A Blank Slate Regression for the Idol That Lost His Original Mindset - Chapter 432

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Regression Manual for Idols Who Lost Their Original Intent Episode 432

Instead of following Ryu Jaehee as he walked away, the camera focused on Kim Dobin, who was holding a rabbit doll wearing a monocle and gentleman’s hat in one hand while holding a pocket watch in the other, tapping the right signpost with his fingertips.

Kim Dobin received the smiling face mask from Seo Yehyeon, but instead of wearing it, he covered his mouth with it and walked toward the direction Seo Yehyeon had pointed.

Seo Yehyeon followed behind with slow steps, and the camera screen slowly moved to close up on Yoon Eden’s expressionless face as he stood like a stake driven into the ground in front of the left signpost.

Black water dripping from his bangs passed over the mole under one eye, leaving a long water mark on his cheek like tears.

At the same time.

Woo- wooooo-

A slow a cappella announced the beginning of the song.

The screen showed Ryu Jaehee walking into the swamp and Kim Dobin stepping onto the path above the swamp once each, then followed Ryu Jaehee into the black water.

The melody gradually mixing in and the quickening beat, with Ryu Jaehee’s languid, conversational tone layered on top.

The melody belonged to the fast and cheerful side, but the tone was dreamy and languid, so the song’s tempo and atmosphere all clashed with each other, creating discord and making the song even more complex.

What Ryu Jaehee saw ahead after entering the swamp was once again a birch forest with countless eyes embedded in the white grain, watching him.

Gyeon Hajun wearing a Medico della Peste pointed to one side, just like the scene from 【Midnight】.

Gyeon Hajun’s face changing into the shadow of a raven’s head, portraits of Rev members hanging on trees, a tea party where Yoon Eden and Seo Yehyeon were sitting, translucent black water in teacups, fingers pointing in different directions, Kim Dobin looking down and smiling from the path above the swamp, the black background continuously indicating it was night.

Despite this feast of achromatic colors and eeriness, Ryu Jaehee continued walking in the direction Seo Yehyeon had pointed.

Just when he thought he had finally reached the signpost marked [EXIT], something fell from the tree with a thud.

The rabbit doll wearing a monocle and gentleman’s hat was dangling right in front of Ryu Jaehee, its neck bound with rope.

Ryu Jaehee’s blinking was portrayed as a screen dyed black, and when the screen returned, a scene appeared of Gyeon Hajun wearing a bird beak mask pointing in a direction.

Back to the starting point.

Rev’s group choreography scene appeared once, then showed Ryu Jaehee going in the opposite direction from where Gyeon Hajun had pointed.

Even when he found the exit, he returned to the starting point with the rabbit doll falling with its neck bound, and the more this repeated, the more bizarre the background surrounding Ryu Jaehee became.

The Medico della Peste dripping blood from its beak, the black water in Yoon Eden’s teacup growing darker, the halo behind Seo Yehyeon becoming so bright it could swallow even Yoon Eden along with his smile, Kim Dobin gripping the rabbit doll so tightly it seemed he might tear it apart, the members’ portraits painted red.

Rev’s group choreography scenes appearing amidst the suffocatingly occult direction gave viewers at least a moment to breathe.

Loose shirts, jingling chains, restrained choreography.

The a cappella parts that appeared intermittently cut through the melody, bringing out the song’s dark and horror-like atmosphere.

After returning to the starting point six times, Ryu Jaehee collapsed on the floor, and Kim Dobin, who had similarly returned to the starting point on the path above the swamp, let out a sigh and put on the smiling face mask.

The camera passed Gyeon Hajun, who was looking down at Ryu Jaehee without his mask, and showed Seo Yehyeon and Yoon Eden having their tea party.

Seo Yehyeon was looking down, while Yoon Eden was looking up.

And then….

Shh-

The 【Nightmare】 music video ended with an extremely unsettling scene of Seo Yehyeon and Yoon Eden simultaneously turning their heads back, placing their index fingers over their lips and pulling up the corners of their mouths.

-You said horror-sexy!!! This is just horror!!! So scary!!!!

-I’m a total scaredy-cat who can’t watch scary stuff well, but if I could watch this all the way through, it wasn’t that bad. The atmosphere was just eerie, but there were no jump scares

-Now I get it, horror is like salt that maximizes the sweetness of group choreography sexy

-It’s sexy but scary… scary but sexy… just kept repeating this while watching the MV

-Shocking, Yoon Eden can do sexy too. Why is him propping his chin and pouring tea water on the table so sexy

└Excuse me, I think your focus point is a bit strange

-This is scarier than the Midnight MV

-They really expressed a bizarre nightmare well. They expressed it so well I think I’ll have nightmares tonight

-I hated the sexy concept because it was cringey, but when they give full-on sexy at the level of dropping it drop by drop with an eyedropper on dry land into horror, I end up lapping it up like a dog

-Shocking, I thought Dobin was a signpost installation technician, but he was the mastermind

-I’m sleeping with mom tonight

-All I can tell is that there’s an Alice in Wonderland homage… waiting for Cheonjaeilmong’s interpretation

-Didn’t Dobin conspire with Yehyeon to throw Yuje into a nightmare? But what’s with the rabbit doll? Is that the device that returns Yuje to the starting point? And it seems like every time Yuje returns to the starting point, Yehyeon gains power? A halo? Something like that

-What’s with the song’s addictiveness? Is it possible for a song to be complex but good on first listen? The song too?

-Now I know why this is the title track. Midnight is more catchy easy listening, but this one stays in your head much more than Midnight

“Thank goodness, the song is good and the reactions to both the MV and song are decent.”

Miss Kim breathed a sigh of relief at the MV that pulled off a concept that could have been cringey in a plain way and the members who digested it well.

Certainly, the music videos released after 【Come to My Universe】 were above average, and from 【Reverse】 onwards, both the visual beauty and content were so well-produced that calling them “above average” seemed insufficient.

Now even the early Daydream fans had gradually healed from their 【Come to My Universe】 MV PTSD and reached a level where they could click the music video play button with peace of mind.

After confirming that the title track was very well-produced, Miss Kim moved her mouse cursor to the next music video with a much lighter heart.

The thumbnail for 【’Till Dawn】’s music video showed Ryu Jaehee lying with his eyes downcast under a translucent veil.

After being happy about three music videos for one comeback!, Miss Kim suddenly felt chills and a terrible assumption, rubbing her goosebump-covered arms as she muttered.

“Surely this isn’t part of Kim No-dap’s big picture to build a worldview.”

A bizarre horror worldview was only good when combined with a concept like sexy as a one-time thing, but since the genre itself was rather niche and quite divisive in taste, Miss Kim became worried that if this continued, it would be unsuitable for attracting new fans.

To feel reassured that surely the CEO wouldn’t be unaware of this, Kim No-dap’s taste, which the members had jokingly mentioned from time to time, was definitely too hopeless.

If Kim No-dap rolled the kids according to his taste with an SF+horror worldview….

“That would be the day funeral wreaths line up in front of the LnL building.”

Eyes flashing dangerously, Miss Kim played the 【’Till Dawn】 music video.

From the first scene showing Ryu Jaehee collapsed on the road, it was easy to notice that the content of the three music videos was connected.

With a tired face, Ryu Jaehee slowly got up and started walking again. Hesitating briefly while looking at where Gyeon Hajun was pointing, Ryu Jaehee headed in the opposite direction as usual.

The tea party location appeared again. Yoon Eden and Seo Yehyeon pointing in different directions again.

Ryu Jaehee finally walked toward where Yoon Eden was pointing, and as Yoon Eden smiled, the smile completely disappeared from Seo Yehyeon’s expression. The halo also began to gradually fade.

Ryu Jaehee reached [EXIT] and walked out of the swamp to face Kim Dobin. Kim Dobin was backing away when a hand suddenly emerged from the swamp and grabbed his ankle, dragging him into the swamp without any resistance. Only the smiling face mask floated on the black swamp.

Finally, a bluish dawn light appeared in the background. Yoon Eden covered Ryu Jaehee lying on the ground with a veil and lifted Ryu Jaehee’s body onto his knees like a Pietà sculpture.

Ryu Jaehee removed the veil with his own hands, got up, and finally walked away toward where Gyeon Hajun was pointing.

The music video ended with Yoon Eden staring intently at the rippling surface of the black swamp they had escaped from, then getting up to chase after Ryu Jaehee.

“No wonder the music video felt short, the song is 2 minutes and 50 seconds?”

Releasing her held breath, Miss Kim checked the playback bar time. The song 【’Till Dawn】 was also quite fresh. As was the fact that Yoon Eden wasn’t the first name in the composition credits.

This full album definitely had many experimental elements. That’s what made it even better.

-So… is the lesson not to be deceived by a man’s face?

-Honestly, isn’t this just a matter of taste? I like naturally handsome guys, so I would have naturally chosen Eden

-But honestly, having Jaehee as the main character was such a brilliant move… If it had been Eden, I wouldn’t have worried at all… I probably would’ve been nervous that she’d grab the members by the collar and threaten them to find the right way out ㅠ

“No, why is our baby’s character interpretation like that? What would our kid grab anyone by the collar for.”

While she had watched the music video focusing on the members’ faces, she entered search mode with firm belief that someone who found the easter eggs would surely post an MV interpretation.

Right, visually stunning video pictorials are nice, but the real fun of MVs is watching the easter egg interpretations.

* * *

“Wow, what’s with this reaction.”

Seo Yehyeon let out a small, somewhat awkward-sounding exclamation at the music video’s view count rising like a bamboo shoot after rain.

Well, that made sense, since Seo Yehyeon had pushed more for a proven sexy concept rather than experimental horror-sexy during the planning stage.

Although he ultimately gave up his opinion according to the principle of majority rule, he occasionally expressed concerns, especially during MV filming.

He said our concept was always sexy, not horror, so horror should support sexy, but what if horror devoured sexy.

Though I don’t know why he said that while looking at my face.

It was quite interesting that 【Nightmare】, 【Midnight】, and 【’Till Dawn】 were occupying 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place on the music charts respectively.

While the title track 【Nightmare】 was expected, the other songs could drop in ranking at any time, so I quickly took screenshots.

When I reached out asking for a water bottle, Kim Dobin saw that and chugged it all in one shot, then ran around the practice room like crazy to avoid my arm as I tried to give him a neck massage since he’d already finished all the water anyway, for better digestion.

In the midst of that chaotic situation, Gyeon Hajun’s voice was heard.

“Come to think of it, tomorrow is our first showcase.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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