Shane was gently awakened by the familiar, sun-warmed scent of soft cotton brushing against him.
His eyelashes fluttered as his consciousness slowly surfaced from the deep pool of slumber.
The faint morning sunlight streamed perfectly through the gap in the curtains, casting a warm, narrow band of light across his pillow.
Within the beam of light, tiny specks of dust danced in the quiet room.
“Whim…
si…
Whimsicott…”
Shane opened his eyes slightly, his blurry vision gradually coming into focus.
His little partner was sprawled across his chest like a fluffy, breathing mound of warm white cotton candy.
Its tiny, cotton-like paws were struggling to hold up a frantically vibrating phone.
The screen was overflowing with a dense cluster of notification icons and numbers.
The glaring light reflected in Whimsicott’s round, orange eyes, which were filled with confusion and a hint of annoyance at being disturbed.
Shane instinctively reached out, his fingertips sinking into the familiar fluff on Whimsicott’s back.
“What’s wrong, Whimsicott?” Shane’s voice was still husky from sleep.
“What’s making all that noise?”
Whimsicott immediately shoved the source of the noise closer to his face, tapping the screen with soft smacks.
“Whimsicott!” it cried out, as if to say, *Your phone keeps ringing, and the Do Not Disturb mode isn’t working!*
Amused by its aggrieved and frustrated little expression, Shane felt his heart melt, and he woke up completely.
He propped himself up against the headboard and casually gathered Whimsicott into his arms, letting it rest more comfortably.
The little creature immediately leaned into him as if finding a safe haven, pressing its furry head against the front of his pajamas.
“Alright, alright, let’s see what’s bothering our little Whimsicott so much.” Shane took the phone.
The moment his fingertip touched the screen, the lock screen lit up.
Shane’s gaze casually swept over the screen—
[Top-Tier Breeder @ProfessorDoran, whom you follow, liked and commented on your video.]
[#TheLittleJoysOfOrdinaryDays has reached No.
17 on the trending list.]
[Magic City University Alumni Group @You 999+]
[New Channel Followers: 179,823]
[Direct Message Notifications: 10,000+]
[Comment Notifications: 50,000+]
Buzz!
It felt as if a jolt of electricity instantly surged through his entire body.
Shane’s breath hitched, his lingering drowsiness completely washed away by the explosive flood of information.
He stared at the astronomical numbers of likes, comments, and followers, his mind briefly going blank.
“Ah—!”
“What is it, what’s wrong?!
An enemy attack?
An earthquake?
Or did Charizard set something on fire again?!”
Kade, who had been sleeping soundly, was so startled that he rolled right off the sofa and hit the floor hard.
Shane and Whimsicott both turned their heads toward the living room at the same time.
They saw Kade with a messy bird’s nest of hair that looked like a Skiddo had rolled through it.
Bleary-eyed, he awkwardly scrambled out from the gap between the sofa and the coffee table, rubbing his bruised elbow while nervously looking around.
Shane took a deep breath, trying to calm his wildly racing heart.
“The…
the video I posted yesterday…
I think it…
blew up.”
“Huh?” Kade clearly hadn’t fully booted up yet.
“Blew up?
What blew up?”
Shane didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
He turned his phone screen toward him, tapping emphatically on the terrifying string of numbers.
“This!
The video’s likes…
broke five million overnight.
Professor Doran even left a comment, and it got seven million likes!”
“What?!”
This time, the pitch of Kade’s voice shot up several octaves, his sleepiness completely blown away.
He jumped up like a startled cat, rushing to the bedside in a few large strides.
He snatched Shane’s phone, his fingers swiping rapidly across the screen, his eyes wide as saucers.
“Holy crap!
Holy crap!
Are you serious?!”
Kade’s voice cracked.
He opened Shane’s channel homepage, staring at the absurdly long string of numbers under the video titled “Dinner Time at Forest Song 01.” Then he opened the pinned comment section, repeatedly verifying the seven million likes on Professor Doran’s highly praising comment.
“My god!
Shane!
You’re really famous!
You’ve gone totally viral!
Professor Doran’s comment is an absolute nuclear-level assist!”
He snapped his head up, his face a mix of ecstasy, envy, and a trace of disbelief.
“Wait a minute!
Didn’t you say you just finished editing and posted it last night?
Weren’t we agreed that I’d be the first to like it?!
it just skyrocketed?!”
Kade scratched his already messy hair, feeling as if his entire worldview had been shattered.
He had confidently sworn last night that he would be the first viewer and the first to drop a like, but he woke up to find that the world had completely changed.
Shane had also finally recovered from his initial shock.
The phone in his hand started vibrating madly again, the background notification chimes as dense as a torrential downpour beating against a window.
He hastily navigated to the settings and quickly switched all video and social media notifications to Do Not Disturb mode.
The world finally quieted down a bit.
However, the moment he opened his messaging app…
Class groups, grade groups, department groups, alumni groups…
countless little red dots bearing the “@Shane” tag were bouncing frantically, the message counts uniformly reading “99+”.
His direct message inbox had also long been stuffed to the brim.
Most of them were inquiring about Shane’s breeding services, as he frequently took on breeding commissions and had an excellent reputation at Magic City University.
Shane felt his scalp tingle.
He smiled bitterly at Kade and said, “Well, this is great.
I was already famous enough in Magic City, but now it’s probably going to spread to other regions.”
Although a video with tens of millions of views wasn’t the absolute peak on a global scale—movie promos by Diantha or Champion match livestreams by Leon generated even higher traffic—for a complete rookie with zero existing fanbase, achieving this level of popularity on a first slice-of-life video was absolutely phenomenal.
Shane forced himself to calm down, using his phone’s built-in AI tool to quickly scrape and summarize the main trends in the live chat and comment section.
The results were exactly as expected, roughly dividing into four major categories.
One part consisted of tearful complaints and strong condemnations for posting mouth-watering food late at night.
Another part was wildly obsessing over the adorable moments of Whimsicott, Charizard, and Skiddo in the video.
A third part appreciated the eye-catching combination of him and Kade, two different types of handsome guys.
But the largest and most tragic group of comments came from the collective mental breakdowns of breeding majors from all over the world.
Seeing an AZ200 machine produce high-grade Pokéblocks was simply a textbook, crushing blow to them.
Looking at these analytical results, Shane’s feelings were incredibly complicated.
Shane’s original intention in posting the video was just to attract a few customers and improve the desolate, empty state of the cafe.
But looking at the current situation…
“Right.”
Shane suddenly stood up from the bed, taking a few steps to the window.
His slender fingers pinched the edge of the curtain fabric, gently pulling it open a crack.
The sunlight slanted across the wet bluestone slabs of the old street.
A few Pidove strolled leisurely by the roadside, occasionally lowering their heads to peck at something.
As far as the eye could see, there were very few pedestrians.
Only the familiar breakfast shop at the corner of the street was wafting white steam.
Everything was as usual, so quiet that it seemed as if last night’s internet storm was nothing but an illusion.
Shane’s tense shoulders instantly relaxed.
He let out a long sigh and released the curtain, allowing it to fall naturally and block out most of the light again.
“Thank goodness…
When I was editing the video yesterday, I forgot to add the cafe’s address…”