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"Wei-ge! I mean, Wei-laoshi! That was amazing, you guys did so great!" Wen Ning goes right in for a hug, and Wen Ning gives the best hugs.
"A-Ning, you don't have to call me Wei-laoshi off camera, y'know," Wei Wuxian laughs. "You've been calling me Wei-ge since you were ten, you don't have to stop now."
"Yeah," Wen Ning says as the hug ends, "but I'm worried if I don't call you Wei-laoshi all the time I'll slip up and call you Wei-ge on camera, and I'm not even your junior."
"Was that improv on the piano?" Song Lan asks Lan Zhan. "That fuckin' ruled."
Lan Zhan nods. "I took jazz piano for a couple of years as a teenager. It was my rebellious phase." The gathered singers all laughed, except for Wei Wuxian, who knows he's not joking. "My uncle refused to pay for it," Lan Zhan continues after the laughter fades. "I had to get my first after-school job."
"Yeah, apparently when you're a Lan, jazz piano constitutes legit rebellion," Wei Wuxian says, grinning at Lan Zhan.
"And you grew a personality tonight, good job," Xue Yang says with his usual sickly-sweet grin. Thankfully, several people glare at him.
"He has a fantastic personality," Wei Wuxian says, putting one hand on Lan Zhan's shoulder—and to his surprise, Lan Zhan relaxes rather than tenses. He manages not to say unlike some people—he's only known Xue Yang for a couple of weeks but the guy always seems to have something mean or snarky to say to everyone other than Xiao Xingchen. "We just figured out how to use it better in this style of performance."
"Wei-laoshi's expertise was invaluable," Lan Zhan says, bowing a little to Wei Wuxian. "It has not been easy to navigate the transition between performing styles. Wei Ying takes his responsibilities as a mentor very seriously."
Xiao Xingchen beams at him, and Wei Wuxian can tell from the way his eyes are a little misty exactly what he's about to say. "A-Ying, Cangse would be very proud. Really."
"Ah, nonononono," Wei Wuxian says, waving the hand that isn't (still) on Lan Zhan's shoulder. "Chen-jiu, you're not allowed to bring up my mother right now! Not at work! Feelings are for off the clock!"
"He's right!" chirps a bright voice from somewhere behind Song Lan and Wen Ning. The two tall men turn and reveal Jiang Yanli standing behind them. "Otherwise I'd be pinching his little didi-cheeks and feeding him soup all day, every day. But we've got confessionals to get through—Xue Yang and Song Lan, you two are up first tonight, then Mianmian and Wen Ning, Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing, and A-Xian and Lan Wangji, it's your turn to be last tonight. But don't anybody leave when you're done—I need to talk to you all about next week's show while you're still in tonight's outfits."
"Can't we do that first?" Mianmian asks, and Wei Wuxian had been about to ask the exact same thing.
"I wanna get the crew involved in the confessionals home as soon as I can," Yanli says firmly. "Pingyan and Xiaomeng are the only two camera operators we need for the last bit, and they were the last ones to arrive today anyhow so I don't mind keeping them an extra hour."
"Let's get the crew home, then," Song Lan says, and motions for Xue Yang to follow him to the confessional cameras.
"You went from last place with your last performance to second place tonight. What do you think you've learned over the past two weeks that helped you achieve that?"
"Oh no, I have to say something inspiring, don't I?" Wei Wuxian laughs. "Well, I learned that Lan Zhan's brother has excellent taste in music. But seriously, I think we learned a lot about collaborating—not, like, in general, but how the two of us collaborate. What we both bring to the table and how to use that effectively."
"Wei-laoshi was a true mentor to me in multiple ways," Lan Zhan says. "Not only did he help me refine my performance style for this new context, but we had several useful conversations about my career. Those might not have contributed to our performance tonight, but they were just as valuable to me."
Jiang Yanli herds them all into the room they use for games.
"Do we have to do next week's stupid performance order game early?" Mianmian asks.
"Luo Qingyang, we do not refer to the games as 'stupid,'" Yanli says primly. "At least, not where the sponsors can hear us."
"Which isn't now, you'll notice," Mianmian replies.
"Anyhow, no, you'll be playing a game that has nothing to do with any of the sponsors," Yanli continues. "Now, go sit down and pretend to hang on my every word."
Mianmian gives her a salute, then takes her seat. Once she's seated, she blows Yanli a kiss. "Love you, Yanli."
"Everyone take note," Yanli says perkily to the rest of them, "ass-kissing hours are always open. A happy producer is a producer who won't snap at you if you're running late or taking too long in makeup & hair."
"Liar," Song Lan says. "You were in a perfectly good mood yesterday before my hair took too long for the dress rehearsal."
Yanli gives him a sweet smile and bats her eyes. "Well, I wasn't a very happy producer anymore by that point, was I?"
"I think she just still hasn't forgiven you for that noisy toy we gave Jin Ling for his birthday," Xiao Xingchen says. "She knows that was your fault."
"I will neither confirm nor deny," Yanli says. "Okay, where were we? Hanging on my every word, all of you."
She gives a few instructions to the cameraman, and they get started.
"We have a game for you all to play to find out the theme of next week's show!" They all pretend to be interested and maybe even excited by this prospect. "There are hundreds, maybe thousands of songs you could choose that fit the theme, but we've chosen twenty to show you. On that table over there is a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece has one character on it—their braille equivalents are also imprinted on each puzzle piece. When the puzzle is completed, it will show the titles of twenty songs that would all qualify for next week's theme."
"So wait," A-Qing asks, "is there a prize or anything for guessing the theme first?"
Jiang Yanli shakes her head. "Nope. This is a collaborative game."
She steps back and motions for them all to go over to the table with the puzzle pieces.
"I love jigsaw puzzles," Wen Ning says cheerfully. "How many pieces is it?"
"About two hundred," Yanli replies.
"That sounds like a lot," Wei Wuxian says doubtfully. "How long is this supposed to take?"
"Nah," Wen Ning says. "Two hundred isn't too bad, not with this many people working on it. And look, the background has a colored pattern on it, so we don't have to only match based on putting the characters together into song names."
"If you say so," Mianmian says, looking at the puzzle distrustfully.
"While we appreciate the inclusion of braille, we doubt we'll be much help with the actual jigsaw puzzle part of it," Xiao Xingchen says from where he and A-Qing have taken seats to one side. "Once you start putting together song titles we can help with identifying them and figuring out the common thread."
"I think eight people would be too many cooks in this kitchen anyhow," Wei Wuxian says as the six of them gather around the table. "It's probably better that we have a couple people sitting this part out." It turns out to be only five of them, because Xue Yang goes over to chatter with Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing rather than participate.
They get started—Wen Ning, who does seem to be very good at jigsaw puzzles, insists they sort the pieces first and start with the edges.
Two hundred pieces really does turn out to be easier than Wei Wuxian expected. Some they put together based on the patterns and shape of the piece, but pretty early on they start to put individual song titles together.
"童话(Fairy Tale)," Mianmian mutters, "I guess that might be part of something else but it's probably 童话 by Michael Wong, right?"
"Ahhh, 我怎么这么好看(How Do I Look so Good?)," Song Lan sings the title lyric as he puts a piece in place.
"Good genetics," Xiao Xingchen calls out from the side, making A-Qing giggle and Xue Yang look annoyed.
Wen Ning nudges Wei Wuxian. "Here, trade me that 梦(dream) for this 雨(rain). I can make 梦醒时分 (Dream to Awakening) and you can make 雨一直下(Rain Keeps Falling)."
"Wait, these fit together..." Mianmian holds up what she's just made. "卡门(Carmen)? What? Does anyone know 卡门?"
Lan Zhan looks up doubtfully. "By Bizet? The entire opera?"
Mianmian looks at the pieces, bemused. "I thought this was song titles."
"Maybe it's part of something else," Wen Ning suggests, but Mianmian looks doubtful.
"Hey, wait," Wei Wuxian squints at the puzzle pieces in his hands, as if if he looked at the hard enough they'd name a different song. "我可以去哪里(Where Can I Go)? This is my song."
They all pause and look at each other.
"...Is anyone keeping track of these?" Song Lan asks. "We should be making a list of songs and original artists."
Wei Wuxian hops up to start a list on the white board. Within ten more minutes, they have the entire puzzle assembled, though he's still scrambling to add the last couple of artists to the list.
"Ohhhhh," Wei Wuxian says, scanning the list of artists. "Look at this—me, Xiao Xingchen, Nie Huaisang, Lan Jingyi. We're the only current contestants whose songs are on the list... and we've all been on the show before."
People start picking out other artists whose songs are on the list who have also been contestants—Michael Wong, Da Zhangwei, Penny Tai, Zhang Bichen, Gong Linna, and George Lam.
"So half of them, the original artist has been on this show before," Mianmian summarizes. "But what about the other half? Something like Carmen we don't even know who counts as the original artist. The composer?"
"Oh!" Wei Wuxian points at the board. "Right! Some people did a... a medley sort of thing in season 1. Songs from the opera, maybe something else mixed in. I forget who all was in it, but probably Zhou Shen, given his voice."
"梦醒时分 has been performed on the show at least twice," Xiao Xingchen points out.
"So are the rest all songs that have been performed on the show?" Song Lan starts to pull his phone out, but Jiang Yanli stops him.
"Nope! No phones on camera unless you happen to have a Xiaomi Mix Fold!"
"Okay, do you have one that we can borrow to look some of these up?" Song Lan asks. "Unless someone has encyclopedic knowledge of what's been performed on this show."
"Ah, I don't think we need to look them all up," Wei Wuxian says. "I think we can guess the theme by now."
He leans in and has a whispered conversation with the others—they all agree.
"Okay, yeah, we're ready to guess," he says.
"Okay!" Jiang Yanli comes over to stand by the cameras. "What is next week's theme?"
Wei Wuxian motions for Wen Ning to give the answer. "Next week's theme is songs connected to Our Song."
"Yes!" Jiang Yanli says, clapping. "Good job! Next week, both of your songs need to either be originally recorded by an artist who has been a contestant on the show in a previous season—not this season, except for the people who've been on it before—or a song that a contestant has performed during a previous season."
"Is it only competition songs?" Xiao Xingchen asks. "Do audition songs count?"
"Audition songs count," Yanli confirms. "Anything that has been performed on the show. Of course, please do not share this information with anyone in Group B." She glances at Wen Ning as she says it. "They'll have a different game to play."
She sends them on their way with lists of songs and artists so they don't have to do their own research.
It's their turn to be videotaped in their sponsor car while leaving, so before they get there, Wei Wuxian pulls Lan Zhan aside.
"Okay, important question," Wei Wuxian says. Lan Zhan looks up from his phone. "Are you ready to work on movement this week, or do you want to try to minimize it again?"
Lan Zhan nods. "We should work on that."
"Okay, cool, that gives us something to talk about in the car after we're done oohing and ahhing over the seat covers or whatever."
It turns out to be the car's sound system, not its seat covers, and they dutifully list off its features before settling back into their seats and Wei Wuxian turns to Lan Zhan.
"So let's talk dancing." Lan Zhan looks immediately wary. Wei Wuxian laughs. "Don't look at me like that! I'm not gonna make you dance like you're in the club. You probably have way more dance background than I do—obviously I got some hiphop training doing K-pop, but it was never my main thing."
Lan Zhan's wary look turns mildly confused. "Wei Ying, you... write dance music for a living."
"Well yeah," Wei Wuxian admits, "but I make music that is for people to dance to in the club. I do choreography for like, concerts and some of my music videos, but honestly I'm happier just... moving, y'know? Dancing, not doing a dance. So anyhow, like I said, I'm guessing that's actually more your area than mine."
"I'm trained in a variety of classical and folk dance styles, yes," Lan Zhan confirms. "As well as a few years of ballet, and a bit of Western ballroom."
"No Western styles more modern than ballroom?" Wei Wuxian asks. He assumes the answer is no, but he also did not expect Lan Zhan to know how to do jazz improv. Lan Zhan shakes his head. "Just checking. Okay, I'll think about this. I have a few ideas for songs, I'll have to look into our choreography options. Why don't you look through the lists and think about a second song, okay? I'll get us one that we can use with some movement or dancing, you can pick something more sedate if you want, give us a nice balance."
Lan Zhan scrolls through the list on his phone. "This does not feel like it narrows the options down much from 'all of pop music.' I am not sure where to start."
"Well, if you don't want to have to dig into artists' entire catalogs, probably just start with the songs that have been featured on the show. Just... listen to them, one after the other, and see if anything clicks for you."
Lan Zhan nods. After a few seconds of silence, he looks up at the crew member in the passenger seat. "Is that enough? Can we turn the cameras off now?"
The crew member checks something, then nods. "Yeah, that should be good." She reaches up and messes with something, and the indicator light on the camera mounted to the roof of the car turns off.
Lan Zhan lets out a sigh, his body visibly relaxing, then turns to Wei Wuxian with a troubled look on his face. "I feel like everyone here knows each other but me. Wen Ning calls you Wei-ge, you call Xiao Xingchen Chen-jiu, Mianmian was blowing kisses at your sister, Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen know each other well enough they couldn't work together."
Wei Wuxian grimaces. "A little, yeah. I think it's pretty common for the seniors on this show, just everyone who's been in the business for a certain amount of time is likely to have met at one point or another. It does feel especially crazy this season, maybe more for Group A than B? I guess you and A-Qing are really the only two in A who didn't come in knowing anyone."
"I suppose my question is, is this normal? Will I be at a disadvantage in this industry because I don't already know everyone?"
"Oh!" Wei Wuxian rushes to reassure him. "No no no, I mean, that's part of why you're here, right? Surely Xichen mentioned networking as one of the reasons to do the show."
"I don't remember specifically, but he certainly said many things that were in the general vicinity of networking." Lan Zhan, unsurprisingly, does not sound enthusiastic about this.
Wei Wuxian laughs. "And see, now you know all of us, right? Maybe you and I will do another performance together for New Year's Eve, or maybe you'll run into one of the other juniors on another variety show and team up together, or whatever. Everyone starts somewhere. Although I'll admit, a lot of us this year just happen to go way back, but that's a fluke. My first season, I'd only ever met like two of the juniors before, and I was pretty well-established."
Lan Zhan tilts his head curiously. "If you don't mind me asking, how does everyone know everyone else? I know a bit—you've mentioned that Xiao Xingchen knew your mother—but I don't know why Mianmian knows your sister so well, or why Wen Ning has called you Wei-ge since he was ten years old."
"Let's see," Wei Wuxian says, hoping he can remember everything. "So yeah, Xiao Xingchen I've known since I was born. He and my mom went to college together, they were best friends. Technically he didn't get together with Song Lan until a few years later, but I was little enough that I literally don't remember Song Lan not being around. I didn't know they were together until I was an adult—first because telling your illegal secrets to a preschooler is generally considered bad opsec, and then once Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu adopted me, Madam Yu was kind of a homophobic bitch so they weren't gonna tell her. He was just Chen-jiu's 'good friend,' y'know?"
They arrive at the apartment, and once they're out of the car he continues on their way in.
"Wen Ning and his sister, Wen Qing, she's one of the seniors in the other group? Our families—by which I mean the Jiangs this time—ran in the same social circles so we got dragged to a lot of the same events as kids. Jiang Cheng and I would hang out with Wen Qing, and we'd sort of collectively babysit Wen Ning and let him feel cool for hanging out with the teenagers. Nie Huaisang actually came up through K-pop training with me, he was basically my best friend there, but he washed out right before we were going to be assigned to groups to debut and went and started a band instead."
"Nie Huaisang is actually the only person in this show I've met before," Lan Zhan interrupts him.
"Oh, yeah?"
"His brother and my brother are friends. I am not actually sure how they met. So I don't know Huaisang well, but I've met him a handful of times."
"See?" Wei Wuxian bumps Lan Zhan with his shoulder as they enter the apartment. "You've got connections. Let's see, who else... Oh, Mianmian, we met just because..." He waves his hands vaguely. "We were both big pop stars in the mid 2010s? I dunno. We dated for a hot minute, but we agreed pretty quick that that was not working out. But we've been really good friends ever since, and like you saw, she and my sister are close, too, which started when we were dating. Yanli was not happy when we broke up, even though we'd only been together for like, two months, tops. Is that everyone?"
"So you do not know Xue Yang even though Xiao Xingchen does?" Lan Zhan asks.
"Oh, Xingchen was his mentor on another variety show like five years ago. I know they stayed in touch, but no, I've never met him. From what I hear, Xingchen was the only one who could stand the guy, and from what I've seen here, I'm not shocked. Like what he said to you earlier, what the fuck?"
"He was not wrong," Lan Zhan mutters.
"What? Of course he was wrong, do you think I was just trying to make you feel better when I said you have a great personality and we just had to work on how to show it onstage? Lan Zhan, I meant every word that I said!" The tips of Lan Zhan's ears turn pink as he avoids Wei Wuxian's gaze. "Anyhow, even if it was true, who says that? It's not like this is some American reality show where they want to manufacture drama, the producers don't want to hear that shit, either. I know I said they don't mind if one of the pairs doesn't inspire the audience to root for them, but they're not exactly looking to give someone a villain edit, and it feels like he's trying for one."
"I have to admit that he is the one person I've met during this experience that I would rather not stay in touch with after the show is over," Lan Zhan says as he goes to set up his guqin. Since its arrival, he's worked on that song he's composing every evening before bed. It's not a bad way to end the day, with his music filling the apartment. He still hasn't told Wei Wuxian what it's called.
"Aw, Lan Zhan, does that mean you do want to stay in touch with me?" Wei Wuxian teases. "I haven't driven you crazy enough yet that you're planning to run away screaming the first chance you get?"
Lan Zhan looks at him, and there's a softness in his gaze that does something to Wei Wuxian. "Wei Ying has been an excellent mentor. And friend."
Chapter 8 End Notes:
Music in this chapter:
童话 (Tónghuà, Fairy Tale) by Michael Wong - this video gets a warning, for MCD via CDrama Coughing Up Blood Disease. Also, performing it on Our Song with Chen Zhuoxuan, who played A-Qing and was his junior in Season 5!
我怎么这么好看 (Wǒ zěnme zhème hǎokàn, How Do I Look so Good?) by Da Zhangwei and a low-quality live video with the only English translation I could find
梦醒时分 (Mèng xǐng shífēn, Dream to Awakening) by Sarah Chen
雨一直下 (Yǔ yīzhí xià, Rain Keeps Falling) by Phil Chang
卡门 (Kǎmén, Carmen) performance on Our Song S1 by Zhou Shen, Hacken Lee, Fei Yuqing, and Xu Weizhou - some kind of mashup of... things from the opera but also 爱情的骗子我问你 which was originally in Hokkien and I think they might be using the Hokkien here? So I am not going to even try for a translation since I am not even 100% sure what all languages we've got (there's also the original French in there)