Lu Zhixian sat at the piano, his fingers never leaving the keys as he glanced to the side.

"This song can't be a duet," he said. "The focus would get scattered. You sing the main line, I'll provide the harmony and follow you closely."

Lin Shiya didn't hesitate. "Okay."

She never stood on ceremony when it came to music.

Sister Chen, sitting in the corner, paused her hand scrolling through her phone but didn't speak.

Lu Zhixian started playing from the intro again.

This time was a formal rehearsal. He kept the volume at sixty percent, leaving space for Lin Shiya.

Lin Shiya stood by the stand mic, not picking up the handheld microphone, and began to sing directly.

"the brightest star in the night sky, can you hear clearly, the loneliness and sighs in the heart of the one looking up..."

The moment the voice came out, two staff members coordinating the workflow in the rehearsal room stopped simultaneously.

Lu Zhixian joined in with the harmony.

His voice was thick, layered beneath hers; it didn't compete, it simply supported.

The speakers in the rehearsal room weren't great, and the raw vocals came back a bit fuzzy. But this actually made the layers of the two voices clearer.

Sister Chen locked her phone, put it in her pocket, and looked up.

It reached the chorus.

"Whenever I can't find the meaning of existence, whenever I get lost in the dark night..."

Lin Shiya's voice paused for half a beat—it was pure emotion.

Lu Zhixian felt it, and his harmony lightened by half a degree, filling that pause into a deliberate space.

Neither of them looked up to meet the other's eyes; they just finished the segment that way.

As the final note faded, the rehearsal room fell silent for three seconds.

Sister Chen exhaled, her voice very low. "When these two stand together, even if they aren't dating, it's like their music is in love."

The assistant next to her nodded, their expression serious.

Lin Shiya didn't hear it, or if she did, she ignored it. She turned to Lu Zhixian. "The timing for the second verse entry should be one beat later."

"I know." Lu Zhixian placed his hands back on the keyboard.

"I followed too early when you took a breath at the end of the first verse. Let's go again."

The two of them started over from the beginning.

This time, he entered even later.

Lin Shiya's voice hung for that split second before his harmony dropped, like a thread pulled taut in the air.

Then his voice came in, catching that thread.

Sister Chen said nothing this time, just watched.

In the rehearsal room next door.

An assistant handed a phone to the manager. "I recorded a segment. It's not long, recorded through the wall, so it's very blurry."

The manager put on headphones and listened for a dozen seconds. In the audio, the piano was faint and the vocals were intermittent, but one line pierced through.

"the brightest star in the night sky, can you hear clearly..."

The manager took off the headphones, expression unchanged. "Send it to me."

At five o'clock that afternoon, an entertainment account posted a seventeen-second audio clip.

Headline: #Lu Zhixian and Lin Shiya Collab Song Suspected Early Leak#

The body of the post was just one sentence: "A certain contestant's competition song leaked early. Before the competition has even started, is it already rigged?"

The audio quality was extremely poor, as if recorded with a phone stuffed inside a quilt, but that one line of lyrics was still picked out.

In less than forty minutes, the topic hit number seven on the trending searches.

Marketing accounts followed up with the speed of a fire brigade.

"Original competition song exposed early. Does this count as leaking the exam questions?"

"Tailor-made by Lu Zhixian. Is it fair to the other contestants?"

"Requesting an explanation from the program team."

In Shen Yihang's fan group, someone dropped a screenshot followed by a string of messages—

"To put it bluntly, this is a dimensional strike. Lin Shiya is a Diva, and she still needs an original song? Using something tailor-made—you call that fair?"

"Demand the program team disqualify the original song or make her change it!"

This message was reposted nearly twenty thousand times within two hours.

In the program team's meeting room, 8:30 PM.

The General Director pushed a tablet to the center of the table. On the screen was real-time public opinion data; the trending search was still climbing.

"There are several voices right now," the Deputy Director said. "First, have Lin Shiya's team clarify publicly and state the song didn't leak early; second, change the competition song to an already released track to calm the controversy; third, have the program team step in to explain the rules, but that cycle is relatively long..."

He hadn't finished.

Lin Shiya flipped her phone face down on the table.

"The song is not the problem," she said, her voice not rising. "The person who leaked it is the problem."

There was a pause in the meeting room.

Several Producers looked at each other, and one spoke up. "We understand your position, but current public opinion..."

"Public opinion is driven by people," Lin Shiya cut him off directly. "If you ask me to change the song now, it's equivalent to admitting we did something wrong."

She looked up, her gaze steady. "I haven't done anything wrong."

The General Director didn't speak, his fingers tapping twice on the tabletop.

Lu Zhixian leaned against the back of his chair and hadn't spoken the whole time. His eyebrows twitched when he heard the words "change the song," but that was it.

Sister Chen sat next to Lin Shiya, glancing at Lu Zhixian and then at the General Director.

The Deputy Director spoke again, "The pressure on the program team is currently quite high. If public opinion continues to ferment, we might have to..."

"Why bother with them?"

Lu Zhixian finally spoke.

"They can also find someone to write an original song." He leaned back further. "But they don't have the ability, so they think about making us change our song. Where does that logic make sense?"

The meeting room fell completely silent.

The General Director looked at him without saying a word.

Lu Zhixian picked up his teacup and took a sip of water. "Did the program team check the surveillance? With that audio quality, it was recorded from next door. There's no professional team; it was probably recorded with a phone pressed against the vent, right?"

The Deputy Director paused. "We're checking, but no clear faces were caught..."

"Then keep checking." Lu Zhixian put the teacup back.

"Find out where the blame lies first before talking about changing the song. Don't get the order reversed."

This sentence blocked the remaining half of what the Deputy Director was prepared to say.

Silence reigned in the meeting room for a few seconds.

The General Director put away the tablet and stood up.

"Meeting adjourned for tonight. Keep following up on the surveillance. The public relations team will report at 9:00 AM tomorrow." He paused.

"As for the competition song, we'll discuss it again after the surveillance results are out."

This was a result without a definitive answer.

Sister Chen picked up her coat from the back of the chair and whispered something to Lin Shiya, who nodded.

In the hallway, several staff members dispersed.

Lin Shiya stood by the window in the hallway and glanced at her phone.

The topics on various platforms were still rising, showing no signs of slowing down.

She held her phone without moving.

Lu Zhixian came out of the meeting room and walked over to her side, looking out the window at the lights of Hangzhou spread out below.

"The notification is here." Lin Shiya tilted her phone screen to show him.

An internal message from the program team, a single line:

**If public opinion continues to ferment until tomorrow morning, Lin Shiya's group will need to formally assess whether to change the competition song.**

Lu Zhixian scanned it and pulled his gaze back.

Then he smiled.

As if he had suddenly remembered something interesting.

"Did they forget?" he said.

"I'm best at turning the tables on the spot."

Lin Shiya looked at him but didn't respond.

Lu Zhixian shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to walk toward the other end of the hallway, his voice drifting back.

"Continue rehearsing tomorrow. Ignore the outside world."