The Hit Song of This Life Is Revenge - Chapter 29

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The hit song of this life is revenge.
Episode 29
“I can’t do any more! We’re going to die like this!”
In the hour when darkness stole the light.
The voices of teammates sprawled across the floor were almost screams.
It was the only way to endure the Practice Room drenched in sweat and heat.
Perhaps it was because they’d grown so much closer in just a few days.
The teammates now let their complaints flow with the lightness of close friends.
“Please…. Just twenty more minutes.”
“Please. My ankles are about to snap.”
Lee Jae-i laughed shortly and pressed the stop button.
She too wiped the sweat beading at her chin with the back of her hand, evening out her breathing.
The Stage Song had been finalized as “Highlight.”
Judge Choi Du-o’s suggestion was still ringing in her ears.
A hit song that once dominated commercials.
Lee Jae-i marveled at it.
Everyone hums the melody unconsciously when they hear it, yet most people don’t know the beginning and end—an unfamiliar song.
A song where novelty and familiarity coexist.
Lee Jae-i felt certain her choice regarding Choi Du-o had been right.
“Honestly, I had no idea ‘Highlight’ was even a song like that.”
“I didn’t even know the title until now.”
The teammates laughed quietly, then stuck to the floor like melted candles.
“Highlight” was versatile to put it kindly, or made to be “just heard” to put it bluntly.
Making it come alive on stage was harder than imagined.
But the Camera didn’t rest.
The lens ruthlessly captured sweat-soaked faces and expressions where fighting spirit crossed over.
“We’re almost there. It’s tomorrow anyway.”
“It’s today!”
Kim Se-jin pointed at the clock and protested.
Lee Jae-i took one last deep breath and opened her mouth.
“Twenty minutes is up!”
“Don’t lie. Seriously, one minute has passed! One minute.”
“Let’s just nail it three more times and call it. Get the formation ready. I’ll go right away.”
Her finger gently fell on the play button.
In that instant, the bodies scattered across the floor crawled to their feet.
“Even the devil would be better than you…….”
Yeon Eun-soo spewed criticism as she started the first move in an awkward stance.
Yet as if to prove the practice that had infiltrated even her subconscious, the angles were sharp and alive.
Lee Jae-i smiled faintly at that image in the mirror.
“Lights. When the light comes on—!”
Lee Jae-i’s voice reached the ceiling.
It was also cheering for the teammates who gave their all in that final sprint.
Over their exhausted breathing, a resonance suggesting the stage lights to come spread through the air.
At her voice, the teammates were lifted by determination.
* * *
The body that endured the early dawn was soon placed on the Stage.
Even more brilliant lighting, even grander staging.
The once-empty Audience Seating was now packed with people.
“The heat is already intense. To our viewers watching on broadcast, and to all our audience members in the hall! I’m Your Singer Season 3. We begin now!”
At this moment, right now. The first broadcast had already risen its curtain.
Monitoring the first broadcast is standard practice, but filming schedules don’t work that way.
When the opening footage filled the Waiting Room monitor, the Trainees couldn’t breathe.
Even though it was already past filming, everyone seemed to have returned to that point in time.
The live broadcast revealed only the host’s part.
Then the screen went black again.
Because of that, the tension that seized them went without saying.
‘The Production Team really is incredible.’
The Camera didn’t miss the anxious expressions of the Trainees.
So that’s why they were so tense on stage during this Mission.
The faces of the Trainees that looked particularly melancholic during this Mission now made sense.
“What do I do. I’m so nervous.”
Next to her, Kim Se-jin dug her thumbnail down until it turned white.
Lee Jae-i quietly took hold of that hand.
A graphic slicing across the large Screen like a red carpet appeared.
Twenty faces filled the Screen one by one.
“These are the Trainees who will heat up today’s Stage. This team will begin the first Stage!”
Boom—!
With a heavy sound, Baek Song-ha’s profile photo loomed largest.
And the lighting piercing the Audience Seating poured down over Baek Song-ha’s team.
The first Stage in front of an audience.
They said the Stage order was drawn randomly, but still.
Lee Jae-i quietly waited for the Stage from the Waiting Room.
“You’re opening with the first Stage—are you nervous?”
“Rather than nervous, I’d like to give you that nervousness!”
The flushed face, with a shallow smile.
Baek Song-ha on the Screen was an expression brimming with excitement no matter who looked.
“Aha ha. I asked about your emotions and you introduced your team! Well, here’s the team that will thrill our audience! Prepare the Stage!”
As the host stepped back from the Stage, the team moved to form their formation.
More precisely, the teammates sprawled with Song-ha at the center.
A formation that made clear who the Center was.
The surrounding light dimmed, and a single spotlight caught Baek Song-ha.
Her sleek, well-textured hair rippled like moonlight on a lake.
As a low mechanical keyboard note played, the Audience Seating held its breath as if pulled into another dimension.
‘It’s the same.’
A smile spread across Lee Jae-i’s lips at the familiar production.
She’d worried the Stage might be different if the teammates had changed.
A heavy drum sample burst, and a dark cloud graphic covered the Stage.
A single spotlight above Baek Song-ha’s head flickered, changing color.
Song-ha lifted her head sharply.
“We haven’t met before, right? Hello, nice to meet you. It’s me.”
The first line poured out like rap.
Light followed the line of Song-ha’s body.
The Beaded Decoration on her outfit glinted like bullets, grazing the Audience Seating.
Baek Song-ha crossed the Stage with confident strides.
“You can get up. If you knew it was me.”
Only then did the teammates, who had been sprawled on the floor, rise in unison.
Choreography thrown carelessly, one by one.
Even in the understated gestures, the Sense of Rhythm was felt, cutting through the beat.
Yet even with five others surrounding her, there was only one center.
The gaze naturally pulled only toward Song-ha.
“That’s a solo song, so they must’ve done an Arrangement.”
“It just looks like a solo? She’s good though….”
In the brief pause of lyrics, the voices of Trainees sitting in the row just behind whispered into her ears.
‘Everyone feels the same way.’
Lee Jae-i felt the same.
That Stage definitely had the power to capture attention.
But the problem was that the rhythm was completely skewed to one side.
Baek Song-ha.
Could she not endure unless she stood at the center like that?
Over the past week, the atmosphere of Song-ha’s team’s Practice Room became vividly clear to her.
Song-ha turned her back to the Audience Seating.
The teammates filled the path Song-ha had passed through and formed their formation.
A Dance Break.
Certainly, as Trainees whose specialty was dancing, the angles locked in the Group Dance were different.
Detail like the direction of feet tilting ever so slightly.
Judge Hae-su’s Choreography could be felt entirely.
Flash.
As the pounding sound built up, the LED Screen behind flickered white.
And Song-ha reappeared spectacularly in a high note.
“If you don’t understand, now you will. My name.”
Baek Song-ha pointed to herself and slightly bit her lower lip.
In the bridge going into the second verse, all five locked the same move.
Yet the Center never wavered, not for a moment.
All eyes in the Audience Seating were fixed on that one point.
With the final lyrics, the sound of a single guitar line covered the Stage.
“Remember. Me.”
The lighting shifted sharply and the Stage ended.
The host’s immediate comment that followed.
“That was the Stage of Baek Song-ha, and…, and…!”
It seemed to be pointing out distinctly that the name to remember was ‘Baek Song-ha.’
The Camera panned across the five, then zoomed in on Song-ha again.
No one could deny it.
‘That was a solo Stage.’
The Audience Seating simply burst into applause at the dazzling Stage.
With each cut switch on the Screen, admiration and emotion filled the frame.
As the Camera moved toward the Judges’ Seats, Moon Jung-woo picked up the Microphone.
“The Choreography difficulty is high, but the Live Singing is solid too. The Sense of Rhythm is right there.”
He opened his evaluation briefly.
Hae-su’s expression, as she received the Microphone, was tinged with satisfaction.
“Since this is a team I produced, I’ll ask a question rather than evaluate. How do you feel now that your first Stage is done?”
“I’m grateful to all of you for giving me the chance to do a Stage like this!”
Bow.
Baek Song-ha bowed alone, suddenly bending at the waist.
Her teammates, who had bowed clumsily and not even risen yet, hadn’t even opened their mouths when she spoke.
“A dream……. Being here on this Stage feels like a dream. Thank you!”
A trembling breath-tinged, cloying voice.
Teardrops caught in the light sparkled as if they’d shattered a crystal.
‘Hah.’
So this is what enchantment feels like.
Her words were calculated enough to make one frown, yet the audience’s eyes remained fixed on Song-ha on the Screen.
Lee Jae-i deliberately maintained a face close to expressionless.
Admissions poured from the Judges’ Seats as well.
“Her visuals are great too. Aren’t they?”
“That Trainee will definitely rise to the top ranks.”
Baek Song-ha descended while maintaining her gesture of lingering regret toward the Stage.
Perhaps because the first Stage had been so intense.
As the second team’s Stage ended, the atmosphere grew heavy and subdued.
“Were you lacking practice time?”
“Honestly, it’s confusing. I couldn’t tell what you wanted to show.”
Following that, harsh criticism emerged even touching on courtesy to the audience.
It was a Stage that couldn’t be defended.
But Lee Jae-i couldn’t indulge in a long critique of other Stages.
“Next team. Please take the Stage!”
It was Lee Jae-i’s team’s turn.

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