Sparkle took a deep breath, another deep breath, and then one more deep breath.
Then she turned around, walked expressionlessly to the corner, and picked up the broom.
“If I don’t teach you a lesson today, I’ll take your surname.”
The monkey poked its head out from behind the chair.
“Bleh~~”
Veins popped on the hand Sparkle used to grip the broom.
For the next half hour, a battle between human and monkey played out in the room.
Sparkle chased with the broom, and the monkey ran all over the place.
It leaped onto the desk, trampling a stack of draft paper; it bounced onto the windowsill, knocking over a succulent; it jumped onto the bed, leaving a trail of tiny footprints on the quilt; finally, it hid on top of the wardrobe, sticking its tongue out at Sparkle-chan below.
Sparkle held the broom and poked at it for a long time, but she simply couldn’t reach it.
Finally, she was exhausted.
She tossed the broom aside, collapsed onto the bed, and gasped for air.
“You…
you get down here…”
The monkey lay on top of the wardrobe, its little paws propping up its chin, looking leisurely.
“I’m not coming down.
Hit me.”
“I can’t reach you.”
“Well, there you go then.”
The monkey rolled over and lay on its back, staring at the ceiling.
“Ah, the view from up here is so nice.
The air is fresh, the field of vision is wide, and there’s—Achoo!
So much dust!”
Sparkle couldn’t be bothered to deal with it.
She just lay paralyzed on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
After zoning out for a while, she climbed up and started tidying the room.
Except for that shattered mouse; she gave it a glance, sighed, picked it up, and threw it into the trash can.
“I need to buy a new mouse…” she muttered.
The monkey poked its head from the top of the wardrobe, watching her busy herself below.
It stayed silent for a while, then hopped down on its own, jumped onto the windowsill, and crouched there, looking up at the sky.
Sparkle glanced at it, ignored it, and continued cleaning.
Once the room was mostly tidy, she straightened her back and looked toward the windowsill.
That monkey was still crouching there, head tilted up, gazing at the sky, motionless like a statue.
Sunlight streamed in from the window, falling on its furry body and plating it with a layer of gold.
At first glance, the scene was actually quite artistic.
If one ignored the fact that this was just a crazy monkey.
Sparkle walked over, stood by the window, and said weakly:
“Stop standing on the balcony like an idiot.
If you’re free, could you help me out?”
The monkey slowly turned its head and looked at her.
In those tiny eyes, there flickered a certain…
profound light.
“Do you know,”
The monkey spoke, its voice deep and philosophical, as if it had realized some ultimate truth of life, “The sunlight…”
Sparkle narrowed her eyes slightly.
“What the hell?”
The monkey continued, “…is so blinding.”
After it finished speaking, a thin wisp of smoke rose from its eyes.
Sparkle was expressionless.
“No kidding.
You’ve been staring at the sun for ages; of course it’s blinding.
Hurry up and come over here.”
The monkey hopped down from the windowsill and landed in front of her.
A flash appeared before Sparkle’s eyes as that flashy system panel materialized out of thin air.
[Live Stream Fuli Girl]
[Host: Sparkle]
[Followers: 1247/10000]
[elation points: 1050]
[Current Mission: Reach 10,000 followers to unlock all functions]
[Pet: Slumbernana Monkey (Fuli)]
The monkey crouched nearby, still muttering, “Sparkle, I think I smell barbecue.”
Sparkle stared at the panel without looking back.
“That’s your eyes being cooked.”
“Is it?”
The monkey murmured to itself, then stuck out its tongue and licked its own eye—it actually managed to lick it!
The eye even blinked!
Then it smacked its lips.
“Banana flavor, crunchy.”
It gave a thumbs-up.
Sparkle glanced at it expressionlessly.
She was used to it.
Really used to it.
Over the past week, what kind of abstract nonsense had this monkey not done?
What was eating its own eye compared to the rest?
The day before yesterday, it tried to use its Tail to hang itself from the ceiling fan and spin around, saying something like “I want to fly.” As a result, it was flung off after two rotations, hit the wall, stuck there for three seconds, and then slid down.
She was used to it.
Really used to it.
Sparkle withdrew her gaze and continued to stare at the elation points on the panel.
1050.
This number looked okay, but the problem was—this thing was “elation points,” not a universal currency.
It took her a week of fumbling to roughly figure out the system’s settings: to obtain elation points, she had to “go crazy” from time to time, doing nonsensical or counter-intuitive things to provide “joy” to someone—or some entities.
As for who she was providing joy to, she didn’t know.
Anyway, every time she finished acting crazy, this number would increase a bit.
For example, after that JoJo scene she just played out with the monkey, she glanced and saw it had risen by 20.
Another example was when she blurted out “legally insane” during the live stream earlier; it rose by another 5.
She just couldn’t understand.
With no one else around, who exactly was watching her act crazy?
Who were these elation points being sent to?
Did the system swallow them itself?
Or was there some invisible audience silently watching her?
What a hard life.
She sighed and exited the panel.
Then she couldn’t help but look at the follower count again.
1247.
Still short of ten thousand by…
eight thousand seven hundred and fifty-three.
At this rate, she’d have to stream until next year.
“Fuli,”
She suddenly spoke, “Do you know why my follower count is growing so extremely slowly?”
The monkey was licking its paw.
Hearing this, it looked up and said naturally:
“The answer is system suppression, duh.”
Sparkle was stunned.
The monkey continued, its tone nonchalant, “How could the system allow you to complete the mission so easily?
It definitely has to set up some obstacles, like traffic limiting, shadow-banning, or filling your screen with fake—”
It suddenly stopped.
Sparkle also stopped.
The room went quiet.
The monkey’s eyes slowly widened, its little paw covered its mouth, and it let out a sound:
“Ah…
I let it slip.”
It even did a bashful little wiggle while covering its face.
Sparkle’s eyes grew wider and wider.
She clutched her head, took two steps back, and spun around twice on the spot, muttering under her breath, “Oh my god…
oh my god…”
Then she stopped, closed her eyes, and let out a frantic torrent of words in a tone of total breakdown:
“Let me guess—let me guess—the next thing I’m going to ask is—why didn’t you say so earlier?”
The monkey clapped its paws.
“Great!
You’ve even learned to anticipate the answers!”
“And your answer will definitely be—”
“You didn’t ask~”
The monkey chimed in with a pinched voice, adding a bashful mouth-covering gesture.
Sparkle opened her eyes and looked at it expressionlessly.
The monkey blinked its eyes, paw still by its mouth, its expression as innocent as a three-hundred-month-old baby.
Sparkle opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but finally realized that saying anything would be futile.
And then—
*Grumble grumble—*
Her stomach growled.
That deep breath she had taken hadn’t been fully exhaled yet; it got stuck halfway, nearly choking her to death.
She clutched her chest, bent over, hands on her knees, her face turning bright red.
It took a while for her to catch her breath.
“Strength…
strength is gone…”
She muttered weakly, then slumped onto the bed.
The monkey bounced up nearby and started humming, “Sleeping Banana~ Sleeping Banana~ Slumbernana Monkey~ Sleeping Banana~ Sleeping Banana~ So very, very happy~”
Sparkle ignored it.
She sat for a while, stood up, walked to the wardrobe, and changed into her casual clothes—a white T-shirt, a red short skirt, and a pair of clean short socks.
Then she stood before the mirror, untied her messy twin Tails, combed them with her fingers, and tied them again.
In the mirror, that face was still pretty, though her expression was one of total resignation.
She patted her cheeks and took a deep breath.
Whatever, eat first.
Eating was the priority.
She turned and walked toward the door.
The monkey called out to her from behind, “Sparkle!
What are you going to do!”
Sparkle didn’t look back.
“Eat.
Eat.”
The monkey was stunned for a moment, then it bounced up like it was on stimulants, scurried over in a few steps, and landed precisely on her shoulder, its two little paws grabbing her collar:
“I’m going I’m going I’m going I’m going I’m going—!”
Sparkle’s footsteps paused.
She glanced sideways at the monkey on her shoulder but didn’t speak.
She had already gotten used to it this week.
This monkey was like a plaster; as soon as you tried to swat it, it would climb.
Swat and climb, swat and climb—it was incredibly annoying.
At first, she tried to shake it off, but later she found that the more she shook, the tighter it clung.
She simply gave up.
As long as she was alive, it was fine.
She walked slowly out the door and into the hallway.
She was still grumbling to herself, “If you weren’t my system, I would have cracked your skull open and had a full monkey feast long ago…”
On her shoulder, the monkey also spoke slowly, its tone flat, like it was telling a deadpan joke:
“Do you know, a banana is actually a berry, and humans share fifty percent of their DNA with bananas biologically, so in a sense, you eating a banana is equivalent to eating a relative—”
Sparkle-chan walked forward expressionlessly.