A Star Reborn: The Queen's Return

Chapter 5

Chapter 5: An Important Person That Cannot Be Read

Tan Ying, understanding the hidden meaning behind his gaze, said with a tinge of a smile in his voice, “We are commencing the examination now. You six, introduce yourselves first.” As he spoke, he gestured to the six of them beneath the stage with the fountain pen in his hand.

Shen Manyao had no choice but to stop talking.

Trainee number 67, who was beside Xia Ling, stepped forward. “Good morning examiners, I am number 67, Zhou Yu. I entered Skyart Entertainment last year. My interests are…”

“Next.” Tan Ying interrupted him abruptly.

Zhou Yu was taken aback, and then hurriedly stepped back. Xia Ling did not have to turn her head to be able to sense his panic. She secretly shook her head. Sometimes, being too keen to impress could have the opposite effect. This was only a small examination, the self-introduction section was just a test of the politeness and elegance of the trainees. Who would be interested to hear a small fry tell his life story?

She stepped forward as she was thinking, and then introduced herself. “Second year, Class C, Ye Xingling.”

A short and sweet introduction. Easy for Tan Ying, and easy for herself.

Tan Ying took a second look at Xia Ling before indicating for the next person to continue.

The next trainee was not as succinct as Xia Ling, but learned from Zhou Yu’s mistake and kept it relatively short. An expression of satisfaction came across Tan Ying’s face, and the next trainees immediately followed suit. As a result, the self-introduction segment was completed smoothly.

Next up was a standard dance segment.

“Standard dance” referred to the different foundation dance songs that were used in the training camp on a regular basis. The examiners would randomly pick a song to test the trainee’s foundational abilities. Given that they were picking trainees to appear in Shen Manyao’s MV, Xia Ling thought that the standard dance style would be more toward Shen Manyao’s flamboyant style. However, the song that Tan Ying picked was unexpected. It was a slow practice dance song.

Xia Ling glanced at Shen Manyao and saw that she was completely disinterested, her eyes still glued on the man seated next to her. She had no spare capacity to care about anything else happening in the examination room.

The man in the main seat placed a hand under his chin, looking on indifferently, allowing Tan Ying to call the shots.

The music slowly started playing.

Xia Ling followed everyone as they started to dance, focusing on making sure she would not stand out. This was similar to asking a taekwondo black belt holder to pretend that he cannot fight, and yet not be too obviously bad, such that nobody would be able to tell. Executing this was terribly awkward.

Even though it was a little narcissistic to think like that, at this moment, Xia Ling was immensely grateful to Tan Ying for choosing a slow song. If he had chosen a difficult piece in the flamboyant style, which was Xia Ling’s forte, pretending to be mediocre would be even more torturous…

As her mind started to wander, the standard dance segment ended. Xia Ling was satisfied with her performance as she saw several of the trainees give her looks of contempt. Very good, in the next freestyle dance segment she just needed to keep it together and victory would be hers.

Each trainee was given five minutes for their freestyle dance. There would be no accompaniment music, thus the trainee would have the freedom to show whatever they wanted.