Ch81 - Xie An's Secret

Lu Xu and Yu Manman talked about simple things, catching up with the composition group afterwards, and heading up to the classroom.

The composition group consisted of  a total of 20 trainees, and they were split into four groups of five. Everyone chose the most popular person as the team captain, so Lu Xu was once again the leader.

“Composing a song in such a short period of time is really difficult, so there aren’t a lot of people who would voluntarily join this group.” Gu Wenan immediately called for a meeting with everyone as soon as he arrived since he wanted to motivate the trainees who were forced to join this group. “But the more difficult it is, the more of a challenge it is, and all of you who were able to come onto the stage of ‘Birth of an Idol’ are already talented. So let me ask you, what is your goal for joining this competition?”

The group gave all kinds of answers—

“For dreams, duh.”

“I want to stand on the stage and be understood and liked by lots of people…”

Xu Lele’s voice was the loudest, “To become a member of the best boy group in China!”

He said that passionately, and when he saw Lu Xu looking at him, Xu Lele laughed brightly. “Xu ge and I have the same dream!”

I never said I had the same dream as you.

Lu Xu inwardly thought that, but couldn’t bring himself to say it directly, so he just looked towards Ji Xiunian—strictly speaking, Ji Xiunian was the reason he joined.

Coincidentally, their gazes met.

Other trainees talked about being on the stage and chasing their dreams, but Lu Xu’s first reaction was to look at him.

Ji Xiunian’s heart warmed a little, and he smiled gently at Lu Xu as a form of encouragement.

The two of them were thinking different things; however this action was caught by Xu Lele’s eyes and he immediately understood it as something else.

“Xu ge, you and Ji Xiunian have such a good relationship!” Xu Lele was just like everyone else and was surprised by Lu Xu.

Whether it was singing or dancing, he was the one who shined the brightest. Coupled with the fact that he also had connections with the vocal goddess, Lu Xu however had still chosen composition. In the beginning, he had suspected that it had something to do with a person, but now that he saw the interaction between the two of them, Xu Lele was even more adamant in his conclusion than before.

He dared to confirm that the reason Lu Xu chose the composition group had something to do with Ji Xiunian.

“What are you thinking about.” The look in his eyes was way too obvious. Lu Xu couldn’t help but glance at him, but he couldn’t confirm the meaning of what Xu Lele had said.

Very quickly, the instructors gave the trainees time to freely compose.

According to the rules of the competition, the song’s style was entirely up to the trainees’ choice. Of course, if one of the trainees had a previous work composed and all of the teammates agreed, then they could use it and rearrange it for the show.

Lu Xu and Xu Lele were split into the same team, and the remaining members were from the C and D-ranks.

Come to think of it, the gap in their abilities was quite large. Individually speaking, people like Lu Xu and Xu Lele in A-rank would shine in the competition, but in group performances, the judging was based on their teamwork. Everyone was a member of the team, and any one person’s circumstance would affect the overall performance.

As C and D-rank members, it was already very exciting to be put into the composition group, and then to be grouped up with popular trainees like Lu Xu and Lele, the remaining three members would of course be under pressure.

Zhou Yu and Yao Yulong were at the very edge during the first round of elimination. They could be considered within the realm of being eliminated.

Lu Xu could be said to be the contestant with the biggest hope of debuting in centre position. The head of the dragon and tail of the snake had formed a group together; there was no other group like this.

Yao Yulong was still the representative of the most hardworking trainees, even though he hadn’t been very eye-catching amongst the hundred trainees at the beginning.

But ever since he’d earned the effort team captaincy through his own hard work, the audience began having an impression of him.

“Hi everyone, I haven’t learned composition before but I will do my best. I guarantee I won’t let everyone down..” Yao Yulong spoke very politely. Although his ranking was lower, he didn’t take it to heart.

Lu Xu thought about this kind of enduring and hardworking Yao Yulong and couldn’t help but think of the similarly situated Lan Gaojie.

They were both in similar situations, but one contestant took a shortcut while the other struggled by himself. Lu Xu noted Yao Yulong’s righteous air and smiled. “Then I’ll work hard to follow everyone else too…”

Lu Xu had just finished saying this when his group members began sprouting rainbow farts at him. “No way, Xu ge, you’re being too modest again.

During the first recording, Lu Xu had said he hadn’t been a trainee for too long, yet he had sung ‘The Ballad of Death’.

When they were ranking for spots during the theme song, Lu Xu had stood in the centre position.

Lu Xu always gave others surprises. Even if he really hadn’t learned any composition theory before, everyone believed he would definitely be great at it.

“You guys really…” Lu Xu had just been thinking to tell them not to put himself up too high when the Grim Reaper app displayed a new order.

“Uh, you guys discuss first, I need to go to the restroom…” Lu Xu’s tone was very apologetic, evidently unwilling to waste everyone’s time.

It was just that a client’s ascension time had to be punctual; if he didn’t run over for this matter then who knew what kind of issues would arise.

Seeing that Lu Xu’s expression was hurried, the other members obviously thought he had something urgent come up and said understandingly, “No worries Xu ge, just go.”

The morning recording session was only a total of three hours, but Lu Xu had gone to the bathroom three times.

Forget about his group members worrying if he had eaten something that had upset his stomach; even Ji Xiunian noticed the situation on his side. At lunchtime, the trainees halted the recording and went to the cafeteria.

Lu Xu was originally going to go with Xu Lele and the others in order to continue discussing the style of their composition. But before he could even make it to the cafeteria, Ji Xiunian had pulled him aside.

All of the trainees were extremely vigilant; the moment they saw Ji Xiunian holding something in his hands and talking with Lu Xu privately, they responsibly vacated the space for them.

“For you.” Ji Xiunian handed over a bag, a note of concern within his voice.

“What’s this?” Lu Xu glanced at his wrist, noticing that the black mark upon it was even darker than before. This was a sign that the malicious spirit affecting Ji Xiunian was getting closer and closer, affecting Ji Xiunian’s health.

But strangely enough, the last time he saw him he had thought the aura of death upon him had been strong, yet it had receded quite a bit this time.

Lu Xu thought that this was somewhat weird. Half his foot had crossed the line of death, yet immediately in the blink of an eye it had retreated back. There was definitely some sort of trick behind it.

Just as Lu Xu was thinking to himself, Ji Xiunian had already begun talking beside him. “It’s just some medicine for stomach inflammation. I’m not sure if you’ve eaten something bad, but this medicine is pretty comprehensive, you should eat some if it’ll help. If you still don’t feel better by this afternoon, you should go to the hospital and get it checked out…”

“Ai?” Lu Xu was stunned by Ji Xiunian’s gifting of medicine, and only reacted afterwards to what was happening.

It was probably the same with his groupmates; seeing him going to the bathroom three times in a row would probably make them misunderstand that he had a stomachache?

“Nian ge, I really don’t have a stomachache…” Lu Xu’s expression was a little complicated, but he couldn’t explain many things clearly, so he could only mysteriously say this.

“Your stomach doesn’t hurt?” Lu Xu didn’t look like he was lying, and there wasn’t any need to lie about it.

Ji Xiunian changed his way of thinking, and realised it wasn’t something big, it was something small.

Frequent urination and cold limbs…

Ji Xiunian looked at Lu Xu strangely, and thought that Lu Xu was so young, it wasn’t likely.

But always having to go to the bathroom wasn’t a problem either, it was natural and had to be taken care of.

Seeing that Ji Xiunian was looking at his waist, deep in thought, Lu Xu felt that something was off, and raised his hand to cover his eyes.

Ji Xiunian noticed it and grabbed Lu Xu’s hand, he didn’t let go of it immediately and instead felt his temperature—

Although it was a little better than last time, how was this the body temperature of a young and healthy man?

“Nian ge, don’t overthink it, I’m really fine.”

They were both men, Ji Xiunian thought that he could understand Lu Xu’s attitude well, and he didn’t purposely go and mention that. “Mn, let’s go let’s go, ge will treat you to a meal.”

“Eh?”

The trainees’ food and drink were specially catered by the team, and it was usually high in protein and low in calories.

But the serving sizes of this kind of food wasn’t very generous, and there was no way to meet the needs of every single trainee.

Lu Xu didn’t have any need for food, but he had to play along and eat some things in front of the camera.

Suddenly hearing that Ji Xiunian wanted to treat him to a meal, Lu Xu couldn’t help but feel that it was strange he would bring it up.

He originally thought it was for show, but he didn’t think that Ji Xiunian would really go and do it.

Others had clear porridge and healthy meals but only Lu Xu had an extra serving of brown rice, black beans, black sesame seeds with his porridge, and other meat dishes, which were supposed to be healthy and good for the kidneys.

“Wow!” Seeing that Lu Xu had a pot of porridge in front of him, Xu Lele sidled up to him. “That smells so good.”

“Want some?” Lu Xu pushed the porridge towards the others, smiling and saying that he was already full.

Not wanting to waste food, Xu Lele and the others happily started eating.

Lu Xu sat to the side watching them eat, and unconsciously a smile tugged on his lips.

Good Ji Xiunian, he said he wanted to give more food but this was way too obvious.

Lu Xu wasn’t a fool, and it was a little complicated to be treated as though he had a kidney deficiency.

It seemed that he had to think this through properly, so that he could make Ji Xiunian properly understand his physique.

That his, Lu Xu’s, body and mentality were as strong as a god’s, okay?

With that in mind, Lu Xu ran to the bathroom several more times during the afternoon shoot.

Ji Xiunian saw all of this, and felt his heart hurt even more, even starting to ask people to help him with a solution.

Composing wasn’t very easy, and other groups merely chose to change songs that the group’s members had already written. For group’s like Lu Xu’s, in which no one in the team had any experience, they could only first decide an overall direction, then each write lyrics and a song overnight. If they still couldn’t do it by the next day, they needed a mentor to come out and make a decision.

After the day’s recording had finally ended with much difficulty, Lu Xu hadn’t returned to the dorm for long before he had to go to the bathroom again.

It was a good thing that the roommates in dorm 201 hadn’t been with him all day, or who knows what else their “battle” would be today.

When Lu Xu had just received a new client and was ready to go back, his boss suddenly called. “Hello, xiao Lu, are you busy right now?”

“I’m fine, I just finished an order.” The bureau director usually didn’t call him at this time, unless there was something urgent going on.

As Lu Xu thought of this, he asked him, “Director, is there any news from Xie An’s side?”

“Mn. I know you’re concerned about this. I’ve arranged a meeting for you. If you’re not busy, then come over now.”