Chapter 131 Part 1
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Chapter 131 Part 1: The Missing Sakura Candy, Xie Qingxuan’s Attack (1)
Sea City, apartment.
Xu Ling set down her small dinosaur pillow and reached for her house cat plushie. As she stroked this adorable pet, temporarily entrusted to her by a friend, she eagerly turned her attention to the TV.
The third episode was an impressive 121 minutes long, practically a movie.
Despite its length surpassing the previous two episodes, it compressed the experiences of 168 contestants over more than two weeks.
It’s easy to see that the allocation of camera time would be even more competitive.
Xu Ling didn’t mind too much.
The elimination process on *Dazzling Stage* was undeniably brutal, yet the exposure it offered was unmatched. Even the contestants who were eliminated and couldn’t become idols could leverage this visibility to pivot to other opportunities in the entertainment industry.
—Risks and opportunities coexist.
Life is like that; *Dazzling Stage* merely amplifies it to the extreme.
Those contestants with genuine brilliance, even if they unluckily fall short, will undoubtedly shine in their future endeavors and be recognized by the world in their own radiant moments.
To put it simply, being an idol is a grand yet narrow dream—grand enough to encompass many lives, yet narrow enough that stepping away from it opens up a broader world.
The show officially begins.
In this episode, the only scenes revealed in advance were Chu Yuanqing’s two Stage Battles, totaling just 15 minutes. The remaining 100-plus minutes were uncharted territory for the audience.
As a result, hardly anyone was skipping ahead this time, unlike before.
Xu Ling was no exception. As the founder of “Meet You in the Mist” and a staunch supporter of the Ironblood Sakura Party, she had transformed into a relentless candy-hunting machine, determined to uncover every sakura candy on her first watch of Episode 3!
Unfortunately, in the first 30 minutes, Chu Yuanqing and Kirimi Miyuki didn’t cross paths at all.
Forget sakura candy—the screen was brimming with Golden Retriever puppies and Honey Qing’s daily routine. Worse still, with its heavy focus on practice details for “Dangerous Party,” it had a strong copper vibe, sparking cheers from the “Clear City Qing Empire.”
Fans of the two rival couples began to clash.
Meanwhile, even more fans were busy showering affection on all the beautiful contestants.
Xu Ling stayed out of the fray, leaving the skirmishes to the foot soldiers. As a leader of the Ironblood Cherry Blossom faction, she had a greater mission.
Her duty was to lift her team’s spirits by finding sweet moments to bolster the legitimacy of their favored pairing!
The show didn’t dwell much on Chu Yuanqing’s training.
Out of over 70 hours of preparation for “Dangerous Party,” only two minutes made the cut, interspersed with snippets of Grade A contestants’ training sessions.
Across the episode, all 84 teams received some airtime for their training and daily lives, ranging from two minutes to mere seconds.
Though the teams appeared harmonious on the surface, a storm was quietly brewing beneath.
That storm erupted with Kirimi Miyuki’s first Stage Battle.
Since Chu Yuanqing’s performance had been livestreamed, the audience already knew the outcome of the PK battle, so expectations weren’t particularly high.
What stood out, however, was the moment before this scene: a green-eyed cat gleefully filled out a PK application form, targeting Chu Yuanqing and Xie Qingxuan’s team, oblivious to Lin Baor’s stunned expression beside her.
The bullet comments on the video erupted with laughter, as viewers couldn’t help but chime in:
“Haha, Liuli obviously challenged them with no real intent, so Little Sakura swooped in and snatched Honey Qing, pulling off an NTR move. LOL!”
“Lin Baor’s face is priceless—she’s probably wondering how this team even functions, radiating outsider energy.”
“This is gold. The reason Honey Qing lost the second PK battle is clear now—Little Sakura’s a master of stealth plays.”
“So funny! How did Liuli even agree to the challenge later? That sly sakura girl’s got tricks up her sleeve!”
The camera perspective shifted.
Kirimi Miyuki, alongside Chu Wang Shu, had already cornered Tang Liuli and Lin Baor, wearing a courteous smile. With just a few words, she ruffled a certain cat’s feathers, deftly securing the PK battle for the next day at noon.
In the interface of the third episode, a flurry of bullet comments popped up, eventually settling into three succinct lines:
“Lin Baor looks so lost.”
“Little Sakura’s so cunning.”
“The green-eyed cat’s too easy to bait.”
Xu Ling couldn’t help but marvel at Kirimi Miyuki’s strategy. With her keen insight, she recognized the brilliance of this move.
This clever tactic, on a grand scale, was a critical step in forging the dual “Heart Flow” bonds; on a smaller scale, it created a scenario where one side lost a lead singer while the other gained a Grade A talent—a truly masterful play!
For a moment, the cherry blossom faction in the group rejoiced, thrilled to have a leader who blended luck and wisdom. With her at the helm, why fret over missing out on rewards?
Haha, Episode 3 was in the bag! There had to be treats waiting within!
Shortly after this scene, *Dazzling Stage* aired a notification to all players about the first stage PK.
Hot on its heels, one team after another sprang up like mushrooms after rain—nearly ten teams, roughly one-eighth of the competition region’s participants, opted for a stage battle that very night.
Xu Ling was mildly taken aback; something felt off.
“So soon? Miyuki accepted the challenge because she drew a dance she excels at, and her opponents were a duo of lead singers, giving her a strong shot at victory. But what about the others?”
The answer came almost immediately.
The *Dazzling Stage* team didn’t air every stage performance in full. Instead, they curated the best highlights from each team’s time on stage, paired with incisive mentor critiques, a string of low scores, and the inevitable selection of top-rated contestants.
The bullet comments detonated one after another.
“Seriously, doesn’t the production team care? This feels unfair to the teams who actually prepared for their performances!”
“Tough call. I bet Dream Weaver Rabbit thrives on this chaos. Isn’t the show’s high-stakes vibe their doing?”
The bullet comments descended into disarray, but the episode pressed on, weaving a narrative that seemed to align with the so-called Fake Competition League’s desires—scenes of scheming, selfish plotting, reluctance, and eventual epiphanies.
At the same time, Dream Weaver Rabbit thoughtfully provided corresponding scenes for all the deceived, abandoned, and manipulated lower-tier players—an almost unbelievable touch, steeped in melancholy and starkly contrasting the earlier team harmony.
For a while, public opinion split sharply, and debates flared up.
All the members of the Fake Match League were Grade B players with sizable fanbases.
Their defenses included: “We’re not breaking any game rules,” “The production team’s silence means it’s fair,” “Mixing high- and low-tier players on one team was unfair from the start,” and “If they don’t care about being idols, why risk the backlash just to boost their odds a little?”
