I am in my third year as an educator at the Shanghai Natural History Museum, and the ring-tailed lemurs I care for suddenly went on a collective hunger strike. Surveillance showed that every day at 19:04, this group of primates would cling to the glass curtain wall, staring at the New Year's Eve stage of Zhang Yixing on visitors' phone screens—they reacted to the sound of the Dunhuang harp in "Flying Sky" with courtship behavior.
"Star-chasing fans are not just human." An email from the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences included a link to a paper: "The Pheromone-like Effects of Celebrity Sound Waves on Endangered Species." It turns out that Zhang Yixing's DNA soundtrack (gene-coded music released by his studio last year) was able to stimulate the lemurs to secrete oxytocin after being decoded by a team from Fudan University. The director laughed on the phone: "Xiao Jiang, how about trying to use fan culture for animal enrichment?"
That week, I registered a super topic account. Under the entry #Zhang Yixing Animal Protection#, a science popularization video unexpectedly went viral:
🦊 A white tiger at Wuhan Zoo stopped its repetitive pacing upon hearing "Sheep."
🦊 The Chengdu Panda Base trained cubs to climb trees using the prelude of "Jade."
🦊 The most bizarre was a herd of wild elephants in Xishuangbanna, gathering for seven consecutive nights to tap dance at the filming location of the "Veil" MV.
Support stations overnight sent a "Light Chaser Sound Therapy Device." This equipment, resembling a stage light for performances, could remix Zhang Yixing's soundtrack in real-time based on the animals' heart rates. When the lemurs first swayed their tails to the beat of "Boom," a post-00s zookeeper outside the enclosure suddenly cried: "They look like me waving a light stick at a concert back then."
The crisis occurred during the rainy season. Due to fans excessively using AI face-swapping technology, the Emei Mountain macaques experienced cognitive confusion—they mistook every visitor humming "Call" for Zhang Yixing and frantically fed them their treasured wild fruits. That night, animal protection organizations condemned "star-chasing colonialism," and I received a mysterious private message:
"Try turning one-way projection into a symbiotic ritual."
An artisan from Shaoxing, ID "Xiu Xi Chuan," uploaded a video: she transformed discarded light sticks from Xback into bird collision prevention window decorations, neon circuits spelling out the oracle bone script lyrics of "Lotus." Even more astonishing was the Qingdao Oceanarium, which cultivated the world's first "Zhang Yixing Blue" coral using discarded fluorescent ocean support sticks from concerts—this new type of symbiotic algae can glow in 22°C seawater, perfectly saving it from bleaching crises.
Now my lemurs have become "animal fan sisters." Their abstract painting of "Veil," created by dipping their tails in ink, has been made into a public welfare NFT for sale; the oldest female lemur has even learned to use a branch to tap out the rhythm of "Honey," attracting visitors to participate in designing enrichment toys. Last month, when the BBC came to film, they stole the camera to focus on the neighboring serval enclosure—where a couple of cats mimic the duet dance of "Let’s Shut Up & Dance" every day.
Yesterday, I received an animal remix invitation from Zhang Yixing's studio. The moment I opened the sampling package, the entire lemur island resonated with ancient chants: he rearranged the melody of "Flying Sky," incorporating the courtship sound waves of 17 endangered species. When the wingbeat frequency of the red-tailed black cockatoo met the sound of the Dunhuang guqin, all creatures inside and outside the glass curtain wall looked up simultaneously—
A once-in-a-century solar eclipse was sweeping over Shanghai.
In the 2 minutes and 37 seconds of darkness, humans and animals raised their phones, tails, or wings, casting light and shadow in the same direction. My educational tablet suddenly received data streams from 122 zoos worldwide:
🐾 Bengal tigers learned to avoid infrared cameras to the rhythm of "Lit."
🐾 Mexican wolf packs marked new migration routes to the flute sound of "Shepherd."
🐾 The most shocking were the Antarctic emperor penguins, which used the amplitude of "Wish" to break through the ice, clearing a path for research vessels.
"Teacher Jiang, it seems they have found something more important than chasing stars," an intern pointed at the surveillance screen. The once-fasting lemur leader was teaching the young ones to make stone tools using the melody of "Infatuation"—and all the notes came from the "reproductive sound library" co-created by fans and scientists.
As the event ended, I got lost in the souvenir shop and overheard two girls wearing shell headscarves whispering in debate:
"Do you think Yixing knows he is saving animals?"
"The point is he doesn't need to know, just like we don't need to understand photosynthesis, but everything still grows."
At this moment, a light rain began to fall on lemur island, and I touched the palm leaf throne they wove for Zhang Yixing's performance. The latest demo in my headphones sang:
"All gazes will take root and grow,
All light will eventually become the granary of all things."