Rising From Betrayal Reborn As The Family Outcast novel Chapter 40

Chapter 40

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After the livestream ended, the official Radiance: The Idol Journey account posted on X: [See you again in one hour! Which guest are you picking?] They tagged all eight celebrity guests’ accounts.

The post immediately drew fans and casual viewers who flooded the comments section, hyping up their favorite guests.

Someone in the replies started a poll, asking everyone to predict which guest would perform best and rank them accordingly.

The thread exploded with people joining in on the speculation.

In the predictions, Nicolas, Felicity, and Maxwell dominated the top three spots.

Nicolas had debuted as a top-tier idol with exceptional singing and dancing skills. Though he’d shifted his focus to acting, everyone assumed his talent remained rock-solid.

Felicity specialized in singing and dancing from the start, and she was still active in a girl group, so most people figured she’d easily claim a top-three spot.

Maxwell had once performed a street dance routine on a competitive reality show, and his fans had uploaded the clip. People were impressed by how good he was, so they voted him into third place.

The fourth and fifth positions kept bouncing back and forth between Nicole and Alicia.

Nicole had debuted as a singer but had also trained in dance, so people expected her to do well.

With Starlight Entertainment backing her and a carefully crafted “wealthy heiress princess” persona, she’d amassed an enormous fanbase.

Her management team had hired dedicated staff to run aggressive fan community operations, and her follower count now rivaled that of A-list actresses.

Her fans were going wild in the comments, pushing her name everywhere, so her vote count stayed high.

Alicia had proven herself with that song. Everyone now knew her skills weren’t as bad as the internet had made them out to be.

After getting trashed online, only her die-hard fans stuck around, and she’d never bothered with promotion. Hence, her follower count was way smaller than Nicole’s.

But because she’d clapped back at the haters directly and then dropped that performance, plus Lucent Media had been working overtime in the comments to clear her name, casual viewers were actually voting for her more now.

Simon and Hannah came in next, and Darren came in last.

The show blew up because the guests were popular and the producers knew how to stir up drama. It shot straight to the top of the trending topics.

This brought in a wave of new viewers who wanted to see what would happen.

The plan was to check back in an hour and see how these guest mentors would perform. Both production teams clearly knew how to build hype and keep audiences hooked.

Alicia and Darren led their group of trainees into Practice Room Four. The cameras followed them in and started rolling immediately.

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Alicia smiled at the eight trainees and said, “You guys can sit on the side and watch. If you have any suggestions, feel free to speak up.

The trainees nodded and said, “Got it. Good luck.”

Alicia turned to Darren and asked, “Can you learn the whole song in an hour?”

If they could pull off both vocals and choreography, that would be ideal.

Darren replied, “Just learning the song, yeah. But adding the dance on top of that? No way.”

Alicia thought for a moment and said, “Then let’s each pick our favorite section and focus on that. I’ll learn mine first, then come help you clean up the choreography.”

Darren smiled and said, “Sounds good. I’m counting on you for the dance part.”

He’d taken dance classes before, but with such a short learning window and no one to guide him through the details, his performance would probably be rough.

Alicia flashed him an okay sign and walked over to a corner. She grabbed the tablet the production team had handed out, put on her headphones, and started learning the song.

Darren did the same thing.

The trainees had all received the track on their phones too, and they were already pulling it up to practice.

The other three groups opened their tablets and listened on repeat. Everyone wanted to nail the song first before anything

else.

An hour flew by fast. The moment the time was up, the live broadcast cameras turned on.

The production crew headed to the practice room and brought all the guests out.

“How’d the practice go?” one of them asked.

Everyone said they were doing okay.

The other guests looked pretty calm.

But Felicity could tell right away that this girl was feeling super confident and couldn’t wait to get on stage.

They all headed back to the main studio. Chase explained that while the guests performed, the original MV would be projected on screen.

The guests would have their backs to the screen, though, so they couldn’t see the MV. They’d only hear the backing track with the vocals removed.

Everyone realized the production team was really playing around with this format. The guests would be singing and dancing in front while the original MV played behind them.

If someone sang badly, the contrast would be obvious, but if the dancing was terrible, the comparison would be brutal.

Still, the viewers loved it and kept hitting the like button.

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Chase turned to Felicity and Nicole. “Now let’s welcome our two guests from Team 1 to show us what you’ve learned in just one hour.”

He paused and asked, “Which one of you wants to go first?”

Felicity stood up right away. “I’ll go.”

Before they’d left the practice room, she and Nicole had agreed she’d take the lead, and Nicole had been supportive.

Chase gestured toward the stage. “Alright then, let’s welcome Ms. Sterling to kick things off for us.”

He added with a pointed smile, “And let’s see if Ms. Sterling’s performance in professional singing and dancing can surprise everyone here.”

Chase knew how to stir the pot and create drama.

Since Alicia had called out Felicity earlier for claiming to be a professional, he was deliberately bringing it up again.

Felicity didn’t curse Chase in her head, though. Instead, she thought this was actually perfect. ‘If I nail this, it’ll shut down everything Alicia said before, she thought.

Once she was on stage and signaled she was ready, the production team started projecting the MV on the screen.

Felicity stood with her back to the screen, wearing her headset mic, and the moment the music started, she locked in.

When the lyrics appeared on the video, she jumped right in, mostly singing on pitch, then started dancing along.

Her skills were solid, which made sense since she was the center and main dancer of a top-tier girl group.

And she’d chosen to perform the entire song with full choreography.

The audience watched carefully and compared her performance to the original.

She did miss a few lyrics here and there, and some of her dance moves were slightly different from the MV, but for learning everything in just one hour, it was impressive.

Even the audiences who’d had a bad impression of her before had to admit she’d done really well.

The trainees in the room felt the same way. They might not like Felicity personally, but they couldn’t deny she’d killed it this time.

Felicity flashed that same confident smile, and she even shot Alicia a pointed look with a touch of provocation before walking back to her spot.

But Alicia could tell Felicity’s performance wasn’t as good as it used to be.

When Alicia first joined LUMIA, the other four members had just come back from their training at Hocem and debuted.

Back then, things between them were decent, and they’d actually worked together pretty well.

But after Haley and Starlight Entertainment decided to use Alicia to boost the other four, everything changed.

The four of them started deliberately isolating her and using her to manipulate their fans’ emotions and strengthen their fan base.

Teammates like that weren’t worth keeping around.

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On top of that, Alicia realized the so-called top girl group was basically just manufactured popularity and data that Starlight Entertainment had pushed up.

It was all smoke and mirrors, like a house of cards that could collapse any second.

That was when Alicia first started thinking about leaving the group.

So when they froze her out, she didn’t bother trying to fix things.

When the managers and the company started their schemes, and she didn’t have her own team to handle PR or fight the hate, she just let it happen.

She figured since she wanted to stay in the entertainment industry anyway, getting dragged through the mud first might not be the worst thing.

As long as she kept her own foundation solid, clearing her name was just a matter of time.

Besides, she was already losing faith in LUMIA’s future.

And sure enough, after they hit it big, those four spent less and less time practicing their vocals and choreography.

Felicity was slightly more dedicated than the other three since she’d always marketed herself as a singing and dancing idol.

The other three had different plans. One wanted to focus on being a solo singer, and the other two were trying to transition into acting.

On top of that, all four of them took on tons of commercial gigs and spent even less time on their craft.

They got cocky, too, each one thinking they were the star of LUMIA.

Their stage performances got more and more half-hearted, and their attitude toward fans turned condescending and superior.

Alicia’s mother had always taught her to give her best effort in everything she chose to do and never to give up, no matter what situation she faced.

She’d also said that opportunities only came to those who were prepared.

So even when Alicia’s stage performances were deliberately cut short and the cameras intentionally overlooked her, Alicia still made time to train with professional instructors and kept improving her skills.

She never half-assed anything because she wanted to be accountable to herself, to the stage, and to the fans who supported her.

As for the other four girls and their change in attitude, Alicia couldn’t say she was disappointed. They were just on different paths now, and that was fine.

She’d just watched Felicity’s performance, and Felicity had used her as a punching bag yet again, even throwing a provocative look her way in front of everyone..

‘Her career’s only going to get narrower from here, Alicia thought. “Today she’s probably going to get a hard reality check.

Sure, Felicity’s performance looked decent right now, but that was only because she’d gone first. Once the other contestants performed without messing up, the contrast would be painfully obvious.

Alicia felt a flicker of anticipation. This was going to be interesting.

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