Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

Three days before the first performance, the production team arranged the first round of rehearsals.

It's not the final dress rehearsal yet; it's just a technical rehearsal of the movement.

To allow the lighting, sound, and camera teams to familiarize themselves with the scheduling of each program, and also to allow the contestants to get used to the stage in advance.

But for everyone, this was already "real combat".

The stage and the practice room are two completely different worlds.

The mirrors in the practice room won't lie to you, but they won't put pressure on you either.

The stage is different—standing on that empty platform surrounded by lights, it's dark all around, and you can't see the audience seats, but you know that it will be filled with people in the future.

Only those who stand on it can truly understand this sense of oppression.

The rehearsal order is based on the song list, with Group A's "Blade" being the third song in the afternoon.

He Xu stood in the waiting area to the side of the stage, hands in his pockets, watching the group rehearsing on stage with a blank expression.

That was Li Bufan's group, Group B of "White Waves White Waves".

Seven people stood on the stage, their positions already spread out, but the atmosphere was off.

Li Bufan stood in the center position, his dirty orange hair standing out conspicuously under the stage lights.

His movements were fine. After He Xu helped him go through them once, the framework was set up and the necessary control was in place.

But her expression was off.

Too tight.

Yan Chen, who had somehow slipped over, whispered, "He's so nervous."

He Xu did not respond.

I was definitely nervous.

It wasn't just Li Bufan; the previous groups that went on stage all had this problem to some extent.

He dances perfectly fine in the practice room, but once he steps onto the stage, he's like a completely different person—his movements become smaller, his positioning becomes hesitant, and his facial expressions are all messed up.

The stage amplifies everything.

Good or bad, tense or relaxed, everything will be laid bare under the light of those few lamps.

After Li Bufan's group finished their rehearsal, the seven of them came down from the stage. Some of them looked pale, and some kept drinking water.

Li Bufan himself was fine, just quieter than usual, not as boisterous as he usually is.

As he passed by He Xu, he paused, opened his mouth as if to say something, but then swallowed his words back.

He Xu glanced at him.

"Nervous?" he asked.

Li Bufan scratched his head: "...A little."

"That's normal," He Xu said. "Everyone's like that the first time they go on stage."

"Weren't you nervous about going on stage for the first time?" Li Bufan asked instinctively.

He Xu paused for a moment.

His first time on stage was when he was thirteen, at a small street dance competition that didn't have many spectators.

I was so nervous that my legs were shaking. When the music started, my mind went blank. I forgot the moves after dancing for less than 30 seconds. I stood on the stage for three seconds, then bowed and ran off.

He wouldn't tell Li Bufan about these things.

"I don't remember," he said.

Li Bufan glanced at him but didn't ask any more questions.

-

Before the Blade A team went on stage, the six of them stood in a row in the waiting area.

Wang Yijun stood at the front, her expression still indifferent, but her body was stiffer than usual.

I'm nervous.

Lu Yiming was the most obvious; his lips were trembling.

Lin Siyuan and Zhao Tianyu stood together, both taking deep breaths; one was silently reciting lyrics, and the other was flexing his wrists.

Yan Chen leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, muttering to himself, whether to encourage himself or to memorize his moves, it was unclear.

Standing at the very back, He Xu looked at the five people and suddenly felt like laughing.

He recalled the first time he brought his students onto the stage.

He felt the same way back then, his palms sweating, his heart racing, wishing he could rush up and dance for them.

But it's different now.

He is a player now, not a teacher.

He only needs to take care of himself.

The stage manager's voice came through the walkie-talkie: "Blade, Group A, please take your positions."

Wang Yijun was the first to step onto the stage.

He Xu followed behind him, at a moderate pace.

The moment he stepped onto the stage, the lights shone down from above, casting a long shadow over him.

The stage was many times larger than the practice room, and the floor was black with a subtle springiness when stepped on.

He Xu stood in his position, glanced at his teammates one last time, then looked away and focused his attention back on himself.

"Blade, Group A, please take your positions and prepare to begin." The stage manager's voice came through the speakers.

All six people took a deep breath at the same time.

The music is ringing.

The moment the intro bursts out of the speakers, it feels completely different from the feeling in the practice room.

The bass became deeper, the drumbeats more explosive, and the entire stage vibrated slightly in rhythm.

He Xu's body entered the state within the first eight counts.

Nearly ten years of dance training has given his body a near-instinctive sensitivity to music.

When he dances, he doesn't need to think about "what the next move is".

The results of the six people's long-term training were fully demonstrated at this moment.

Neat, precise, and relaxed.

The level of completeness was almost overwhelming, leaving the trainees from other groups in the audience dumbfounded.

Everything is moving in a positive direction.

Then, the chorus came.

He Xu spoke up.

His lip movements were right, his rhythm was right, and his breathing was right—but the moment the sound came out of the speakers, everyone's ears picked up on the problem.

It's too light.

It's not that he sang too softly, it's that the microphone couldn't pick up the sound.

Especially when the dance moves are large, his breath is not enough to support the low notes.

The radio reception grew weaker and weaker until it was almost inaudible.

When the chorus reached the third line, He Xu's voice completely stopped.

The song was sung, but the microphone couldn't pick it up.

His breath was cut off by a high-intensity twisting motion, and his voice disappeared for half a beat in that instant.

He resumed half a beat later, but the momentary silence had already been heard by everyone.

The music continued.

He Xu's expression remained unchanged as he continued dancing and singing. His lip movements, rhythm, and breath control—everything he could control—were perfectly under control.

But no sound came out.

As the chorus ended and the verse returned, the intensity of the dance decreased, and his voice regained its composure.

But that small gap in silence, like a thorn, stuck in the ears of everyone who heard it.

The rehearsal is over.

Six people stood on the stage, panting heavily.

On the side of the stage, the sound engineer took off his headphones, frowned, pushed the faders a few times on the mixing console, and then pulled them back.

Shen Yiheng stood in the monitoring area on the side of the stage, holding a walkie-talkie in his hand, his lips pursed into a thin line.

Zhou Wei, who was next to him, also frowned, holding a tablet in his hand with He Xu's musical score on it.

"One more chorus," Shen Yiheng's voice came from the speakers. "A staff member should go up and help adjust He Xu's headset; the sound isn't picking up properly."

He Xu glanced at him, did not refute, and stood back in his position, letting others do as they pleased.

The music started again.

He spoke—

The sound was a bit louder than before, but I still couldn't hear it.

He Xu himself sensed it.

He frowned slightly when he sang the last word of the fourth line.

The music ended.

Zhou Wei simply said four words: "The bass is no good."

"Your breath control is too weak when you're dancing; the headset can't pick up your bass."

Zhou Wei's words were like a knife, precisely cutting into the issue that everyone had been avoiding since the rehearsals—He Xu's vocal performance.

Wang Yijun turned her head to look at him, her lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but she swallowed it back.

Lu Yiming stood in the back row, his fingers twisting the hem of his clothes until his knuckles turned white.

On the side of the stage, Shen Yiheng held a walkie-talkie, his fingers unconsciously tapping twice on the body of the device.

He glanced at Zhou Wei, then at He Xu.

"Come down first." Shen Yiheng's voice came from the speakers, so calm that no emotion could be detected. "The other groups continue rehearsing. We'll discuss the issues with Group A of 'Blade' after we finish."

He Xu looked up at him, then turned and followed the group off the stage.

The air in the waiting area was even more stuffy than on the stage.

Six people stood against the wall. Some were drinking water, some were silent, and some had their heads down, seemingly lost in thought.

Lu Yiming was the first to break down, his eyes reddening as he spoke, "Brother He Xu, what you just did—"

"Stop talking," Wang Yijun interrupted him, her voice not loud, but firm.

Lu Yiming swallowed back what he was about to say.

He knew where the problem lay.

Microphone reception is one issue, but more importantly, it's his own problem.

During the high-intensity transition in the chorus, his breath was cut off.

There's no problem in the practice room because there are no microphones there, so he doesn't need to worry about whether his voice will be picked up.

But the stage is different.

The microphone on stage doesn't lie—if your breath is weak, your voice won't come out;

If the sound can't be produced, the audience can't hear it;

If the audience can't hear him, it's as if he didn't sing at all.

"He Xu".

He opened his eyes.

Zhou Wei stood in front of him, holding a tablet, his expression that was that familiar, emotionless professional indifference.

"Come with me."

After Zhou Wei finished speaking, he turned and left, and He Xu followed him.

In the recording studio, Zhou Wei cut to the chase: "Your breathing problem isn't unsolvable. It's just that you've been avoiding it."

He pulled up the spectrogram from the rehearsal—in the fifth line of the chorus, a turning motion caused the waveform to break abruptly.

"You don't have this problem in the practice room," Zhou Wei put the tablet back on the mixing console, "because there are no microphones in the practice room, so you can't hear your own voice."

"But the stage is different—the microphone amplifies everything, the good and the bad, every breath you take will be recorded."

He Xu leaned against the door frame without saying a word.

Zhou Wei paused for a moment: "It's hard for the headset to pick up your bass, but switching to a hand microphone is even more impractical—the range of your dance moves is too much for a hand microphone to handle—the only way is for you to practice your breath control."

He Xu finally spoke: "So?"

"So I'll teach you." Zhou Wei walked to the front of the soundstage. "For the three days before the performance, come here every night at eight o'clock to practice your breathing."

"Every night?" He Xu frowned slightly.

"Every night," Zhou Wei repeated, his tone leaving no room for negotiation, "one hour each day for the three days leading up to the performance. Practice as much as you can, at least enough to keep you from running out of breath on stage."

He Xu remained silent for two seconds.

"...Okay," he said.