After Becoming the Girl Group’s Visual, the Idol Became My Life Mentor

[Content warnings below the blurb. Proceed with caution.] *Click the author’s profile to read the completed novel in the same series.* After an accident, Zheng You An transmigrates into the body of a chaebol’s youngest illegitimate daughter, who dreams of becoming an idol and has threatened her parents with suicide. Faced with singing and dancing, of which she knows nothing, she practices hard, afraid of squandering the chance the original owner paid for with her life. But as luck would have it, God opens a window for her, then closes a door. Zheng You An has the face of a stunning beauty, but the moment she steps onstage, she turns to wood. She’s hopeless at performing. But she refuses to give up. So what if she wants to be an idol? She doesn’t believe she can’t do it. If others practice ten times, she’ll practice a hundred, a thousand times. An idol who earns her skills through hard work can be just as excellent as any other, can’t she? ITZY is a girl group launched by JYP Entertainment after TWICE. It includes popular trainees such as Shin Ryu Jin and Lee Chae Ryeong, who had appeared on audition shows. But the member who drew the most attention when the lineup was announced was Zheng You An, an ordinary trainee who won countless fans with her looks alone. The higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment. After the debut song was released, fans noticed that the stunning trainee looked painfully plain in the music video and onstage. In an instant, fans turned into antis. The stronger the other ITZY members’ skills and stage presence, the more vicious the abuse Zheng You An received. The hashtag “ITZY minus one” even topped Naver’s trending searches, stirring up a storm of controversy. Then, a year later, when the group returned with a mini album, the girl in a high ponytail and a cropped gray suit made a forceful comeback into the public eye. Fans were stunned to discover that the idol they had called a “wooden beauty” had completely transformed, as if she were a different person. From the least impressive fifth-generation idol to a stunning maknae who took on much of the group’s later songwriting and had no weak spots in singing or dancing, Zheng You An walked that road with unwavering determination, one step at a time. Bonus scene: A trending post on Naver: “A roundup of idols who became famous through hard work after debut” [ITZY’s Zheng You An absolutely has to be on this list! She was like a completely different person between the debut song “Dalla Dalla” and this year’s comeback, “WANNABE”!!] [You An proves how incredible hard work can be. Our maknae’s future is going to be bright!] [Calling it now, ITZY will become the top fifth-generation girl group. The whole group is strong across the board, they can sing live while doing intense choreography, and they have a gorgeous maknae who’s also a producer. If they don’t reach the top, who will?] [But You An’s rap feels so familiar to me.] [That person has pretty much stopped promoting, so it should just be... a coincidence, right?] While on leave from his military service, Kwon Ji Yong visited a friend’s shop and met Zheng You An for the first time. The reason she made such a strong impression was that she was exceptionally beautiful, the kind of beauty that could astonish even Kwon Ji Yong, who had spent years in the entertainment industry. Her dark hair fell over her shoulders. Her fair, luminous face was framed by gentle, bright almond-shaped eyes. Mistaking him for the shop owner, she asked politely, “Excuse me, do you have any of GD’s solo albums? Any one will do.” So she was his fan. He felt a little giddy, probably because such a beautiful girl was a fan of his. Still, she looked so young. Had she really become a fan at a time like this? His expression grew more complicated. The group’s glory days were behind them, and he was just an idol past his prime, about to be swept away by the rising tide of younger stars. Kwon Ji Yong thought it was nothing more than an ordinary chance encounter. He never imagined that he would keep running into this girl, that he would go soft for her and be moved by her, or that he would come to like her so much he wouldn’t dare get close. The only two times in his life Kwon Ji Yong ever felt inferior were before his debut and after he fell for Zheng You An. Reading guide: 1. The heroine is ITZY’s sixth member. (I tweaked the timeline for when Yuna joined to make the setting work.) 2. The story focuses on her career at first. The romance is very, very slow-burning. 3. The male lead is GD. It’s one-on-one from beginning to end, with a significant age gap. 4. The heroine is somewhat of a heartthrob, has a powerful golden finger, and this is a work of transformative fiction. Please don’t draw too many parallels between the idols and real people. 4. After her debut, the story contains a lot of forum posts. Don’t read if that’s not your thing. Neither lead is perfect, so please be understanding. Completed novel: “[Entertainment Industry] Born to Act” Blurb: When Kim Song Hee was five, she became a child actress and began appearing on the big and small screens. While other children her age were cuddled in their mothers’ arms, she was braving the winter wind to film scenes in the water on location. At fifteen, she won Best Supporting Actress, becoming the beloved ideal in the hearts of Koreans, viewed through a hundred layers of rose-colored glasses. Just as famous as her superb acting were the dating rumors that never let up after she came of age. Industry insiders said that every time Kim Song Hee filmed a romance, sparks flew between her and her male co-star. Whenever young actors’ fans heard that their idol was going to work with Kim Song Hee, they felt both worried and excited. They were excited because every show Kim Song Hee appeared in was a hit, but worried that their idol wouldn’t be able to resist her charm and would get “snatched away” by her. Kim Song Hee had only one thing to say about that: she had high standards when it came to men, okay? Not just anyone who made a move on her would get a yes. During an interview, when asked about her ideal type, Kim Song Hee gave a rough description: “My taste is still pretty superficial for now, I guess? Tall, handsome men?” The girl wore a black halter-neck dress, her dark hair swept up in an elegant style. Her bright, expressive eyes gleamed with a mischievous sparkle as she glanced around. “How handsome? The handsomer, the better, of course.” She looked at the camera, her peach-blossom eyes curving into a smile, her voice sweet. “Who doesn’t like handsome men?” Later, every relationship of Kim Song Hee’s captured by Dispatch proved that she had meant every word. But why was there a strange person mixed in among them? Bonus scene: A Korean online forum: [Have you heard GD’s new song?] [Of course! Describing his feelings for Song Hee as love and hate is so spot-on. I’ve never seen GD write a diss track about an ex-girlfriend before, lmao.] [Calling it a diss track isn’t entirely accurate. The resentment in his song is so obvious. Isn’t Song Hee supposedly dating Lee Joo Hyuk now? And he’s still thinking about her after all this time. I’ve always thought they weren’t a good match, but for some reason, this got me shipping them a little.] [Don’t even start. No matter what, she’s the first girlfriend GD ever officially acknowledged in public. That alone puts her ahead of all the others.] [This teaches us never to date someone who writes songs, or you’ll keep getting roasted after you break up, lmao.] [Even if it were only for a second, I’d love to know what it’s like to live in Kim Song Hee’s body. Dating so many incredibly handsome men must be the best thing ever, right?] Reader notes: 1. The story features many South Korean actors and male idols, but the male lead is definitely GD, and the ending is one-on-one. 2. Readers with very high moral standards should proceed with caution. Neither lead is a virgin, and neither is perfect. Please don’t flame them. 3. The heroine is a heartthrob and has a knack for getting caught in love triangles. Theme: Everyone has something that makes them shine. Love yourself.