The weekend arrived, a blank canvas of time that Xiao Zhu immediately filled with a brutal, color-coded schedule.
Bai Xingyue stood in the sunroom studio on Saturday morning, facing not just the system, but the critic his father had commissioned.
Professor Chen from the Central Academy was a wisp of a man with eyes like scalpels.
He flipped through Bai Xingyue's portfolio—the hurried sketches of stage designs, the figure studies, the initial attempts at his father's "Architecture of Absence" theme.
"Technically competent," Professor Chen said, his voice dry as fallen leaves.
"Emotionally… obvious. You draw the empty chair to signify absence."
"A child's symbol."
"Where is the absence in the grain of the wood that still holds the shape of the sitter?"
"Where is the shadow that is more present than the object casting it?" He tossed the sketchbook onto a table.
"You think like a fan, young master Bai. You see the spotlight, not the darkness it creates. Start over."
The critique was a physical blow. Bai Xingyue's smile, automatic and bright, faltered.
No one in his golden world spoke to him like this.
"I… I understand. Thank you, Professor."
"Do not thank him. Internalize the correction. He is the first of many gates. Your pleasantness is irrelevant here."
As Professor Chen left, prescribing a list of bleak, philosophical art texts, the real training began.
Xiao Zhu did not allow a Iimoment for discouragement.
"Vocal endurance drills. We will extend your stable note duration by fifteen seconds."
"The goal is not to sound pretty. The goal is to be unbreakable."
An hour later, Bai Xingyue's throat felt raw, his diaphragm a burning slab of muscle.
He leaned against the piano, gasping.
"Insufficient. You are protecting your instrument."
"The girl whose dream you carry had no instrument to protect; her only tool was her breaking point. Find yours."
"I'm trying!" he croaked, frustration bleeding through.
"Trying is a buffer for failure. Commit, or waste my time."
The cruelty was surgical.
It wasn't designed to break his spirit, but to shatter his assumption that effort alone—especially effort tempered by self-preservation—was enough.
He straightened up, wiped his mouth, and nodded.
Again.
This time, he pushed past the burn, past the instinct to stop, until the sustained note frayed at the edges into something raw and strained, but it held.
"Adequate. That is the sound of a limit being discovered. Remember it."
The notification was a balm: [Foundational Breath Control: Lv. 0 → Lv. 1. Proficiency: 5%.]
His reward was a five-minute break, which he spent gulping water and scrolling through his phone.
A notification from the fanclub he moderated: a new member was being harassed for liking a "rival" group.
Without thinking, Bai Xingyue (as Starlight_Bai) jumped into the digital fray, defending the new fan with a warm, logical fervor, mediating the conflict with emojis and clear rules.
It was instinctive. He was a peacemaker, a defender.
"Observed: Host's compulsion to resolve conflict and nurture harmony remains dominant."
"This is a critical weakness. In a survival show, you will be seen as a threat to be eliminated or a tool to be used."
"Your empathy will be weaponized against you."
"It's just a fanclub," Bai Xingyue mumbled, putting his phone away.
"Being kind isn't a weakness."
"It is when it is reflexive, not strategic. We will add 'strategic detachment' drills to your curriculum."
The afternoon was for dance.
Not the stylized, highlight-reel choreography he loved, but foundational body isolations.
Xiao Zhu projected a hypnotic, slow-tempo beat.
"Isolate the rib cage. Move it side to side. Only the ribs. Your shoulders are locked. Your hips are still. They are betraying you."
It was maddeningly difficult. His body wanted to move as one fluid unit, to perform.
The system demanded
compartmentalization, control so absolute it felt inhuman.
In the mirror, he saw a boy fighting his own instincts, his expression a mix of intense concentration and profound awkwardness.
This was the hidden cost.
Every day, he was being pulled in two directions.
His nature pulled him outward—toward his friends, his family, the fanclub—with warmth and connection.
Xiao Zhu was hammering him inward, forging a core of isolated, disciplined control.
Dinner that night was a quiet affair. His mother watched him, noting the slight droop in his shoulders.
"Professor Chen was… thorough?" she ventured, her voice tinged with obvious worry.
"He was right," Bai Xingyue said, surprising himself with the admission.
He described the critique about the obvious empty chair.
To his further surprise, his father listened intently.
"Good," Bai Zheng said finally, ruffling his hair.
"You are not paying attention to his flattery but his honesty. That is the only thing of value."
He then changed the subject, asking about Zhang Wei and his other friends, about school in general.
The conversation was a lifeline back to his other world, a reminder of the boy he still was outside the sunroom.
Later, as he prepared for another secret session, Aunty Zhang appeared with a tray.
"Herbal tea for your throat," she said softly.
"And these." She placed a small, wireless earpiece next to the cup.
"For your… private studies." Her kindness was not just doting; it was complicit, intelligent support.
She saw the strain and was quietly arming him for it.
In the sunroom, wired with the covert earpiece, Xiao Zhu's voice was a crystal-clear whisper in his ear.
"Tonight, we combine disciplines."
"You will maintain the isolated rib cage movement while holding a stable vocal hum. The body and voice as separate instruments. Begin."
It was a coordination nightmare.
His hum would waver as his concentration shifted to his ribs.
His ribs would lock as he focused on his breath support. For twenty minutes, he was a mess of conflicting signals.
"You are one consciousness trying to be two technicians. This is the problem."
"You must become the conductor, not the player. The consciousness does not sing or dance; it commands."
The shift in perspective was subtle but seismic. He stopped trying to do both.
He instead visualized both—the steady stream of sound, the precise piston-motion of his rib cage—as systems to be monitored and adjusted.
He detached.
His hum steadied.
His ribs moved in a clean, separate lane.
[Breakthrough: Multi-track Focus initiated. Proficiency: 2%. You have taken your first step toward true stage control—the ability to perform, monitor, and adjust simultaneously.]
After, utterly spent, he lay on the sunroom floor.
Through the earpiece, he could still hear the faint, cheerful chaos of his fanclub's voice chat happening on his computer downstairs.
Lulu and Zhang Wei were there, along with dozens of online friends, debating the best comeback stage of the year.
Their laughter was bright and uncomplicated.
He felt a pang, deep and lonely, that shocked him.
He missed them.
He was lying here in the dark, learning to dissociate from his own body, while his life—his warm, golden, connected life—bubbled on without him just a floor below.
"You are feeling the distance," Xiao Zhu's voice whispered, devoid of its usual cheer.
It was a simple statement of fact.
"This is the space where 'Idol' is born. It is not a place of belonging. It is a place of observation."
"You are learning to stand in your life as a performer, not a participant. This is the first true cost of the dream you agreed to carry."
For the first time, the weight of it all felt concrete, and cold. It wasn't just hard work. It was a fundamental change in the way he existed.
Bai Xingyue, the beloved center of his world, closed his eyes.
He didn't cry.
He just breathed, in the controlled, supported way he'd been taught, and listened to the fading echo of his friends' laughter through the tiny speaker in his ear.
The mountain wasn't just ahead of him. It was now inside him, and its slopes were made of silence.
***
The target was deceptively simple: a high C.
Not just any high C.
Not the bright, head-voice peal he'd used to sing along to pop songs in his shower.
This was a high C with body—a note that had to erupt from his diaphragm, ride a column of supported air, and hit with the clarity and sustained power of a struck crystal glass, all while maintaining perfect pitch.
It was the kind of note idols hit during a song's climax, the one that made fans scream and trainers nod in grim approval.
For Bai Xingyue, in the secret sunroom studio on a Tuesday night, it was a wall.
"Again," Xiao Zhu's voice was a flat, unyielding metronome in his earpiece.
"You are approaching it like a cliff to be jumped from."
"It is not a cliff. It is a staircase. Build the support through the passaggio. Do not leap and hope."
Bai Xingyue's throat felt raw.
They'd been on this single note for forty-five minutes.
He could feel the frustration building, a hot pressure behind his eyes.
This wasn't fun.
This was a grueling, microscopic excavation of his own failure.
He took a breath, trying to visualize the staircase.
He started the vocal run, focusing on keeping the support steady as he ascended.
But the old habit was too strong. Nearing the top, he braced, tightened, and pushed. The note shot out—sharp, strained, and ugly. It cracked on the sustain.
He slammed a fist onto the piano lid, the discordant jangle a perfect soundtrack to his mood.
"It's not working!"
"Emotional outburst: logged."
"Energy wastage: significant."
"The note does not care about your frustration."
Your audience will not care about your frustration. They will only hear the crack." Xiao Zhu's analysis was a cold splash.
"You are treating this as a personal failure. It is a technical problem. Solve it."
"How?" he demanded, pacing the small room. "I'm doing what you say!"
"You are performing the instructions. You are not internalizing the principle."
"The principle is trust. You must trust the technique more than you fear the note."
Bai Xingyue stopped, chest heaving. Trust the technique more than you fear the note.
The phrase sliced through his anger.
His fear wasn't of the note itself, but of failing to reach it, of the ugly sound, of the system's disapproval.
He was protecting himself from humiliation, not building toward a sound.
He thought of the first dream.
The girl in the cold studio. She hadn't had a system to disappoint.
Her only judge was her own ambition. What had she feared? Probably not a wrong note.
Probably never singing at all.
He walked back to the center of the room. Closed his eyes.
This time, he didn't think about hitting the high C.
He thought about the solid, stable feeling of the middle G he could hold perfectly.
He thought about simply extending that feeling, step by step, trusting that the foundation would hold.
He took a breath, not a gulp, but a deep, steady expansion.
He began the run.
The focus wasn't on the peak, but on the integrity of each step. A… B… C…
The note emerged.
It wasn't thunderous. It wasn't a show-stopping belt.
But it was clean. Clear. And, for the first time, it felt easy.
He held it, feeling the vibration in his mask, not the strain in his throat.
The silence after he released the note was different. It wasn't a silence of waiting for failure, but of something achieved.
"Analysis: Successful replication of target parameter."
"Stability: 94%. Tone: Acceptable."
A pause.
[Skill Level Up: Foundational Breath Control Lv. 1 → Lv. 2. Proficiency: 12%.]
"You have learned to prioritize the process over the product. This is the core of all professional artistry."
A warm, foreign surge of pride flooded him.
It wasn't the giddy excitement of before. It was quieter, deeper. He'd understood something.
The victory was short-lived. Xiao Zhu immediately shifted focus.
"Now, physical integration. You will perform the vocal run while holding a single-leg balance."
"The body must be a stable platform, irrelevant of the voice's labor."
The next hour was a brutal re-education of his muscles.
The constant correction was exhausting, but the memory of that clear, trusted high C was an anchor.
He wasn't just being told he was wrong; he'd been shown a glimpse of what right felt like.
He stumbled into the main house well after midnight, his body a symphony of aches.
In the dim kitchen, he found Aunty Zhang waiting, not with a tray, but with a towel and a glass of electrolyte water.
"The Young Master works harder than the junior executives at your father's company," she said, her voice low.
There was no criticism, only a statement of awe. She handed him the towel.
"I heard you. Near the end. It sounded… strong."
He paused, the simple praise from her meaning more than any system notification.
"It finally worked," he whispered, a tired smile touching his lips.
She nodded, a knowing look in her eyes.
"The first time you truly conquer something, it changes the shape of you." She patted his arm.
"Don't let the new shape forget the old heart, eh?"
The next day at school, the change was subtle.
In music class, when asked to demonstrate a sight-reading exercise, he didn't just sing the notes.
He took a brief, centering breath first—the Xiao Zhu breath—and sang with a clarity that made the teacher raise an eyebrow.
"Excellent control, Xingyue."
At lunch, Lulu was venting about a rival socialite's passive-aggressive comment.
The old Xingyue would have jumped in with immediate, fiery defense.
The new Xingyue, his mind still calibrated to identify core problems, listened and then asked, "What does she gain by making you angry? Is her social standing threatened by yours?"
Lulu blinked, the anger momentarily derailed by strategy. "I… huh. Maybe her family's trying to get a contract mine has…"
Zhang Wei snorted. "Whoa. Since when did you become Sun Tzu? Did you get a business tactics tutor too?"
Xingyue laughed, the analyst receding.
"Just thinking out loud!" But the crack was there. He was starting to see mechanisms, not just dramas.
The most telling moment came online.
A producer from a small, independent idol channel he followed posted a call for original song submissions for a non-profit compilation.
The prize was minimal—a small cash award and professional studio feedback.
The old Bai Xingyue would have scrolled past, thinking his own compositions weren't good enough, or that it was beneath him.
The new Bai Xingyue, now intimately familiar with the value of professional feedback and the concrete proof of progress, stopped.
He had a voice memo on his phone.
A simple melody he'd hummed into existence after cracking the high C, a buoyant, hopeful little thing.
It was raw.
Unpolished.
"Assessment: Submitting this composition carries low risk and potential for high-value critique."
"The 'profit' mechanism may engage. Recommended action: Proceed."
Without overthinking, without his usual worry about perception, he formatted the file, wrote a brief, polite note, and hit send.
It was an act not of starry-eyed dreaming, but of professional calibration. A trainee seeking an assessment.
It was a quiet, monumental shift.
Bai Xingyue was no longer just a fan playing at training. He was beginning to operate like an artist in the field.
That night, Xiao Zhu's training was different.
The drills were no longer just about correction. They were about consolidation.
"Now that you have found the supported note, we will make it a reflex. We will drill it until the wrong way feels foreign."
The work was just as hard, but the hostility was gone.
It was the hard, satisfying work of building.
As they moved to dance, focusing on connecting fluid movements with steady breath, Xiao Zhu offered its closest thing to a compliment.
"Your efficiency has increased by 18% since the vocal breakthrough. You are beginning to learn how to learn. This is the only skill that matters."
As he lay in bed that night, muscles humming, he replayed the clear sound of the high C in his mind.
He thought of the submitted melody. He thought of Aunty Zhang's awe and Lulu's puzzled look.
The mountain was still there.
But for the first time, he felt like he had proper climbing gear.
Not just enthusiasm, but tech
nique.
And with it, a new, quiet confidence was born—not the blinding light of naive excitement, but the steady, reliable glow of a craft being earned.
He was no longer just climbing toward a dream.
He was building the path itself, one solid, well-supported note at a time.