Four coaches entered the stage!

Three men and one woman. There were Brother Haha, Hong Na, Yan Kun, and Wang Qing.

They entered the stage from a special access tunnel. Naturally, people cleared a path for them as they came in, which made for quite an impressive entrance.

In a moment, the entire audience boiled with excitement. Countless people started to cheer, shouting out the names of the four coaches. Quite a number of the audience were also crying tears of joy. The teary scenes were expertly captured by the camera.

Hearing the excited cheers and shouts, the participants in the backstage area got even more nervous.

Their hearts were pounding, looking around anxiously.

The emcee reminded them, "Make sure you pick your songs properly. We'll prepare the music for you guys. You're to get on the stage one by one as your names are called. We'll go through this again later if the coach requests for you to sing another song later."

Having said that, he quickly rushed onto the stage.

He first introduced the four coaches on the stage, then gave some rousing speech to pump up the audience. Following that, the competition begins!

"Singer number one, Chen Li."

Right as he finished announcing, a girl in a red dress walked out from the backstage fabulously. She put on a calm smile as she stood in front of the mic at the center of the stage.

"Greetings dear judges. I'm Chen Li, currently a third-year university student. I've loved to sing since I was young and my dream is to be a singer. All these while, I would take part in my school's annual…"

Brother Haha waved his hand, cutting her off immediately, "Just sing."

Chen Li nodded, then answered, "Okay. The song I'm singing is Jasmine."

The music started and Chen Li cleared her throat before singing, "Jasmine blooms, so beautiful so white. This is the season that we will leave…1"

Her melody was on point, but perhaps due to nervousness, there was a hint of trembling in her voice that led to some parts being out of tune. Fortunately, she was able to quickly adjust her tune.

As the song ended, the audience gave a rather unimpressed reaction as the performance was not outstanding.

"Your voice is good for singing, but your technique still needs polishing," Brother Haha commented, then a bright red X lit up, motioning to disqualify her.

"I agree with Brother Haha's comments," Yan Kun joined in, similarly lighting up a red X.

Wang Qing did not say anything and lit up the red X.

"Next," Hong Na spoke, giving another red X!

The first contestant was disqualified.

The second contestant was a man, performing the song Liang Liang.1

The results were similar to the song's title, a lost cause.

The third, fourth, fifth…

There were some outstanding contestants during the competition which resulted in droves of cheers. They then entered the next round.

"Next, we have the currently trending female singer! She's successfully turned from an internet celebrity to stardom. I believe everyone's waited for this for some time! Our next contestant is...Chen Xiaoyan!" The emcee announced, "Let's welcome her with some applause!"

"Chen Xiaoyan, do your best!"

"Ahhh! Chen Xiaoyan I love you!"

"I love Chen Xiaoyan. We're your morning light…"

Morning light was the name that Chen Xiaoyan's fans gave themselves as Chen Xiaoyan struck out with the song Chaser of the Light.

Placards with lights spelling out Chen Xiaoyan's name were raised by the audience, waving left and right. Quite a number of people stood up as well, waving the glow sticks in their hands and cheering loudly.

From that, it showed how popular she was!

It could be said that in the audience, apart from those that attended the show because of the four judges, the remainders were all here because of Chen Xiaoyan.

"Yo ho! It seems that we have a very promising junior here today!" Brother Haha said. However, once he saw Chen Xiaoyan getting on the stage, he was shocked once more and said jokingly, "Not only that, she's also a rare beauty."

"So she's the one that quickly spread across TikTok throughout the country, Chen Xiaoyan? The younger generations are full of talents." Wang Qing added as well.

"The recent mysterious and sensational Y wrote a song for her. I guess she's considered lucky." Yan Kun looked at Hong Na who was silent all the while beside him, then added, "Miss Na, she's the one that many speculate to be the next Music Queen after you. What do you think?"

Hong Na's face was devoid of emotions. "That would depend on her live performance."

Chen Xiaoyan was ready on the stage, courteously bowing to the audience. Her gaze swept through the audience, looking a little dismayed as she was unable to locate Y.

"Thank you everyone for your love and support. The song I'll be performing is Chaser of the Light!"

Her words gave everyone a mild shock. 'Showing off everything she has on the first song?'

Chaser of the Light was without a doubt Chen Xiaoyan's trump card. Most importantly it was an original work. Most people would save that for the finals, yet she was using it for just the preliminary round. That was too reckless!

Only Chen Xiaoyan knew the reason she chose that song was to show it to that man.

That was a song he wrote for her. Since he was there, then she would have to sing it for him no matter the consequences!

"If you said you were fireworks on the sea,

I'd be the foam on the waves,

Your light suddenly illuminated me.

If you said you were the distant galaxy…"

A mystical voice befell them, causing the audience to slowly quiet down and all that was left was Chen Xiaoyan's voice.

For most in the audience, it was not their first time listening to this song, yet they did not tire from listening to it, but instead were quickly immersed in the song.

Some were even moved to tears, crying like a fountain. The scene was coincidentally captured by the cameraman and was given a closeup.

Finally, the song came to an end.

"My song has ended. Thank you." Chen Xiaoyan then bowed once again.

"Ahhh! It's so good. I didn't expect it to be this good listening live. It's so much better!"

"Sob sob sob, as morning light, I really can't stop myself from crying."

"It's like the song is tailor-made for Chen Xiaoyan. Such a heavenly sound!"

"Why sing it now? If saved for the finals, she would surely place first!"

…

The audience was captivated by Chen Xiaoyan. That effect was only achievable by top-notch singers.

"Good! It seems she's a hit for a reason." Brother Haha slammed the red tick. Pass!

"I can feel our age catching up to us. It's true that the next generation will replace the old!" Wang Qing lamented, similarly giving a red tick!

"If this doesn't make it through, then nothing makes sense anymore." Yan Kun also chose the red tick. He then commented, "Your sound is as beautiful as you are. Furthermore, your technique is quite good. In the future—"

"Decent technique? I don't think so!" A dissonant sound came through, cutting off Yan Kun.

In an instant, all eyes were focused on Hong Na.

"I'll admit that this song was a decent performance. However, that's only limited to this song!" Hong Na's face was filled with a vicious look, carrying an air of arrogance. She then continued, "This song is her original. Of course it would suit her. Up until now, I have not heard her try to sing any other songs. I can't judge her technique with this alone. However, for her to start with her best song, does that mean that she feels insecure?!"

…

—

Dear readers, due to the difficulty of translating rhyming lyrics, we will use the meaning of the lyrics rather than having something that would fit the tune. Some parts of the lyrics may contain English words so we decided to just keep the English portion untouched.涼涼 (Liang / cold / cool x2) - Liang Liang is the title of the postlude for a famous Chinese drama (Eternal Love). For background purposes: In the Chinese online gaming community, they would usually say 涼了涼了 (Cooled/chilled) when they died. The term most likely came from 尸體都涼了 (My corpse is cold). With the popularity of the song Liang Liang, someone eventually made a reference by shortening 涼了涼了(Liang Le Liang Le) to 涼涼 (Liang Liang) and thus the term was coined, forever linking this song with being dead/gone case.