When Xia Zhi was lost in his memories, the video had unknowingly reached its end.
"Huh? It's VC and the others!"
Xiao Han's words brought Xia Zhi's thoughts back to reality from his memories.
The people who appeared in the video at the end were not them, but about 20 young girls. Every face was familiar, they were all loyal fans of Victoria, and they almost followed every performance.
There are more than 20 girls in the video holding cheering sticks in their hands and a banner in front of them that reads "Happy 1st anniversary of Victoria's debut!" This is obviously a cheering video.
"Is this the support video made by VC? Why have I never seen it before?" Cheng Yunan asked Fang Yuan in confusion.
Because Victoria is not well-known, fans are hard to come by, so the members cherish the few fans they have. Fans often make support videos for them, and everyone watches them carefully. So when they saw a video they had never seen before, everyone was a little surprised.
Fang Yuan was silent for a moment, then explained, "This is a video celebrating Victoria's first anniversary of debut. They originally wanted to release it on the first anniversary, but they didn't wait."
Upon hearing this, everyone's eyes dimmed and their mood became a little depressed.
Victoria's disbandment was actually foreseeable. Fans had a premonition, but at that time Victoria was about to celebrate her first anniversary. They held on to a glimmer of hope, thinking that even if Chuanxing was going to disband, Victoria would definitely wait until after the important moment of the first anniversary, so they made this support video.
Fans all knew that Victoria's disbandment was a matter of time, so this video was of great significance to them. It was a support video to celebrate Victoria's first anniversary, and also a final farewell to the members. But Victoria didn't make it to her first anniversary, and they didn't get to send this video.
The rumor may have been unintentional, or it may have been intentional. Victoria disbanded just two days before the first anniversary, and it was extremely hasty. When Victoria disbanded, there was no farewell performance, no final fan meeting, only a cold disbandment statement.
Fans could not accept this fact and wanted to ask Chuanxing to give them an explanation. However, whether Chuanxing did it intentionally or unintentionally, it chose to disband the group at this juncture, which obviously did not even care about the feelings of the members, let alone a group of fans they had never met.
The news of Victoria's disbandment was like a speck of dust in the ocean. It did not cause any sensation in the ever-changing entertainment industry. Even the most marginal entertainment news outlets were unwilling to spend time reporting on it. Naturally, no one would care about a group of insignificant fans.
After the video finished playing, the screen returned to black.
Fang Yuan ended the video, turned off the TV, stood up and faced the members, coughing softly: "Everyone, have a good rest today and get enough rest. Tomorrow is the last day of the program recording, and we will have a concert in the evening."
The five people's expressions froze. Xiao Han held half a cookie in his hand, and the other half was still in his mouth.
"Concert?" Sang Luo frowned and asked, "Why didn't you mention it before?"
"The closing concert was planned from the beginning. It's actually just a small concert. There won't be many audiences, maybe only two or three hundred people. The whole concert will last about an hour, and you don't need to sing too many songs. Four or five will be enough." Fang Yuan patiently explained to everyone, but he never gave a positive answer as to why he didn't tell them in advance.
No one was in the mood to pay attention to this matter at the moment, and everyone's focus was on the concert.
They were actually going to hold a concert? A concert with less than 24 hours to prepare? How ridiculous!
Because the whole thing happened so suddenly, absurdly and outrageously, before going to sleep at night, Xia Zhi lay in bed with his mind full of the concert.
"Are we really going to have a concert?" Xia Zhi and Jiang Zhixia were lying side by side facing each other, and Xia Zhi was playing with the buttons of Jiang Zhixia's pajamas in his hands.
"This is the fifth time you've asked me this." Jiang Zhixia looked helpless.
Xia Zhi seemed not to hear and murmured to herself: "We really need to hold a concert..."
"Don't you want to?" Jiang Zhixia pulled the hand off the collar and rubbed it gently in his palm.
"Not really." Xia Zhi leaned closer to him and snuggled into his arms. "Holding a concert was something we had dreamed of before. It's good that it's finally happening now. It can be considered as making up for a regret."
"So what are you worried about?"
Worried about my image... Xia Zhi answered in his heart, then threw himself into Jiang Zhixia's arms depressedly.
You should know that he has been voted the most popular teacher by students for three consecutive years since he entered U University as a teacher. His image in the students' minds has always been very serious. In the students' words, he is as cold as the lonely moon in the sky and as rustling as the wind under the pines.
But ever since the show aired, his image has collapsed and students have become more and more unruly towards him.
Specifically, they don’t address him by his proper name anymore. They used to call him Teacher Xia or Professor Xiao Xia, but now they all start calling him Teacher Xia Xia!
Teacher Xia is obviously a very serious title, but with the addition of a "Xia" it immediately seems less serious, causing students to call him "Teacher Xia Xia". Even if he deliberately pretends to be majestic, students think he is deliberately pretending to be fierce and cute.
The name "Xia Xia" had already made him lose all his dignity in front of the students. If they saw their teacher singing and dancing on the stage again... Xia Zhi didn't dare to think about what the future classes would be like.
"Oh." The more Xia Zhi thought about it, the sadder he felt, and he couldn't help but sigh.
Jiang Zhixia reached out and gently patted his back, and comforted him softly: "Don't think about it, go to sleep."
"Yeah." Xia Zhi agreed, but his eyes were still wide open without any sleepiness.
"Aren't you sleepy yet?" Jiang Zhixia felt helpless.
Xia Zhi blinked and said honestly, "There are so many things on my mind that I can't sleep."
"How about I help you clear your mind for a while?"
Xia Zhi looked up and asked, "How do you let go?"
Jiang Zhixia lowered her head and looked at him, her lips slightly raised: "If you are tired, you won't have the energy to think, right?"
“…” Xia Zhi finally understood.
"Do you want it?" Jiang Zhixia moved closer to him, her tone coaxing.
Xia Zhi had some faint thoughts in his mind, but he felt that it would be embarrassing to admit it directly, so he beat around the bush.
"Didn't you say you wouldn't do it without the tools?"
"There are ways to do it without tools." Jiang Zhixia had already reached his right hand under Xia Zhi's pajamas while speaking. "Weren't you comfortable without tools last night?"
“…” Xia Zhi pretended not to hear. Anyway, his goal had been achieved, so he closed his eyes and prepared to enjoy himself comfortably.
Jiang Zhixia didn't say anything else. She lowered her head and gently touched his lips, then raised her hand to turn off the bedside lamp.
The vision became completely dark, and other senses became more acute. Xia Zhi slowly tightened his hands around Jiang Zhixia's shoulders, and every muscle in his body was tensed to the limit. After a long time, accompanied by a short hum, his body suddenly relaxed.
Jiang Zhixia climbed up, leaned over him, smiled gently, and asked, "Is your brain empty?"
It wasn't just his brain that was empty, Xia Zhi felt like his soul was about to fly out of his body. He was so tired that he didn't want to say anything and just wanted to sleep.
Jiang Zhixia exchanged another lingering deep kiss with him, and then she lay down beside him contentedly: "Go to sleep. Good night."
"Hmm." Xia Zhi managed to squeeze out a sound from his nose, and then his eyes went dark and he fell asleep completely.
-
Just after six o'clock the next morning, Fang Yuan knocked on the doors of all the bedrooms and woke up the five people who were still asleep.
The five people stood in their respective bedrooms, yawning one by one, unable to open their eyes.
Fang Yuan stood in front of everyone, clapped his hands in high spirits, and said in a loud voice: "Wake up quickly! Now everyone line up to go to the bathroom to brush your teeth and wash your face, then go to the restaurant to eat, and then go back to the room to change clothes. Xiao Han, open your eyes, don't sleep anymore! Everyone, get moving! Go brush your teeth and wash your face!"
Fang Yuan stuffed everyone into the bathroom, then turned around and went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for them.
The five people were barely sobered up after Fang Yuan's yelling. They picked up their toothbrushes, squeezed toothpaste on them, stood in a row, and began to brush their teeth mechanically in front of the mirror.
As everyone was brushing their teeth, the same thought flashed through their minds - it was as if they were back to the scene when they were rushing to perform.
They didn't have many performances at the time, so whenever they had work, Fang Yuan, as their manager, would get them up early in the morning to rehearse. The situation was very similar to now.
It was only then that Xia Zhi finally believed that Fang Yuan was not trying to trick them when he said he would hold a concert tonight...
After eight years, everyone's skills were very unfamiliar, so in order to prevent the evening's concert from becoming a joke, Fang Yuan pulled everyone to Chuanxing's practice room after breakfast to sharpen their skills.
After Fang Yuan brought everyone to the practice room, he became a hands-off boss and said to everyone with a smile: "You guys practice first. The concert starts at 7:30 pm. I'll come to pick you up at 3 pm. By the way, the songs you're going to perform tonight are all in that computer. If you're not satisfied with the songs we prepared, you can change them to the ones you like. Good luck!"
After Fang Yuan finished speaking, he strode out of the practice room, closing the door behind him, leaving the five of us standing there in a daze, looking at each other in bewilderment.
Finally, it was Sang Luo who spoke: "Let's take a look at the music first."
Xiao Han took the laptop and opened it, and immediately saw a folder called "Performance List" on the desktop.
When I opened the file, there were five music videos, all of which were from Victoria.
Xiao Han was delighted when he saw the title of the song: "Brother Yuan still cares about us. Only one of the five songs requires dancing."
"We have to take good care of him," Cheng Yunan also laughed and said self-deprecatingly, "After all, he is already old. If all five songs are sung and danced, he can call the emergency number directly after each one."
"Forget about dancing. I even forgot the dance moves." Xiao Han complained.
Although I forgot the movements one by one, some things, once remembered, are engraved in my bones and cannot be easily forgotten. When the familiar melody sounded, the muscle memory led the body to move. From the initial awkwardness and stiffness to the later smoothness and coherence. After two times, I have regained the feeling of performing on the stage.
At noon, Fang Yuan came to bring them lunch. They were rehearsing a dance at the time, so in order not to affect their contact, he did not go in immediately.
He stood at the door, looking in through the glass. As their manager, no one except the members themselves was more familiar with all their performances than him.
Like the other members, he originally thought that he had forgotten these works that had long been no longer performed, but as he stood outside the door, looking at them in the present, what emerged in his mind were the scenes of their performances on the stage nine years ago.
Although the five people had different original intentions when they participated in the Chuanxing trainee selection, all five of them are very serious and responsible. Since they debuted, they have regarded this as their career and will still perform hard no matter how small the stage is.
Fans commented that Victoria's performance was the ultimate enjoyment for all senses.
Fang Yuan felt the same way. Even though he had seen countless idol groups in the entertainment industry, he still felt that none could compare to Victoria in terms of stage performance.
Not all of them are extremely talented in music or dance. In fact, if we only talk about individual strength, there are many artists in the domestic idol group who are better than them. But as a group, the most important thing is definitely the group as a whole. For a group, if the individual is too outstanding, the whole will be ignored, which will destroy the harmony of the whole. But Victoria is just the opposite. They are typical of the whole being greater than the individual.
Every time they perform on stage, once they dance, they always make the fans below scream.
It’s a pity that not many people appreciated it at that time. When more people finally appreciated it, it was already too late.
Fang Yuan was leaning against the door frame, feeling sad, when the music in the room suddenly stopped. It turned out that everyone had finished dancing while he was lost in thought.
Fang Yuan calmed himself down, pushed the door open and walked in: "Everyone has worked hard after practicing for the whole morning, let's eat first."
Everyone was indeed hungry, so they prepared to eat first.
"Brother Yuan, have you eaten? If not, sit down and eat with us." Cheng Yunan greeted.
Fang Yuan smiled slightly and did not refuse. He sat down on the ground and ate with them.
The atmosphere was somewhat silent during the meal, and Fang Yuan took the initiative to bring up a topic: "I just watched from the door for a while, and the movements were quite standard. It seems that they haven't forgotten it yet."
Sang Luo smiled and said, "I've practiced it so many times before that it's become a muscle memory. I can move automatically when the music starts."
"Yeah." Cheng Yunan also said, "Back then, in order to prepare for our debut stage, we practiced this song for a whole month. I would conservatively estimate that we practiced it at least four or five hundred times. I almost vomited from practicing it."
Xiao Han also recalled some past events, glanced at Xia Zhi with a smile, and said, "We were almost vomiting from practicing, Xia Xia really vomited."
"..." Xia Zhi explained calmly, "I ate something bad, not because I was practicing vomiting!"
Sang, Cheng and Xiao said in unison: "Then he vomited anyway!"
"Don't just blame me, you guys are not much better either." Xia Zhi wiped his mouth and slowly began to dig up the dark history of his teammates one by one.
"Xiao Han just couldn't remember the moves and cried on the balcony in the middle of the night, scaring the neighbors downstairs into thinking it was haunted. Sang Luo had diarrhea on her first day of the stage and went to the bathroom more than a dozen times. Her legs were weak when she went on stage and she almost fell off the stage. And Yun An, she tore her pants because of the big movements while dancing. I remember you were wearing a pair of red underwear that day."
"Shut up!" The three of them yelled at him in anger.
Xia Zhi raised his eyebrows proudly at the three of them.
Fang Yuan touched his arm and asked curiously, "Why are you only talking about the three of them? What about Zhixia's dark history?"
"Yes," Xiao Han immediately agreed, "Why don't you tell us about Chiang Kai-shek's dark history? If you have the guts, treat everyone equally and stop being hypocritical!"
Xia Zhi bit her chopsticks and turned to look at Jiang Zhixia who was eating calmly as if it had nothing to do with her.
Jiang Zhixia turned around and asked calmly, "Do you really want to say it?"
Xia Zhi originally didn't want to say anything, but when Jiang Zhixia asked her, she started to rebel: "Why don't you say it? I know a lot about your dark history. Don't you believe it?"
"I believe it." Jiang Zhixia answered without hesitation, and then changed the subject, "But I don't think anyone knows you better than me."
Xia Zhi: “…”
"Wow. Is this a threat?" Xiao Han held his face excitedly, "Xia Xia, Lao Jiang actually dared to threaten you! What are you going to do?"
Sang Luo and Cheng Yunan also watched the show with a smile - it was so funny that these two people who usually fought against each other would actually have an internal conflict!
Only Fang Yuan was worried - hadn't the two of them reconciled? Why was their relationship still so tense? If I had known, I wouldn't have asked that question.
Fang Yuan's mind was full of thoughts, and he was also worried: the performance was about to begin, and these two people must not quarrel again at this critical moment. He watched nervously for a while, and fortunately, the tit-for-tat scene did not appear.
This silent struggle ended with Jiang Zhixia's surrender.
"Let's eat." Jiang Zhixia took the initiative to give the teriyaki chicken leg from his own set meal to Xia Zhi. Although he didn't say it, his intention to surrender was accurately conveyed.
So Xia Zhishun went down the slope, picked up the chicken leg and took a big bite in front of Jiang Zhixia. His intention of provocation was too obvious.
Jiang Zhixia's smile was helpless yet doting. She took a piece of paper and wiped the sauce from the corner of his mouth as if no one was around.
"Tsk~" The three teammates were used to it. They looked away in disgust and continued eating.
Fang Yuan was quite shocked. Even if they were close friends, wiping his mouth was too ambiguous. Moreover, Jiang Zhixia did not hide the tenderness in her eyes when she wiped his mouth.
So Fang Yuan felt that he might have accidentally discovered something incredible...
But after the initial shock, I quickly calmed down.
Fang Yuan was surprised but not that surprised by the relationship between Xia Zhi and Jiang Zhixia. It was probably because they were too close when they were still in the group. At that time, he felt that the two seemed to be too close, and their closeness seemed to be different from the kind of brotherly love, but he didn't think too deeply at that time.
Looking back now, Fang Yuan finally understood why he felt that there was always a sense of disharmony between Jiang Zhixia and Xia Zhi. Because compared to the simple brotherly love, there seemed to be an additional layer of vague ambiguity between them.
The three teammates reacted very calmly, obviously having known about this for a long time, so Fang Yuan remained calm and continued eating as if nothing had happened.
After lunch, Fang Yuan left again, and Xia Zhi and the others continued to practice.
Although they still know nothing about tonight's concert, this is probably their last chance to perform on stage together under the name of Victoria, and they don't want to leave any lifelong regrets.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, Fang Yuan came to take them to the performance venue.
Xia Zhi and the others knew that Fang Yuan would not reveal a word until the last moment, so they did not waste any time asking any more questions and just followed him.
Half an hour later, Fang Yuan parked the car and said to everyone, "We're here."
Everyone got off the bus.
They came to a theater.
Fang Yuan smiled and asked everyone: "Do you remember this place?"
Everyone remained silent, staring at the familiar building in front of them.
How could they not remember? This was their first official stage after their debut, and their first 100 audience members were born here.
Cheng Yunan sighed: "I'm back here again after so many twists and turns."
"It's good to have a beginning and an end." Fang Yuan patted his shoulder and said, "Go in first."
Everyone walked into the theater and finally saw the staff of the program team who had not been seen for a long time. They were setting up the stage for the evening performance. Everyone stood by and watched for a while before being called backstage by Fang Yuan to do the styling.
It was not known whether it was a coincidence or Fang Yuan's intention, but the makeup artist who did their styling was the same one who did their debut styling. The styling the makeup artist did for them was also very similar to the styling they did when they debuted, with only minor adjustments made based on the members' current face shapes.
When Xia Zhi looked in the mirror, she had a sudden illusion that they were about to make their debut.
When the staff took out five sets of costumes, the illusion became even more obvious, because the costumes were very similar to those in the first stage, but they were changed to be more suitable for their current age.
From makeup to clothing, there is a transition from immaturity to maturity, as if it is some kind of growth trajectory.
Xia Zhi suddenly remembered what Fang Yuan said at the theater entrance: "Everything has a beginning and an end."
If the debut stage nine years ago was the beginning, then is today's stage the farewell
After the stage was set up, the five people conducted two more rehearsals.
It was soon evening.
The performance officially started at 7:30, and the audience began to enter at 6:30. The theater was very large, and the backstage and the front stage were quite far apart. Xia Zhi and the others couldn't hear anything backstage, and they didn't know how many audiences had come.
While they were having dinner backstage, Cheng Yunan suddenly asked, "Guess how many viewers there are this time?"
Xiao Han guessed, "This time the place will be full, I guess."
The theater could accommodate 500 spectators, but Victoria had just debuted and was not famous at the time. After a week of hard promotion, only 100 people bought tickets to watch the show.
But Victoria's fame is much higher now, and the show has attracted a lot of attention. As long as the show team promotes it on the official blog, there should be a lot of people watching. Therefore, everyone thinks Xiao Han's guess is quite reliable.
At 7:30, the host came on stage to warm up the audience. Everyone went to wait. As soon as I approached, I heard a warm cheer.
The five of them looked at each other, and the corners of their mouths curled up a little. Judging from the momentum, there must be a lot of spectators.
Xiao Han couldn't resist his curiosity and ran to the side glance bar to take a peek. After looking for a while, he trotted back with a somewhat surprised expression.
Cheng Yunan joked with him: "You've never seen so many people before, you must be scared."
"No!" Xiao Han said excitedly, "I saw the two girls from VC! And there are many familiar faces! They are all old fans who have followed us since the first game!"
"They are here too?" The four of them were also very surprised.
"Didn't the two VC girls go abroad to settle down? When did they come back?" Cheng Yunan was very curious and wanted to go and take a look.
"I invited VV and CC, and not only them, but also some other old fans." Fang Yuan came over to explain, "In fact, I have been thinking about doing a farewell concert at the end of the show since I started planning the group show. Victoria disbanded too suddenly at that time, and you didn't get to say goodbye to the fans who always supported you. I still feel regretful when I think about it now."
"The audience here today are mostly old fans, all of whom were contacted by VV and CC. Everyone who can come is here." Fang Yuan smiled and said, "They are all old friends, and everyone knows each other, so don't be nervous, just treat it as a gathering of old friends, and have fun."
On the stage, the host finished the warm-up session and shouted: "Next, let's welcome today's protagonist Victoria with the warmest applause!"
"Vic! Vic! Vic!" There was a lot of cheering from the audience.
(End of this chapter)