Chapter 5: The Uninvited Guest

The next day, near 107th Street.

I stood at the entrance of my newly rented office, watching the movers carry the last box of equipment inside.

Labels were stuck on the boxes: “Mixing Console (Fragile),” “Lighting Controller (This Way Up),” and “Spare Cables (Sorted).”

I had written those labels myself last night.

The handwriting was neat, the classifications were clear, and even the placement angle for every single box had been calculated.

These were the things I would use to simulate a small stage in the basement.

As the movers were leaving, one of them looked back at me.

“Boss, are you in the logistics business?”

“No.”

“Well, the way you stack these boxes is neater than most logistics guys I’ve seen.”

I didn’t say anything.

If I were in Stage Alice Mode, I might have exchanged a few pleasantries, but my usual self wouldn’t bother because it was inefficient.

Once they were gone, I closed the door and stood in the empty office, looking at the boxes.

Actually, they didn’t need to be this neat.

I would have to rearrange them in a few days anyway — in the basement, according to my needs.

But it was a habit.

Three rotations on stage, the hem of the skirt landing exactly three centimeters above the knees — that angle was etched into my heart.

Singing half a tone higher than C5.

When being stared at by peers, how many seconds to count, when to look down, and when to look up — these were all etched into another body.

In anything I do, either I don’t do it at all, or I do it to the point where “no flaws can be found.”

This was what my past career as an idol had taught me.

So now, running an agency was the same.

The first step should be —

Looking for idols.

In other words, acting as a so-called Scout.

Aside from that, I also needed to recruit more staff for the agency.

The agency had just been established, and I was the only member.

While it wasn’t impossible to run it this way, the efficiency was far too low.

Who told me to have the ability to be both the Gemstone Princess and the President?

‘Heh…’

I mocked myself inwardly.

Regarding that girl from yesterday, it was just an accident.

However, if she really figures things out and comes here, I will give her a chance.

In truth, that girl is indeed excellent.

If I recruited her directly, she could probably solve my immediate needs.

But I held back.

Because from an efficiency standpoint, it could be a permanent solution.

As long as I could train her to grow, she would be worth five or six first-class idols.

Furthermore, I truly did think about how intoxicating the sense of accomplishment would be if a top-tier idol was created by my hands.

So I gave her a chance, which was also giving myself a chance.

‘Hehehe…’

— Thinking about the future scene where she’s dancing on stage while I’m comfortably counting money offstage, not having to fear my true gender being discovered, and making money easily, I couldn’t help but want to drool.

“Cough, cough…”

But for now, I still had to go find idols and hire technical staff.

Because reality doesn’t always provide opportunities.

Although I have expectations, it is possible she won’t come.

I had to be prepared for anything.

Even if she didn’t come, I had to find new idols, because this concerned my future.

I knew this very well, so after resting in the office for a bit, I immediately began planning.

I pulled a folder out of my bag.

Inside was the plan I had drawn up last night, printed out and held together with a paperclip, sorted by the current priorities of the agency:

Page One: Recruitment

· Idol Candidates: Poaching — Or-site assessment — Probation period

· Technical Staff: Targeted scouting — Background checks — Interview — Contract

· Administrative/Logistics: Not urgent, can be outsourced

Page Two: Channel Construction

· Registration Entry: Field inspections as the primary choice, online screening as the secondary choice.

· Promotion Channels: Relying on industry recommendations.

· Screening Standards: On-site scouting + setting thresholds for online registration to avoid invalid applications.

Attached Page: Online Timeline

· Day 1: Registration channel opens

· Day 3: First batch of preliminary screening

· Day 5: On-site assessment

· Day 7: Finalize the first batch of members

The bottom right corner of every page was marked with a page number.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of a mess.

It was just a habit.

I closed the folder and turned on the computer.

I had set up the registration backend last night — it wasn’t a complex system, just an online spreadsheet with a few filter conditions.

It required some on-site learning ability and patience.

The threshold wasn’t set high, but it could filter out half the people who filled it out haphazardly.

The backend showed: twelve applications received.

But I didn’t look at them.

Now was not the time.

Much of the equipment hadn’t been calibrated yet, and the foundation hadn’t been laid.

Besides, online screening was ultimately a secondary option for the initial stage.

I got dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap, tucking my long hair into the hat — just like when I met that girl last night.

I looked in the mirror.

If one didn’t look closely, I was just a somewhat fashionably dressed guy.

Before leaving, I looked at the door not far away and thought of the girl from yesterday once more.

While expecting her to appear, I also prepared myself for the possibility that she might have been crushed.

***

2:00 PM.

The large advertising screen in the center of the city was rarely playing something that wasn’t an advertisement.

It was —

The Gemstone Princess, Alice, who had been shining brilliantly just yesterday.

Realizing this, I felt like the sun today was exceptionally piercing…

I stood at the back door of the largest theater in the East District, pretending to look at my phone.

The door was open, and I could hear music inside.

Someone was performing.

I took two steps inside, and the security guard looked up at me.

“Looking for someone?”

“Interning,” I said.

“Just coming to take a look.”

After saying that, I suddenly felt that I was getting better and better at lying.

It was effective, though; he stopped asking.

The inside of the theater was darker than the outside, and the air conditioning was blasting.

On stage, six girls were dancing to a song I recognized — it was a famous group’s Debut Song.

Their movements were neat and their expressions were in place; everyone had a standardized smile on their face.

I stood by the last row of seats and watched for fifteen minutes.

The girl leading the dance had the most powerful movements, hitting every mark on the beat.

But every time she finished a segment, she would glance toward the side of the stage — where a man in a suit was standing, likely a manager or a choreographer.

She was waiting for feedback.

She didn’t know if she was doing well or not on her own; she needed someone else to tell her.

That was one point.

The other point was that among the people she paid attention to — the audience was not included.

There was nothing wrong with having a specific focus, but the problem was that her scope of attention was too narrow.

She didn’t even notice her companions next to her, let alone the audience.

I turned and left.

As I was heading out, the security guard looked up at me again.

“How was it?”

“Pretty good,” I said.

He didn’t understand what I was talking about.

The second stop was another small theater three streets away.

It was called “Echo Box,” and it supposedly had a good reputation, though it was a place that could only fit 200 people.

I had checked; there was a performance tonight by a rookie group that had only been formed for three months.

The performance had already begun.

I stood at the door for a while but didn’t go in.

In this kind of setting, going in would actually make me stand out.

If I was just watching the performance, standing outside and listening to the commotion inside was enough.

During the first song, the vocals were a bit shaky.

By the second, they had stabilized a bit.

By the third, people started shouting names — they were shouting the group’s name, not the individuals’.

I finished listening to three songs.

Their foundation was very solid, so they passed the first hurdle.

Then I turned to observe with my eyes —

My eyelid began to twitch.

It wasn’t anything else; their movements were also very stable.

But they were stable to the point of being stubborn.

They had forgotten the original purpose of dance, which was to look good.

Even though a flaw was clearly exposed at the front of the stage from a certain angle, they didn’t notice it — or if they did, they didn’t dare to deviate from their training.

“… I feel like it’s not as good-looking as yesterday’s performance,” a member of the audience said with some disappointment.

“Of course not. Yesterday was the Gemstone Princess Alice — a true Supernova!”

Another guest boasted as if it were a matter of course, as if yesterday’s performance was still vivid in his mind and that “Alice” was right before his eyes.

“… Tsk.”

— I couldn’t help myself.

‘Hey, hey, hey, is it okay to say this in front of me?’

While bad-mouthing them in my heart, I also realized that I might never get used to the ubiquitous gazes I had encountered since stepping out of the house.

The third stop was a dance studio in the East District.

It had glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows, and people were practicing dance inside.

I stood across the street and watched for ten minutes.

The leader was a middle-aged woman with clean movements and strict requirements.

There were seven or eight girls under her; the older ones were in their early 20s, while the younger ones looked to be only 15 or 16.

They were practicing the same dance.

They practiced it over and over, and they were corrected over and over.

After one girl was called out three times, her eyes turned red, but she didn’t cry.

She kept dancing.

I watched her for a long time.

It wasn’t because she danced well.

It was because of the way she gritted her teeth.

When the practice ended, the girls scattered to drink water.

I saw the girl with red eyes walk to a corner and sit by herself, not talking to anyone.

She opened her phone and was looking at something.

She looked for a long time.

Then she placed the phone face down on her lap, lowered her head, and stopped moving.

I had seen that posture before.

It was the posture of someone thinking, ‘Can I really do this?’

But I knew that she was actually just a bit clumsy and needed more experience and guidance.

I stood for a while, then turned and left.

I didn’t go in.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to.

I couldn’t.

If I went in now as a stranger and asked, “Do you want to be an idol?” — she would either think I was a scammer or she would actually follow me.

But what she needed to figure out was whether she truly wanted to be an idol, or if she just wanted to prove herself through dancing.

Those two things were different.

Just as I was about to leave, I noticed her eyes suddenly look toward me —

‘Was I too obvious?’

I reflected in my heart and didn’t plan to stay any longer.

But as soon as I turned around, I saw a large poster:

Gemstone Princess Alice.

“Eh?”

Guessing something, I looked back at the girl in the dance studio.

She was staring intently at that poster, staring at “me” — the “Gemstone Princess.”

“……. Surely not.”

My tone was rare in its weakness.

Maybe last night’s performance was too much…

But this was already the third time today.

I kept walking.

At exactly 4:00 PM, I entered a café called “Scout.”

The name was very straightforward, and the people inside were indeed in that line of work.

Several men in suits sat at one table with laptops open and photos attached to them; two young people sat in a corner, swiping back and forth on a tablet, likely screening registration materials; by the bar, a forty-something woman was on the phone, her voice kept very low, though fragments could be heard: “… Her contract still has six months… the penalty fee isn’t an issue…”

I ordered an Americano at the bar and sat in a window seat.

In the span of thirty minutes, I observed the conversations at three tables.

At the first table, the suits were talking about a rookie who had just popped up: “… I saw the performance, she’s indeed good, but the asking price is too high. A girl from a small theater dares to ask for this much…”

At the second table, the two young people swiped at the tablet for a long time before finally sighing: “This batch is no good, not a single one can hold their own.”

At the third table, the woman hung up the phone, rubbed her brow, and said to the server, “Give me another one, make it strong.”

She looked more tired than me.

Seeing this, I felt somewhat relieved.

It seemed I wasn’t the only one coming up empty-handed.

But just as I relaxed, I heard this sentence —

“Sigh~ why can’t I find someone like the Gemstone Princess?”

‘Eh?’

And then.

“Hahaha — “

The atmosphere in the café suddenly became lively, and even the corner of that woman’s mouth curled up slightly.

‘Seriously, can’t you talk about anything else??’

***

Early on the third day.

Having gained nothing, I had no choice but to sit in my newly decorated office, open the computer, and look at the registration backend, considering whether to recruit online.

Eighteen applications.

Six more than yesterday.

I clicked on the first one:

ID: Star Chasing Dreams

Age: 19

Self-introduction: I’ve wanted to be an idol since I was a child.

I especially like Gemstone Princess Alice, and I hope to shine just like her!

I didn’t react and kept scrolling.

ID: szd233

Age: 24

Self-introduction: I have three years of trainee experience.

I can sing and dance.

Please take me in.

ID: Meow Meow Meow

Age: 16

Self-introduction: I think I look quite good.

I should be able to be an idol, right?

ID: A Salted Fish

Age: 22

Self-introduction: Want to give it a try.

It was still very early, and a bird occasionally flew past the window.

As I was browsing mechanically, I suddenly thought of the girl from yesterday.

Would she come over now?

I looked toward the door, my mind racing.

I could almost imagine the girl from last night pushing the door open, and I was even prepared to see that stubborn look in her eyes.

Then —

Click!

The door actually opened.

But the figure that burst into my sight was a snow-white one.

‘It’s her.’

— Chuxue.