"Go online at your place? At most, I'll just come back here to sleep at night."

"You’re really clinging to me now?"

"That’s my bedroom, after all. Besides, I’ve thought of a way to help you make money."

The moment money was mentioned, Evelyn's eyes sparkled bulingbuling, and the two of them went back to her place. William Clark opened an online promotional ad and said, "Let’s go sign up for this."

"The Supernova Competition? Are you crazy?"

"How is that crazy? First prize is a million yuan! With all my research on this world, I can’t guarantee first place, but as long as we make the top ten, that’s two hundred thousand. Isn’t that better than you picking up junk?"

The Supernova Competition is a hugely popular singing contest here, open to all ages, and has been running for ten years. It’s the regular debut stage for newcomers.

The so-called newcomers refer to virtual idols.

Every year, the competition starts in July and runs for five rounds, ending in August. Each season, a massive number of newcomers participate—most are famous for a month, then disappear the next.

Evelyn didn’t think it was reliable and said, "Where’s your confidence coming from? Are you sending that little Taoist to compete?"

"No, no, it’s this one."

William Clark opened a video on his phone, showing a woman singing. Evelyn frowned, "She’s not even pretty, just average."

"But we have works! Do you remember what I said before?"

"The contradiction between the scarcity of outstanding works and the surplus of idols?"

"Exactly! I have the works of an entire world backing me up!"

Indeed, the singer William Clark chose couldn’t compete with those virtual idols in terms of looks, but you have to understand the relationship between idols and their works.

Take Wang Zuxian, for example.

If you’ve never seen her movies and just meet her in person, you wouldn’t feel anything extra—at most, you’d say: Wow, a beauty!

But if you’ve seen "A Chinese Ghost Story," "Green Snake," "The East Is Red: Swordsman," and then meet her, you’d go: Wow! It’s the legendary Wang, such a beauty!

Why can’t we remember the new generation of idols?

Because we don’t have that feeling.

Of course, that’s not to say idols are useless—idols and their works complement each other.

Moreover, William Clark had deeply analyzed the entertainment industry’s development here: from five or six years of war, to three or four years of postwar recovery—a special period of nearly ten years. After that, technology developed rapidly, virtual idols flourished, and quickly became mainstream.

The public became obsessed with this technology, utterly captivated. The industry boomed, materialism and greed ran rampant, and capital infiltrated every corner—even more so than in the real world.

But society overlooked a group: those who lived through and grew up during the war and postwar years, who are now middle-aged or elderly.

They’re not the new generation. They carry pain in their hearts, but the world changed too fast, and no one comforted them.

William Clark felt these people were a lot like those born in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Born and raised in a time of limited resources, went to college, started working, faced ever-increasing competition and technological advancement, had one, two, three kids, and suddenly, in the blink of an eye, reached middle age. Occasionally, when they catch their breath and look up:

How did the world become like this?

Try to fit in with the young, and they’re disliked; try to fit in with the old, and they’re still considered young—caught in between...

William Clark's main focus was this group. They needed comfort.

...

"I signed up!"

"I really signed up?"

"Fifty yuan!"

Evelyn, stingy as ever, forked over another fifty yuan and registered for the fifth round of the "Supernova Competition."

"Didn’t you say today is the first round? Where do we watch it?"

"There are two versions: the regular one and the VR one. VR requires identity authentication—you, as an unregistered resident, can’t use it."

She pulled out a pair of slightly used VR goggles and a set of gloves with finger trackers, raising her eyebrows.

Tch!

William Clark could only sulk with his computer. At 8 p.m., the show began.

It didn’t seem much different from a 2021 competition: a big stage, three real judges below.

One was Lucas Turner, a lyricist and composer. One was David Young, a music producer. The third was a woman, Anna Hall, a famous designer specializing in virtual humans.

But behind the judges, there was no audience—just a huge light screen, with rows of seats filled with virtual people, all avatars of the audience.

"Evelyn, can you hear me? Give me a hand signal so I can see which one is you!"

He patted the girl next to him. The VR goggles were so big they covered her whole face, leaving only her lips exposed. She didn’t answer, but drew a circle with her right hand.

He stared at the screen, and sure enough, saw a little round-faced girl in one row draw a circle with her hand.

The atmosphere inside was lively, but William Clark felt something was off. Those densely packed, seemingly endless virtual audience members... You know they’re fake, but they also feel real, as if gazes from another world are watching the contestants on stage.

The first contestant appeared. With a swish, a naked-eye hologram materialized on stage.

"Holy crap! Non-humans are allowed too?"

It was a big, fluffy, adorable bear!

The creator usually doesn’t go on stage, staying behind the scenes, wearing equipment—kind of like a ventriloquist act. When the virtual idol’s AI isn’t smart enough, like if a judge asks a complicated question, the creator can "possess" them to answer.