She and her team’s designers didn’t utter any impossible nonsense. After listening to Director Kang Xin and Zhou Yun explain the entire concept and style of the performance in the rehearsal room, they watched the performance content again, and then immediately occupied a corner to start discussing and sketching.

Li Chunhong, along with his apprentice Li Li, also joined in.

Styling and clothing can’t be separated.

In just half a day, they devised a plan.

Fresh and elegant Chinese style.

Not a historical replica, but a blend of modern and traditional Chinese culture.

Meeting young, separated by war, reunited post-war.

A song expressing love, intertwined with the fate of the era and the sentiment for the nation.

"Song Chi’s styling is manageable; the key is Zhou Yun’s. This performance lasts only three minutes, but Zhou Yun needs to change into three different outfits. It’s too difficult to manage in between, any slip-up can cause a mistake," Li Chunhong said. "Especially with the hairstyle and makeup, I don’t recommend making changes."

"It’s indeed too challenging if changes need to be made in such a short time," Kang Xin said. "But I still think there should be changes in form and visuals to make the audience’s experience more intense."

Zhou Yun and Song Chi exchanged a glance.

"How about incorporating costume and makeup changes into the plot design?" Zheng Xiaowen suddenly proposed.

"Hmm?" Others looked at her.

Zheng Xiaowen said, "This story is divided into three stages: meeting young, separated by war, and finally reuniting. With plot design, it’s entirely possible to change costumes and makeup directly on stage."

Zheng Xiaowen’s words gave everyone inspiration.

That night, Zhou Yun only slept for an hour.

She kept communicating with Kang Xin about the performance details and connections.

Time was too tight.

Everyone exhausted their utmost efforts to help complete this performance.

Zheng Xiaowen directly summoned ten tailors, bringing machines and equipment to fully start working on making the costumes and shoes for the performance.

Li Chunhong led his little apprentice Li Li to design makeup and hairstyles for three people.

Kang Xin’s schedule was incredibly tight. After staying for two days, he had to leave. Before leaving, he finalized the entire format and details of the performance with Zhou Yun, and then set up a group chat, saying he wanted to confirm the final styling and costume effects.

For five days, Zhou Yun spent all her energy rehearsing for this program, except for the six hours she slept each day.

The biggest challenge in this performance was her and Guan Xiaohe.

Guan Xiaohe’s challenge was singing this song. The arrangement and style were changed at the last minute, and she had to grasp and familiarize herself with the new arrangement and style in such a short time, as well as perform with Zhou Yun and Song Chi.

Zhou Yun’s challenge was positioning, changing costumes, and performing.

Because Song Chi’s rehearsal time was short, almost all connections and position changes depended on her.

No dialogue, but lots of interaction, and within three minutes, she needed to perform meeting young, separated by war, and finally reuniting with Song Chi.

Emotion management and the complexity of movements kept Zhou Yun on edge.

This wasn’t a film performance with retakes; live performances only offered one shot on the night. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Five days later, they flew to Beijing to participate in the second-to-last rehearsal for the Spring Festival Gala, which was also the moment that decided the fate of their program.

...

That day, an anonymous user posted online:

I really can’t stand this any longer. Let me leak some info for you: this year’s CW invited the hottest celebrity couple, and after several rounds of complete rehearsals, they squeezed them into this year’s CW. They passed the review for a program they rehearsed for only seven days! Has the director team begun lowering CW standards for traffic and hype?! I really can’t understand! Just wait and see, I never thought CW would also start prioritizing celebrities and be perfunctory to the audience one day!

This post caused a huge stir online.

No program’s attention can compare to the Spring Festival Gala.

Other programs might be careless, but how can the Spring Festival Gala be careless!

The truth of this matter was unclear, but many people’s emotions were already stirred up, and they left messages under the Spring Festival Gala’s official Weibo, demanding an explanation.

At the same time, some people started investigating who the celebrity couple in the leaked post was.

By comparing the lists of celebrities at earlier and later rehearsals, someone tracked down Song Chi and Zhou Yun.