tianyu's rap cut in from the middle, and Wang Yijun continued singing the verses with a blank expression.

He Xu stood to the side without saying a word.

Zhou Wei's gaze lingered on He Xu for a moment, but he said nothing.

When the chorus ended, he turned off the music.

"For the vocal part, practice in this direction." He picked up his tablet and wrote a few lines on it. "Lu Yiming, pay attention to the transition in the second line of the chorus. Yan Chen, lower your breath. Lin Siyuan and Zhao Tianyu, focus on pronunciation and rhythm. Wang Yijun, that's good, keep it up."

He paused, his gaze falling on He Xu.

"He Xu, come out with me for a moment."

The atmosphere in the practice room subtly changed.

He Xu leaned against the wall, holding a water bottle in his hand, his expression unchanged.

He put the water bottle on the ground and followed Zhou Wei out at a leisurely pace.

In the corridor, Zhou Wei leaned against the wall, arms crossed, looking at He Xu.

"What are your plans for the vocal part?" he asked bluntly.

He Xu leaned against the wall on the other side, hands in his pockets, in a lazy posture.

"I can't sing anymore," he said. His voice was still hoarse, but it was a little better than a couple of days ago. "I can't hit the high notes, and I've given my rap part to someone else."

"I know," Zhou Wei said. "That's not what I'm asking. What I'm asking is—are you planning to completely abandon the vocal part, or will you remain completely silent on stage?"

He Xu looked at him but didn't reply.

Zhou Wei took a deep breath, as if organizing his thoughts.

"Although your voice hasn't fully recovered, you can still produce a low note. I heard it when the theme song was being recorded, and the quality is something no one else can replicate."

He Xu raised an eyebrow slightly.

"So?" he asked.

"So I was thinking," Zhou Wei lowered his voice a little, "to compose a low-pitched harmony for you, to sit under the chorus. You don't need to sing the whole thing, just a few notes, your current voice will be enough."

He Xu looked at him, and the corners of his mouth slowly curved up.

That smile carried a smug, malicious undertone.

"Teacher Zhou," he said, "didn't you say that my changing the key was against the rules? Didn't you say that I was skipping vocal practice? Why are you now arranging harmonies for me on your own initiative?"

Zhou Wei's expression froze for a moment.

"That was the theme song audition," he said, his tone still stiff. "This is a public performance; the situation is different."

"What's the difference?"

"A performance is a stage, not an assessment." Zhou Wei's voice rose slightly. "The presentation on stage is more important than the rules. Your bass harmonies can enhance the overall quality of the song—as a music producer, that's my judgment."

He Xu looked at him, his smile unwavering.

"So you're not doing this out of pity?" he asked.

Zhou Wei frowned.

"When have I ever pitied you?" His voice carried a hint of offense. "If I pitied you, I wouldn't have given you four points during the theme song assessment."

He Xu smiled and straightened up from the wall.

"Okay," he said, "then let's make it up."

Zhou Wei looked at him, his brows still furrowed, but the corners of his mouth curved slightly.

"You've been corrupted by Shen Yiheng," he said, his tone carrying a hint of helpless indulgence. "Your mouth is getting more and more cheeky."

"He learned it from me," He Xu corrected him.

Zhou Wei's mouth twitched.

-

At 7 p.m., the music in the practice building gradually faded away.

Most people had already started packing up to go to dinner, with only a few practice rooms still lit up, from which came intermittent accompaniment music.

When He Xu came out of the Group A practice room, his T-shirt was soaked with sweat.

He glanced down at his phone—the cafeteria would close in forty minutes; he had enough time.

The corridor lights were blindingly white, casting a long shadow over him.

He walked a few steps, and when he passed the B group practice room, the door wasn't closed properly. What came out wasn't music, but an unsettling silence.

He Xu hadn't originally planned to stop.

He was already exhausted today, with a sore throat and an upset stomach. All he wanted to do was go to the cafeteria for a bowl of hot porridge and then go back to his dorm to lie down.

But as they passed through that door, their steps slowed uncontrollably.

He turned his head and peeked inside through the crack in the door.

The lights were on in the practice room, and there weren't many people there.

The members of Team B from "Blade" were scattered throughout the practice room.

Some people were leaning against the wall in a daze, some were sitting on the ground stretching their legs, and some were huddled together whispering something.

The atmosphere is off.

Yang Sheng sat there alone.

Leaning against the corner of the wall, knees curled up, arms resting on them, face buried in arms.

He was wearing the A-class training uniform after the re-evaluation, the white collar of which was soaked with sweat, and his hair was messy, as if someone had grabbed it.

The others created a vacuum around him.

The person closest to him was two or three meters away, as if he had something contagious on him.

He Xu stopped in his tracks.

He heard people talking in the practice room.

The sound wasn't loud, but it could be heard clearly in a quiet room.

"...Honestly, my heart sank when I saw that he had chosen me."

The speaker was a student from Class D whose name He Xu couldn't recall. He was leaning against the wall, and his voice carried an undisguised complaint.

"Blade is a five-star difficulty song. It's a song by PD Shen, and the choreography is clearly designed for dancers. What are we vocalists doing here?"

"Doesn't he have any self-awareness? How can our team's lineup compare to Group A's? Group A has Wang Yijun and He Xu—what do we have?"

"There's someone from Class F." A voice came from the corner, tinged with sarcasm, "Someone who didn't even get to record the theme song. I don't know what Wang Yijun was thinking back then, why did he choose him?"

The practice room fell silent for a moment after those words were spoken.

Then someone chuckled softly, then quickly suppressed it.

He Xu leaned against the door frame, listening expressionlessly.

Yang Sheng did not make a move.

He remained in that position—his face buried in his arms, his knees bent, his whole body curled up in a ball.

But He Xu noticed that his shoulders were trembling slightly.

He Xu had seen too many scenes like this.

The person isolated in the practice room dared not leave, dared not stay, dared not cry out loud; they could only shrink themselves into the smallest ball and pretend they couldn't hear anything.

He had seen it when he was a companion star.

But he never imagined that this scene would happen to Yang Sheng.

He Xu stood by the door frame for three seconds.

He clenched his fist, then relaxed it.

Then he pushed the door open and went inside.

The door didn't open very loudly, but the practice room fell silent instantly.

He Xu walked over, his footsteps neither too light nor too heavy, his sneakers making almost no sound on the floor.

But every step carried a silent sense of oppression.

As he passed by those contestants, he turned his head and glanced at their faces.

That glance was expressionless.

But it's more terrifying than any expression.

His gaze was like a knife, piercing through everything.

Several people fell silent at the same time. Some lowered their heads, some took a half step back, and some pretended that nothing had happened and turned to flip through the lyric book.

He Xu didn't say anything, walked up to Yang Sheng, and squatted down.

"Yang Sheng".

"...Brother." Yang Sheng's voice was muffled in his arms, with a nasal tone.

"stand up."

"I……"

"Get up and eat."

Yang Sheng raised his head, his eyes red-rimmed, his lips moved but he couldn't say a word.

He Xu glanced at him for a second, then reached out and patted him on the back of the head.

"Aren't you ashamed? Come with me."