The Whole Entertainment Circle is Waiting For My C-Debut

C15: Storm

As the prelude played, 100 girls stood in neatly arranged outfits under the lights, brimming with the most confident smiles.

"Shining shining! Pickup! The shining girls forge ahead bravely! Shining shining! Pickup! Dreams are coming true today!"

This song, "Shining Girl," as the theme song of "Idol New Force," was the perfect opening dance. The contestants gave it their all. For many of them, it was their first time on such a big stage, their first time facing the audience up close, and their first time feeling the enthusiasm of the fans in the audience.

It felt quite magical, different from interacting with fans online. For the first time, they felt like idols, realizing that they had so many people supporting them behind their backs. Every move they made was being watched by fans.

After the opening dance, Xie Kai and Gao Bing took the stage to host the show and announced the voting rules for the performance of the day: The winning team of this round would each receive 10,000 votes, and the ultimate Audience Favorite would receive an additional 50,000 votes. The team with the Audience Favorite would also receive 20,000 votes per member.

The competition used a draw to determine the groupings, and on-site voting would decide the winners and losers among the 1,500 audience members. The final Audience Favorite would be selected from the seven winning teams, and the members would vote for the most promising contestant to participate in a seven-person popularity showdown to determine the day's Audience Favorite.

The advantage of this format was that the team always had to prioritize collective interests to strive for ultimate victory.

Xie Kai and Gao Bing talked on stage for a while, and the fans weren't sure how much they understood, but one thing was clear to them: just vote, vote for their own favorite idol. If their favorite idol wasn't there, they should vote for the person supported by their favorite idol.

By now, the first group of contestants had already taken the stage. This group had nine members, making it a grand lineup. Coincidentally, the opposing team they were battling against also had nine members. The stage suddenly became crowded, but after a brief greeting between the two teams, they formally began their performances.

Because the first two acts had many performers and were fast-paced songs, the atmosphere quickly became heated. The energy of the fans blended seamlessly with the stage.

Backstage was chaotic at this point. Due to time constraints, the first group of contestants had priority access to the dressing room. However, the sequence of subsequent performances wasn't fixed, and there was no organized arrangement of personnel. When it was finally time for the "Fascination" team to change costumes, the staff members seemed completely lost and had no answers.

"'Fascination'? Wasn't this performance canceled?" The staff member appeared confused. "Wait a moment, I'll go ask."

Before long, the staff member returned and said, "I'm sorry, we received a notice earlier saying that this performance was canceled, so we didn't bring the costumes."

Zhou Xinlei's heart sank. "What notice? Why weren't we informed?"

"Sorry, you need to communicate with the program team about this... I only brought the costumes according to the requested quantity."

This dispute quickly caught the attention of others.

Before long, Lin, the assistant to Director Li, rushed over from behind. "What's going on? Director Li couldn't leave, so he sent me to see what's happening."

"Assistant Lin, Director Li clearly said our performance was approved, and you were there at the time too!" Zhou Xinlei immediately stepped forward to argue.