darkness beneath Shen Yuan's eyelids, a mechanical voice spoke by his ear.

"What the hell-?"

The tone of the disembodied voice was quite similar to that of Google Translate. What is this?

Shen Yuan looked around. It was like he was floating in an imaginary space; he can stretch out but touch nothing but air.

The voice came from nowhere: [Welcome to the system. During the opening of the system is currently in its development phase-

A younger voice interrupted the boring monotone one.

The monologue was cut off and a white glowing outline of a huge and extremely chubby cat appeared, taking up Shen Yuan's entire vision beneath his eyelids.

The glowing bright cat suddenly shrunk ten times in size, into a small but still extremely chubby cat. It's practically a round rice cake with cat ears and a tail.

The voice said cheerfully. The 2-D cat also changes its face to a -w- smile. Although the voice is coming from the cat in Shen Yuan's mind, the cat's mouth never opened to match the voice. Perhaps it was only there so it doesn't seem like Shen Yuan was listening to a disembodied voice. Or maybe they were just too lazy to lip-sync it.

"What- What is this place?" Shen Yuan muttered.

The voice said in an obvious tone.

"No, I mean what's going on? What is happening to me? What happened?"

The voice sighed. In a bored voice, it said,

"..." Weirdly, that does seem simple enough to accept.

Yeah right.

Shen Yuan asked another question. He can't believe he died by choking on a meat bun. He's never going to eat a meat bun ever again.

"What was the other voice early?"

The cat's face changed into a ^▽^.

"...?" Shen Yuan did not understand.

The cat huffed.

Now, this is something Shen Yuan can't tolerate. Shen Yuan flew into a semi-rage and ranted, "There is nothing stupid about that! The book was stupid, it keeps giving the readers bread crumbs in hopes of finding the candy house but in the end, all we met was the witch! Not even-"

the cat yawned.

Shen Yuan can't retort to that.

Damn it, he really hates this cat. Maybe it was because the cat looks a lot like the meat bun that caused his death. Just with cat ears and a tail.

"Oh, that's good," Shen Yuan snapped. "What even are you?"

The cat let out an offended scoff.

"A host for what?" Shen Yuan asked. Is this system like a parasite?

The cat made a face at Shen Yuan.

Then Xin said,

Shen Yuan: "..." Yeah? So what?

Xin's tail was the only fully animated thing about the cat. It swings back and forth like a lucky cat's paw. It's annoying.

"..."

Can he not do this?

"Why not?" Shen Yuan asked.

The cat said sarcastically, rolling its eyes.

"..." So he had no choice.

Shen Yuan was really starting to hate the system's way of talking.

"Then what am I?" Shen Yuan asked.

The cat offered.

Shen Yuan sighed. "No, what am I? Am I assigned to a character in Proud Immortal Demon Way or something? What is the purpose of me in this novel?"

That was brutally honest. (and correct)

What do you mean I have no purpose? Shen Yuan internally screamed. Then how was he supposed to get front-row seats into watching Luo Binghe mercilessly slaughter people?!

Xin meowed.

Okay. But how was that going to give him front-row seats in watching Luo Binghe mercilessly slaughter people? Being one of the slightly less great individuals being slaughtered?

The cat winked.

"..." Easier said than done. How was that supposed to help anyway? And who even is the emperor of Heavens and the king of the Ghost Realm??

The cat sucked in a deep breath after it finished talking. Ironically, because, the mouth never moved.

Of course, Shen Yuan didn't believe it. Luo Binghe was supposed to be the protagonist. And no one was supposed to be more powerful than the protagonist.

The urgent voice slowly fades away as Shen Yuan comes to, abruptly sitting up. The biologically five-year-old boy opened his eyes with some effort.

A figure of a man slowly came into focus.

The man was handsome yet simple looking. He wore black robes of the ancient style, appearing neat and tidy. There was a mask of a ghost face that wore a woeful smile hanging from his waist.

The man's eyebrows raised slightly in surprise when Shen Yuan suddenly sat up, awake.

The kid and the adult stared at each other.

Shen Yuan broke the silence.

"Hey... How about you let me be your kid?"

Yin Yu: "...???"

Shen Yuan, you got the wrong dad!

✨✨

Thank you for reading!

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Word Count: 1505