In the passageway at the bottom left corner of the open-air venue, a small lounge is located in the corner of this passage, inconspicuous, and the heating machine above emits mechanical noise as it senses someone approaching.

"Did you hear? That Little Cauliflower is making a comeback. She'll be appearing on stage at today's audition competition."

"Ha, has Rongsen Media gone crazy?"

"Can someone with such a notorious record get back on stage? Lip-syncing, insulting fans, and then being exposed to have ambiguous relationships with over a dozen female fans, such a messy private life..."

Amy bounced lightly over to the door of the corner, and her eyes lit up as she pushed it open. She saw the girl sitting by the half-human-tall Flowing Moon Flower pot next to the floor-to-ceiling window, her serene blue eyes carrying a faint melancholic swirl.

The blue-haired girl, seeing her arrival, raised her head and nodded lightly.

"Yo, Xin, you're here so early. Sorry, I ran into some trouble on the way and came late."

"I brought that dress," Amy said as she came up behind Tang Xin and spun her chair around to face the makeup mirror. The aluminum frame of the mirror emitted a soft yellow glow, and seeing her renewed self in the mirror, her whole persona transformed, the melancholy in her blue eyes turned into a kind of anticipation.

People will finally see the shining side of me, Tang Xin thought, unconsciously conjuring the image of a blonde girl in her mind, and she pressed a faint smile on her lips.

"Girls, of course, need to package themselves well. With your great foundation, Xin, using some skincare products for a couple of days, don't you see the difference? Once you're on stage, won't you just dazzle them?"

Amy laughed, moistening the girl's face on the seat with warm water. After smearing some cleanser on her hands, she took the opportunity to rub the girl's face and then patiently and slowly spread the cleanser evenly across her face, not missing a single corner.

"That Everme guy is something else, always disappearing at times like this. I'm left to handle all the makeup stuff myself," Amy said.

Everme's assistant still dressed the same as two days ago, with a white shirt under a little vest, a gray pleated skirt, and round Martin boots, full of youthful vitality.

After cleansing the face again with toner, Amy took out a pile of bottles and jars of cosmetics from her bag. After picking and choosing, she selected a few more agreeable ones and started applying makeup to the girl.

"Speaking of which, Xin, have you never taken care of your skin before?"

"I've used cleanser..." Tang Xin's voice was weak. "I only know how to do light makeup."

Amy burst into laughter: "That's it?"

"I haven't had much time, and I haven't really paid attention to these things." Tang Xin said.

"My God, at Starry Arts Academy, there are so many handsome guys and beautiful girls. I used to get up three hours early every day, using skin essence, toner, and moisturizer." Amy said with widened eyes.

"Paint a lovely makeup look, and the turning head rate from the dorm to the teaching building corridor would be off the charts. Every day senior students would ask me for curtain contacts. I'm telling you, I'm a pro in this regard."

Amy leaned into Tang Xin's ear, speaking like girls sharing secrets: "I can teach you if you want to learn; the makeup I do is so natural that no one can tell. It's no-makeup makeup."

"And slightly reveal your fair neck and wrists, wear some inconspicuous but suitable accessories; details make all the difference."

Saying this, Amy got a bit excited, recalling her days at Starry Arts Academy, competing with her roommates, spending a lot of time on makeup and beauty, mingling among flowers without a leaf sticking to her. When she returned to her dorm to fiercely apply cleansing oil on her face, scrubbing vigorously under the running water.

The price was quite evident; barely managing to graduate with a passable final project grade, met with difficulties out in society. If it weren't for her artistic talent being appreciated by her boss, she might have ended up playing instruments on the streets to make a living.

After her long monologue, seeing Tang Xin somewhat distracted, Amy shrugged helplessly, using an eyeliner pencil to outline the girl's eyes and apply a light red eye makeup:

"I say, Xin, have you never liked anyone since childhood?"

"Why ask that suddenly?" Tang Xin was taken aback. It was something she'd really never considered, from her time at Iris Foster Home to Starry Arts Academy.

"When you like someone, you want to show your best side in front of them, like creating an unintentional encounter so they can see your gleaming side."

Tang Xin stared blankly at her reflection, and Amy's voice reached her ear.

"But honestly, being proficient in Water Technique does make your skin better than normal people's, so even if you don't take care of it, it won't degrade to a point beyond salvage."

"Xin, why aren't you talking?"

"Showing someone your shining side?" Tang Xin murmured.

...

On the open-air stage, the audition competition had begun. Watching the young man on stage sing hard, yet painfully off-key, his singing indescribable, the audience murmured.

"I think Lin Fan can't perform without lip-syncing, right?"

"How does a person like that have the face to perform on stage? No wonder Rongsen hasn't been doing well these years, with the quality of its artists dropping and only knowing to push them through hype."

Xu Xiaoyou was indifferent to the scene on stage. The magenta figure next to her was sitting with legs crossed in an unrestrained manner, clicking her tongue and shaking her head: "What is this sense of style? Where did Rongsen Media find this costume designer? Not seeing would be best."

"So, why are you here?" Xu Xiaoyou asked.

"Just to join the fun, and see what kind of brilliance your Little Blue Bird will exhibit," Everme said.

Following the end of the first performance, it was the judges' scoring segment.

Xu Xiaoyou shifted her gaze and was slightly stunned, only to see Everme lift a sign with the number '0' written on it, standing up, her voice echoing over the vast, empty open-air viewers' platform: "0 points, next one."

"You're a judge on the singing and art stage?" Xu Xiaoyou blurted out. "But aren't you a costume designer?"

"How can a chief costume designer not dabble in other art fields? Was being invited to be a judge in the audition surprising?" Everme said. "Our family ensures that every family member develops in all aspects: virtue, intellect, physique, and aesthetics."

The spiritless young man on stage walked off, quickly replaced by the second female contestant taking the stage.

The audition competition was not that formal; the scoring procedure was not that strict, and there was no stage-turning segment for the judges. The contestants' quality varied greatly, like a huge jade market, each contestant being a stone on display with irregular shapes and differing sizes, whether inferior stone or a brilliant gemstone was entirely up to Everme's judgment.

Thus, a tragedy unfolded.

After consecutively giving zero scores to several unsatisfying contestants, the instigator of this tragedy seemed completely oblivious, even finding amusement. Before a contestant even finished singing, Everme would raise her '0' score sign high in a final-judgment tone:

"0 points!"

The audience was in an uproar, spectators from all over the world were dumbfounded, wondering if this judge had gone mad. From start to now, so many contestants had received 0 scores consecutively, not even letting the last one finish singing. Was she treating this audition as a joke?

"There's no use giving me those weird looks because these people indeed sing terribly, be it classical or pop music, entering the auditions merely to serve as stepping stones for others."

Everme directly ignored the murmurs around and lowered her sign, leaning into Xu Xiaoyou's ear:

"I plan to raise a ten-point sign the moment your Little Blue Bird comes on stage, what do you say?"

Xu Xiaoyou's mouth twitched violently: "That would undoubtedly be seen as an insider deal."

At this moment, the previously noisy audience suddenly quieted down, and the discussions abruptly ended.

"The protagonist is entering," Everme said calmly.

Xu Xiaoyou looked towards the stage below, her gaze suddenly solidifying, like frost forming outside the open-air stage.

From the deep, almost black dome, three beams of light dropped simultaneously. The entire world quieted to just the stage in the center, and a blue-haired girl emerged onto the stage, bathed in the light.