At a quarter past four in the afternoon, Sparkle waddled downstairs.
Turning the corner outside the building entrance led to a small street filled with all sorts of vendors selling skewers, pancakes, fried rice, and cold noodles, the smell of grease and smoke swirling together and drifting into one’s nose.
Sparkle took a deep breath, and her stomach growled again.
The monkey on her shoulder looked around, its paw pointing forward: “There, there, there!
There’s a stall!”
“I see it,” Sparkle said weakly.
She walked toward the fried rice stall.
The owner was a middle-aged man with an apron covered in oil spots.
He was expertly flipping a spatula over an iron griddle, making grains of rice trace golden arcs in the air.
There weren’t many people on the street, but the gaze of every passerby drifted toward Sparkle.
“Hey, that little girl…”
“She’s so pretty.
Is that white hair real or dyed?”
“Her eyes are red too.
She must be wearing colored contacts, right?”
“Whose kid is that?
She looks just like a doll.”
Sparkle walked forward expressionlessly.
She heard all of it.
She heard everything.
But she wasn’t in the mood to deal with any of it right now.
She was suppressing herself.
Suppressing that abstract soul inside her body that could leap out at any moment.
Ever since she transmigrated to this world, ever since she got this crappy system, and ever since she developed the habit of earning elation points by acting crazy, she felt as if a lunatic lived inside her body, wanting to rush out and run wild at any time or place.
Just like now, the gazes and whispers of those passersby were like matches striking against the fuse inside her body.
Cannot explode.
Absolutely cannot explode.
This is a public place; if I explode, it’ll be social death.
Calm down, calm down.
Don’t pay attention to your surroundings.
Whatever you do, don’t pay attention to your surroundings.
She chanted silently in her heart, trying her best to keep her steps steady, her gaze fixed firmly on the fried rice stall ahead, not even daring to let her eyes shift to the side for a second.
Calm down, calm down.
You’re a normal person.
A normal person.
A normal person doesn’t suddenly go crazy.
A normal person doesn’t scream and shout on the street.
A normal person—
“Sparkle’s current mood is extremely complex.”
The monkey on her shoulder suddenly spoke in a broadcasting tone, clear and rhythmic.
“On the surface, she is expressionless, but in reality, her heart is frantically chanting ‘calm down, calm down, calm down,’ attempting to suppress that abstract personality that could erupt at any moment.
This is a form of self-hypnosis, a psychological defense mechanism, a—”
Sparkle’s eyelid twitched.
The monkey continued: “But from a medical perspective, excessive suppression often leads to an even more violent explosion.
Like a spring being pressed down hard, the harder you press, the higher it bounces.
At this very moment, the abstract power within Sparkle’s body is accumulating, expanding, and—”
“Shut Up.”
Sparkle squeezed the words through her teeth.
The monkey didn’t Shut Up: “Based on my years of observation, Sparkle will probably lose it in about thirty seconds.
Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight—”
“I told you to Shut Up.”
“—Twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three—of course, if someone were to give her a little stimulus right now, like whispering ‘you actually really want to go crazy, don’t you’ in her ear, then this countdown might shorten to five seconds.
Five, four, three—”
Sparkle stopped walking.
She slowly turned her head and stared at the monkey on her shoulder.
The monkey looked back at her, its eyes sparkling with anticipation: “Two, one—”
The fuse burned to its end.
Sparkle suddenly leaped up.
Yes, she leaped up, the kind of leap where both feet leave the ground, like a cat whose Tail has been stepped on.
She spun in the air, landing with her arms wide open.
Her white hair whipped out in an arc under the setting sun, her red pupils shone with startling brightness, and a smile so brilliant it was punchable was plastered on her face as she roared at the top of her lungs:
“PLEASE—FOLLOW—Sparkle—HUA—HUA—YO—!”
The entire area went silent.
Sparkle continued, her voice rising another octave:
“OPEN—AC—STATION—FOLLOW—Sparkle—HUA—HUA—YO—!”
Her voice echoed over the street.
The spatula at the fried rice stall stopped.
The passing pedestrians stopped.
Everyone turned their heads, their gazes focusing on her in unison.
That little girl with white hair and red eyes was standing in front of the fried rice stall, arms wide open with a brilliant smile on her face, looking like a peacock displaying its feathers.
Ah, well.
The air froze for three seconds.
Then the passersby began to whisper:
“This little girl…
is there something wrong with her head?”
“She looks so pretty, what a shame.”
“Maybe she’s a…
streamer from that AC Station?
Doing an advertisement?”
“You can’t do ads like that, it’s terrifying.”
Sparkle maintained that pose, motionless.
Three seconds.
Five seconds.
Ten seconds.
Her brain rebooted.
What did I…
just do?
Those words just now…
I shouted them?
In front of so many people…?
She slowly pulled back her arms, slowly stood up straight, and slowly turned her gaze toward the fried rice stall.
The owner was still holding his spatula, staring at her with a dazed expression.
Sparkle opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but not a single word would come out.
Then she gave up.
Forget it.
Let it be.
She started walking, heading toward the fried rice stall step by step.
Each step felt incredibly heavy, as if she were stepping on cotton, or perhaps on her own dignity.
The ends of her white hair swayed gently behind her, and the red heart painted on her face remained vivid in the sunset, but the light in those red pupils had gone out, turning into two pools of stagnant water.
“One order of fried rice.”
She stood before the stall, her voice as calm as a dead pond.
“To go.”
The owner blinked, then smiled—the kind of smile an elder gives a younger person.
“Coming right up.”
He scooped up the rice already cooked on the griddle, packed it into a container, added an extra fried egg, placed it in a plastic bag, and handed it over.
Sparkle took the bag, paid, turned around, and left.
Her movements were smooth, and her expression was undisturbed.
She could no longer feel so-called shame.
Embarrassment?
Nonexistent.
Right now, even if someone stripped her clothes off, she could walk through three streets without changing her expression.
That’s what Sparkle thought.
Then the monkey on her shoulder moved.
A small paw reached out, grabbed her collar, and gave it a tug.
*Rrip—*
The sound of fabric tearing.
Sparkle’s footsteps halted.
She slowly looked down at her neckline.
The collar of her white T-shirt had been torn open, a gap extending three or four centimeters down from her collarbone, revealing a small section of a red shoulder strap and more pale skin.
She slowly turned her head to look at the monkey on her shoulder.
The monkey’s paw was still in a grabbing position, its eyes wide and round, its mouth formed into an ‘O’ shape.
The person and the monkey stared at each other.
The air froze.
“You mother—”
Sparkle’s voice squeezed through her teeth.
“You actually tore it?”
The monkey’s mouth opened and closed, closed and opened, before it managed to squeeze out: “I…
I was just testing…”
Sparkle grabbed it, her hands squeezing the monkey’s body as she began to shake it frantically: “Testing?!
You test and you’re dead!!
You Old Feng!
You really tore it—!!!”
The monkey’s head was shaken like a rattle, its four short legs flailing in the air: “I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong—!”
The people on the street looked over once again.