A drop of condensation fell from a half-empty glass of cola, landing with a soft tap on a limited-edition idol photocard. Bai Xingyue jerked awake, a line of drool connecting his cheek to the keyboard of his custom gaming PC.
He groaned, blinking gummed lashes. The screen burned his eyes—a music video paused mid-chorus, dated three years in the past.
His head pounded, a phantom ache full of foreign memories: the damp chill of a Parisian autumn, the smell of turpentine and oil paint, the hollow echo of footsteps in a too-quiet art studio.
He pushed back from the desk, the wheels of his chair squeaking on the polished marble floor of his bedroom.
Not his dorm room in Paris.
His room. In the Beijing mansion. A shrine to wealth and fandom. He was younger.
His heart, instead of panicking, gave a single, hard thump of pure, bewildered certainty.
I went to sleep as an art student. I woke up here??? It seems I… went backwards.
A cheerful, synthetic voice, bright as a cartoon sunrise and just as artificial, rang inside his skull.
"User… eh? Ah!?"
"Bai Xingyue detected! Temporal anomaly confirmed! Binding process initiating… 10%... 50%... Welcome back!"
Bai Xingyue froze, his hands gripping the armrests. He slowly turned his head, expecting a speaker, a prank. The room was empty save for his absurd collection of merchandise.
"No external hardware required! I'm right here! Well, here is a metaphysical construct, but let's not get bogged down in the how before the wow!"
Before his eyes, the air shimmered like a heat haze over asphalt.
Golden pixels fizzed and coalesced into a floating, translucent screen filled with minimalist bars and empty slots. And on his shoulder, a weight no heavier than a handkerchief manifested.
He turned his head. A small, round, yellow creature with large blue eyes and a stitched-on smile beamed at him. It waved a nub-like arm.
"A… Tamagotchi?" Bai Xingyue whispered, his voice raspy.
"Guidance System, designation: Xiao Zhu! Your coach, strategist, and bestest friend on the glorious, painful, and utterly mandatory road to becoming a top idol!" it chirped. Its voice was all upbeat cadence, but its eyes held a strange, depthless stillness.
"Idol?" The word unlocked the floodgates.
Memories of his first life washed over him, not as a traumatic crash, but as a gentle, confusing slide. The private tutors who praised his every breath. The state-of-the-art home studio.
His parents' glowing faces at his slightest improvement. Then, the soft pivot. The enthusiastic talks of broadening his horizons, of Parisian culture.
His own teenage acquiescence—the idol dream softening into a pleasant "what if" he'd revisit while sketching. He'd never fought it. He'd barely even noticed the dream slipping away.
"I was going to debut," he murmured, more to himself. There was no bitterness, only a vivid, poignant sense of a favorite song left unfinished.
"Correct!" Xiao Zhu chimed, bouncing lightly. "A dream gently shelved! A path of least resistance taken! A tragically common tale of wasted sparkle! But worry not! We're here to reignite, recalibrate, and rocket you straight to the apex!"
Xingyue's initial shock melted away, replaced by a dawning, radiant excitement. He stood up, a grin spreading across his face. "A second chance? For real? I get to actually try?"
Xiao Zhu's permanent smile seemed to freeze for a nanosecond. "User's response is… unexpectedly positive. Scanning for sarcasm or denial… None detected."
Its cheerful tone gained a faint, metallic edge of confusion. "You understand the mission parameters? Total commitment? Brutal effort? Potential for public humiliation and psychological scarring?"
"Of course! That's what makes it real!" Xingyue said, practically buzzing. He paced the length of his Persian rug, his movements loose with eager energy.
"The survival shows, the rankings, the live performances—it's all so alive! My old lessons were just… pretty rehearsals."
The system was silent. Its internal processors whirred, recalibrating. This host was supposed to be reluctant. Hesitant.
It had a whole speech prepared about seizing agency, about defying fate. This one was already seizing, with the uncomplicated joy of a puppy spotting a ball.
"...A refreshing attitude!" Xiao Zhu finally said, its cheer forcibly reinstated. "Then we commence immediately. Your current skill set is a palace built on sand—lovely facade, catastrophic foundation. We start with the original owner's dream."
"The original owner?"
The interface before him flickered.
The sterile data bars dissolved, replaced by a brief, haunting flash of imagery: a girl's silhouette against a blinding stage light, the echo of a melodic laugh cut short, a feeling of desperate, unfinished yearning that clenched in Bai Xingyue's chest like a physical fist.
It was gone in an instant.
"You are not the only soul with unfinished business," Xiao Zhu said, its voice dropping half an octave, losing none of its brightness but gaining an eerie weight.
"My primary directive was tied to another. A girl. Her timeline shattered. Her dream… persists. You are a compatible vessel. You will carry it forward. Your success will be the monument to her absence. This is non-negotiable."
The weight of it should have crushed him. The morality of it should have given him pause.
Xingyue simply placed a hand over his own heart, where the ghost of the feeling lingered.
His expression shifted from excitement to a solemn, determined focus. "Okay," he said, simple and profound. "I'll do it for her too."
Xiao Zhu stared. It had delivered the cosmic tragedy as the ultimate reality check, the heavy burden to temper his glee. Instead, he'd shouldered it like a promised gift.
"You are a very strange host," it stated, its digital cheer now completely absent, replaced by pure analytical curiosity.
Xingyue's grin returned, undimmed. "So what's the first step, Coach Xiao Zhu?"
The system's smile seemed to sharpen. The moment of strangeness passed, replaced by predatory glee.
"Reality Check Number One: Your body is a pampered pet. It has no discipline. Your first task: Clean this room."
Xingyue blinked. "Clean? But Aunty Zhang—"
"Is not here. You are. You will pick up every piece of clothing, dust every shelf, organize every photocard by its debut date, and vacuum this rug until you can see the individual threads."
"No shortcuts. No help. Time limit: One hour. Failure condition: If a single item is out of place, we start over. And we will keep starting over until it is perfect, or until your muscles give out."
"This is not about cleanliness. This is about learning to follow an instruction to the letter, about enduring monotony, and about understanding that no one is coming to save you from the work."
The naive excitement in Xingyue's eyes finally flickered, replaced by a spark of stunned comprehension. This wasn't a dance lesson. This was boot camp.
He looked at the sprawling, messy paradise of his room. He looked at the cheerful, smiling creature on his shoulder that had just issued its first cruel decree.
A slow breath in. A nod.
He rolled up the sleeves of his designer hoodie, walked to the closet, and grabbed a laundry basket.
The first lesson had begun.