Chapter 259: Even Begging Requires Lining Up
“Starting to feel a bit nervous.”
In order to adapt in advance to the performance atmosphere of the ten thousand person venue, the rehearsals in the final few days were all conducted on the stadium stage.
The stage setup was about to be completed, and the staff were hanging on beams more than twenty meters high, installing LED screens and doing the final debugging.
Not to mention the other civilians being nervous, Qi Luo An, who had seen big scenes, was also nervous. She had sung it countless times in the practice room, but this time was different.
In this huge space, every note needed to be polished anew.
Among them, the one in the best state was unexpectedly Lin Yuting. Although it was a bit hellish, whether there were many people or few, she couldn’t see anyway…
However, since they had come, they also wanted to perform as well as possible, so the practice was exceptionally serious. Where experience was lacking, technique made up for it.
“Brother Yu’s partner actually has none missing?”
In the formal rehearsal stage, it was inevitable for several groups to run into each other. Yu Wei had just come down from the stage when he saw Teacher Meng’s group.
Teacher Meng had only missed one episode, so by rights there should be nine civilian partners behind him, but there were only seven people, clearly two hadn’t returned.
Ordinary people’s lives were still quite busy, not necessarily able to make time. The reason Yu Wei’s group was all present was because their professions were relatively free.
Streamer failure university student needless to say, the driver wanted to go out and see himself, tour guides had nothing much in the off-season for tourism, and athletes were fine without competitions.
The only busy one was actually teacher Tian Jun, but the school was very enthusiastic about this kind of public exposure, seemingly specially approving him to cooperate with the work.
“Actually, having fewer people is better.”
Under the premise that civilian standards were generally not high, the fewer people in the chorus, the better naturally; the more people, the harder to control, and the more prone to mistakes.
Meng Han widened his eyes upon hearing this. The words were fine, but he actually said it to their faces. Wasn’t he worried about upsetting the civilian contestants?
One sentence of “So I shouldn’t have come” would shut it down. Such words in ancient times would cause an uproar…
Yu Wei hadn’t thought that much. He and the readers were all buddies, so what did he care about this or that? It was just a joke, no big deal.
Meng Han could see this point too. Compared to the other groups, Yu Wei’s group had a clearly different atmosphere, giving the feeling of a fan club, with Yu Wei just being the leader.
Compared to their three groups’ simple star and civilian combinations, Yu Wei’s group had an overall medium, which was his novel.
He could connect all the readers together through the novel; that kind of tacit understanding they could never catch up to no matter what…
Yu Wei’s novel was becoming more and more useful. At first, it could only bring a lot of gimmicks and popularity boosts, but gradually, it became a thread, a thread connecting everyone throughout the entertainment industry.
This change was subtle. If one day more than 30% of the country became his readers, then he would solidly be the number one person.
Of course, this wasn’t easy.
“Looking forward to your performance.”
With the performance imminent, Meng Han didn’t dare dawdle and led his group’s members on stage for the interlude. Yu Wei had no interest in peeping at others, so he simply returned to the practice room to continue practicing.
His novel was steadily advancing the movie plot, which was originally a classic segment in entertainment novels, but it couldn’t withstand people overinterpreting it.
Now every day people came to the comment section to wail, just short of begging him not to let Zhou Mumu star in this movie…
Begging also had to queue up. What filming? He hadn’t even filmed Charlotte Troubles yet, how could he have time for others?
Yu Wei strongly suspected this group of Zhou Mumu fans were the type who said no but meant yes. They seemed not to want her to act, but actually came to submit resumes.
Think about it, and it comes true.
Yu Wei was too lazy to deal with them, typical persecution delusion syndrome. Who had time to obsess over them, really.
The final few days of rehearsals passed in a hurry, and on the day of the performance, Music Blind Box’s finale battle would kick off in the evening.
Inside the stadium, the final round of equipment checks was underway. The director of photography was leading the team to test the positions of fifteen camera shots, including one jib and two drone aerial positions.
“Audio team reporting, main sound system test complete, wireless microphone frequency calibration done.”
Hearing the voice from the intercom, director Cheng Xu finally nodded in satisfaction. Tonight’s performance would use 5.1 surround sound live broadcast; any technical flaw would be heard by the national audience.
He held a five-page performance process sheet in his hand, densely marked with time points and persons in charge for each segment.
Though saying so might seem pretentious, he saw variety shows as the meaning of life. For him and the program team, this performance could not afford any mistakes.
In the venue control room, the huge monitor wall switched between scenes from different angles.
Cheng Xu stared at the stage full view on the main screen, frowning slightly: “Increase the opening VCR brightness by another 0.5 notch. I want that feeling of breaking through the darkness.”
He ensured the program’s details were in place; as for the specific performance effects, it would depend on Yu Wei and the others…
In the backstage editing room, the post-production team had already begun preliminary screening of real-time material.
They needed to deliver the refined edition within two hours after the performance ended. Time was tight, and the director’s assistant had marked more than ten must-shoot shots, including audience reactions, artist close-ups, and stage full views.
Among them, there were six must-shoot shots on Yu Wei alone. His popularity was too high, everyone loved watching him, so they would naturally shoot more.
In the artist rest area, Yu Wei was eating with the civilian contestants. After eating, change into performance costumes, and there would be one final interlude practice.
“Don’t be nervous. If something goes wrong, it’s on me.”
Yu Wei really wasn’t taking on everything; if their program didn’t perform well, he definitely bore responsibility. Anyway, he had to take the blame, so better to show some accountability.
“It was going to be on you anyway; haters won’t curse us.” Qi Luo An picked up a piece of tofu from her bowl and gave it to him.
“If we don’t perform well, wait to be settled by the haters.”
Haters were like that: you could win countless times, but lose once, and you’d suffer big time.
Yu Wei didn’t mind. He believed everyone would perform well, no regrets was fine; whether he got cursed was a small matter.
At four in the afternoon, audiences began lining up outside the venue. Security personnel checked tickets and personal items one by one, guiding the crowd to enter orderly.
If Yu Wei were there, he would definitely spot many acquaintances. Qi Yuan, Zhang Lingye, Fei Hong and a few others were in the queue, clearly wanting to witness this finale battle.
Among them, Qi Yuan and Fei Hong had both participated in one episode of the program, counting as half internal members; only Zhang Lingye was a pure audience member.
“So why didn’t this program invite me?”
All of Yu Wei’s other little friends had gone up, but he hadn’t been invited from start to finish. Was he not worthy?
“Maybe afraid you’d fight with the civilian guest.”
Don’t look at Zhang Lingye being quite easygoing usually; he had a fiery temper, had cursed at fans and teammates, and previously when they fought, it was the other side who started it.
With this personality, running into a quirky civilian, wouldn’t they fight?
“Real or fake?”
Fei Hong nearby was clearly a bit curious. The world was so beautiful, yet brother Zhang was so irritable; not good, not good.
He had gotten to know the two during the Beijing role sea selection; all young artists, common language and soon became buddies.
“Nothing like that. I’m very easy to talk to.”
Zhang Lingye explained while giving Qi Yuan a look: I really beg you, don’t badmouth me in front of new friends.
The irritable stuff was all in the past. Who hadn’t been young? Now he was just a salted fish relying on brothers for meals.
Begging also had to queue up; they really were queuing.
After the final round of rehearsal ended, the performance officially entered the countdown.
In the control room, various departments began final reports: “Video material ready.” “Audio system normal.” “Lights program loaded.” “Live signal test passed.”
Total director Cheng Xu took a deep breath and spoke to all staff via the internal channel: “Everyone, enjoy this stage.”
This four-month program had finally reached its end; this was the ultimate stage the program team had prepared for a long time.
They would create new history!
At seven in the evening, the stadium was packed, glow sticks in the audience’s hands like a starry river, looking impressively grand.
The on-site director issued instructions via earpiece: “All departments prepare, opening one-minute countdown.”
The live broadcast started smoothly, entering the countdown segment under a wide-angle shot.
The audience area lights gradually dimmed, the crowd erupted in anticipatory cheers, and the on-site director began counting down: “Ten, nine, eight, three, two, one, opening!”
In an instant, a strong light broke through the darkness, the huge ring screen on stage lit up, playing highlights from this season’s program.
Rousing music sounded, twelve laser lights operated simultaneously, weaving a brilliant blind box pattern above the venue.
The program team really spared no effort; just this opening alone attracted everyone’s gaze. At least Yu Wei felt it had more spectacle than the capital concert.
At that time, the concert was indoors in the hall, so lights and effects were relatively restrained. Today, the program team was going all out to show off skills.
The host rose slowly from the center of the stage, voice resounding through the venue: “Dear audience friends, welcome to the on-site of Music Blind Box’s finale!”
The program didn’t jump straight into the star-civilian performance segment, but first invited other singers to warm up the crowd.
The opening performance singer appeared on stage, igniting the entire site with a chant. She was none other than Shen Yutong.
The program team invited two warm-up singers: one was Shen Yutong, the other Tong Yulu.
The reason for inviting them was simple: each had served as guest performers for two episodes, and besides the three regulars, these two had accompanied the program the longest.
Cold fireworks shot into the sky amid the audience’s screams, pushing the stadium atmosphere to its first climax.
“The first meeting if lingering, vows with wind blowing clouds rolling
Amid the years, ask what year it is tonight.”
The familiar chord intro flowed out, flute clear and high, guzheng lingering, instantly enveloping the site in a calm yet sorrowful ancient charm atmosphere.
This was Peach Blossom Promise. Shen Yutong began to chant, her voice unique and gentle, carrying the sadness of things remaining but people changed.
She finally got her wish, having the opportunity to sing this song…
Originally she planned to settle down for a while, but upon hearing it was the stadium ten thousand person venue, Shen Yutong agreed to the invitation without thinking.
All the past events, do you still remember?
To sing this song that made her anxious and reluctant to let go, on such a big stage for everyone to hear, she was very happy.
In the stands, Zhang Lingye patted Qi Yuan’s shoulder. Wasn’t this song selected by him? How did it end up with Shen Yutong?
“It’s all business.”
Qi Yuan had just paid in advance. Just didn’t know when the little sister would give him Yi Jian Mei; so anxious.
He really begged.
