Chapter 502: Souvenir

Chapter 502: Chapter 502: Souvenir

"It’s so gorgeous... I heard Irene personally designed this finals stage. After countless discussions and massive expenses, they managed to pull this off. The stage is benchmarked against the most luxurious, top-tier concert effects."

Ella whispered softly, her eyes filled with excitement, and she carefully took out her camera to snap a panoramic shot of the stage, unwilling to miss a single detail.

Michelle stared fixedly at the mentors’ seats ahead, full of anticipation: "I’ll get to see Britney in person very soon! Maybe we’ll even get to see Irene today. I’m so excited I can’t sit still!"

Hayley sat obediently, gently tidying up her backpack and the food she had just purchased, gripping the hem of her clothes with nervous anticipation: "Sitting this close for the first time feels just like a dream."

Zoe tore open a bag of coffee and shared it with everyone to perk them up: "Next is a long wait. Eat your fill, drink up, and sit back to wait for the ceremony to begin!"

After the audience had gradually taken their seats, the lights throughout the venue were temporarily dimmed. The atmosphere on-site was both quiet and lively as everyone held their breath, waiting for the ceremony to start.

After a long wait, at exactly two o’clock in the afternoon, the lights throughout the venue suddenly shifted, and brilliant spotlights instantly cast a beam on the center of the stage!

The rhythmic opening background music suddenly blared, and the joyful, grand melody swept across the entire venue, instantly igniting the atmosphere.

The program host, with a steady aura and exceptional eloquence, strode onto the stage, stopped at the center of the spotlight, smiled, and waved to the audience. Their voice carried clearly through the top-tier sound system to every corner of the arena:

"Welcome to the grand finals of the first season of The Voice! Welcome to the four thousand luckiest and most sincere audience members here today!"

As the words fell, the entire venue instantly erupted into thunderous applause and cheers, and the anticipation that had been building up for days completely burst forth at this moment.

The host stood in the center of the stage, raising a hand to signal for quiet. Their clear voice filled the entire Radio City Music Hall through the top-tier surround sound system, clearly declaring the complete rules of the grand finals.

According to the official rules of the production team, each of the top four finalists for this season’s grand finals will present two ultimate stages: one will be a solo main stage, fully showcasing their personal style and vocal foundation; the other will be a duet with their mentor, condensing all the painstaking efforts of their mentor-student collaboration.

After both rounds of stage performances are completely finished, the venue’s sole voting channel will open.

Synthesizing the overall presentation of both stages, the four thousand public audience members present will conduct real-name voting, and the person with the highest final vote count will become the grand champion of the first season of The Voice.

"The specific voting methods, rule details, and precautions have all been printed inside the exclusive handbags you received when entering.

Now, everyone can open your handbags yourselves to check if the voting tools are complete.

If there are any missing ballots, instruction sheets, or omitted supplies, you can get up at any time and head to the audience aisles on both sides to find the on-site staff for an immediate replacement, which will not affect subsequent voting."

Hearing the host’s reminder, the five-person squad, who had been immersed in the atmosphere, snapped back to reality instantly.

From entry verification to venue setup, while marveling at the heartwarming slogans and taking their seats to look at the stage, they had been captivated by the grand scene before them the entire time and had long since thrown the portable handbags handed to them by the staff upon entry to the back of their minds.

Reminded at this moment, the five quickly lowered their heads one after another, picked up the exquisite cloth bags at their feet, and carefully opened them.

The storage bags in everyone’s hands were exclusive custom-made high-grade silk cloth bags from the production team.

The fabric was soft and delicate, and the body of the bag was embroidered with simple, exquisite dark-patterned musical notes. The texture was extremely high-end, and the outer packaging alone was enough to show the production team’s thoughtfulness and extravagance.

After opening the cloth bag, three exclusive souvenirs were neatly arranged inside.

The first item was a bottle of custom bottled mineral water, with the exclusive logo of the first season grand finals of The Voice printed on the bottle; the second item was a metal baked-paint badge with a delicate luster.

The center of the badge was engraved with the half-body silhouettes of the four mentors, showing different expressions and lifelike details. The edges were polished smoothly, and the workmanship was exceptionally fine.

It was a limited commemorative merchandise unique to this grand finals, full of collectible value.

And what surprised everyone the most was the third item—singly authorized mini chibi dolls of the four mentors.

The dolls were small and portable, allowing them to be hung on keychains or backpacks to carry around.

Their shapes were exquisite and three-dimensional, unlike the crude assembly-line toys on the market. The characters’ hairstyles, clothing, expressions, and iconic movements were all highly restored to the four mentors themselves.

Every doll had exclusive details, down to the hair strands which were quite realistic. Their expressions were lively and their shapes cute, with extremely high recognition. They were exclusive merchandise custom-made by the production team.

Most importantly, the dolls adopted a purely random blind box distribution mode. With four thousand handbags and four thousand dolls, they were completely and randomly distributed by the system.

No one knew the styles in advance, and drawing them depended entirely on luck, which greatly aroused everyone’s curiosity and desire to collect.

The five-person squad immediately lowered their heads to look through the dolls in their hands, showing them to each other and comparing them. The next second, they collectively fell into a helpless silence of not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and a strange yet awkward atmosphere permeated the air.

As Britney fans, all five of them favored Britney, but as fate would have it, among the blind box dolls of the five people, not a single one drew the Britney style.

Leah and Zoe drew the Steve Winwood mentor doll, Michelle and Ella got the Bonnie Raitt style, and Hayley, the youngest of them all, drew the only Kanye West doll.

The five looked at each other in dismay, gazing at the mentor dolls with vastly different styles in their hands, temporarily not knowing whether to complain about their terrible luck or marvel at the miraculous twists of fate.

"Help, all five of us die-hard Britney fans actually managed to avoid our favorite idol’s doll entirely?" Michelle stared at the Bonnie Raitt doll in her hand with a lifeless expression on her face. "This luck is truly something else; it’s practically precision obstacle avoidance."

Hayley pinched the Kanye doll in her hand and added softly: "I’ve never had good luck, and I didn’t expect today to be any different, missing it completely."

Just as the five-person squad was teasing each other and secretly feeling regretful, a crisp and surprised exclamation suddenly rang out from the audience seats not far away, instantly piercing through the whispered conversations in the area. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"Ah! I drew Britney’s doll! It’s Britney!"

This cheer had extreme penetration, and all the surrounding audience members instantly turned their heads in unison, casting all their gazes toward the direction the voice came from.

The audience members who were still lowering their heads to fiddle with their dolls and compare styles instantly filled their eyes with heavy envy and jealousy. Many people subconsciously stood up and stretched their necks, wanting to catch a glimpse of the rare version’s true appearance.

Without needing extra words, everyone instantly understood that the blind box dolls of the four mentors were not issued in equal quantities.

The quantity of the Britney-style doll was the scarcest, making it the hidden rare version of this grand finals blind box. The winning probability was extremely low, and the person who could draw it was clearly the top lucky person of the entire venue.

Looking at the exquisite and rare Britney doll in someone else’s hand, the five-person squad’s regret grew even deeper.