Hearing his sunbae praises, Sangmin became proud internally, he then asked again, Hyung, i can help you more but why you always reject me when i wanted to help you soar high, this time even you only asked for exposure for your artist.
How about this, if he can somehow create a story for himself, i will tell the production team to give him more exposure, but is it enough?
Lee Joowon then said solemnly, it is more than enough sangmin.. as long as he can get good exposure, i am grateful for your help, but promised me you won't steal him from me as i have spend most of my fortune and my company's future in him, you will just send me to an early death if you do that..
"Aiyyaa hyung, stop with that self pitying, i promised you i will never steal your artist unlike that old bastard Yangsuk who tried to steal Dreamcatcher from you, i know that you have taken them as your daughters personally, i myself was angry at that time when that happened, you know that you always have special place on my heart. i promised you that i will never take any artist from your company except if they run to me or if you handed them to me willingly.
This i promise you hyung. Wait let me put it in a paper and sign it for your assurance, at least you can take this then hyung, i just need you to sign it for both of us just like the old days.
Seeing that his goal has been achieved, Lee Joowon then chats more with Kim Sangmin and then says goodbye to him, while praising Sangmin to the moon and back.
Actually Sangmin is a strict person himself, but his personal weakness is when he received praises from his old acquaintance, which boosted his ego. Luckily he has a small circle of old friends like Lee Joowon.
If not it was so easy to manipulate his personal feelings. Lee Joowon knows this very much, that's why he took advantage of it to the fullest.
The handwritten agreement might not have a power in front of laws, but to these old people it is a death sentence if they violate the agreement as the measure is not in currency but in value and principe, and for the old people no amount of money can buy their face if it is stained with dishonesty.
Lee Joowon then gets to find Xion who has finished his interview, photoshoot and recording for initial footage that will be used as reference before the first recording of a live introduction performance, unknown to him.
He then told Xion about trying to make a story for himself for better exposure for himself through the program.
He gave some insights on how to present and sell a story through interaction with the contestant. Xion then promised to start slow on the program as planned.
Lee Joowon is just like an ginger, the older it is, the spicier it gets.
Xion prepared himself well, but one day before his recording in Made-K Performance Studio, he called Yiren and Suzy to inform about it.
Both of them are so happy for him and promised him that they will watch his performance before it was aired.
He also went and found Jiu and asked for her blessings. Jiu then asked for his hand and she gave a handmade male bracelet for him which makes him pumped up for the whole day.
Unknown to him, there's a lot of male bracelet that Dreamcatcher usually made for their male fans, and it is unknown who made the bracelet since Jiu just took it from the fan service collection giveaway box.
Sometimes, Xion is just innocent.
When all the members of the company sees him overly hyped because of that bracelet, they just decided to keep silent about it and let him enjoy himself, while thinking that the boy was so innocent.
The rest of Dreamcatcher members, running away from him when he came and showboating the bracelet because they know the real story and don't want to spoil it by laughing out loud.
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When Xion arrived in the morning at the entrance gate of Made-K performance studio, he was asked to leave the car, and found that the female staff was stunned looking at him when he take of his hat and face mask.
The female staff then handed a GoPro attached to a selfie stick, he then realized that the recording had already started, luckily he's well prepared and already dressed for performance. He was asked to walk with the GoPro towards the entrance building.
He accepts the GoPro with his name plastered on it and walks with anticipation and smiles along the road, he then makes some cute expression around some blooming flowers.
When he's about to enter the building, he slaps himself while talk " Wake Up Xion-ah, put your game face, don't be scared, you can do it"
His pale skin was left with some red marks of slaps as he entered the building, some people and contestant that seeing him put air of seriousness with slap marks on his face can't help but laugh at him hard.
Since his face is like that, it's hard for people to see his visuals because the red slaps really became the main point of his feature.
After handing the GoPro back to the staff, Xion then entered the personal waiting room with another staff that pointed the way for him.
He was grouped with another 2 people since their company only sent one candidate. Xion then fixed his make-up and checked his looks carefully, after everything was ready, the staff then came and called them to come to the backstage of the main studio.
The some female staffs was stunned when they saw Xion before the Introduction performance.
For brief information, the first Introduction performance will be used as the first elimination phase.
When the contestant performs and the voting starts to count, a week after the first introduction is the first elimination.
The survivalist then regrouped at Idol Concentration Camp for further elimination.
The criteria to pass the first elimination is simple: have 50K votes on the Idolverse, a Made-K Voting Apps and have 100K Views on the Made-K Official Website and YouTube channel combined.
This criteria might be hard to achieve but that's the current standardized bottomline milestone for trainees to achieve through the Made-K Idol Survival Program, and thousands of trainees failed at this phase in the past.
One by One, the trainees are called to choose their spot in the studio, there's a total of 105 contestants registered, but only 94 trainees are accepted currently, the others are canceled because of information missgiving.
Everyone was handed a clip-on microphone, and entered the stage to choose their seats.
Xion was waiting for his turns while hearing loud cheers from the stage area, he then asked one of the staff, why they are cheering so much and the staff only point him on a display screen that currently displaying the situation on the stage area.
He then realize that the reaction of everyone was being played as for reference by the editing team who are constantly busy checking many monitors that displayed the entire stage and seats.
He then saw that when a well known company trainee came, the other trainee was giving various reactions, and the best reaction was being displayed on the monitor that he was pointed at, while the staff was writing something on paper, probably a timestamp for editing.
Xion was waiting for his turn and realized that only 4 people were left backstage.
When another company's name was presented on the stage, the other three people started to walk together, leaving him alone.
Unknown to him, the trio are feeling grateful that they are coming first before him. They feel inferior due to Xion's handsome face compared to their face.
Indeed, comparison can bring agony itself.
The staff then approach him and tell him that the last seat for him is on the first row behind the mentors seat, to help him since it's already taken too much time when the other trainees pick their seats.
He then pointed at the monitor where the seat is and Xion nodded. The cue came as the company's name was being displayed on the monitor in front of the stage.
Every other trainee is anticipating while the name is displayed. Dreamcatcher's Company name came as the last contestant and Xion walked with a steady pace towards the screen.
Everyone muttered the company's name as they knew that it was a mid level company with only one group as their artist, but when the majority contestant look at Xion for the first time, most of them are grasping and some are closing their mouth, some uttered "why there's a celebrity joining this rookie program?"
Their various reactions made the editing team was filled with many ideas and concepts on how to portray the opening of the program.
The MC then came and introduced himself with loud cheers from the trainees, including Xion.
After that the MC then introduced each mentor based on their specialty starting from Rap, Mad Clown, the cheers was loud and long, apparently he's the rap magnet for the rapper trainee.
The dance mentor is Bae Yoon Jung, which makes another loud cheering since she's know to make a lot of idol choreography.
The vocal mentor is an Idol turned Soloist, Soyou who made the boys excited and the last is a performance mentor Rain which makes the stage blown away with great cheers as Rain is well known as the First gen of K-pop.
The program continued with each company's trainee presenting their performance, some are 4 people, some are 2 people and some are solo stage, finally it's Xion's stage.