Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

The interview was recorded at 3 p.m.

The location was the room where the production team usually did pre-interviews: a white wall, a chair, and a fill light.

He Xu sat in a chair with no script or teleprompter in front of him, only a camera and an interview director.

He squinted slightly when the fill light came on.

The gauze on my left ear has been removed, but there's still a small piece of cotton wool stuck in my ear canal, so it's not visible from the outside.

"He Xu, are you ready?" The interview director's voice came from behind the camera.

"Um."

"Let's begin."

The red light on the camera came on.

"He Xu, please say hello to everyone first."

"I am He Xu," he said. "I am 24 years old, a dance teacher at Banxing Entertainment, and I have been teaching dance for six years. My voice is ruined, and my hearing is also ruined. I am now announcing my withdrawal from the competition."

The director opened his mouth, clearly not expecting him to start the interview in this way.

"Okay..." She glanced down at the question card in her hand and read the first question aloud, "There's been a lot of discussion online about your true identity. Could you explain why you applied as an 'individual trainee' in the first place?"

He Xu leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment.

"Because I couldn't resist touching it."

The director blinked: "...What?"

"When I was registering, I was originally just registering for my students," He Xu said calmly. "After registering, I couldn't resist clicking on the announcement. I saw that they were recruiting ordinary people, and that they didn't have to pay and even provided food and accommodation, so I just signed up for myself too."

He paused.

"I didn't expect to pass. After passing, I figured I had nothing better to do, so I decided to give it a try."

The director almost lost his composure during the interview.

But she held back.

"So what were you thinking at the time? As a professional dance teacher, participating in a talent show, didn't you think it was unfair to the other contestants?"

"That's not fair," He Xu said. "That's why I'm withdrawing from the competition."

The director was momentarily speechless after hearing that.

"But you didn't withdraw from the competition because it was unfair, it was because of an ear injury—"

"The ear injury is the direct cause," He Xu interrupted her, "but it's not the only cause."

He paused, as if organizing his thoughts.

"My initial reason for coming to this show was because I was bored. I wanted to find some fun and, incidentally, annoy others a bit."

"But later I realized that before I caused trouble for others, I caused myself a lot of trouble first."

"My voice is bad, so my vocal assessment was blocked; my ears are also injured, and I can't even hear clearly."

He smiled, a smile tinged with self-deprecation.

"I'm a dancer, I can dance even if I can't sing, but how can I dance if I can't listen?"

The room fell silent for a moment.

The interview director looked at him, hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "How badly is your ear damaged? The program stated that it was 'mild hearing loss,' but many people don't believe it and feel that they are hiding something."

He Xu tilted his head and pointed his right ear at her.

"Left ear, high-frequency hearing loss." His tone was as indifferent as if he were reciting someone else's medical report.

"Sounds above 4000 Hz are basically inaudible, and the doctor said it may leave permanent damage."

He paused, then added, "It won't interfere with my life, it just means I can't wear a headset anymore, but that doesn't really affect me since I've already withdrawn from the competition."

The director's lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he swallowed it back.

He Xu glanced at her: "Ask whatever you want, don't hold back."

"...How exactly did you hurt your voice?" She spoke softly. "You've never mentioned it before, and there are all sorts of rumors online. Was it an accident, or...?"

He Xu did not answer immediately.

He leaned back in his chair and stared at the light on the ceiling for two seconds.

"Four years ago," he said, slowing his speech, "someone handed me a cup of coffee. Something was added to it."

"What is it?"

"The cleaning agent," He Xu said. "It's corrosive. After taking a sip, my vocal cords were chemically burned, my throat mucosa was extensively damaged, and my stomach lining was also injured."

The director unconsciously clenched his question card.

"What happened next? Did you call the police? Did they find out who it was?"

"It's been reported and investigated." He Xu's voice was flat.

"The coffee cup only had my fingerprints and that student's fingerprints on it. The student said that a fan put it downstairs, but the fan couldn't find out who it was—the surveillance cameras didn't capture it, so the case was dropped."

He smiled, a very faint smile, so faint that the curve was almost invisible.

"So don't ask me why I'm not pursuing this anymore. I tried, but I couldn't get anyone to take responsibility, that's all."

The room remained quiet for a long time.

The director's eyes were already red, but she bit her lip to keep the tears from falling.

"Then...do you hate it?" she asked.

He Xu thought for a moment.

"I used to hate," he said. "But I stopped hating. Hate can't bring back your voice."

"You were only twenty years old back then, right? Twenty years old, and your voice was ruined. What did you do?"

"What can we do?" He Xu's voice returned to its usual hoarse calm. "If you can't sing, just focus on dancing. Dancing doesn't require a voice. If all else fails, I can teach."

"I don't need anyone's pity."

The director felt as if his heart had been squeezed tightly.

She took a deep breath, suppressed her emotions, and continued asking questions.

"Do you regret coming to this show?"

He Xu did not answer immediately.

He stared at the red light on the camera and remained silent for a long time.

"...I regret it, but I also don't really regret it."

Why?

"Because I met a lot of people here." He Xu's voice softened a little.

"Lu Yiming, an ordinary kid in Class C, has a particularly good voice, but he could be a little more confident."

"Wang Yijun has a blank expression. He dances exceptionally well, but he never smiles. Before I left, I told him, 'Smile more often, don't always have such a serious face.'"

"Li Bufan, the one with the smoky orange hair, is a chatterbox, but a nice guy. He called me a liar today, and he's right."

He Xu paused for a moment after saying this.

"And then there's Jiang Yang," he said. "Sixteen years old, Class A, he was eliminated. I brought him back, not because he's my student—but because he has the ability."

"You should know from watching his performances that he doesn't belong in that position."

The director finally couldn't resist asking a question that wasn't on the question card.

"He Xu, aren't you afraid people will say you're trying to gain sympathy by saying these things?"

He Xu glanced at her.

"Playing the victim?" he said, a slight smile playing on his lips. "If I wanted to play the victim, I would have done it already. I could play the victim when my voice was damaged, when my ears were injured, when I was being scolded—but when have I ever done that?"

He leaned back in his chair, the fill light making his face appear pale.

"I don't need anyone's pity."

"We didn't need it before, we don't need it now, and we won't need it in the future."

He repeated these words again.

"I'm saying this not to make people pity me, but to let those who criticize me know that I did make a mistake. I shouldn't have pretended to be an ordinary person, and I shouldn't have lied to people."

"But I didn't do anything wrong in other aspects."

"When I dance, I take every dance seriously; when I teach, I take every student seriously; when I go on stage, I take every performance seriously."

"As for what they think of me, that's their business."

The director remained silent for a long time during the interview.

The red light on the camera was still on.

"One last question," she said, "Is there anything you'd like to say to the audience?"

He Xu thought for a moment.

"Yes," he said. "Don't follow my example; fidgeting isn't a good habit."

Director interviewed: "..."

"Also," He Xu's expression became more serious, "please vote for Jiang Yang more for me. He deserves it more than I do."

The red light is off.

The interview director peeked out from behind the camera, looked at He Xu, and his eyes were a little red.

"He Xu, you—"

"The interview is over. I don't want to answer the remaining questions." He Xu stood up from his chair and turned off the fill light.

-

The interview video was released at 8 p.m. that evening.

The production team didn't do any pre-production promotion, no previews, no countdown, and even the official Weibo account's post only had one line of text—

"Please see the video for an explanation regarding contestant He Xu."

A link was provided.

There were no emojis, no fancy layout, and not even an extra period.

It seems that even the publicity team themselves didn't know how to deal with the video, so they could only choose the simplest and most emotionless way to release it.

But netizens don't need any pre-launch hype.

Within the first minute of the video being released, it had been viewed over 500,000 times.

In the first ten minutes, it surpassed eight million.

In the first hour, it broke 20 million.

The server was put to the test again in the second hour.

The comments section was in complete chaos.

The most liked comment only had four words: "I can't take it anymore."

The replies I clicked on were all "+1" "+1" "+1", stacked up to thousands of times.

The second one is: "I laughed when he said 'mischievous,' but I cried when he said 'cleaning agent.'"

Article 3: "He said he doesn't need anyone's pity, but what if I want to pity him...?"

Article 4: "My throat is ruined, and my ears are ruined too. God, are you blind?"

Article 5: "I don't need anyone's pity. I didn't before, I don't need it now, and I won't need it in the future. — Okay, Teacher He, I understand, Teacher He, but the more you say that, the more I want to cry!!!"

The person who is crying is crying.

The people who were criticizing are still criticizing.

But the direction of the criticism changed.

"So He Xu's voice was murdered?! Four years ago?! When he was twenty?! And then the case was dropped?! What's wrong with this society???"

"What's He Xu trying to achieve by participating in this talent show? He's a choreographer, and he's being critiqued by his own student—doesn't he feel ashamed?"

"He said it was because he was bored... I'm speechless! This guy came here just to have fun, and ended up ending up in the hospital!"

"Where are those people who say He Xu is faking it? Come out and show yourselves! He may be faking it, but he's not faking it to become famous. It's because he's already an insider in the industry, and he doesn't want to be on TV at all, okay?!"

"A top-tier choreographer like him charges more for one hour of lessons than you do in a month. Does he need to come to this show to ride on someone else's popularity? That's hilarious."

"I really hate it... I hate the person who handed me the coffee back then, I hate the equipment from the production team, and I hate those who criticized him without knowing the truth."

The shouts and cries mingled together, turning the trending topics list into a complete mess.