2: Chapter 2, First Bucket of "Fame"

The sea breeze of Santa Monica carried a salty, damp scent, blowing away the last trace of disinfectant in the hospital.

Alex stood in front of a single-family house with cream-colored walls and a small front yard, clutching the key with a USB flash drive keychain. The house wasn't luxurious but was very tidy, in a typical Southern California style. This was "his" home. Or rather, the only remaining shell left by his parents.

Opening the door, a faint, stuffy smell of stagnant air mixed with the scent of some wood cleaner wafted toward him. The living room was spacious and bright, with the deep blue horizon visible through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows. The furniture was in a minimalist modern style, showing good taste, but it was lifeless at the moment. An open magazine and a half-empty glass sat on the coffee table, as if the owner had only stepped out momentarily.

Loneliness flooded over him like a cold tide. This feeling came from the original owner and from himself—a lonely soul from the future trapped in 2010 America.

He shook his head, forcing himself to pull away from his emotions. Now was not the time for sentimentality.

Primary task: Assess "initial resources."

He did a quick sweep. There were two bedrooms upstairs; the master bedroom was clearly his parents', so he decided not to touch it for now. The second bedroom was his, with a younger style, a few band posters on the walls, and a laptop on the desk—a silver MacBook Pro, a late 2009 model by the look of it. Beside it were an external hard drive and a pair of headphones.

"The armory," Alex murmured, pressing the power button.

While waiting for the system to boot, he checked his other "assets." The kitchen fridge only had some expired milk and instant food. A well-maintained dark gray Honda Accord was parked in the garage, with the keys on a tray by the door. There was a bookshelf in the study, where his parents' professional books were mixed with some of his novels. More importantly, he found documents in a study drawer—contact information for an estate lawyer, management details for a trust fund, house deeds, and an envelope containing several thousand dollars in cash, likely for emergencies.

"Startup capital secured." Alex breathed a sigh of relief. At least in the short term, survival wouldn't be an issue.

He returned to the bedroom, and the MacBook had finished booting. He connected to the internet; the speed was decent for 2010. The first thing he did wasn't opening creative software, but searching.

He searched for "Taylor Swift 2010."

News popped up: the country music princess Taylor Swift was busy with her "Fearless" tour, and a new album was reportedly in preparation. In the photos, she had blonde hair and blue eyes, with a sweet smile and the familiar greenness and vigor of this period. Alex looked at the screen with a surreal sense of trance. The woman who was a global superstar in his "past life" memories was currently in the rising phase of her legendary career, and he... was about to burst into her world.

He searched for "YouTube Trending Videos March 2010."

The list was filled with family bloopers, pet videos, gaming clips, and... "Charlie Bit My Finger - Again!" Sure enough, this classic of classics was already viral. He continued browsing, seeing early vlogs and music covers, with generally crude production. It was a literal blue ocean of content.

He searched for "Final Cut Pro 7 Tutorial."

When the tutorial appeared, the newly acquired "knowledge" in his mind was immediately activated. He seemed to already know every step in the tutorial by heart, even anticipating the next move. The skills exchanged from the system were "proficiencies" imprinted directly into his instincts.

Resource survey complete. Alex took a deep breath and opened Final Cut Pro 7. The slightly retro interface appeared before him, yet it felt incredibly intimate and familiar. He connected the external hard drive and checked the footage inside—mostly home videos and some fragments he had filmed for fun in the past, which were of little use.

He needed original content. He needed that first hit that had been circling in his head the whole way.

The idea had taken shape: "When Classical Sculptures Dance to 'Single Ladies'."

The inspiration came from a "gap moe" mashup that would go viral in the future: making lifeless, solemn classical sculptures dance to Beyoncé's iconic, rhythmic modern dance through stop-motion animation and a soundtrack. The visual contrast was immense, and the music was well-known (Beyoncé's "Single Ladies" was released in 2008 and was currently a hit). The production difficulty was just on the edge of a challenge for him with his "Entry-level Editing Skills."

But first, he needed "actors"—sculptures.

Alex searched again, targeting museums or art galleries in the Los Angeles area. He quickly narrowed it down to a few: the Getty Center (which has a large collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and some university art department galleries or small galleries open to the public.

"You're the one." He marked the Getty Center and LACMA. These two had rich sculpture collections and allowed non-commercial photography (he needed to read the regulations carefully to avoid trouble).

Next was "set" scouting. He needed to take a large number of static photos for post-production stop-motion animation. This required patience, hidden angles, and... a bit of "acting" to hide the weird behavior of taking hundreds of photos of sculptures from almost the same angle.

The plan was clear. But starting it would take time, and more importantly... a publishing identity.

He logged into the original owner's YouTube account; the name was a string of random numbers and letters, with no videos. That wouldn't do. He needed a new, memorable brand.

After a moment of thought, he created a new account and entered the name: "Alex's Wonderland."

In the bio section, he typed: "Welcome to a corner where the world is seen a bit differently. Every week, discover wonder."

For now, he used the system default for the profile picture. Channel art? He'd worry about that once there was content.

The account creation was complete, empty like a treasure chest waiting to be filled. And the first treasure required him to "dig" it up in reality.

The next day, Alex drove the Accord toward the Getty Center. The sun was bright, and the silhouettes of palm trees along the way flickered past. Wearing simple jeans and a hoodie, and carrying a backpack with a DSLR camera (another "inheritance" from his parents, a Nikon D90, quite good for 2010) and his MacBook, he looked like an ordinary college art enthusiast.

The Getty Center was magnificent, its pure white buildings gleaming in the sun. He bought a ticket (his student ID still worked) and headed straight for the sculpture gallery. Inside the cool interior, massive marble statues stood in silence, their muscle lines smooth, expressions either solemn or compassionate.

Alex found a particularly suitable sculpture—an archaic Greek-style athlete statue, its posture relaxed as if it could move at any moment. He adjusted the camera settings, turned off the flash, and began shooting around the sculpture with extremely small angle changes. Each set of movements required 24–30 photos to form one second of smooth animation. And the dance sequence he wanted to do was at least 15 seconds long.

This was an incredibly tedious physical task. He had to maintain a stable composition, avoid other tourists in the shot, and pretend he was seriously studying artistic details. Sweat soon soaked his back.

[Skill Proficiency Increased: 'Stealth Filming' EXP +1]

The system suddenly popped up a notification. Alex was startled, then realized: this system doesn't just exchange skills; it seems it can also make skills "grow" or derive related experience through practice? Interesting.

He spent the entire afternoon at the Getty Center, taking nearly two thousand photos and exhausting two batteries. He was exhausted, but his eyes were bright.

Over the next two days, he followed the same pattern at LACMA and several other small galleries to gather the other angles and "actors" (close-ups of different parts of various sculptures acting as different parts of the dancers' bodies) needed for the "dance moves."

By the time he returned home, it was already evening. He shut himself in his bedroom, drew the curtains, and opened Final Cut Pro and Photoshop (which also required familiarity, but the basic principles were the same).

The real battle had begun.

He imported thousands of photos, screened them, and sorted them. He established sequences on the timeline, arranging the photos at a speed of 24 frames per second. He imported the "Single Ladies" music track. Then came the most tedious step: frame-by-frame alignment.

The key to making static sculptures "move" was to perfectly match the "movement trajectory" of the sculpture in each frame with the beats and rhythm of the music. Even a visible deviation in one frame's alignment would make the entire animation look stiff and ridiculous.

Alex was fully concentrated, time flying by amidst the flashing cursor on the screen and frequent keyboard and mouse operations. The "Entry-level Video Editing" skill he exchanged played a huge role; the operational logic, shortcuts, and timing for adding effects felt innate. However, the creative implementation and detail polishing beyond the "entry-level" relied entirely on his aesthetic and patience from his past life as a content planner.

When he was hungry, he munched on energy bars; when thirsty, he drank ice water. When tired, he would nap on the desk for ten minutes. Outside the window, it went from pitch black to the first light of dawn, and then to the sun flooding the sea again.

For a full thirty-six hours, he didn't leave his chair except for necessary physiological activities.

When the last dance move perfectly snapped into place with the final beat of the music with a "click," Alex suddenly leaned back, his cervical spine letting out an overburdened creak. His eyes were dry and bloodshot, and his fingers trembled slightly from the prolonged operation.

But on the screen in front of him, a 2-minute and 17-second video was playing on loop: solemn ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were twisting, swinging their arms, and kicking their legs stiffly yet hilariously to Beyoncé's high-energy music, completing a full set of "Single Ladies" choreography. The editing rhythm was precise, the transitions were clever (using close-ups of sculpture parts to switch "dancers"), and he had even photoshopped sunglasses onto a statue with a compassionate expression and added a shiny "ring" effect (of course, at a 2010 level of special effects).

It was crude, but full of creativity and a magical, infectious quality.

"It's done." His voice was hoarse, yet filled with uncontrollable excitement.

He didn't upload it immediately. Summoning his last bit of energy, he added a title to the video: "When the Getty Center Decides to Debut: The Classical Sculpture 'Single Ladies' Challenge." The bio was written lightheartedly: "Giving art a bit of a pop soul. Filmed at multiple museums, purely for entertainment, respect to the art."

Selecting tags: #ClassicalArt #PopCulture #FunnyMashup #YouTubeCreativity #Sculpture #Beyonce

Setting the release time: 12:00 PM tomorrow (Pacific Time), a time when internet traffic begins to rise.

After finishing all this, he saved the project file, backed it up, and then collapsed onto the bed, losing consciousness almost the instant he hit the pillow.

In his deep sleep, the faint blue system interface seemed to flicker slightly, and a line of nearly invisible small text scrolled past:

[High-intensity focused creation detected from the host, slight mental exhaustion. Potential 'Fame' conversion efficiency increased by 0.1%... Calculating...]

Alex knew nothing of this. He was submerged in a dreamless darkness, gathering strength for the upcoming first "battle."

The sea outside the window was calm and waveless, but the world of the internet was about to have a small stone thrown into it by a channel named "Alex's Wonderland," destined to create ripples.

What he didn't know was that in a rehearsal room in Nashville, a blonde girl who had just finished her rehearsal for the day was casually refreshing YouTube, looking for something fresh to relax with. Her fingertips brushed past pet and funny videos, feeling somewhat uninterested.

The Gear of fate, in the silent surge of data streams, began its insignificant yet crucial first engagement.