Chapter 35: Hey, Can You Play Basketball?
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After sweeping his gaze around the room, Li Can’s eyes settled on one of the trainees.
The trainee was lightly panting, tidying his somewhat disheveled hair after dancing. Since he had worked up a sweat, he parted his bangs to either side to let some air through.
The moment he did, Li Can’s eyes lit up.
Big brother! Is that you? I’m one of your little haters!
Li Can immediately waved at the slightly dazed trainee.
“Hey, you over there. Can you play basketball?”
“Me?”
Hearing himself called out, the trainee raised his head in bewilderment.
When Li Can nodded, the trainee still had no idea why the big boss would ask such a question, but he hurriedly replied,
“...I can practice!”
“...No, not being able to play is exactly what I meant.”
Li Can nodded in satisfaction.
If you couldn’t play basketball, why become a trainee? And if you could, why become a big brother?
Now it was everyone else’s turn to be baffled.
Especially Wang Yongchang.
He could not imagine what trainees had to do with basketball.
Could basketball’s benefits to physical fitness and coordination somehow help with idol training?
He could not figure it out... but it did not matter. Li Can surely had his own unique and scientific considerations!
Looking over the trainee before him, Li Can nodded with interest.
There was a clear, vacant foolishness in the trainee’s eyes. The faintly dazed expression made him look even more like a kindergartener than a college student.
This was the one.
Even after being cured, he would still drool.
For a moment, Li Can felt a little awkward about how to begin.
After all, asking him to lead with an Iron Mountain shoulder charge right off the bat did not seem terribly polite.
After thinking it over, Li Can asked,
“Besides singing and dancing, what else do you like?”
“I... I like rap!” the trainee blurted out.
Li Can grew even more excited.
Sure enough, it really was big brother! He liked singing, dancing, and rap!
“Then can you freestyle?”
“I can’t. I just really like listening to rap.” The trainee admitted it without hesitation. Scratching his head, he looked a little embarrassed. “But I can practice, and I’m willing to give it a try!”
“Hmm... Then give it a try.”
Li Can looked at the trainee again, surprised.
He liked this kind of honesty.
No pretending, no showing off—just a straightforward, earnest attitude.
Unlike certain trainees who were clearly nothing special, yet insisted on dressing themselves up in lofty language in the name of “art.”
“All right, then... start with, ‘Look at this bowl—it’s so big and round.’”
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Li Can’s prompt made the corners of everyone’s eyes twitch.
Only Winnie frowned.
Brother Can must have had some deeper meaning.
For a moment, she even wondered whether this was a cultural difference.
In the culture of Xia, what did a big, round bowl have to do with freestyle?
“Go ahead.”
Now that Li Can had given the order, the trainee had no time to worry about anything else.
An opportunity was right in front of him!
His mind raced as he racked his brains. Relying on his understanding of freestyle, he gritted his teeth and began to rap.
“Look at this bowl—it’s so big! So round!”
After a brief hesitation, inspiration struck.
“...Just like big brother’s wink—it’s so spicy! So salty!”
“What?!”
“?”
Li Can’s eyes widened.
Well, would you look at that—he really was a prodigy!
Apparently realizing how shocked Li Can looked, the trainee’s face immediately flushed red.
Damn, that was brilliant.
Forget whether it was cheesy. The real question was: how fast had he reacted?
For a while, Li Can could not think of any other words to describe the trainee.
He stood up at once and looked at him.
“What’s your name?”
“My name is Wang Yunze!”
Li Can nodded. “Let me ask you this. If you became famous, what would be the first thing you would want to do?”
“Bribe the coach so I could sneak out and get a stuffed savory crepe with every topping!”
“?”
Li Can was now certain that the young man before him was genuinely pure-hearted.
Some qualities really were innate.
You could not fake them.
“Not bad.”
Li Can nodded and marked Wang Yunze’s name down.
The wolfish puppy and the cuddly puppy were both terribly outdated.
If he was going to do this, he might as well go for the silly puppy.
In that category, Li Can was willing to proclaim Wang Yunze invincible. There was not even a rival in sight.
After that, Li Can continued speaking with several other trainees, hoping to learn more about the contestants.
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Unfortunately, none of them turned out to be another naturally gifted talent.
After leaving the trainee base, Li Can fell into deep thought.
“Can, how did it go? Is there a problem?” Wang Yongchang asked with a frown.
“Are the trainees simply not good enough? Should we intensify their training, or perhaps...”
“No need.”
Li Can shook his head.
“The trainees are inevitably going to fall short. We are not even talking about elevating them to the level of art. You can never expect an idol to compete with a professional. Even if he became famous throughout the world, the moment he could rival a professional, he would no longer be an idol. He would be a superstar.”
“Singing, dancing... Why insist on comparing your hobbies with someone else’s profession? Trying to improve the trainees’ quality from a purely technical standpoint is completely unrealistic.”
At those words, Wang Yongchang’s brows drew tightly together.
But Lin Feng and the others suddenly understood.
“I get it. What Brother Can means is that singing and dancing have always been methods of presentation, not the core itself. As long as they reach an acceptable standard, that is enough. With an idol’s abilities, acceptable is the best they can do. There is no need to overpackage them.”
After Lin Feng finished speaking, Zhao Ze pushed up his glasses and continued,
“To put it more precisely, this is why people often say that idols have no real works. An idol who rises through the strength of his work has already shed the label of ‘idol.’”
“The essence of an idol... is actually just a product designed to entertain people. It seems Brother Can wants to lay all the cards on the table and put into the open what other idols do not want to say.”
If you were not divine, you could never be made into a god.
Sooner or later, the illusion would collapse.
“Exactly.” Li Can smiled. “Sincerity will always be the ultimate weapon.”
Wang Yongchang seemed to have grasped the idea. He turned to Li Can.
“So what you mean is...”
“I mean we can stop with the unnecessary packaging for now. There is no need for it. Let our competitors fight among themselves to reach ever loftier heights. We will take the mass-market, down-to-earth route. In the short term, we may not make money as quickly as they do, but over the long run, we will have far greater staying power than those so-called high-end idols.”
Li Can spoke in a low voice.
“We will change arenas and overturn the idol industry’s table. Idols from Xia should look like idols from Xia. We cannot learn anything from the Koreans.”
“As for luxury-brand endorsements, we can forget about them. Go investigate high-quality domestic brands instead. We will take the affordable route.”
“Oh, right. There is one more move, and it is aimed at our competitors.”
As if he had thought of something, a sharp light flashed in Li Can’s eyes.
“What kind of move?”
“If our competitors dare to overpackage their artists, using so-called art, trends, and aesthetics to dress up performers who are not qualified... then we will find people to evaluate them fairly, impartially, and publicly from a professional perspective!”
As he met Wang Yongchang’s eyes, Li Can’s words actually sent a chill through General Manager Wang.
“We will not attack them. We will only state the facts.”
“Then... we will guide the discussion a little. The topic will be the influence of idols on young people, and what kind of person truly deserves to be called an idol.”
“We will trap them with it! We will bind them with morality—and bind them hard!”