Part 2
The landing announcement played. Berlin groggily pulled down his eye mask. It took him a while to recover before he confirmed his hypothesis.
Taking off the ring had no apparent effect on him. It was only when he wore it on his hand that he would enter the dream with Cecil.
He had slept very well; there were no dreams throughout the journey.
Berlin let out a breath. This was good news.
It meant everything was still controllable. Berlin wasn’t someone who couldn’t prioritize. He knew very well that he chose to help Cecil on the premise that it wouldn’t affect his real life.
He had to live his own life well first before he could do his best to bring strength to others within his capabilities.
On the way back to the company, Berlin basically planned out how he would allocate his time in the futureâhe could rely on alarms to control it. He would set aside two to three hours every night to teach Cecil. That way, he wouldn’t be too tired and could still get a few hours of sleep to save energy for his daytime work.
Skye was entering a training camp. For nearly a month, they wouldn’t accept any public schedules, focusing entirely on secluded training.
Fans still had promotional materials and behind-the-scenes content to look forward to. Plus, due to a stroke of luck, the show Challenge the Impossible fell into their laps. Once it aired, it would stabilize the fanbase’s activity, ensuring fans wouldn’t leave due to a lack of exposure.
How many times a group made a comeback in a year depended entirely on the company’s planning. Some “model worker” groups came back three times a year, practically living on music shows. Others came back once every three years; fans would wish upon stars and moons but wouldn’t even get a single stage performance, seeing only commercial endorsements or fashion magazines.
Skyeâs schedule was a middle ground: one comeback a year, but of very high quality. The members’ comprehensive skills were solid, and the songs were strongâintoxicating intros, earworm choruses. Major dance crews and KOLs would start a cover wave every time, resulting in viral spread.
Their last album, ‘sup future, had brainwashed everyone with “‘sup” for the entire summer. Good food is worth the wait; fans were very much looking forward to the third comeback with a full album and were willing to wait.
There were a few fans squatting at the company entrance. Through the car window, Berlin spotted two familiar facesâfans who had supported him since his trainee days before debut.
They were different from the sasaengs who blocked the company for voyeuristic satisfaction. They had simply been busy with life and hadn’t chased offline events for a long time, so they wanted to see Berlin one last time before Skye went into seclusion.
Berlin rolled down the window in advance to wave. They didn’t crowd forward; they just stood at the door holding letters. Seeing Berlin jump out of the car and walk toward them, they didn’t even lift their phones to take pictures.
“Little Lin, here are flowers for you.” The veteran fan handed a bouquet to Berlin. “I used my hard-earned annual leave to assemble this. Be careful, don’t let it fall apart.”
Berlin shook his head slightly at the assistant who wanted to intervene, signaling it was fine. He took the bouquet with both hands and looked down curiously. “Wow, it’s Lego. I thought it was baby’s breath.”
The veteran fan giggled with satisfaction. “Pretty, right? I chose Skye’s Starry Grey and your favorite Coral Red.”
They didn’t meet oftenâit had been a long timeâbut there was no sense of estrangement. It felt like meeting an old classmate at a reunion after starting work: a solid feeling of familiarity amidst the distance.
The fan didn’t take photos either, instead scrutinizing Berlin carefully. “Little Lin, are you even 120 pounds right now? Why do I feel like you’ve lost a lot of weight compared to half a year ago?”
Berlin subconsciously pinched his cheek and couldn’t help but grin foolishly. “How is that possible? I’ve gained a bit. My manager even told me two days ago to control my weight for this comeback and lose some more.”
The teammates got out of the car and walked over, only to hear the two protective fans complaining with shock and speechlessness. “No way, oh my god. Pathological beauty standards are unacceptable! Little Lin, you’re already drop-dead gorgeous. Why do you need a bicycle?”
Wu Hengyao poked his head over. “…What are you talking about? A bicycle?”
The two girls who came to see Berlin were his solo fans, but after Skye debuted, they loved the whole group by extension. Hearing this, they couldn’t help but roast him with a laugh: “Come on, Teacher Wu. Don’t let your 2G internet be this slow. Pay attention to internet slang, even if this is a sentence structure from 800 years ago.”
Berlin stood in solidarity with his fans, shaking his head at Wu Hengyao and sighing in a fake Taiwanese accent, “Teacher Wu, if you keep this up, you’ll be out.”
Wu Hengyao: “……”
Humans are really hard to understand.
Berlin only accepted the Lego bouquet and the letters. The fans wanted to give him some small gifts, but Berlin refused, telling them to keep the items for themselves.
As he entered the company, Berlin turned back every three steps, waving enthusiastically. After getting inside, he even peeked out to make sure they went home promptly. Catching the lingering fans red-handed, Berlin cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone and advised sternly, “I’m going to be at the company until midnight today! Hurry back, you won’t wait me out!”
The fans burst into laughter and made faces at Berlin. “Aiya, we know, we know! But we were just discussing which mall to go to tonight. You just work hard on practicing your dance. We won’t wait for you to get off work, don’t worry!”
Berlin: “…Fine then. Bye.”
Hmph. The overtime worker couldn’t smile.
In the lobby on the first floor of the company hung huge posters of the five Skye members, standing three stories high. Every time Berlin passed by, he felt a mix of immense pride and slightly shameful awkwardness.
Actually, the upper management had discussed making Skye’s posters into a photo wall covering an entire external face of the office building, wishing the whole world knew Skye was an artist under their label. In the end, it was passed over because it was too high-profile and the budget was limited.
There was no helping it; Skye was the undisputed first tier within the company, the top artists. Eighty-five percent of the company’s annual revenue was contributed by Skye. All the other artists combined barely made a fraction of that.
This phenomenon wasn’t rare in the entertainment industry; in fact, it was ubiquitous.
Making it big depends on fate. Not every artist becomes an overnight sensation upon debut. A company is lucky to produce one evergreen tree. A career as smooth as Skye’s was incredibly rare.
The dance practice rooms were on the sixth floor.
After Skye exploded in popularity, the company’s budget increased significantly, and the conditions for trainees were much better than when Skye was there. When Berlin was a trainee, the floorboards were stepped on so often that some would squeak; now, they had all been replaced with high-quality new flooring. Even the ceiling lights, which used to be half-broken with no one to fix them, were replaced immediately.
Every company had a different internal trainee training system and mechanism. GNK didn’t have a formal system before Skye’s debut. Since the group became a hit, the company leaped to become a “Golden Signboard” that countless young people with dreams of debuting yearned forâa dream factory that sparked longing eyes just by mention: Ah, thatâs the company Skye is in.
Every ambitious dreamer who wanted to break into the entertainment industry fought tooth and nail to get into GNK. The reason was simple: just mentioning it made everyone look at you with respect. You could openly introduce yourself as a GNK trainee, a junior of Skye.
It brought its own spotlight; you won at the starting line.
So, GNK reformulated a systematic trainee survival rule set. It was a very intuitive “step system,” or one could say, a clear hierarchy.
The practice room closest to the debut slot was simply labeled “A”.
For those with slim chances of debut, the company would realistically inform them they lacked talent and advise them to change paths. The door to their practice room would permanently display a large, eye-catching “F”.
Assessments were held at the end of every month, and members of all classes faced a major reshuffle. Three consecutive demotions would lead to expulsion.
From the five classes of practice rooms, A to F, there was internal competition as well. Trainees were ranked and numbered according to comprehensive data from daily performance, monthly assessments, and annual evaluations.
The one with the strongest comprehensive strength would get the number “A-1”.
Generally speaking, the strength of A-rank trainees should be roughly similar, and the ranking numbers would constantly rotate. But this year, a powerful “Purple Star” had appearedâ
He had been with the company for exactly six months. Yet, in his very first month at GNK, he indisputably leaped from a pure rookie to A-1 with absolute strength.
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