The change was no longer just internal. It began to echo.
It happened in the polished marble hallway of Golden Crown Academy, two days after the market expedition.
A group of juniors was attempting to film a dance cover for a social media challenge.
They were giggling, tangled in the steps, their phone propped against a locker.
The old Bai Xingyue would have given an encouraging thumbs-up and kept walking.
The new Bai Xingyue, whose body was still humming with the memory of Xiao Zhu's rhythmic corrections, paused.
He saw the problem instantly.
Their count was off.
They were starting the chorus on the wrong beat, which threw the entire sequence into chaos.
"Observation: Peer skill deficiency identified. Optional Intervention: Provide correction."
"Risk: Social friction or admiration. Your choice."
He hesitated for only a second.
Then he approached, his smile easy.
"Hey, that move is super cool. Can I see the video you're following?"
The juniors, startled and a bit in awe of the famous Bai Xingyue, scrambled to show him.
He watched it once, then nodded.
"The trick is, the prep starts on the 'and' of count four, not on the one."
"Like this."
Without fanfare, he demonstrated the transition—just two steps, clean, precise, and perfectly timed.
His body executed the move with a newfound authority, the hours of being a "human metronome" paying off.
The hallway seemed to quiet.
The juniors stared, then tried it.
It clicked.
"Whoa, thanks, Xingyue-ge!"
"That's so much smoother!"
He just waved, his smile still bright, but inside, something shifted.
He hadn't just been kind.
He had been competent.
The correction wasn't based on opinion; it was based on irrefutable rhythm law.
The admiration in their eyes was different from the usual warmth he received.
It held a flicker of respect.
"Social calibration successful."
"You have leveraged skill for positive influence."
"This is a form of social currency more valuable than shared snacks. Note the difference."
The echo reached his friends at lunch.
Lulu was complaining about her new, tyrannical ballet instructor.
"And she keeps yelling about my turnout! My feet are pointed, what more does she want?"
Bai Xingyue, without thinking, looked at her posture as she sat.
"It's not really about the feet," he said, his voice taking on a considering tone Xiao Zhu often used.
"It's about rotating your whole femur bone from the hip socket."
"f you just force your feet, you'll wreck your knees."
He'd been reading anatomy texts for his own training, cross-referencing with dance guides.
Lulu blinked.
Zhang Wei paused, a chip halfway to his mouth.
"Since when do you know about femurs?"
Bai Xingyue backtracked, laughing a little too quickly.
"Oh, you know, art school prep! Figure drawing. Bone structure is important."
The lie was smooth, but it created a tiny distance.
He had knowledge they didn't, from a world they couldn't see.
The most significant echo, however, was at home with Aunty Zhang.
She had taken to consulting him on strange things since the market.
"Young Master," she said seriously that evening, holding two different brands of black vinegar.
"For the sweet and sour sauce. Which one has a 'deeper, more harmonious bass note of acidity'?"
Bai Xingyue stared at her, then at the bottles. He understood immediately.
She was quoting, almost verbatim, a phrase Xiao Zhu had used days ago when critiquing the harmonic balance in his vocal warm-ups.
The system had been chatting about 'tonal flavor profiles' in his earpiece while Aunty Zhang was preparing dinner nearby.
She'd been listening.
He took the bottles, feeling their weight.
This was a new kind of test.
Not of skill, but of integration.
Could he translate the system's alien precision into the human language of taste?
He unscrewed the caps, smelled each, dipping a clean spoon.
He focused, trying to isolate the sensations beyond just 'sour.'
One was sharp, immediate, a punch.
The other was rounder, slower, with a faint, almost smoky aftertaste.
"This one," he said, pointing to the rounder one.
"The first is a shout."
"This one is… a held note. It'll blend better instead of fighting the sugar."
Aunty Zhang's face lit up with triumph.
"Yes! That's it exactly!" She looked at him with open wonder.
"You have such a refined palate now."
He hadn't. Xiao Zhu had. But he was learning to be its conduit.
He was becoming a translator between the system's ruthless precision and the soft, subjective human world.
Training that night reflected this new phase.
It wasn't about learning new things, but about orchestrating what he'd learned.
"Integrated Drill #1," Xiao Zhu announced.
"You will maintain a vocal scale run while performing the basic footwork sequence from this morning's dance failure."
"Simultaneously, I will flash color codes. Blue for 'soften timbre,' red for 'increase power,' yellow for 'correct posture.'"
"You must adjust without breaking the scale or the steps."
It was multitasking hell.
His voice wavered as his feet stumbled. He missed a color cue.
He failed.
He failed again.
"Your consciousness is a single-thread processor trying to run a multi-thread program. You must delegate."
"The footwork is muscle memory. The vocal scale is breath memory. Your active mind should only monitor the color cues and make micro-adjustments."
"Stop doing everything. Start managing."
The shift in perspective was, again, everything. He stopped trying to sing and dance.
He let his body execute the drilled patterns and focused only on the system's commands.
Blue. Softer.
Red. More power.
His voice and body became instruments he was playing, not extensions of his struggling self.
By the tenth attempt, he was sweating profusely, but he completed the full minute without a major fault.
[Breakthrough: Task Delegation unlocked.]
[Proficiency: 15%.]
"This is the precursor to stage presence, the ability to perform, monitor audience energy, listen to your in-ear monitor, and hit your mark, all without thinking."
"You are building the mental cockpit."
After, utterly drained, he lay on the sunroom floor.
Xiao Zhu dimmed the lights and initiated its off-hours protocol.
"Fun fact query," it chirped.
"Did you know that the iconic 'windmill' move in g-boying was allegedly invented by a dancer trying not to drop his bag of groceries on a rainy day?"
"True artistry is born from practical desperation."
"Speaking of which, your performance today was only 12% desperate. I am proud."
Xingyue laughed weakly.
"Only 12%? I felt 100% desperate."
"A common sensory misread. Your vitals indicated controlled stress, not panic.
"Now, as a reward for not weeping, I have a puzzle for you.
"It is a logic grid involving five idols, five favorite fruits, and five disastrous wardrobe malfunctions. The clues are contradictory and maddening."
"Let's solve it."
For twenty minutes, they untangled the silly puzzle, Xiao Zhu offering absurdly dramatic hints.
"Consider! If the idol who loves mangoes didn't have the exploding trousers incident, and the one with the lost shoe doesn't hate kiwis… the implications are scandalous!"
It was the perfect balm.
The stern, demanding architect of his future was also a goofy companion in the present.
As he got into bed, a final notification appeared.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Social-Performance Integration Progressing.]
[Skill Application in social settings: Verified.]
[Authority derived from competence: Noted.]
[Translation of technical knowledge into accessible language: Improving.]
[Overall Synergy Rating: Foundation Stabilizing. Proceed.]
Bai Xingyue closed his eyes.
The echoes of his change were now rippling outwards—touching classmates, friends, family.
He wasn't just secretly building a fortress inside himself anymore.
He was starting to let the strange, strong architecture show, one corrected dance step, one insightful cooking tip, one competent moment at a time.
The path wasn't just about becoming an idol.
It was about letting the idol, piece by piece, into the world.