It was unclear if this was part of the semi-finals' arrangement, but the first seven contestants had all performed, gone through the voting process, and received brief critiques from the judges—yet their scores remained unannounced.
This left the contestants uneasy. Those who had already performed had no idea how they'd fared, and Chu Zhi, still waiting in the wings, was no exception. He knew what awaited him, but the uncertainty before the storm made it impossible to stay calm.
The feeling was akin to a monthly visit from "Aunt Flo"—you dread its arrival, but you dread its unpredictability even more.
"My performance received the highest praise from the professional judges. The advantage is mine," Li Xingwei said as he passed Chu Zhi on his way back to the green room.
"My performance got the highest praise from the professional judges. Looks like I've got the advantage," he said breezily, then added with an effortless smile, "Looking forward to your performance."
Chu Zhi simply nodded. "Thank you."
He inhaled slowly, letting the breath steady his heart.
As he moved toward the waiting area, his tension became hard to miss. Even his music partner—who usually had the emotional sensitivity of a brick—picked up on it.
"Teacher Chu…" Wei Tongzi hesitated, her voice uncharacteristically small. "I'll always be your little fan. I support you."
The words came out awkward and rushed. She usually spoke with a calm, measured rhythm, but emotions had twisted her tongue. She was like many people: eloquent in casual conversation, but suddenly mute when it mattered. The type who always thought of the perfect thing to say only after the moment had passed.
Chu Zhi gave her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Having you as a fan gives me a lot of courage." But the truth was, nothing eased the knots in his stomach.
After host Gu Nanxi's introduction, Chu Zhi took the stage.
Instantly, the atmosphere changed.
It was like the air dropped ten degrees. The warmth of stage lights, the usual sea of glowing support banners, the gentle cheers, the safe hum of background noise—it all vanished. Gone. As if someone had vacuumed all joy from the room.
Instead, there was silence.
Not passive quiet, but something darker. The kind of silence that looked you in the eye and dared you to speak. There was no applause. No welcome. Not even polite clapping. Just hundreds of faces staring back at him, unmoved and expressionless.
He stood frozen.
It felt like standing beneath Medusa's gaze. Not just being seen, but being turned to stone. His fingers twitched against the microphone. He tried to raise it. To say something, anything. But his body refused.
In the past, Chu Zhi had read about veteran singers faltering onstage due to hostile crowds and wondered, "Why does the audience matter when you've got in-ear monitors? Just focus on your own performance."
Now, he understood.
You couldn't judge until you'd stood in those shoes.
The silence dragged on. Contestants typically introduced their song before performing. But Chu Zhi couldn't speak. The stillness thickened, heavy as wet cement drying around his ankles.
"Black Tide," Gu Nanxi thought, recognizing the tactic—a form of psychological warfare imported from K-pop fandoms. The entire studio was dark except for a single spotlight on Chu Zhi. It felt like the world had turned its back on him.
"Who orchestrated this?" Gu Nanxi wondered, unconsciously stepping back. The sheer malice in the air was suffocating.
Even through the monitors, the oppressive atmosphere was palpable.
"Is this… a protest against Chu-san?" Koguchi Yoshihiro muttered, paling. He'd seen this before—his favorite singer had succumbed to depression after two Black Tide concerts and later took his own life.
Hou Yubin frowned. "This environment is devastating for a performance." He paused, then corrected himself: "No, it's worse than that. It's like standing in a hurricane, besieged by an army, with a blade at your throat. Even I couldn't perform at half my usual level under these conditions."
As the most vocally skilled contestant, Hou's words carried weight.
Li Xingwei, though arrogant, admitted privately that surpassing Hou would take years. Yet even he couldn't truly empathize—he believed he could've owned the stage despite the hostility.
Zheng Yingying shivered. The worst she'd faced was booing early in her career, but this? This was worse. At least booing was direct. This silence was a void, swallowing all sound and hope.
"If it were me up there, if I didn't die on the spot, it'd only prove I was still alive," Lin Xia murmured to himself.
Two minutes passed. Chu Zhi stood frozen, a potential live broadcast disaster.
Then—
"Against the Light. An original song," he finally said, forcing his stiff limbs to move. His mind, once panicked, now felt eerily detached, like an observer.
"Band, backup singers—I'm ready."
The piano intro began, unremarkable but piercingly clear in the suffocating silence.
"Maybe I've always been afraid of answers,
Maybe love just lingers in the wind."
His voice trembled.
Not artfully. Not like the trained vibrato of a seasoned artist. This was real instability—fragile and human. But that fragility, under the influence of 90% Despair Voice, became something unbearable.
Not beautiful. Not polished.
But honest.
Where the original version of Against the Light had carried hope, Chu Zhi's interpretation was devastation made audible.
It wasn't just a song—it was a confession. A requiem.
A Dutch painter once depicted the Rue Saint-Séverin in Paris as a nightmare of disease and despair. Chu Zhi's voice painted something similar: a life in ruins, burned by strangers' hate and betrayal, turned on by fans who once worshipped him, crushed under a tidal wave of rage.
"There's a light, in that moment,
What pain is so blinding?"
But there was no light in this audience. Only darkness. Only pain.
"Your gaze is forgiveness,
Why can't I let it fade?"
Yet the crowd's eyes held no forgiveness—only schadenfreude, disdain, or cold indifference. The dissonance between the song's hope and the reality was heartbreaking.
Chu Zhi's eyes glistened with unshed tears, his voice cracking under the weight of despair—yet still, somehow, insisting that light existed.
Somewhere.
For someone.
The band and backup singers, despite only rehearsing the song that afternoon, played flawlessly. The gentle piano, strings, acoustic guitar, and military drum weaved a tapestry of resilience.
"I don't want hardships to tear us apart,
I blame myself for not being braver."
Chu Zhi stared into the abyss, still believing—against all evidence—in light.
Then, as if summoned by his defiance, the studio's tightly sealed doors slowly creaked open.
A shaft of light cut through the darkness.
"Facing hope, against the light,
Where love exists,
It's always been beside me."
At the word "love," Chu Zhi's gaze swept the audience.
Seventh row. A young man with a buzz cut—one of the hired "fans"—looked away first. He'd expected to feel smug, but instead, his chest ached. It was like he'd stabbed this man, only for the victim to gasp with his last breath: "The world is kind."
He glanced at his older cousin, Ming-ge, expecting reassurance—only to find him silently weeping, lips pressed tight to stifle sobs.
To his left, two girls were already crying.
By the final note, the Black Tide had dissolved—not into applause, but into sniffles, then outright weeping.
"Thank you for listening quietly. Thank you," Chu Zhi bowed, then thanked the band.
As he left the stage, the dam broke.
The audience—hired to stay silent—collapsed into sobs.
"Waaah—"
"Uuuugh…"
"Sniff… sniff…"
Nearly half the crowd was wiping tears. Another hundred sat red-eyed, shell-shocked.
"Haa… Despair Voice is too overpowering. Even I cried at 90%," Chu Zhi muttered backstage, dabbing his eyes. (The door opening? No coincidence—Wei Tongzi had arranged it.)
Meanwhile, host Gu Nanxi stood frozen, only snapping back to reality after a producer's frantic cue in her earpiece.
"Teacher Chu's performance… left us all speechless," she managed. "That was soul-deep singing. I thought you were just a pretty face, but you're the real deal."
Off-script, she asked, "What inspired this song? You wrote it yourself, right?"
Chu Zhi smiled gently.
"I hope everyone who hears it—whether they hate me, really hate me, or especially hate me—finds themselves surrounded by light."
"And if life, or love, or others' expectations weigh you down… may you walk against the light anyway."
Gu Nanxi nearly swooned. "Against the Light is the best original song I've heard all year. No—this decade."
A producer hissed in her earpiece. She hastily wrapped up: "Now, let's hear from our judges!"
Fifty professional critics sat ready—at least thirty desperate to praise what they'd just witnessed.