Surprise! The Supposed Talent Show Was Actually–?!

Chapter 143 - Entertainment Variety Show

translator: xiin

editors: apricot & juurensha

Wu Jin was surprised.

After expressing his thanks and hanging up, he made a direct call to the Crosson logistics team.

“Oh, Little Witch, you left something in your bedroom?” The team helped Wu Jin apply for permission to operate the service robot.

Wu Jin used the terminal as a remote control to direct the robot into his bedroom. The dry and warm health care pillow was covered with a fragrant pillowcase after having been washed and was lying there quietly on the bed.

Outside the bedroom, the little Pterosaur that was waiting for the pet store to come pick it up flew in, chattering and greeting the robot. It stopped at the head of the bed with its head tilted, and then began its daily visit with Brother Rabbit.

Wu Jin directed the robot to hand the dried out pillow to the little Pterosaur.

The little Pterosaur glanced at it and wasn’t interested, continuing to visit happily with Brother Rabbit.

The pillow...

Wu Jin thought quickly. The service robot had changed the bedding a few days ago, and all the fabric had passed through the washing machine. The little Pterosaur’s hostility towards the pillow had disappeared after that. On the 7th floor of the South Tower in Crosson Base, the players’ private items were washed every Thursday.

That meant that the problem with the pillow had taken place after last Thursday and before the players had returned back to their dorms on Saturday.

The biggest suspect was the scheming black cat in the dorm...

Wu Jin cut off contact with the robot and called the Crosson logistics team again.

“A pet fight? No problem! Which days does Little Witch want to see the bedroom monitoring for? I’ll sort it out for you and send it to you in the evening...”

The bus floated up slowly into the air.

There was a lot of noise by his ears. Ming Yao and Caesar had taken over the back of the bus and were passionately singing karaoke, with many other trainees following suit. Taking advantage of Ming Yao’s wailing and howling, Caesar lifted up Wu Jin, happily hauling along a speaker box, “Little Witch, stand up! Come and sing, come and sing...”

The scenery outside the window changed rapidly.

The suburbs were green and lush, with robots working hard on growing plants and farming. When they entered the downtown area, the population density increased sharply.

The Snow Leopard Entertainment building that hosted <Go! Popular Youth> was located in the city center hundreds of kilometers away. The transportation reform and development of the network in the 31st century had caused urban planning to switch to having multiple city centers, greatly improving the economic and ecological performance of developed areas. The city was prosperous without suffering from overcrowding.

When the group of trainees jumped out of the bus like dumplings pouring out, one after another, they discovered that there was a large circle of vehicles parked near the entrance.

“Director, why did other guests come with minivans while the 90 of us all crowded into a bus?” Ming Yao noticed the difference with a glance.

The program producer pulled out his loudspeaker, “They are artists! They are incredibly delicate and expensive. What’ll they do if they’re knocked about and shatter into pieces? Remember, no fighting is allowed on the program. You should be careful when participating in the game. Especially when it comes to those lead dancers and singers of the boy groups. Don’t think that they’re like you just because they have abs. If you break them, can you perform in their place? ...”

After the program producer finished his speech, he waved and called up a stage manager to come and line up the trainees.

At this time, the sun overhead was fierce, and there were many people beneath the open sky. Other contestants had sunglasses and masks on as they hid in the shade beneath the trees, while the trainees who’d arrived last could only find places to squat by the road.

There was an endless stream of brokers and assistants from various entertainment companies. When they glanced at the roadside by chance, the first thing they saw was Red, who had stripped down to a wifebeater. The tattoo on his back extended up to his neck, and half of his roots had grown out, leaving his hair half black and half red. It was almost too horrible to look at.

He was basically just short of a sign on his face that said, ‘doesn’t contribute to society’.

Soon, nobody paid any attention to the scene.

For the sake of entertainment on the program, the invited guests didn’t know each other’s identities. All of them were trainees, bloggers, or small internet celebrities, and it was difficult to know who was who.

Zoe went out for a walk and stared at Wu Jin for a long time when he came back, “... Little Witch, don’t squat with them over there.”

Caesar, Red, and Qin Jinbao were all crouched over there with their aggressive auras. The staff had to walk around them out of consideration for their own safety. It was only Wu Jin who looked particularly out of place among this crowd, like a clever and obedient little white rabbit crouching in the grass.

Wu Jin stood up and patted the grass off his butt.

From nearby, a broker’s line of sight swept over and paused suddenly. They were surprised and curious as they looked at Wu Jin, who was clearly a person who could be a potential rival to their own artist.

Zoe: “...Forget it, Little Witch, you’d better squat.”

Half an hour later, the variety show recording team finally started calling out numbers. The invited guests entered in batches and were organized by the full-time personnel in order to eliminate the possibility of the participants communicating with each other before the shooting began.

Thin Fire pondered, “What’s going on?”

Qin Jinbao was very imaginative, “A big brawl? The survival show contestants deal damage while those who can sing chant magic from the back, and those who can dance are support druids, and that skrskrkr one...”

Wu Jin: “Rap!”

Qin Jinbao: “Oh, rap. That’s an non-differentiating attack. Those who hear it will have their heads explode and slow down––”

Program producer: “Enough, enough! Line up, line up. The top 20 follow the director, and the rest of the trainees come with me!”

On the top floor of the Snow Leopard Building, the program team was making final adjustments, “There are 36 artist trainees, 12 supermodels, 16 star singers, and finally... there are 20 people from the Crosson Show. This is the list of players.”

“OK. Ready to go.”

All the guests for the <Popular Youth> program group had all arrived. Even Wei Shi, who was usually skulking around, stood there at the end of the line.

Over 100 people arrived at the recording hall, and the order of the queue was completely disrupted. The program team checked everyone one after another to ensure that they had turned off the communication function on their terminals.

When every guest contestant’s terminal screen was grey, their host, Chen Ge, appeared.

“Welcome to <Go! Popular Youth>.”

“There are 125 guests in the venue. You will all be randomly divided into 25 five-person teams that will compete to win the game over the next two days and two nights.”

“Amongst you are hip-hop rookies, future idols, professional survival show trainees, live-streaming talents, sports kings, and supermodels.”

“––However, only a few people know who you are.”

“From now on for the next 48 hours, you will be cut off from all networks and communication channels. Only logical reasoning and keen insight will lead you to victory during the recording of this program.”

“Every morning, your team will be assigned tasks. If you complete all the tasks, you will be promoted as a team. If you fail, you will be eliminated.”

There was an instant uproar from the guests.

The host Chen Ge added, “Of course, there are also benefits.”

“Every night, the first and second ranked groups can challenge any lower ranked team and decide the content of the challenge. The five team members can take turns to solo. It can be dance, a rap battle, singing, a virtual competition, or even live combat.”

“Failure will result in the elimination of the entire team.”

Wu Jin’s eyes shifted.

At this time, many of the trainees had already realized. Solo matches were more dangerous than the tasks themselves.

If there were three survival show trainees in a 5 man team, they could definitely choose ‘close combat’ as the theme for their solo. Similarly, if they had strong dancers, a dance fight was the best choice.

However, only two teams were given the opportunity to challenge.

From a probability perspective, the possibility of being challenged was far higher than challenging someone else. In order to protect themselves, each team must hide the weaknesses of their members or even go so far as to hide their identities.

“During the program, the players are not allowed to reveal their identities to anyone outside of the program.”

“Next, will the first player come up to draw their teammates.”

The stage suddenly lit up, the magnesium lamps landing in the middle of the curtain. The serial numbers rotated and changed, and the brilliant white light made Wu Jin’s blood boil, his gaze dazzled.

The players took turns drawing cards. By the time Wu Jin returned to his seat, he held the number ‘12’ in his palm.

“Please join your teammates with the same number.”

A stretch of silence unfurled in the studio. Wu Jin hadn’t yet stood up when a contestant with eyeshadow, eyeliner and high-shine lip gloss suddenly stretched out a hand, “Nice to meet you. I’m Ah Yuan from team 16, a model.”

Wu Jin shook his hand and smiled like a fox, “Nice to meet you. Wu Jin from team 12, a virtual game anchor.”

Ah Yuan paused. His palms brushed against Wu Jin’s calluses, and he seemed to turn thoughtful.

Wu Jin spoke honestly, “FPS shooting game anchor.”

The two of them met and parted amicably.

10 minutes later, Wu Jin finally found his teammates amongst the vast sea of people. Looking around, the 20 survival trainees from the Crosson Show had all been assigned to 20 different groups. It was obvious that this so-called ‘randomness’ had been adjusted by the program team.

His extremely keen hearing captured the conversation between Ah Yuan and his teammates among the crowd, “That little white rabbit in team 12, you can tell that he’s a reserve idol just from looking at his face, but I don’t know which program he’s from. He lied to me and said that he was a game anchor, but he doesn’t look that good...”

Wu Jin: “.......!” Just looking at your lip gloss is enough to know that you’re a boy group trainee, okay?!

By the time he focused again, his own four teammates had already finished introducing themselves and were all looking at Wu Jin.

Wu Jin smiled politely and showed his cards frankly, “Wu Jin, Crosson survival show trainee––”

“Stop.” One of them frowned coldly, “I think that trust is the basis for cooperation in our team of five.”

Wu Jin was stunned: “......”

The man interrogated him quickly, “How old were you when you were found by a star scout.”

Wu Jin: “Eight-eighteen?”

That person continued with a barrage of questions, “Which key can you reach with your real voice? Can you perform a back somersault? Have you ever written your own flow? Can you fight in a freestyle battle?”

Wu Jin was honest, “Real, real voice’s high pitch is a little short of G4. Back somersault is fine, and flow is so-so. I can sing hooks and melodic rap, but my freestyle isn’t very good...”

The person made a sound of acknowledgement and concluded, “Boy group dancer.”

Wu Jin: “......”

That person spoke proudly, “An artist trainee, for sure. If you aren’t, then just now your first sentence should’ve been to ask me ‘what is real voice?’. If you can’t go up to G4, you can’t be a vocalist, and your muscle explosive power must be okay to do a back somersault. If your flow is so-so, then you can’t rap.”

The other three looked at him reverently, “Brother Fan is really amazing!”

“!!!” Wu Jin quickly tried to correct his reputation, “Why couldn’t I be a lead dancer of a boy group!”

That Brother Fan retorted, “You’re so silly, how could you be the lead dancer?!”

Wu Jin: “......”

Brother Fan raised his chin, “Alright. It’s not a mistake to team up with me. In that case, I’ll be the captain. Mm. I’m also the captain in my own team. Are there any objections? What’s your name, Wu Jin? You look young; I’ll call you Little Witch. With you here and counting myself, it’ll be hard for us to lose any solo based on appearance. Alright, come with me and we’ll go wait for the tasks––”

Wu Jin made a final struggle, “But I’m really a survival show trainee––”

The four of them all looked at Wu Jin with amusement in their gazes.

Brother Fan spread his hands, “Look, who believes you?”

Off-site, after the guests were cut off from the network, the current participation list for <Go! Popular Youth> was finally released to the public.

The fans of the boy group trainees arrived at the scene almost immediately. They held up banners and created flower walls, and support signs could be seen shining in the sun.

The fans of the survival show that had been suspended for two months were two hours late in seeing the announcement.

“......” The fans were all stunned, “Look at what I found? The program producer finally released this group of straight men from the factory?!!”

“Wait a minute, how come my son/husband doesn’t have any support material? How do we support them? Hey, it’s my first time watching a survival show player on an entertainment program. I don’t know how to do it! In the past, in order to support a trainee, we just needed to go to the forum and talk about who should take the blame, who can deal with the pressure, and it was enough. Now, we even have to go and make banners?!”

“Are banners useful? I can make a fluorescent PPT to promote my idol slide by slide. Isn’t that better than a banner?”

“Also, what’s the process for visiting? Can we go directly, or do we go in directly, or will we go in directly...”

Some of the fans, who chased after stars, finally couldn’t watch on anymore and quickly organized the scattered supporters on the forums, “Don’t go alone, don’t go alone! The open visit time for <Popular Youth> is tomorrow afternoon. If you want to go to the support station and sign up, darlings, don’t forget to pay for the support materials yourself. The support station will raise funds, but the visiting gifts shouldn’t be expensive. The quota of places is less than 100...”

The Crosson forum exploded.

“We can give gifts? Aahhh I want to give little brother Caesar a roast lamb! Watching him get his food confiscated by Captain Zoe every day makes me so heartbroken!”

“Ahhhh! I want to give Little Thin a kiss! He’s not allowed to refuse!”

“I want to go there––damn, I’ve waited for so long, and the program group is finally willing to let Little Witch out! Sisters, let’s charge!! We can cheer Little Witch on site! Support Little Witch!”

......

Snow Leopard Entertainment building entrance.

The 125 players were all crammed together.

For the first round’s task card distribution, the team leader of team 12, Zhuang Fan, personally went over to pick up the card.

There was a lot of noise outside as the crew politely refused visitors.

By the time Zhuang Fan came back, he had a puzzled look in his eyes, “Who is shouting outside? Something about dealing with witches––”

Wu Jin didn’t understand what he meant, and everyone else also expressed that they didn’t know.

Zhuang Fan nodded and unwrapped the card.

Their task for the first round was written on the paper.

Zhuang Fan breathed out slowly, “It’s not bad, a common thing in variety shows. Before 4PM, go to the northern suburbs of the city and earn 100 credits. The conditions are––”

Zhuang Fan’s eyes suddenly opened wide, “What?!”

Juurensha: ....poor Little Witch, none of these idols think you’re a survival show contestant!

xiin: this arc is fun~ light hearted and fun <3