Heavy girl? I feel worse than Black Hole Trigger!

Su Shi stopped and looked up quietly, only to see that the girl had closed her eyes and dozed off, with her fingers folded across her chest occasionally tapping the rhythm, as if she was doing some imagination training in her mind - or maybe she was just deliberately pretending to say "I've ended the conversation".

So Su Shi smiled slightly: "You're welcome."

Li Xi naturally didn't answer.

"Next is the bass audition."

“Yes~!”

Nagasaki Suyo hurriedly responded to the PA from a distance and returned to her original position.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shiina Riki lower his slightly hunched shoulders as if he was relieved.

●

"I didn't get to rehearse properly at all!"

Perhaps because he was too nervous and unfortunately used too much strength on his arms, the drummer, Tatsuki Shiina, lay down on the sofa as soon as he returned to the lounge.

"I also played a wrong note. I'm so ashamed to face you all..."

The second person to go into the break was Shoko Toyokawa.

She sat down on the sofa, looked down at her palms, clenched her fists, and looked a little lost: piano was the only skill she could consider "mastered," and she had participated in large-scale piano competitions and won prizes in the past few years. But now, in such a small Live House performance hall, she had made a mistake!?

Wakaba Mutsu and Takamatsu Deng followed closely behind, silently finding a piece of land in the corner of the room and planting themselves.

Nagasaki Suyo, the last one in the team, had just closed the door when she turned around and saw the low pressure in the room. She couldn't help but twitch her lips.

"Really?! It's just a rehearsal, don't overthink it!"

If you want to feel disappointed, at least wait until the official performance fails, right?

How can we form a good band with this bunch of insects!

"I..." Takamatsu Deng huddled against the wall, hugging his knees, and whispered, "I can't sing at all..."

Xiangzi suddenly raised his head and stared at the lamp. "No! The lamp is already well made."

Honestly, the lighting performance during rehearsal wasn't particularly impressive, but compared to when CRYCHIC was first built, she was at least able to sing loud enough for the microphone to pick up, and she wasn't seriously off-key. Even if she couldn't sing any louder, she could still perform by simply asking the PA to turn up the volume on her single microphone.

"I should be more focused...!"

“—Really?”

Su Shi shouted, drawing everyone's attention. She placed her hands on her hips, her face slightly stern, and glared at both Deng and Xiangzi. "Xiao Deng, Xiao Xiang, stop blaming yourselves. Aren't rehearsals meant to make the performance more perfect? It's a good thing we can spot problems during rehearsal!"

"Yes."

What surprised Xiangzi was that Lixi actually supported Su Shi at this time:

"We don't have much time left until the official performance. Now that we've figured out the problem, we shouldn't make any more mistakes later."

——Are you here to lend a helping hand or to put pressure on everyone?

Su Shi almost glared at Li Xi with dead fish eyes.

"Well. What Li Xi said makes sense." Su Shi shook his head.

It was better to face the pressure than to wear yourself down before going on stage. Besides, in her opinion, everyone had the ability to handle this performance; it was just the nervousness of their first time on stage that limited their performance... Oh, Xiaomu and she were no different from usual, but Xiangzi was just too demanding of himself.

The key person was their lead singer, but she really had no idea what to do about the lighting issue.

We have done everything we can, and the rest depends on our performance on the spot, right?

"Xiao Deng, don't sit on the floor. You'll catch a cold. Sit on the sofa."

"Yeah, yeah!" Deng quickly got up and sat down next to Lixi.

Su Shi blinked and looked to another corner of the room, "Xiao Mu."

Ruo Ye Mu slowly raised his head, and his calm eyes faintly flashed with something that could be called confusion.

Su Shi smiled and waved to her, "Come sit here. I'll comb your hair."

"..."

Mu paused for a moment before slowly standing up and walking to the dressing table.

Lost Star Chapter 70 Summer Time Record: Chapter Fire

"anyway."

She stopped combing the paper, patted Takamatsu Deng's shoulder to indicate that she was done, and then Nagasaki Suyo turned around and walked around the room with a smile.

"Zheli's performance is about to start. Want to turn on the TV and watch?"

"I object. That would make the lights more nervous."

Just imagining himself going on stage right after "that" performance, Shiina Riki felt his hands were too weak to hold the drumsticks, not to mention having to stand in the center of the stage and face the most attention from the lead singer, Takamatsu Touma.

However, Deng slowly shook his head at Lixi and whispered, "I want to see it."

"...Deng." Li Xi looked at Deng in surprise, his expression almost heavy.

Obviously, she is the most uneasy person right now...

"I also want to see Mr. Zheli's performance!"

Toyokawa Shoko also spoke loudly.

However, Xiangzi’s expression was not as relaxed as his tone.

She still remembered the song "Tan Tian" from last time. The overwhelming voice and dense melody could almost be described as "dominant".

In fact, like Li Xi, she was quite distressed about the fact that CRYCHIC had to perform right after Oreki and Le Nai: she did believe that CRYCHIC would be able to shine as brightly as the song "Tan Tian", but she was also worried that Takamatsu Touma would be crushed by the pressure of the audience's high expectations.

……only.

In any case, since Deng has mustered up the courage to come here, she, as the one who opened "CRYCHIC", shouldn't be afraid before the battle!

Su Shi smiled, looked at everyone's different expressions, and shrugged.

"Then I'll open it."

The TV screen, which had been turned on, remained pitch black.

Before the performance began, there wasn't even a single light on the stage. I wonder what Baodeng Zheli asked the lighting engineer for...

Although the camera was fixed in place, only capturing the scenery on the stage and barely catching the heads of the people in the front row, the microphone did faithfully capture the rustling sounds in the audience.

Some people were discussing something in low voices, and some were laughing.

Gao Songdeng could even vaguely hear words like "who" and "I don't know" flowing in the background.

Of course. Zheli and Lenai had only officially performed once with RiNG, and back then, the group didn't even have a name. For a little-known band, opening at the very end of all the shows, finding even one person in the already sparse audience who was eagerly anticipating their performance was a rare sight.

Gao Songdeng stared at the scene where there was no light at all.

She thought: What would it feel like if I were there right now?

Not valued by anyone. Not expected by anyone. The pressure called "natural" is hidden in the undivided attention I give to chatting and laughing with friends, in the occasional burst of impatience, in those cold stares...

My shivering skin could clearly feel the cold wind from the central air conditioning in the lounge.

Although the temperature was clearly far from being icy cold and comfortable, she subconsciously controlled her breathing, as if she was desperately trying to retain the last bit of warmth in an ice cellar - even if she was just watching from afar, the overwhelming "cold" in the picture made her clench her fists.

"Why, aren't you afraid at all?"

This was a question that once puzzled me.

After seeing that man's smile. After hearing that man's singing.

——After standing on the stage with him in person.

For some reason, I feel like I can vaguely write down the answer now.

"..."

Deng tried hard to keep his eyes open, hoping not to miss even a single frame of the picture.

Then, incredibly suddenly—

"Hey!! Hey!! SAMURAI HEART! Hey!! Hey!! SAMURAI HEART!..."

A clear voice rang out on the dark stage.

There was no music, not even a single bar of melody. Striding proudly under the stage spotlight, which had also suddenly lit up, was a man with a bass guitar on his back, a broad smile on his face, and a microphone in his hand, shouting.

"...Hey!! Hey!! SAMURAI HEART! Hey!! Hey!! SAMURAI HEART!..."

He just walked to the center of the stage, shouting repeatedly while raising the hand that was not holding the microphone and shaking it slightly.

The television captured no view of the scenery below the stage. Besides the man's powerful shouts, only the sound of confused discussion echoed from the side of the stage.

Through this solitary lens, it was as if I were the only one at the forefront of the stage, intently watching him on the stage, while all around me were piles of doubts, one after another, turning into dark clouds that overwhelmed that towering figure.

“…Hey, Hey, SAMURAI HEART…”

"————."

——Like a spark.

Takamatsu Deng stopped breathing for a moment.

Whisper. Murmur. Tell. Shout. And then cheer.

There is a flame, ignited from somewhere behind the camera...

----No.

That flame had been burning in the center of the stage since the very beginning.

It was like a spark that suddenly ignited the whole prairie, but the heat smoldering in the performance hall had already been rising silently somewhere invisible since the man stepped onto the stage.

Then, finally, at this moment...

It turned into a madness that swept the entire stage!

"...Hey!! Hey!! SAMURAI HEART——"

In the picture, Baodeng Zheli is smiling brightly.

Swish.

He suddenly swung his raised arm downward.

“——————.”

What followed was a burst of extremely passionate music.

The guitar went all out from the first note. Stepping into the spotlight, the silver-haired girl flashed a smile as bright as the sun. She gripped the pick tightly, dancing it across the strings, sending a surge of sound from the trembling sound, enveloping the audience's cheers in a flowing melody.

This time, it was the man who stirred the ripples who fixed the microphone on the stand slowly and leisurely like a gentleman. He stood in the center of attention with his head held high and his chest puffed out quietly. He took a deep breath only when the melody was about to enter a rest.

As if to pour a bucket of cold water on this increasingly heated scene, a clear and spring-like singing voice rang out:

"Somewhere in the sky above you, you're not listening at all, are you?"

"I sent out a signal on purpose, but you ignored it—"

Despite the insufficient number of instruments, the gorgeous guitar chords cannot at all cover up the tone of the bass.

The low, resonant rhythm was like the beast housed in the man's throat, and as he grinned with an almost ferocious grin, he roared with a slightly sad tone:

"See, we are always the same"

"Can we understand each other?... This is such a huge misunderstanding."

"You didn't even notice I was here?"

The rapid guitar sound creates a sense of urgency, as if running away.

Bathed in it, the man raised his right hand like an eagle's claw and then dropped it, pulling out an unpleasant noise on the bass strings.

“Alone in a crowd”

"It's so empty, looking up at the sky"

"Conversations that cannot be delivered are just perfunctory ones"

“The loneliness is growing…”

——The man suddenly raised his head.

In those eyes looking forward, there was a twinkling of extremely sharp starlight.