In the end, they still couldn’t depart as quickly as planned.
Perhaps for the sake of program effects and convenient ad insertions during broadcast, the director always enjoyed speaking in half-sentences.
This left Li Jiao utterly speechless as she rode in an SUV from the Li Group—also the sponsor of this variety show—to the styling hotel prepared by the production team.
Chinese Style is never complete without Hanfu.
By the time Li Jiao actually stood at Xiehe Square, another two hours had passed since the draw concluded.
She had chosen a set of black martial attire. To keep the overall look from being too plain and make it more camera-friendly, the stylist used red wrist guards and a hair tie as accents.
Li Jiao shook her single ponytail. Though this type of outfit was what she used to wear most frequently, after just over a month, it already felt somewhat unfamiliar…
For once, she experienced a sense of being in a different lifetime.
“Are you ready?” Jing Shaoyin, wearing Tang-style Hanfu nearby, asked as he adjusted both his and Chen Lingxuan’s microphones.
Li Jiao snapped back to attention. Lightly hooking the spear on the ground with her toe, she made a seemingly effortless upward flick—yet the spear suddenly soared into the air before being firmly grasped in her hand.
This left Lin Ru, who had been closely observing behind the camera, utterly stunned.
Who could explain what kind of move that was?!
She had almost watched in dull-eyed despair as Li Jiao selected a martial outfit and picked up a spear, assuming she would just stand in the center of the square like a decorative guardian statue.
But now, Li Jiao’s fluid spear-kicking motion suddenly sparked a glimmer of hope in her. Could it be that Miss Li was unconventional—useless in other areas but specifically trained in martial arts?
Jing Shaoyin and Chen Lingxuan were also somewhat startled. However, since they usually avoided entertainment gossip and were unaware that “Li Jiao” had once been considered a decorative piece, and they themselves had been invited for their specialized skills, they simply assumed martial arts was Li Jiao’s talent.
Well, basic skills—no need for amazement.
The trio had already decided on their opening song during the journey.
It was a classic piece rich in martial arts essence.
In recent years, opera-style singing has been a popular element in Chinese Style, and this song included such a segment.
Thus, Jing Shaoyin was responsible for the opera-style vocals, while the rest was handled by Chen Lingxuan.
As the music began, Li Jiao kept her head lowered, gaze fixed on the spear tip, maintaining her initial posture without moving.
Chen Lingxuan’s low and resonant female voice, imbued with a martial world spirit, rose, the lyrics flowing smoothly from her tongue.
Li Jiao’s wrist shifted slightly, the sharp tip tracing a half-arc near her feet.
Chen Lingxuan, draped in a Song-style beizi and wearing a waist-high ruqun, had her sleeves fluttering and hair dancing in the wind. Combined with her unique voice, she began attracting lingering tourists.
As the song reached its climax, Li Jiao spun around, thrusting the spear forward. Following the ethereal and free-spirited line “splitting the sky,” a metallic “clang” echoed—the spear tip genuinely slicing through the air, stirring a gust of wind.
Immediately after, Jing Shaoyin’s high-pitched, intense, bright, and magnificent opera-style vocals resounded.
Li Jiao continuously shifted the spear’s position—the tip now soaring skyward, now striking the ground—her movements flowing seamlessly, every gesture exuding an aura of unrestrained elegance.
The crowd drawn to the scene grew larger, encircling them.
The blue-and-white porcelain bowl on the ground began accumulating a thin layer of banknotes.
The performance continued, one song transitioning to another, until the bowl was a quarter full of money.
The gramophone kept broadcasting exclamations of admiration in English from white people.
At this moment, Lin Ru felt as if she were walking on clouds, barely able to control her pounding heartbeat.
Why hadn’t Li Jiao told her earlier that she knew martial arts!
“So cool… just incredibly cool…” She couldn’t help but clasp her hands over her chest.
It was such a huge, enormous surprise…
Lin Ru felt that she had been utterly blind before!
“Woooooooow!!”
“What the fuck?!”
Suddenly, a wave of cheers erupted, and the entire square boiled with excitement.
“What happened?” Lin Ru snapped back to reality, but by then, the crowd had formed layers upon layers, and even standing on her tiptoes, she couldn’t see a thing.
“Damn, Sister Jiao is too strong…” The cameraman beside her couldn’t help but exclaim, his eyes glued to the viewfinder, even his form of address shifting to “Sister.”
“Kungfu! Really Chinese Kungfu!”
“Oh! Fuck! She really can fly!”
“That’s amazing…”
With one move from Li Jiao, bills kept pouring into the bowl.
Even Chen Lingxuan unconsciously forgot to sing, staring at her with admiration.
“One more! Do it again! Please! You are so cool!”
But Li Jiao ignored the audience’s requests, turning around to lightly tap Chen Lingxuan’s abdomen with the spear handle: “Snap out of it, it’s time for the next song.”
As the melody changed, the crowd felt a bit disappointed but eagerly anticipated what martial arts move Li Jiao would perform next.
Only Lin Ru had missed the scene, frantically pestering the cameraman like a headless fly to watch the replay.
In contrast to the smooth performance of Li Jiao’s trio, the four-person group on the other side was having a much rougher time.
To put it simply, it was two people carrying two useless statues who just stood there singing.
Although Zhang Xuan and Tina complemented each other perfectly—one with classical dance and the other with exotic moves—the accompanying musicians were too amateurish to attract distant tourists with their singing. No matter how elegant their dance, they could only rely on luck to catch the attention of passersby.
By the end of the afternoon, the money they had collected barely covered one-third of the blue-and-white porcelain bowl.
After dancing all afternoon, Zhang Xuan was already somewhat exhausted but forced herself to maintain flawless performance.
However, Lu Chexi began to crack his voice repeatedly.
When his voice broke for the third time in one song, Zhang Xuan’s expression visibly darkened.
Originally, the four of them took turns performing, with one singing and one dancing. But Lu Chexi, in an attempt to hog the spotlight, often sang along when Zhou Wenyuan was performing.
If he hadn’t made mistakes, it might have been tolerable, but Zhang Xuan simply couldn’t stand his sloppy performance ruining the entire act due to his selfish motives.
“I really don’t understand how someone can be so incompetent at everything and still act like it doesn’t matter.”
Another song came to an end.
Li Jiao looked at the bowl where banknotes were nearly overflowing, then twirled the long spear around her arm before planting it on the ground with a loud “Duang,” ready to call it a day.
“Can you perform that one more time? Please!” a young Chinese girl’s voice rang out from the crowd.
Li Jiao initially wanted to refuse—she was exhausted, after all!
But hearing the thunderous cheers, she couldn’t bring herself to turn them down.
Reluctantly, she picked up the spear again, her gaze sharpening instantly. A flash of cold light swept across the spectators’ eyes, followed by the spear thrusting forth like a dragon.
With a flick of her wrist and swift rotations of both hands, she twirled the spear behind her back in a flourish, then brought the spearhead down to the ground, sending sparks flying.
In a breathtaking moment, Li Jiao used the spear’s shaft as support to leap upward, soaring through the air as if gliding on wings. She spun mid-air before landing gracefully.