Marriage Concerto

Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Top 4

Probably because she had received some rare encouragement from Jungkook, Lisa felt braver than usual when she walked into the competition site. Even though this round didn’t require the audience to vote, the arena was still packed full with a thousand spectators.

After being baptized by the last competition, the present her had lost all qualms about facing an audience of this scale. The order of performances today would go according the results of yesterday’s lottery in the order red, yellow, green, and lastly blue.

Before the competition officially began, the program presenter once again kicked off with an introduction. Unlike last time, today there were two presenters. The female presenter represented the Popularity team and the male presenter represented the Merit team.

When the program started, the two presenters immediately began to shoot verbal bullets at each other.

“In this current day and age, people can’t rely on appearances for very long. Ultimately, people must still depend on their merits.” The male presenter aggressively pointed at each contestant in the Popularity team.

The female presenter was not one to swallow a loss and immediately struck back, “Those words coming from your mouth are truly quite convincing. After all, you are a man who has never, not even for a second, relied on his face.”

The audience roared with laughter. The male presenter gave the female presenter a side glance, “Let’s ban personal attacks.”

The female presenter laughed, “Fine, then let me talk about merit. Everyone knows our Popularity team has risen to prominence from a pool of ten thousand auditions to ultimately enter the top 20. Who dares say that our top 20 contestants lack merit? They just happen to fortunately also have good looks, that’s all. With that said, our Popularity team can be considered to have both merit and popularity.”

The male presenter indignantly retorted, “Why are you talking as if the contestants in our Merit team aren’t popular? Their merit is just so overwhelming that they haven’t had a chance yet to prove their popularity. If we let the audience vote right now, it’s not even clear who would win or lose.” He spoke up to here and then faced the audience to yell out, “Wouldn’t you all agree?”

“Yeah—!” The audience very agreeably replied.

The male presenter cockily looked at the female presenter. The female presenter displayed a smile, as if to say she wouldn’t stoop to his level. “That’s enough. Even if the two of us talk up a storm, it’ll be useless. In a moment, their performances will show us all the truth.”

The male presenter joined in speaking, “You’ve said that correctly. Then let’s invite the contestants in the red group to come on stage. On the Merit team’s side, our contestant is Eunha!”

Eunha walked on stage amidst the screaming cheers of the audience.

Though she was the first of all the contestants to go up, her performance was still extremely steady. She sang the entire song without any mistakes whatsoever. Backstage, Jihyo pulled on Lisa’s arm. Her face was full of grief when she spoke, “Lili, in a moment, if I am sacrificed, you need to take revenge for me.”

Lisa comfortingly pat her shoulder. “Don’t say such ominous words. What if they come true?”

Jihyi, “…”

She sank into a deep despair.

After Eunha’s performance ended, Jihyo’s turn came. Lisa gave her some encouragements, but the view of her back as she departed was rather miserable and solemn looking.