The laundry basket was pristine white, woven from some absurdly soft natural fiber.
Bai Xingyue stared at it, then at the sea of clothes around him—designer hoodies, limited-edition collaboration T-shirts, sweatpants so soft they felt like clouds, all discarded in piles that dotted the Persian rug like islands of neglect.
"The clock starts now," Xiao Zhu chirped from its perch on the head of his platinum-plated anime figurine.
"Fifty-nine minutes and fifty-seven seconds… fifty-six…"
Xingyue moved.
He dropped to his knees, grabbing armfuls of fabric and dumping them haphazardly into the basket.
It was a start.
"Incorrect." The system's voice held a singsong quality of disappointment.
"Garments are to be folded before placement. Refolded. To standard."
"What standard?" Xingyue panted, already feeling a flush of exertion.
He wasn't used to moving like this—bending, lifting.
His training had been dance and vocals, not manual labor.
A diagram flashed in the corner of his vision: a holographic guide to military-style folding, with precise angles and sharp edges.
"This standard. Every item. Begin again."
Groaning, Xingyue upended the basket.
He grabbed the first hoodie, a vibrant piece of streetwear costing more than a normal person's monthly rent.
He fumbled with the sleeves, trying to mimic the diagram.
The fabric resisted, bulging in his hands.
His first fold was lopsided, pathetic.
"Failure. Unfold. Retry."
He did. And again.
The third attempt was passable.
He placed it gingerly in the basket. One item down.
Several hundred to go.
The scale of the task dawned on him, a cold, sinking feeling in his gut that was entirely new.
There was no Aunty Zhang to swoop in.
No parent to tell him it was good enough.
Sweat beaded at his temple by the twentieth minute.
His lower back ached from hunching. His fingers, accustomed to gripping a stylus or a game controller, felt clumsy and sore.
The room, usually his sanctuary, felt like a humid, fabric-filled prison.
"You are lagging behind the optimal time-to-completion curve, Host," Xiao Zhu observed cheerfully.
It had not moved, its blue eyes tracking his every fumble.
"This is a simple test of diligence and pain tolerance."
"If you cannot pass this, how will you survive a fourteen-hour dance practice?"
"A vocal lesson where the coach screams until you hit the note correctly through tears?"
"I… I can do those," Xingyue argued, his voice tight with strain as he wrestled with a particularly bulky sweatshirt.
"This is just… cleaning."
"It is obedience, it is precision."
"It is the annihilation of your ego's expectation of comfort." The system's tone was light, but the words were stones.
"An idol is a product of perfect control. Control begins with the self. Your self, currently, is a mess."
A spark of frustration ignited in Xingyue's chest.
He threw the half-folded sweatshirt down.
"This is stupid! How does folding clothes make me a better singer?"
For the first time, Xiao Zhu moved.
It floated down, coming to hover just before his face. Its smile was a fixed, unsettling line.
"It doesn't. It makes you a better tool. A vessel that can be shaped."
"Your old trainers polished the outside of the vase while the inside remained hollow."
"I am not a polisher. I am a potter. And the first thing a potter does is wedge the clay—to beat the air bubbles out, to make it uniform, to make it suffer until it is ready to be useful."
The metaphor landed with a thud. Xingyue stared into those depthless blue pixels.
He saw no cruelty, only a chilling, absolute purpose.
The girl's unfinished dream.
His own shelved ambition. They were just raw material to this thing.
He looked at the discarded sweatshirt.
Looked at his soft, trembling hands.
The naive excitement from earlier was gone, burned away by sweat and aching muscles.
What remained was a stubborn, unformed grit he didn't know he possessed.
Without a word, he picked up the sweatshirt.
He smoothed it on the rug.
He started again, following the diagram with agonizing slowness, forcing his rebellious fingers to make the sharp corners.
"Better," Xiao Zhu said, returning to its perch. No praise. Just an observation.
The work became a rhythm of pain. Fold, place, ache.
The pile of unfolded clothes shrank.
The basket filled with unnaturally precise rectangles of fabric.
Dusting was next—a detailed, meticulous process where he was made to wipe every figurine, every shelf, moving items and replacing them exactly.
His world shrank to the grit on a cloth, the grain of the wood.
He was on his hands and knees, vacuuming the intricate patterns of the rug, when the hour mark hit.
His hair was plastered to his forehead, his hoodie damp with sweat.
Every muscle protested.
Xiao Zhu floated into the center of the room.
It spun slowly, scanning.
The interface in Xingyue's vision ran a rapid diagnostic, lines of light sweeping over every surface.
"Assessment: Satisfactory."
Two words.
They hit Bai Xingyue with more force than any praise.
He slumped back onto his heels, chest heaving.
The room gleamed.
It had never been this clean, not even when the professional cleaners came.
He had done this.
Through the frustration and the pain, he had done it.
"Reality Check Number One is complete," the system stated.
"You have proven a minimal capacity for follow-through."
"Do not mistake completion for excellence. This was the baseline."
Xingyue just nodded, too tired to speak.
"Now, the second check. Stand."
Wincing, Xingyue pushed himself up. His body felt like one giant bruise.
"The first dream you carry," Xiao Zhu began, its voice losing the tutorial cheer, becoming cool and narrative.
"She wanted to dance under stadium lights. To hear a crowd chant a name she chose."
"She practiced until her feet bled in a small, cold studio her parents could barely afford. Her dream was not a hobby. It was a lifeline."
You will now honor it. Perform the chorus of 'Starlight Echo,' the debut song of your favorite group."
"Not as Bai Xingyue, the pampered fan. Perform it as she would have. With everything."
A simple request.
A song he'd sung a thousand times in his shower, in his head.
But the weight of the instruction crushed him.
As she would have.
He knew nothing about her. Only the echo of her yearning.
He cleared his throat.
He struck the opening pose, his body screaming in protest.
He opened his mouth.
And he sang.
Not with the technically correct, lightly supported tones his expensive coach had taught him.
He tried to pour the ache in his muscles, the confusion of the day, the ghostly sense of another's loss into the lyrics.
His voice wavered.
It broke on the high note.
He pushed through, dancing the simple steps with stiff, exhausted limbs.
It was, objectively, a mess.
He finished, chest heaving, face flushed with effort and embarrassment.
Silence.
Xiao Zhu hovered, unmoving. Finally, it spoke, its voice quiet.
"That was the most sincere performance you have ever given. It was also technically foul."
"You have passion, a raw, undirected spark. You have zero discipline. This is our starting point."
It floated closer.
"The mission is clear."
"We will forge that spark into a blaze. We will grind that foul technique into flawless instinct."
"You will become the idol she could not be, and in doing so, become the idol you were meant to be."
"This is your covenant."
The interface reappeared, solidifying. New text glowed gold:
[PRIMARY QUEST ACCEPTED: Path of An Idol.
OBJECTIVE: Attain debut as a top-tier idol within 24 months.
SUB-OBJECTIVE: Honor the First Dream.
CURRENT PHASE: Foundation. (0.1% Complete)]
Thirty-six months and more if counting his past life.
The number was terrifying.
The 0.1% was a humiliation.
Yet, as he stood in the sterile cleanliness of his room, his body throbbing, a strange feeling settled over Xingyue.
It wasn't excitement anymore. It was something harder. Something like resolve.
"What," he asked, his voice raw but steady, "is the next instruction, Coach?"
Xiao Zhu's smile returned, wide and gleaming.
"Sleep. Precisely six hours. Then, we discuss convincing your parents about your new school."
"The real work begins at dawn."
For the first time, Bai Xingyue didn't see the path ahead as fun.
He saw it as a mountain and he had just taken the first, brutal, step onto its lower slopes.