After the release of the posters gave a little attention boost to the newly formed group, there will be a small press conference on the Internet that will be closed to the public next Monday. Only media with stable cooperation with the company will be present.
During the last three days leading up to the conference, other than continuously practicing their songs and choreography, they also needed to familiarize themselves with the questions that were going to be presented to them during the conference. Duan Yikun also arranged for a teacher to specially teach them language expression.
Everyone came to class on time. Wang Chao was the last one to arrive as he sat down near Xie Zhuxing.
“…What happened to your face?” Duan Yikun asked.
Half of Wang Chao’s face was terribly swollen as he said, “I was beaten because I was acting foolish.”
The members all lowered their heads to sneakily laugh. Even Xie Zhuxing couldn’t resist as the corner of his lips arched upwards.
Duan Yikun could see there was more to this matter, so he didn’t ask anymore. He only said, “Remember to apply ointment to help the swelling. You can’t have a swollen face like that during the conference.”
Wang Chao showed his understanding with an “hm”, then Duan Yikun continued on with the details of the class.
Xie Zhuxing spoke in a voice that only he and Wang Chao could hear, “Didn’t I tell you to go home and apply some ice on your face?”
Wang Chao also responded in a low voice, “There weren’t any ice cubes at my place so I took a can of cold beer. When I took it out I suddenly felt thirsty, so I drank it. After I finished drinking it, I felt sleepy. I completely forgot about the face thing; I fell asleep once I got on the bed.”
Xie Zhuxing was really speechless. “You’re really…”
Wang Chao grieved, “Who told you to be so cruel?”
Xie Zhuxing glanced at his face. There was a bright red swollen area on a white and clean face, even he felt that he was a bit too cruel.
Duan Yikun said a few words to them regarding the important points of the class, then exchanged a few quiet words with the teacher. Every now and then he would point to one of the members, as if telling the teacher specific details about every one of them.
Xie Zhuxing took out something from the bag that was beside his leg. “Take this.”
Wang Chao massaged his face as he looked at the object closely. It was a little bottle of swell-reducing mist spray. He wanted to grin, but it also hurt, so he asked as he grimaced, “You bought this specially for me?”
Xie Zhuxing didn’t want to admit it. “I had some at home. I used this a lot when I used to dance.”
Nevertheless, Wang Chao was still happy. He took it happily and examined it closely. He took off the cap, wanting to spray it on.
Xie Zhuxing clicked his tongue, saying with disdain, “Do you think this is a moisturizing spray? If this gets in your eye then you’re going to go blind. Gimme.”
Wang Chao handed the bottle to him and turned his swollen side to him. “Here, here.”
Xie Zhuxing, “I can see.”
He sprayed it once and Wang Chao retried his neck. He smiled as he said, “Oh what the heck- why is it so cold?”
Xie Zhuxing also started smiling. He smacked him on his neck and said, “Pampered.”
Duan Yikun sat in the last/back row, listening to the teacher teach.
It’s a very difficult task to improve the comprehensive quality of daily cultivated language expression in just a few classes. They could only combine the information provided by Duan Yikun and teach the members in accordance with their aptitude according to their individual personality characteristics. That way, they could show each person’s personality advantages to the maximum while covering up their personality shortcomings.
Xie Zhuxing was very earnest and knew the limits of communicating with people. His only fault was his lack of enthusiasm in lively occasions. He needed to be more lively.
Gao Siyuan is very talkative, but his tone isn’t very pleasant. The teacher instructed him to listen to his voice on recording and to change it as he went.
Ji Jie had a sharp mouth. This was a perfect trait to gather fans if he knew how to use it well.
Yang Xiaomu was best at laughing. He had no merits or demerits. He just needed to reserve some funny jokes in the circumstance that he needed to lighten the mood at tense times.
Cheng Yao was a sweetheart, the youngest of them all. He had no faults. There was no better person than the youngest in the group to sell cuteness.
The teacher said euphemistically, “Leo, your personal vibe is too strong. The fans may not be able to accept it just yet, you should just talk less for now.”
Wang Chao wasn’t satisfied, but he didn’t want to talk back to the teacher. He turned to Duan Yikun and said, “Kun-ge, did you tell the instructor that I’m the leader? How can the leader not talk?”
“You should change your northeastern accent first,” Duan Yikun said.
“I’ve already gotten rid of it the best I could!”
Duan Yikun walked up and sat next to him as he said in a low tone, “It’s not that we’re not letting you speak, it’s just that it’s best if you don’t speak as much for now. You can say whatever you want when you gain a solid fan base. By then they’ll love you so much that you can say whatever you want and they’ll still think you’re great.”
Wang Chao was still a bit reluctant.
Duan Yikun glanced at Xie Zhuxing who was sitting next to him.
Xie Zhuxing could only add on, “Kun-ge’s words do make sense. Just sit there quietly and play a few notes on the piano. The young girls in the audience will definitely be screaming for you. It’s not like you need to waste energy – unlike me. I have to jump and bounce around just to sell my skill.”
It wasn’t like Wang Chao really wanted to ramble on in front of the media and fans. He just didn’t want to accept the comment made about him. “If Ji Jie can sell his fresh mouth as a skill, then why can’t I?”
Xie Zhuxing continued to coax him, “Ji Jie has a chubby face and looks evidently young, so it’s not that annoying if he’s rude. In fact ,it can be considered gap moe. But you’re too handsome so it won’t work.”
Wang Chao glanced over at Ji Jie, who was currently talking to Cheng Yao, and said, “What gap moe? He just has a chubby face.”
Although he said that, he seemed to have accepted the role as the quiet artist. He obediently lowered his head to look at the distributed script.
Duan Yikun shot Xie Zhuxing a smile.
Xie Zhuxing forced a slight smile back, but internally, he was very uncomfortable with the smile.
When the press conference for IceDream arrived on Monday, the swelling on Wang Chao’s face had gone down. He coolly acted out the role of a silent artist for about an hour.
The members’ performances were all good, exceeding the expectations the reporters in the audience had prepared.
As soon as the press conference was over, the official website and official Wechat uploaded high-definition pictures of the press conference, live performance videos, and interview highlights. The direction of the comments began to reverse.
IceDream rapidly got on the hot search for WeiBo. By the afternoon, they were third on the short search list. Their main song, “Summer Ice”, also entered the top ten of many music websites.
The company released the preview of the boy’s debut at the right time. The group will be performing at the award ceremony of the Music Festival on Friday and giving a warm-up performance. The official blog of the Music Festival also shared an article, crowning IceDream as “The freshest blood in the Chinese Music Industry”. The topic was in the limelight for a while.
Ever since Xie Zhuxing’s release in the beginning of the week to last night’s poster release, the six had been slandered for a whole week. Now that the momentum was about to reverse, of course they were happy.
During a period in which many eyes were on them, Duan Yikun warned them excessively, telling them to not go to nightclubs.
But Wang Chao couldn’t resist and wanted to go out; and so he brought the members to his own residence. He even purchased a barbecue rack. The small terrace upstairs was just right for a barbecue. Since they were at home, they became even more unscrupulous. They fooled around until morning, all getting to different degrees of drunkenness.
Only Wang Chao’s drinking capacity was like a bottomless pit. He poked fun at his teammate’s abilities for a bit, then said, “There’s two rooms with only beds on the second floor. They’re just covered with a cloth and have some dust on them, you guys can clean it a bit and then sleep however you like.”
Xie Zhuxing was only slightly drunk, but he was in a better state compared to his members. He stood up as he saw them faltering.
Wang Chao thought that he was going to leave, so he tugged on him as he said, “Where are you going? Sit down.”
“I’m going to help them clean a bit.”
Wang Chao grabbed onto his arm and swung it. “Don’t worry about them. Why would grown adults need someone to serve them?”
Xie Zhuxing got a bit dizzy from his swinging, so he sat down. He thought, As if I serve you any less?
The members dallied to sleep, leaving Xie Zhuxing and Wang Chao on the balcony to enjoy the wind.
Usually, Wang Chao already had a lot to say. Now that he was drunk, he talked even more. At first he said that his oldest brother was a chauvinist and that he was a tyrant both at home and outside. He had been married for so many years but he hasn’t had a kid yet. It must be because his sister-in-law was scared to give birth to one. What if the child is a naughty one? He’ll be beaten to death by his older brother. When he was done roasting his oldest brother, he started talking about his second brother. He said that his second brother had very bad luck. He had found a partner that the family didn’t like, so his father beat him up and cut off all his living expenses. He lived in pain for a few years until he was able to come out of that cycle during graduation, only to be dumped by his partner. After he finished, he started talking about himself.
“I don’t really have any issues. Out of my siblings, I’m the happiest. I do whatever I want to do. I’m not going to be like them and get married or get a partner. I also don’t like kids. I can deal with piss and shit like that. I’m already too lazy to wash my own underwear, how can I change his diapers? Ah, well, now that you’re here, you can help me wash the underwear that I’ve accumulated over the past few days.”
“…Fuck off, don’t care.”
The two rattan chairs were stuck together. Wang Chao leaned his head on Xie Zhuxing’s shoulder and said as he laughed, “As if I don’t already know you. Your mouth is hard but your heart is soft. When did you not care about me?”
Xie Zhuxing was already dizzy and felt that his head was extremely heavy. “If you don’t like kids, then just get a partner. Think of it as someone to serve you. This way you can stop bothering me.”
“If I wanted to find someone to serve me, then I would’ve found a worker already. Why should I get a partner? I can eat a meal with anyone. I can go on a date with anyone. I can fuck anyone. Ah, stop moving. Let me lay on you for a bit. My neck is sore.”
Xie Zhuxing’s arm had really become sore due to his leaning. He said, “Good, you should go to sleep.”
He wanted to stand up, but Wang Chao’s two hands wrapped around him. “Plus, which partner is going to be as good as you?”
Xie Zhuxing didn’t continue. His stomach felt hot.
Today was the first of September. Summer was about to slip away.
The wind at night had already started carrying the tastes of autumn.
After a while, Wang Chao felt that it was a bit cold. Only then did he say, “Let’s go sleep downstairs.”
As the two stood up, he once again threw himself onto Xie Zhuxing’s shoulder, shamelessly putting his entire weight on him.
Xie Zhuxing was too lazy to scold him, so the two walked downstairs conjoined like that.
The stairs in the house weren’t steep. There were usually no problems when walking down them. But today, Xie Zhuxing had drunk a bit too much. As he walked a few steps, he felt dizzy. He stepped onto an empty space and swayed a bit. Although he was fine, Wang Chao, who was on his back, planted forward. He didn’t have time to think about it. He reached out and pulled the person back, but he didn’t control his strength. Wang Chao’s head knocked on the wall, letting out a “boom”.
Wang Chao almost fell with his head planted. He was taken back, temporarily forgetting about the pain. He held onto Xie Zhuxing, but yelled, “Xie Zhuxing! You’re so bold! Are you planning to kill your leader?!”
Xie Zhuxing held onto his waist as he suddenly thought, I’m bold? Then I’ll be bold.
He leaned down and planted a kiss on those lips that were constantly blabbering.
A startling thunderbolt rang out beside his year, shocking him.
The leader who had almost just fallen down the stairs and was still in a panicked state was also shocked. “What are you doing?”
“…I’m drunk,” Xie Zhuxing said.
Wang Chao was baffled for a bit before he pushed his head towards Xie Zhuxing and asked, “Hurry and take a look. Is there a bump on my head?”
Xie Zhuxing touched the area, there was indeed a bump.
Wang Chao rubbed the back of his head and said, “You’d better not forget to own up to this fault!”
Xie Zhuxing, “…” What… fault?
Wang Chao, “This bump was caused by you! You have to wash my underwear for me!”
He must’ve been out of his mind to kiss this idiot. He should’ve gone ahead and kissed a donkey instead.