The next day was bright and sunny.
According to the production team of 《Heart-Pounding Idol》, all the contestants were required to check into the idol house arranged by the program before five in the afternoon to carry out some pre-recording preparations, such as assigning rooms.
Although the show had not officially begun filming yet, taking advantage of the fact that its popularity was still fairly high, the production team thoughtfully arranged for three well-known hosts from the industry to sit indoors and livestream their commentary. Throughout the stream, they commented on the outfits, makeup, and even the items carried by the contestants as they arrived one by one.
After the commentary, the contestant would also be invited into the three hosts’ livestream room, where they would be asked related questions and receive preliminary assistance in polishing their personal profiles, so that fans could gain a more comprehensive understanding of the idol they wanted to pick.
Such a large-scale livestream had actually already started at eight in the morning.
However, in the Yanjing division of 《Heart-Pounding Idol》, there were fifty contestants who advanced from the preliminary round to the semifinals alone, both male and female. To prevent the contestants from all appearing at once and disrupting the livestream, the time listed in each contestant’s notification text message was different.
Jiang Mian’s scheduled time was five in the afternoon, which should be considered part of the very last group.
This was mainly thanks to the trending topic she had before the show’s recording. Using a high-traffic contestant as the finale was simply the most normal thing in the world.
At five in the afternoon, the sun had not yet set. It still hung in the west like a fully ripened orange, scattering brilliant golden light across the ground.
It was under such a setting that Jiang Mian stood in front of the main gate of the idol house.
“All right, let’s take a look at the next contestant. This is impressive. The next contestant is none other than Jiang Mian, the contestant who trended just the day before yesterday!”
“I wonder what kind of outfit Contestant Jiang has chosen for her first appearance today?”
“Exactly, I’m really looking forward to it too. I wonder if the fans in the livestream are excited as well!”
Almost the moment Jiang Mian’s name was spoken by the three mentors, netizens who had already been watching the livestream for several hours and had even logged out multiple times in between were instantly fired up.
Bullet comments instantly flooded the screen:
[Ahhh, she’s here, she’s here! My picked treasure girl is finally here! I’ve been waiting all day for her. I’ve never watched a livestream for this long before, my eyes are practically going blind. I really didn’t expect her to be the very last one to appear. Wuwuwu!]
[Treasure girl? Isn’t she the little goofball?]
[Hahahahaha, what do I do? I’ve developed a condition where I can’t help laughing every time I hear the name Jiang Mian!]
[I’m so excited. I wonder what our Mianmian will be wearing today? Will it be the same white little dress as in the preliminaries? Ahhh, Mianmian, I’m a face-value fan of yours!]
…
The noisy surge of bullet comments surprised even the three commentators. This was impressive. They had heard that this Jiang Mian was not a contestant sent by any major entertainment company. Before trending on hot searches, she could be said to have been completely unknown, just an ordinary third-year student at Yanjing Film Academy.
Who would have thought that a single preliminary round would already make her so popular that she broke out of the circle?
What was this called again? A small hit depends on promotion, a big hit depends on fate?
However, whether this contestant Jiang could seize this opportunity and continue to become truly popular would still depend on her subsequent performance. There were far too many fleeting stars in the entertainment industry.
Just at that moment, Jiang Mian pushed open the main door of the idol house.
As the door opened on the broadcast feed, the three commentators had already raised polite smiles at the corners of their mouths.
Very quickly, Jiang Mian appeared before their eyes.
Bare-faced, a ponytail, jeans, a white T-shirt, and in her hand, she was still carrying a red, white, and blue plastic bag.
No need to doubt it. It was the same one she had used to trap Zhai Feiyang last time. Jiang Mian was putting it to use again instead of throwing it away.
With this entire outfit, if it were not for her exquisitely fairy-like face and her slender, delicate figure holding it up, this segment would probably have collapsed completely.
Even if it did not fully collapse, the three commentators indoors, who had been rubbing their hands together in anticipation of giving their critique, were already at a loss for words.
After all, this was her first appearance!
This contestant Jiang, was it really all right for her to look like a country girl coming into the city?
Among all the previous contestants, whether it was hanfu style or Lolita style, setting those aside, at the very least everyone else had put on makeup and done some kind of styling.
Who was like this one…
What made people feel even more stifled was that, with so many people ahead of her and so many different outfits, none of them had brought as much astonishment as this one did with her completely bare face.
Don’t ask. If you asked, the answer was simply that her looks could hold up.
They were truly strong enough.
It was not just strength in terms of facial features. There was also her temperament. The longer one looked, the more one would unconsciously be drawn to her as a whole. The aura she gave off while walking was more like that of a general clad in armor, valiant and heroic, inspecting territory she had personally conquered.
She clearly had a face that should have belonged to a pure, delicate little white flower, yet her bearing gave people a sense of commanding dominance, an androgynous kind of beauty that blurred the line between male and female.
“Is it just my imagination? I always feel like the one walking toward us isn’t Contestant Jiang, but a cheetah strolling leisurely across the grasslands.”
“Oh my god, Teacher Zhang, you just voiced exactly what I was thinking. I don’t know much about the rest, but when it comes to the sense of conviction in every gesture, Contestant Jiang probably has the strongest presence among all these contestants. She’s like a born star. She really gives me the feeling of a top-tier celebrity. Even though what she’s wearing is very… um… there’s still this force that hits you head-on. I don’t even know how to describe it. Anyway, I’m very optimistic about Contestant Jiang!”
It was a good thing Jiang Mian did not hear this mentor’s description. Otherwise, she would definitely have felt smug. ‘As expected of me.’
After all, back when she was at the NO. 1 Base, every time she went out to fight zombies or returned from scavenging for supplies, crowds of people would gather on both sides of the road to watch her whenever she passed through the city gates. Over so many years, Jiang Mian had long since trained herself in how to walk with presence, with momentum, with an air that was gentle yet carried undeniable authority.
And with just this walk of hers, it was not only the three teachers responsible for commentary who felt her extraordinary temperament. Even the bullet comments began buzzing with discussion.
[Oh my god, does someone really exist who can win fans just by walking? And her aura is so strong!]
[It’s over, it’s over. Judging by this vibe, it doesn’t look like this girl is going down the goofy route anymore. My happiness, snap, it’s gone.]
[No, look at the red, white, and blue plastic bag she’s carrying. I actually think she’s going to stick to this path all the way to the end. Hahahaha!]
…
Just walking down the path was enough to set the bullet comments ablaze. Jiang Mian, under all this heated discussion, finally followed the signs along the way and arrived at the livestream room where the three mentors were waiting.
“Welcome, welcome! Welcome, Contestant Jiang Mian!”
“By the way, Contestant Jiang Mian, could you tell us why you chose this particular outfit today?”
One of the teachers asked as a matter of routine.
Hearing this, Jiang Mian set down the red, white, and blue plastic bag in her hand and subconsciously glanced down at herself. “Huh? Oh. I don’t have many clothes. The others are still wet from washing and haven’t dried yet, so I just wore this set!”
Bullet comments instantly exploded:
[Hahahaha, what the hell do you mean, washed but not dry?]
[Teacher Zhang Qin: Good lord, you’ve completely stumped me!]
Indeed, among the three mentors, the only female mentor, Zhang Qin, was genuinely taken aback by Jiang Mian’s plainspoken and down-to-earth answer.
“Th-that’s so? That’s quite nice. It shows that our comrade Jiang is someone who lives very simply. Ha, haha, hahaha…”
Zhang Qin let out a couple of awkward laughs.
“Right, Contestant Jiang. According to the program’s rules, we need to ask you a few questions so that netizens can gain a more comprehensive understanding of you. Is that okay?”
“No problem.”
Jiang Mian was extremely easygoing.
“Alright then. May I ask, Contestant Jiang, what are you usually good at? I mean talents.”
“Talents?”
“Yes.”
Hearing this, Jiang Mian lowered her head and began to think.
Then she lifted her head with confidence and started counting on her fingers. “Hand-chopping bricks, smashing stones on my chest, going into an oil pot with my bare hands…”
The three mentors: “…”
Bullet comments: “…”
“Is is there a talent that’s a little less dangerous?”
One of the mentors hurriedly cut off Jiang Mian’s dangerous remarks.
“Less dangerous? Then exhuming graves and performing rituals. I can draw a few talismans too. I can write funeral couplets. I know a bit of qigong, I’m not very good at fortune-telling, meditation is decent, and as for exorcising ghosts, that might be a bit difficult…”
Jiang Mian spoke with a completely serious expression.
The three mentors: “…”
Bullet comments: “…”
“This sounds a bit like things a Taoist priest would know!”
“Huh, how did you know? My master is a Taoist priest. I fully inherited his teachings!”
Jiang Mian looked delighted.
The three mentors: “…”
Bullet comments: “…”
She really was not lying. In another world, from the moment she was born, she had been abandoned at the entrance of her master’s dilapidated Taoist temple.
The old man was kind-hearted. Even seeing that she was a girl, he still raised her.
But perhaps she was cursed by misfortune. In the second year after she arrived at the temple, the old man’s ramshackle Taoist temple collapsed. One old and one young, with no money to their name, they could only drift about with no fixed place to live.
The old man made a living by handling funerals for others, telling fortunes, and drawing talismans, and that was how he supported her.
Later, as she grew older, because he was afraid people would gossip about an old Taoist priest raising a girl, the old man dressed her as a boy from a very young age. This was also the main reason she had never grown her hair long.
Things like smashing stones on her chest and chopping bricks with her hands were all things she had done back when she and the old man were together, especially during times when they could barely afford their next meal.
But more often, she followed the old man to rural areas to relocate graves and conduct rituals. Those times were actually the happiest for Jiang Mian, because when villages held funerals, the food was completely at the disposal of Taoist priests like them. She ate to her heart’s content, to the point of sheer satisfaction.
It had already been mentioned before that she was cursed with misfortune.
And sure enough, just as the old man had finally managed to raise her to adulthood, the apocalypse arrived.
When the apocalypse came, the old man was infected by the virus and turned into a zombie.
She remembered that back then, she had kept that old zombie around for almost a year. Who would have thought it would end up being swallowed in one bite by a passing brute of a zombie. That damned thing. She hunted it down for years, watching with her own eyes as it grew step by step into a zombie emperor.
Jiang Mian had never received much of a proper education growing up, but at the very least, she remembered one thing clearly. If someone wronged you, you had to take revenge.
And so, before transmigrating to this world, she had dragged that sneaky bastard down with her in mutual destruction.
She did not harbor any lofty ideals about saving humanity. She only knew one thing. If you ate something that belonged to her, you had better spit it back out.
That was Jiang Mian.
“Ahem, ahem, ahem…”
Under the weight of such overwhelming shock, it was ultimately Zhang Qin, one of the mentors, who recovered first. After a bout of violent coughing, she completely gave up on letting Contestant Jiang Mian describe her own talents and instead chose to phrase it as a guided question.
“Well, um, Contestant Jiang Mian, our program rejects feudal superstition and adheres to the scientific outlook on development. Those talents of yours, we probably won’t be able to let you demonstrate them…”
“D-do you know how to dance? Latin, classical, even ballet. These are more ordinary and conventional talents. As long as you know any of them, the production team would have a chance to let you showcase them!”
Zhang Qin worked hard to steer their conversation back onto the proper track.
Hearing this, Jiang Mian’s brows suddenly knit together. “Dancing, huh…”
She dragged out the last word, but her eyes quickly lit up.
“Dancing probably won’t work for me, but dancing… spirit-invoking dances, would that be okay? I’m really good at inviting the Supreme Lord Laozi!”[1]Supreme Lord Laozi (太上老君) is a deified form of Laozi, the legendary founder of Taoism. In Taoist belief, he is regarded as one of the highest celestial beings and is often invoked during … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1735465_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1735465_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });
Jiang Mian looked delighted.
The three mentors: “…”
Bullet comments: “…”
Song Qichen, who was also watching the livestream: “…pfft.”
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