In the backstage corridor, people walked past her.
One, two, three.
They wore different performance outfits, different makeup, held different props in their hands.
They moved fast, their skirts stirring up wind as they brushed past Su Nian, their shoulders almost touching hers.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry—we’re next—”
“My heel—my heel is stuck—”
“Forget it, just get up there first—”
“Sisters, the momentum in our venue has been really good lately—we all need to seize the opportunity!” a girl with a high ponytail encouraged.
Then voices bounced off the walls in the corridor, chaotic and noisy.
Someone was touching up their makeup, the powder puff making a puff puff puff sound against their face.
Someone was memorizing lyrics, lips moving fast, muttering to themselves.
Someone was hopping in place, loosening their ankles, heel tapping against the floor with a da da da.
The girl with the high ponytail ran past Su Nian, then doubled back after two steps and shouted toward the corner:
“Did you bring your lipstick—!”
The person crouching in the corner, who had been tying her shoelaces, jerked her head up.
There was nothing on her lips—bare and pale.
“No—!”
“I can’t with you! I just told you!”
After complaining, she rummaged through her bag, pulled out a tube, and threw it over.
The person in the corner caught it, twisted off the cap, and applied it to her lips.
She smeared it crooked, then used her finger to fix it.
A girl in a red dress walked past Su Nian, paused when she saw her.
“You haven’t gone on yet?”
Su Nian nodded.
“Good luck,” the girl said, patting her shoulder.
The force wasn’t heavy, but it was sincere.
Then she ran off.
After two steps, she turned back:
“Don’t be nervous—the atmosphere on stage is amazing—!”
Her voice carried from the other end of the corridor, the ending stretched by distance, like a pulled strand of sugar.
Su Nian stood still.
The paper was still clutched in her hand, already crumpled.
She looked down—it was the lyrics for “The Brave.”
She didn’t need to look anymore.
She remembered every word.
She lifted her head again, looking toward the end of the corridor.
There was a door there with the word “Stage” written on it.
The door was closed, but she could hear the sounds from beyond—muffled, distant, like through water.
The sounds of the audience.
Someone talking, someone laughing, someone coughing, someone flipping through a program.
Eight hundred people, eight hundred voices, all mixed together, squeezing through the crack in the door, flooding into her ears.
She listened for a moment.
Then—
“…So small.”
Su Nian stood behind the side curtain, peering through the gap.
The audience lights were still on, bright and white, illuminating every face clearly.
Someone was looking down at their phone.
Someone was talking to the person next to them.
Someone was sitting with legs crossed, shaking a foot.
A few seats were empty—not many, but noticeable at a glance.
She watched for a moment.
Just a moment.
“…So small.”
Her voice was very soft, so soft only she could hear it.
Not a complaint.
A statement.
She had seen a venue with twenty thousand people.
On TV, in that person’s performance.
She had also seen thirty thousand people, just a moment ago.
The stage had been as vast as the sea, and the people standing on it were like specks of light on the water.
When the lightsticks lit up, the entire venue breathed.
Now this eight-hundred-person venue—the stage was only five times the size of her training room.
The audience seating was only a few dozen rows.
The last row of chairs was against the wall.
Behind the wall was the exit.
Beyond the exit was the street.
She could see the audience’s expressions—not blurry patches of color, but exactly how their eyebrows furrowed, which way their mouths tilted, whether the screen on their phone was a chat interface or a game.
Su Nian stood there, and suddenly felt—
Relieved.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t nervous.
Her hands were still trembling, her heart still pounding.
But that weight pressing down on her shoulders, accumulating from day one, getting heavier and heavier—it had lightened a little.
Because those people didn’t care.
They didn’t care who she was, how long she had trained, whether she spent ten million or twenty million, whether she could surpass Alice.
They were just there to see a show.
Perform well, they’d clap.
Perform badly, they wouldn’t jeer.
Not out of tolerance, but out of indifference.
She remembered what that person had said:
“Your performance must be good enough.”
Not “if you’re good enough, you’ll be seen.”
But “you must be good enough to be seen.”
Now, standing in front of this door, listening to the sounds behind it, she suddenly understood one thing:
Those people weren’t “there to see her.”
Who was “she”?
They didn’t care.
They were just sitting there.
They were just “there to see a performance.”
When she started, whether she was good enough—that would decide if they bothered to watch.
Having endured all kinds of setbacks, Su Nian felt instead that this audience’s aura was—weak.
Because of the constant high standards—from the Gemstone Princess, from Snow Girl, from Shen Wei, the idol from a top-tier agency.
She just didn’t know it herself.
No one expected anything from her.
No one denied her either.
They just—watched her.
Su Nian took a deep breath.
She folded the paper and put it in her pocket.
Then she reached out and pushed open that door.
—The stage.
—She stepped onto it.
—The final act took the stage.
Light poured down from above, flat and white, illuminating her from head to toe.
In front of those audience members who had already consumed most of their attention, she took a deep breath.
First, the self-introduction.
“My name is Su Nian. A newcomer. A new song, titled ‘The Brave.'”
Her voice traveled from the speakers, bouncing once in the empty venue.
Not explosive, not bright, flat—just like the stage light.
She stood in the center of the stage.
The microphone was in her hand, her palm slightly damp.
Her heart was beating fast, but her breathing was steady.
She looked at the audience below—eight hundred pairs of eyes.
Someone noticed her, nudged the person next to them:
“Hey, it’s starting.”
Someone put their phone away and sat up straighter.
Someone was still immersed in the last act, pulled back to reality only when the person beside them tugged at them.
The sound of flipping program pages rustled, like stepping on fallen leaves in autumn.
No boos.
No applause.
Just the sound of flipping pages.
The sound traveled from the speakers, rolling through the hot, stuffy air.
Someone nodded.
Someone shifted in their seat.
Someone was still talking to the person next to them about the previous performance, voice lowered but not stopping.
Not dissatisfaction.
They just weren’t ready to listen to her yet.
They were still in the last act.
Not out of it yet.
She remembered that night, part of what the President had taught her—
“When people are looking down, playing on their phones, not noticing the show has started, or even if they notice, they don’t react. What do you do then?”
The answer was: let the music pause for a moment.
Break the audience’s unconscious state.
They’ll look up to see what’s happening.
Then cut directly into the next song.
—Something like that.
She forgot the rest.
But by the fourth second, the last rustle of pages had stopped.
She lifted the microphone.
The prelude began.
Timing—just right.
[Light falls on whose body—]
[Road leads to which direction—]
[I stand here, can’t see the distance—]
[But I hear my heartbeat ringing—]
The sound came from the microphone, not heavy, not light, flat.
No reaction from the audience below—not that no one was watching.
On the contrary, someone shifted their sitting position, the chair creaking.
[Not someone’s shadow]
[Not someone’s second line]
[I am just that person]
[Still jumping]
When she reached this part, she suddenly remembered the first time she had stood on this stage.
Back then, the stage was empty, only a work light on.
She had stood there, at a loss, not knowing where to put her hands.
Now her hands knew where to go.
They held the microphone, hanging by her side, neither tight nor loose.
[Stumble, and just get up—]
More and more people in the audience were looking at her now.
—Looked at with curiosity, like someone passing a tasting station in a supermarket, taking a bite, then discovering a treasure with disbelief.
[Pain but don’t cry, cry but don’t fear—]
Su Nian saw it.
But she just kept singing.
[Even if I’m half a beat slow, even if I’m different—]
[I am still my own echo—]
***
The chorus came in.
The drumbeat was heavier, the tempo a little faster.
The piano still supported underneath, like a riverbed holding up the river.
The figure on the stage, turned.
Her ponytail swung up, drawing a beautiful arc in the air.
The tips brushed against her shoulder, softly, with a light slap.
Her skirt fluttered up—white, not the puffy, cloud-like kind, but straight and fitted, like a knight’s cape.
In the second row, someone lifted their phone.
The screen pointed at her, the red recording dot blinking.
“I’ve never heard this song before…”
“Today’s performances aren’t bad at all.”
“Yeah, I don’t know why, but recently this theater’s shows have been better than before.”
“The level has improved. Even though most of the people are still the same.”
The last to speak was an older man, squinting as he said it.
Then, nothing more.
Because the rest of them were seriously watching the show.
Eight hundred people.
Almost all of them were seriously watching the show.
That was rare for a small theater.
Not just because the overall quality of performances had risen, but because the “final act” idol could carry it—even for an eight-hundred-person venue, the final act was still the final act.
—As for why the overall performance level had improved… it was actually the effect of someone’s “special training.”
Su Nian looked at those eyes.
Curious.
Expectant.
Eager…
But no reaction.
To her, who had been enduring all sorts of things, this pressure was surprisingly light.
Light enough that she could even afford to recall the hard work of these twenty days.
It sounded like so little, nothing compared to trainees with one or two years’ experience, but—
She remembered that night, the Gemstone Princess she had looked up to.
She remembered a certain gaze she had met during a visit.
She remembered Chuxue, remembered Shen Wei’s guidance.
And those people from small agencies—not tired, but… accustomed.
So they stopped moving.
She also thought about the ten million that someone had spent for her, thought about the song, the dance, the performance—the costume she was wearing now—what was also called an idol’s “decisive battle outfit.”
All of this was hers.
Her own accumulation.
That was what she was truly carrying.
So—she decided to do something special.
In the next instrumental break, she began walking toward the audience, spinning, imitating the figures in her memory, and on this first-ever final act performance, she started—
An improvisation.