Did Not Say Anything About My Feelings - Chapter 14. Eye Of The Typhoon

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Around 7.30 in the evening, all the trainees gathered in the big classroom that had stairs.

After waiting for a while in the hostel and not seeing Xia Dongchan return, Lin Ye headed to the classroom alone. The seating area in the classroom was already full and Xia Dongchan had come to the classroom earlier on. He was sitting in the back row and waving at Lin Ye.

One of the seating areas was near to the wall, the other was next to the aisle. There were ten seats in every row and a total of ten rows. Xia Dongchan was sitting on the third row, right next to the wall and Lin Ye could only walk over to him by passing through the aisle.

The people that were sitting on the outer seats bent their legs out of the way. Lin Ye held onto the chairs in the row in front to slowly move inwards. The two trainees in the row in front were play-fighting with each other and making a ruckus, and accidentally hit Lin Ye with their elbows. They knocked him and he subconsciously stepped back, accidentally stepping on the leg of the person behind him.

The other person pulled back the foot that was stepped on instantly and Lin Ye lost his balance, his knees bent involuntarily and he staggered, causing him to fall back, his butt landing on the thigh of the person behind him.

A pair of hands reached out to hold his waist and straighten his body.

The person that had been playing around in front realized he had knocked into someone and hurriedly let go of the person next to him, turning around to apologize to him, “I’m sorry, I didn’t do it on purpose.”

Lin Ye said that it was fine, and grabbed on the back of the chair in front of him to stand up. However, he felt the hands around his waist exert some force to pull him back and he could not stand up. The hands of the person behind him were still clamped on his waist. Lin Ye could not help but turn around, puzzled. When he turned around, his eyes met Jiang Lian’s calm gaze.

Jiang Lian’s expression was shocked. Suddenly, he felt that the skin under his thighs was very hot, he felt uncomfortable. However, at that moment, Jiang Lian raised the hands that were holding his waist, pushing Lin Ye up. After that, he slowly patted his suit pants that were a little crumpled from Lin Ye sitting on him.

It was as if his actions of holding Lin Ye and refusing to let him stand up just a few seconds ago were just a part of his imagination.

Lin Ye could not help but turn around to glance at Jiang Lian.

Jiang Lian was not looking at him, his expression was as usual as he turned his body to talk to Ming Rang, causing Lin Ye to only see a cold side profile.

Lin Ye swallowed his apologies and hid the emotions on his face. After that, he pretended that nothing had happened as he walked over to the empty seat next to Xia Dongchan.

At exactly 7.40 pm, Shen-PD appeared in the classroom on time. First, she briefly summarized the theme song evaluation in the morning, then, she announced the matter of the first public performance to everyone.

The first public performance was in the form of a group duel. There were eight songs for the duel, and each song had a Group A and a Group B. For seven of the songs, there would be six people in each group, and the last song would have eight people in a group. For the sixteen Center positions, the first eight Centers would be chosen by the mentors. The remaining eight would be chosen by an anonymous vote that all the trainees would participate in.

Shen-PD first announced on the large screen the eight trainees that were chosen as Centers by the mentors. After that, she took out a stack of white paper and distributed it, having them write any name besides for the eight people.

When the staff members were counting the votes. Lin Ye took a look at the big screen. Jiang Lian, Ming Rang, and Xia Dongchan’s names were among the eight people. Even Li Yuan’s name appeared next to Xia Dongchan’s name.

After they were done tallying the votes, Shen-PD announced the names of the eight Centers that had been voted in by the rest of the trainees. Lin Ye was not surprised that his name was not among the eight.

Shen-PD then showed the names of the eight songs on the screen. The trainees began to whisper among themselves, their gazes glancing over the eight songs. They were already starting to pick their favorite songs.

Xia Dongchan asked Lin Ye, “Do you want to be in the same group as me?”

Lin Ye followed the other’s gaze and saw that he was looking at the vocal group, “It’s not like you don’t know that I can’t sing.”

When Xia Dongchan heard those words, he nodded indifferently, however, there was not much regret in his voice, “That’s true. Looks like we’re destined to separate.”

Xia Dongchan’s goal was very clear. He was not here to make friends, he was here to participate in an elimination competition.

Lin Ye glanced through the three songs of the dance group, the words that Jiang Lian had said in the recording hall in the afternoon appeared in his head. However, he was not sure if the other would choose a dance group. After all, he felt that Jiang Lian was the kind that was good in everything.

Five minutes later, the sixteen Center positions went up on stage to choose the song that they were performing based on their initial ranking. Jiang Lian was the first one to go up, there were eight choices in front of him and Lin Ye’s gaze landed on Jiang Lian’s back, pursing his lips unconsciously.

(T/N: The ranking here refers to their voted rank. So in these sort of shows, it’s highly dependent on audience votes. The teachers can give the trainee a bad rating, but if they’re popular with the audience, you can debut anyway. What matters the most is how many votes the trainees get from the audience.)

Jiang Lian raised up fingers and glided his fingertips across the two songs in the rap group, hovering between the six songs of the dance and vocal group. He turned his face to the side causally, glancing towards the area where the trainees were sitting from afar.

When he met Jiang Lian’s gaze, Lin Ye pressed his right thumb on his index finger, rubbing them together. Then, he licked his slightly dry lips.

When Shen-PD saw this, she smiled and asked, “Who are you looking at? Have you already discussed with someone about grouping up?”

Ming Rang said with a smile, “There’s no use looking at me. We’re destined to be in different groups this time, we’ll only be able to compete on stage.”

Jiang Lian curved his lips upwards, “Did I say I was looking at you?”

The crowd roared with laughter.

Jiang Lian turned his head back, his long fingers passing the vocal group and landed on the song under the dance group, ‘Eye of the Typhoon’. He tapped his finger tips on the song twice and said, “I’ll choose this one.”

Lin Ye relaxed a little, unable to stop himself from smiling.

However, it was a lot harder than he had imagined entering Jiang Lian’s group. After all the Centers had picked their songs, they needed to pick their groupmates in order according to their ranking.

After multiple rounds, Jiang Lian had yet to call his name. That was not the only thing that worried Lin Ye. It was probably because he had not performed very well in the last two evaluations that, excluding Xia Dongchan whom he had talked to just now, none of the remaining Centers picked him either.

After the first four rounds, Lin Ye was left with the other Class D and F trainees.

His heart started to waver, perhaps Jiang Lian was not as willing to pull him into his group as Lin Ye had thought he was. Perhaps Jiang Lian had suddenly felt the urge to make a joke in the afternoon, but had instantly forgotten about it. Or perhaps the other had truly liked his dance skills, but because Lin Ye did not give him an answer, he had naturally thought that Lin Ye had other arrangements.

No matter what the truth of the matter was, Lin Ye was not in a good mood.

Looking at it from the logical standpoint, the four other people in Jiang Lian’s group were all in Class A or Class B. Even if in the next round, Jiang Lian only had the choice of picking between the last three classes, the other did not have the need to choose someone like Lin Ye, who would drag them down in terms of dinging. It was not like there were no trainees who could dance and sing in Class C.

Looking at it from the emotional standpoint, his relationship with Jiang Lian was not good enough that he would pick Lin Ye without looking at his ability.

He raised his head and met Xia Dongchan’s gaze.

The truth was, before they walked out of the seating area, Xia Dongchan had jokingly told him, “If at the end, no one picks you, you can join my group. Rather than ending up in another vocal group or a rap group, it’s better to join me.”

Lin Ye had waved his hand when he had heard that, saying uncaringly, “I don’t think I’ll be in such a horrible position.”

He had not thought that he would really be in such a horrible position. Lin Ye let out a breath of relief, smiling in a helpless way.

When the fifth round started, Jiang Lian did not directly choose a person like in the previous few rounds.

He glanced at the remaining people still seated down in the seating area, “There are two vocals in our team now, one rapper, one dancer, which of you think that you’re a dancer?”

Zhao Yisheng, who was sitting in front of Lin Ye raised his hand eagerly. Lin Ye looked straight at Jiang Lian and raised his hand. He glanced around, among the few people raising their hands, only him and Zhao Yisheng were wearing green uniforms.

There did not seem to be much competition, and Lin Ye relaxed slightly.

Jiang Lian turned away mildly, turning to discuss with the other four teammates behind him. After a moment, Lin Ye saw him raise his head slightly and look at where he and Zhao Yisheng were sitting.

In the group duel-style competition, the final reward would be given to the entire team and not an individual. It was obvious that joining the group with the Number One in rank would be beneficial to all the trainees. After he thought through the benefits of being in the same group as Jiang Lian, Zhao Yisehng stood up and said eagerly, “I’ve learned dance and singing for a few years, and I’ve also experienced singing on stage before, so I’m not new to the stage.”

Lin Ye narrowed his eyes and stood up right after Zhao Yisheng finished speaking, wanting to open his mouth to speak up for himself, but he saw Jiang Lian nod at Zhao Yisheng, interrupting him, “That’s enough.”

When Zhao Yisheng smiled complacently and shut his mouth, Lin Ye’s heart sunk slightly.

He sat back on his chair, suppressing the despair in his heart. He could not help but scold himself for hoping that Jiang Lian would pick him just a few seconds ago.

After he thought about it, he could not help but feel a little angry. Was he not even allowed to say something in front of Jiang Lian even though they could be considered to have a decent relationship?

Lin Ye stopped looking at Jiang Lian.

However, he heard someone call his name.

His expression was stiff as he raised his head. Zhao Yisheng’s expression got uglier and uglier and Lin Ye saw Jiang Lian open his palm and stretch out his hand towards Lin Ye, “Come here.”

Lin Ye paused, the anger in his heart instantly turned to surprise. After a moment, he stood up and walked to the other, his expression calm.

Like how he greeted his other teammates, Jiang Lian extended his arms towards Lin Ye, getting ready to hug him.

Lin Ye reached his arms out as well and hugged Jiang Lian back, but Lin Ye felt Jiang Lian’s palm land on the back of his head to press him towards his shoulder.

Everyone around them was looking at them with burning gazes and Lin Ye’s body stiffened. Although he did not know what Jiang Lian was intending to do in front of everyone, he could only go along with the force Jiang Lian was exerting and press his jaw into the other’s shoulder.

Thankfully, Jiang Lian did not do anything and simply pressed his lips to Lin Ye’s ear, asking him in a low voice, “What were you looking at Xia Dongchan for? Were you worried that I wouldn’t pick you?”

The next second, the two of them separated, their expressions calm.

Lin Ye turned around to high-five his other four teammates.

No one noticed that Lin Ye and Jiang Lian’s hug was longer than any of the hugs Jiang Lian had with his other four teammates.