Chapter 4: The Man Who Comes with His Own Eccentricity

The lunch break was short. Not long after returning to the dormitory, Han Geng and the others went off to train, leaving only Gu Cheng, the "injured" one, to stay behind. He made himself a cup of tea, preparing to seriously consider how he might utterly outshine Han Geng before the selection.

He first reviewed the strengths and weaknesses between himself and Han Geng to determine the direction in which he should focus his efforts.

In terms of singing, he had the advantage. As for dance skills, he had to admit he fell short, since Han Geng had professional training in dance. When it came to looks...

Just as he thought of the word "looks," Gu Cheng realized that since his transmigration, he hadn’t properly looked at himself in the mirror. He immediately rushed to the bathroom, turned on all the lights, and carefully examined his physical body.

Yes, he was slightly more handsome than Han Geng. His face had the ruggedness of a sharper Vic Chou or the striking features of a more intense Tomohisa Yamashita—good-looking enough to get by on his looks alone. And his physique: at sixteen, he already stood at 1.8 meters, noticeably taller than Han Geng.

The only visual advantage Han Geng had was his somewhat androgynous appearance, which might appeal more to those who preferred an effeminate aesthetic.

This raised a question: for an entertainment company managing a boy band, which mattered more in trainees—features or height?

Originally, this was a difficult question to answer. But when Gu Cheng engaged his intellect and analyzed the situation, he quickly reached a conclusion—at least in Dongyi, height mattered more.

The reason was simple: all Dongyi entertainment companies had partnerships with cosmetic surgery clinics. If your face wasn’t up to par but the rest of your qualities were strong, the company could always send you for a few procedures before your debut. But if you were too short, even if the rumored "breaking and regenerating leg bones" technique was available—would any company dare to let someone who’d just recovered from such surgery go onstage to dance hip-hop?

From a cold, commercial perspective, making someone taller was far costlier than making them more attractive.

So, in terms of appearance, Gu Cheng was already in an invincible position. If he could just cram in a bit more dance training over the next few days and improve his weakest area by a notch, victory would be his.

When the time came, Han Geng would have no choice but to obediently pay up for the chance to join the alternate team.

...

After a brief nap to refresh himself, Gu Cheng arrived at the training center at three in the afternoon. He chose an empty room and began his practice regimen.

He closed his eyes and, holding onto a sliver of hope, spent a few minutes searching his mind. At last, with a hint of disappointment, he confirmed a fact:

The auxiliary learning bio-CPU implanted in the back of his head in 2040 had not come with him to this world.

After all, his soul had traveled, not his body.

This was an important point; he’d been busy with other matters yesterday and hadn’t had the chance to confirm it.

People in this era might not understand what an "auxiliary learning bio-CPU" was. To explain simply: the invention arose from a contradiction in the post-Internet age.

After the 2010s, people discovered that with the rise of fragmented reading and information feeds, humanity’s patience for sustained learning was diminishing. For example, in the era of physical novels, readers might abandon a book after fifty thousand dull words; on PC, they’d quit after twenty thousand; with mobile reading, it was the infamous "three chapters and out." As a result, literature and art had to become increasingly fast-food and disposable.

The situation was similarly dire in serious education. When Salman Khan created "Khan Academy" on YouTube in 2006, he found that the optimal length for an online lesson was only twenty minutes, not the forty-five minutes typical of Pennsylvania University’s online courses. The explosion of information and choices diminished people’s ability to concentrate—they simply lacked the patience.

In that context, to rescue humanity’s attention span, American scientist Jane McGonigal spearheaded the "auxiliary learning bio-CPU" project in 2024, which was successfully developed by 2029. The ultimate goal was to "gamify learning, enabling people to experience a continuous sense of achievement and pleasure through suggestive signals during sustained, tedious study, thus helping them maintain focus."

It sounded impressive.

In plain terms, it meant that with the help of this auxiliary CPU, you could see "progress bars" and "experience bars" in your mind while doing anything, spurring you to keep going.

This was easy to understand. For instance, many people who lack the willpower to lose weight can run longer once they have an Apple Watch counting their steps—because they receive positive psychological feedback. Each step brings a sense of accomplishment; they know how many calories they’ve burned, making it less monotonous.

Similarly, academic underachievers in real life lack a "progress bar" in their heads—no "finished another practice book, Tsinghua acceptance rate up 2%." So they slack off. But in a life simulation game, seeing "just a little more to level up," even laggards can grind skills with enthusiasm.

That’s the power of task and achievement breakdown: through psychological cues and task segmentation, it brings out the full potential of subjective initiative. It teaches young people, who are overwhelmed by the goal of "becoming the world’s richest person," how to stay motivated through each "let me just make my first hundred million" level-up.

Of course, by the 2040s, the auxiliary learning CPU’s actual functions were vastly more complex and powerful than these examples, far too intricate to explain in a few sentences.

In short, before transmigrating, Gu Cheng had one of these devices implanted, directly connected to his brain.

Unfortunately, since only his soul crossed over, it didn’t come with him.

However, in his misfortune, there was a silver lining: the habits of consciousness and self-discipline ingrained by over a decade of training with the auxiliary CPU remained etched in his mind.

While studying, he could still vaguely sense the presence of a "progress bar" in his brain, though it was just a self-motivating psychological cue, far less effective than the real chip.

It was like learning to swim—once you’ve mastered it, you never forget. Even if you take away the kickboard, reducing buoyancy, you won’t panic or drown.

Moreover, after practicing a few street dance moves, Gu Cheng quickly discovered another piece of good news.

After the fusion of two souls, his "basic endurance for monotony" was still that of this body in the year 2000!

Without any aids, he could already focus for forty-five minutes at a stretch.

This was simply cheating!

It was like treating an illness in a patient with zero drug resistance using the latest penicillin—the results were nothing short of miraculous.

The dance challenges that once required mindless repetition, bitter effort, and exhausting practice, yet yielded little progress, now became clear, discrete "small goals" as Gu Cheng introspected.

...

Gu Cheng’s muscular strength and explosive power were in no way inferior to Han Geng’s; if anything, his physical fitness was superior. Yet, in a year and a half as a trainee, his rhythm and force in executing movements had never matched Han Geng’s.

As for his stiff facial expressions and lack of stage presence—these details had always been his Achilles’ heel.

Now, after just two hours of practice following model teaching videos, and thanks to the lingering awareness and positive feedback from the auxiliary learning CPU, Gu Cheng quickly identified the precise forms of his weaknesses.

He even formed several "experience bars" in his mind!

"Moonwalk skill: power control mastery: 30%; rhythm mastery: 50%... overall mastery: 35%."

"Segmented reverse arm swing: four-stage force send/receive mastery: 10%, muscle alternation response: 25%..."

"Eye expression and stage presence match: 55%..."

"Completion reference: template teaching video. For more detailed comparison, please input more comprehensive brain data."

Several lines of "subtitles" faintly summarized Gu Cheng’s shortcomings and printed them in his mind.

Then, consciously picking a weak point, he practiced it dozens of times, searching for the right feel, and immediately saw the progress bar start to rise!

"Perfect execution of movement achieved 3 times. Segmented reverse arm swing proficiency increased: four-stage force send/receive mastery: 15%."

His weakest dance skill had just jumped 5% in proficiency, after only a few minutes of targeted training!

The learning system from the future dissected and scientifically broke down a dance skill to the level of proficiency in each individual muscle movement.

Others practiced blindly, relying on sheer willpower in the face of an invisible finish line, inevitably falling into laziness—like running a race blindfolded, unable to see how far ahead the next person was, and losing the motivation to pursue.

But Gu Cheng could clearly see his experience bar, like a runner who knows "just two more deep breaths and I’ll overtake someone." This not only made his willpower several times stronger than others, but also allowed him to target his weaknesses directly.

In just half an afternoon, two or three of his former weak points—areas so vague not even the coach could articulate them, leaving trainees to "figure it out themselves"—were effortlessly improved by Gu Cheng.

"As the ancient craftsman said, ‘Too slow and it’s sweet but not firm; too fast and it’s bitter but not absorbed. Not too slow, not too fast, gained through the hand and resonating in the heart—unspeakable, yet the method is preserved within.’"

Skills that the ancients considered too "fuzzy" to standardize—only to be mastered intuitively—were, with the aid of precise breakdown, as easily pierced as a sheet of paper.

Of course, no matter how miraculous, the final breakthrough still depended on the individual.

Auxiliary learning devices were just that—auxiliary. If this treasure fell into the hands of a hopeless slacker who couldn’t even be bothered by the thrill of watching their progress bar rise with each practice, then the device could do nothing for its master.

It was like saying that no matter how blatant the referee or off-field factors, the Chinese men’s soccer team could never win the World Cup with a shot three meters in front of the goal.

Fortunately, Gu Cheng was clearly no such slacker.

A year and a half of grueling life at S-M Company had already given him a tolerance for pain and fatigue beyond the ordinary.

Now, with this advantage, he was unstoppable.

The satisfaction of watching the progress bar rise made practice as addictive as chewing blue mint gum—you simply couldn’t stop; he even forgot to eat dinner.

The coach and his teammates all noticed something different about Gu Cheng.

"Has this kid had a breakthrough? His power control in these dance steps has improved by several levels since yesterday, at least!"