The recording for the first stage of Idol 101 was about to begin—
In the waiting room backstage, the atmosphere was bright and imposing, yet thick with an lingering tension and anxiety.
Young men, stylishly dressed with diverse styles, moved about. The strain on their faces was impossible to hide as they diligently warmed up or took deep breaths to calm their nerves.
“Hey, check if my makeup is smudged?”
“It’s fine, it’s fine! We’re about to perform, and my throat feels so tight, ahem ahem!”
This was currently Asia’s biggest talent show, bringing together one hundred trainees from thirty to forty different companies.
In this fierce competition to chase dreams, only nine individuals would successfully debut.
The show had also invited three formidable mentors, each responsible for vocals, dance, and rap respectively.
Each one was a top professional in their field.
The moment the lineup was announced, it exploded across the entire internet.
Many contestants were there not only to compete but also for a chance to see their idols in person. Unable to sit still in the waiting room, they kept bouncing around.
“Ahhh! I’m about to see my goddess any second now, I can’t calm down at all!”
“I’m so nervous! I didn’t even hear what the staff asked me just now; I just gave a random answer. Hope it doesn’t get broadcast!”
A staff member responsible for the pre-show interview, holding a live streaming device, suddenly noticed a person in the corner.
This individual sat leaning back on the sofa, perfectly calm and relaxed. Unfazed, unhurried, and devoid of tension, he took a composed sip of the Vitamin C iced drink sponsored by the production team.
His face was hidden in the shadows; all that could be seen were his long, straight legs casually crossed—their beautiful proportions strikingly eye-catching.
The staff member was taken aback by this sense of ease.
Anyone who didn’t swarm for camera time must either be a big shot or a complete unknown. With no one beside him and not wearing any high-end designer labels, the latter seemed more likely.
Hoping to just meet their KPIs, the live camera, broadcasting to the entire network, gradually closed in on the corner—
Staff member: “Contestant, what do you think is the most important thing about participating in this show?”
Before the camera could capture his face clearly, a voice like jade shattering in the Kunlun mountains rang out:
“I believe…”
Just then, Yun Yueming sat up straighter, gradually coming into the camera’s view. He had a strikingly handsome face so bright it was almost dazzling. He offered a slight smile, and for a moment, even the air around him seemed to freeze.
“…is an unquenchable passion for dreams.”
His voice was steady, unhurried.
The live camera jolted violently.
“——!”
Everyone, including the online audience, unexpectedly found themselves tumbling into his bright, smiling eyes.
Clear, beautiful, breathtakingly stunning.
With a naturally warm and expressive face, he could elicit three extra points of fondness from anyone with just a single glance.
In a place thick with heavy makeup and powder, Yun Yueming’s appearance felt like suddenly plunging into the water of a clear, refreshing, azure lake.
It brought a sheer transparency and comfort to the mind and body.
The bullet comments instantly erupted—
[Which younger brother is this??? I declare all my votes belong to him!]
[His little mouth is mumbling something, can we just start kissing already?]
[WTF, what kind of ultimate model-esque face is this? So lively, so charming, yet so pure!!]
[Nice voice, quick-witted too, doesn’t seem like the typical uneducated idol. I think I’m starting to fall for him…]
If not for the sudden interview, the other contestants hadn’t noticed Yun Yueming in the corner either.
While stunned by his beauty, a wave of crisis also arose.
“Damn, which company’s ace is that? He’s glowing!”
“Look at his name tag, he’s an independent trainee. That definitely means he’s a dark horse hiding his talents, must be a real pro!”
“With a face like that, the big companies would be fighting over him, right!?”
“I feel like I’m about to be eliminated before we’ve even started!”
Yun Yueming, however, wasn’t nervous at all. In fact, he was enjoying himself.
Because this was the easiest job he’d ever had.
There was Wi-Fi, cold drinks, and air conditioning.
All he had to do was talk nonsense with a straight face!
Awesome!!!
Does a happy dance .jpg
After all, just a week ago, he had been standing in front of a newly opened shopping mall, wearing a heavy mascot costume, handing out flyers under the scorching sun.
Diligent and hardworking, enduring without complaint.
Completely clueless about what a boy band survival show even was—
Thinking back to those days, Yun Yueming was once the cream of the crop among thousands of spirits.
Of course, the cream of the crop in terms of being an idiot.
His original form was a little red fox.
With bright, vivid orange-red fur, a pure white, soft belly, four ink-black paws, and springy, triangular ears.
This little fox kit hadn’t even learned how to hunt yet when his world came crashing down.
His parents were attacked by a tiger; both perished.
A den of rogue foxes, who cultivated on their own, snatched him up and carried him back.
“You follow us, and in the future, you’re sure to become a great demon.”
“Then we’ll be able to pillage and plunder, burn and kill, and devour an entire village of people!”
“Bwa ha ha ha!”
The little kit wobbled his head, his tiny, black bean-like eyes full of confusion. Still, he stretched out his neck and chimed in with a single syllable: “Woo-ah!”
As the underling fox, his daily task was to hunt and present his catch to the big brother foxes.
The rabbits in the mountains ran too fast; he couldn’t catch them.
The carp in the river were too slippery; he couldn’t catch them.
The little birds in the sky flew too high; he still couldn’t catch them.
He was so hopelessly stupid that the big foxes were absolutely furious, their fur standing on end. “Surely you can at least steal a chicken from the village!?”
And so, the little greyish kit sneaked into a villager’s chicken coop.
His baby teeth, not even fully grown in yet, gnawed away uselessly, managing to inflict a few minor scratches on a rooster.
A sprightly old grandmother raised her broom: “Stealing, are you?! Stealing, are you?! Stealing, are you?!”
The rooster’s beak aimed squarely at the fox’s head: BONK! BONK! BONK!!!
Every day, the little fox would come back with a huge lump on his head and a couple of feathers stuck to the corner of his mouth, standing there dazedly on his four little paws. “I’m home.”
Then, during the division of the spoils, he’d dive in like a little cannonball, burying his head and eating like crazy!
His hunting contributions were the least (nonexistent), but he ate the most.
As time passed, the wicked foxes finally reached their limit.
“Keeping a useless thing like you is pointless. We might as well kill you and use you to boost our cultivation!”
The little fox knelt on the ground in terror, his ears flopping down flat like airplane ears, his whole body trembling like a sieve.
“Uwu…”
J-just one more chance…!
The half-demons surrounded him, and death crept closer.
At the critical moment, peach blossoms filled the sky like a fierce wind and stinging rain. When he came to his senses again, all he could smell was a cold, sharp, and pure fragrance of agarwood.
Two jade-like fingers pinched the scruff of the little fox’s neck.
When he opened his eyes again, there was an immortal lord looking down at him coldly, with a sneer—
“The child is innocent. If you mend your ways and turn over a new leaf, I’ll spare your life.”
From then on, he had a master from the Peach Garden Immortal Mountain.
The little fox, who had never even stolen a single chicken, was taken in by this immortal lord, embarking on a long journey of over a thousand years—his own personal “road to becoming a civil servant.”
The average fox’s path to enlightenment could be summed up simply:
In about five hundred years, learn the languages of birds and humans. Cultivate for another five hundred, and you can transform into human form.
That’s nearly a thousand years in total. Even an idiot could manage to cultivate more or less successfully.
But Yun Yueming was a uniquely extraordinary idiot.
He managed to learn human speech, then stagnated completely. He even loved using his fox face to speak human language, deliberately tricking people. He got his fox bottom whacked countless times with the immortal lord’s fly whisk.
As time passed, he became the most laughable beast under the Peach Garden Immortal Lord’s tutelage.
And his serious, straitlaced master… became the one the little fox feared the most.
Then the Peach Garden Mountain faced divine punishment. The master’s soul was utterly destroyed, and Yun Yueming was once again homeless, still unable to transform into human form.
Eventually, the rule came that after the founding of the nation, spirits were no longer allowed to materialize. He just licked his paw, slurping away.
“Fine, if I can’t transform, I can’t transform.”
The very next second, in broad daylight, for all to see—
The fluffy, soft little red fox went POOF and turned into a naked man.
Who was still seductively licking his hand.
“P-pervert! A pervert! Aaaahhhh!”
The folks and villagers from miles around chased him for three days and three nights, vowing to put this immoral, wicked man in a bamboo cage and drown him.
At first, Yun Yueming didn’t understand the rules of human society.
In those early years, he mostly stayed in his fox form, quietly wandering the streets and alleys, trying to blend into this unfamiliar world.
He wanted to earn money; he wanted to live a good life.
He was full of love and longing for this world.
But humans are a very exclusive species.
A beautiful and cute red fox wasn’t a common sight, making it easy to catch the attention of people with ill intentions.
For his very first job, the little fox stumbled and was tricked into joining a circus.
Jumping through flaming hoops, doing somersaults, bowing to the audience.
If he performed poorly, the boss would whip him.
He didn’t dare reveal that he could speak human language, desperately trying to hint to his boss that what he wanted was more than just the spoiled, sour food—
“Oh, this?”
The man scoffed, tossing a single one-yuan coin his way.
It was the first time the little fox had received human currency. He was so happy he wagged his big, fluffy tail.
Until he noticed the boss’s pocket, which jingled loudly when he moved, stuffed with countless coins, and paper money too.
He had been cheated. His heart was heavy with a dull ache.
…Fox was stupid, and he could only earn so little money.
The little fox stole half a moldy steamed bun from the kitchen stove, carried it in his mouth, wiped his tears with a black paw, and limped away on his injured leg into the night, hobbling step by step.
— But not before quietly releasing all the wild animals, and just for good measure, he awkwardly spread his fox legs and peed in the boss’s water cup. He unleashed his demolition skills in record time, and only then did he resolutely depart!
From that point on, Yun Yueming gathered his courage and decided to live life in human form.
He looked young and handsome, with a pure, unclouded foolishness in his eyes. People easily mistook him for a naive, inexperienced student.
And so, with unbelievable smoothness, he walked straight into a pyramid scheme cult.
Yun Yueming then deployed his traditional skills.
He worked little, ate a lot.
It didn’t take many days for the gang leader to become dissatisfied and order him to go out and deceive passersby.
Yun Yueming said: “Okay.”
A short while later, he spotted some uniformed officers on duty by the roadside. “Hello there, care to learn more?”
He fluently recited the organization’s slogans and business scope.
The officers: Confused, hesitant, shocked, angry .jpg
Damned pyramid scheme!
How dare they harm such an innocent and naive kid!
Weeoooh, weeoooh—
Dozens of police cars from across the city mobilized en masse. A major criminal gang, successfully busted in one fell swoop.
Slowly, the little fox began to understand the joys and dangers of the human world.
He tried many different jobs.
Barista.
Delivery driver.
Hearse driver for a funeral home.
Street vendor.
Until that scorching, heat-distorted summer day. After handing out flyers, starving and exhausted, he sat down on the curb. With one swift motion, he pulled off the heavy mascot head—
A strand of his tousled hair caught the sunlight, shimmering with a reddish-brown hue.
Sweat trickled down his fair, handsome face.
Even in his fatigue, he was radiant.
Quite a few young women shopping at the mall noticed him. Just a glimpse of his profile, and it was love at first sight.
Someone secretly took a photo and posted it on social media: “The flyer guy at Yida Plaza is unbelievably handsome!”
By evening, the post had garnered over two hundred thousand likes.
The next day, a plainly dressed middle-aged man cycled over on a shared bike.
Yun Yueming was puzzled.
Why were there so many people today? He was running out of flyers to give out!
“Hey there, take off the headpiece! We all came here specially to see you!”
“Sorry, I’m working right now.”
That middle-aged man, drenched in sweat, pushed through the crowd and handed him a business card. “Young man! I’m an agent from Jiayang Entertainment. Would you be interested in learning about the show Idol 101!?”
The man spun a tale as glamorous as a flower in full bloom, but Yun Yueming had long been jaded by scams and completely ignored him.
Hao Xianghuo (the agent): “Three thousand a month salary. You just need to go on stage, sing and dance a bit. I’ll make you a star, you’re sure to become famous nationwide!”
The mascot bear turned and walked away, utterly cold: “Not interested.”
Hao Xianghuo gritted his teeth and yelled out:
“Five thousand a month, meals and accommodation provided, air conditioning, Wi-Fi, drinks all free—think about it!”
The mascot bear looked back, silent.
Hao Xianghuo ground his molars almost to dust, about to dig into his own pocket and raise the offer further, when suddenly a fluffy bear paw firmly grasped his hand—
He looked up. The person had neatly removed the headpiece, revealing a breathtakingly beautiful face that shone brilliantly in the sunlight.
He smiled brightly.
“Deal!”