It took a moment for Mei-Mei to process the introduction and she broke it down one word at a time, dwelling on two words especially. One was C4, which was an explosive as far as she knew. Being told that she had something in her mind called C4 was not very pleasant news.
She thought about systems and the fantasy novels and movies that her mother liked to read and the few movies she had seen where a protagonist in an unfair situation was blessed with a system and became a winner in life.
It shocked her to the core that what she always considered to be fiction was actually real.
"You are a system!" she exclaimed.
"Yes host, hurry, activate me." An excited childish voice spoke back to her.
You are already calling me host but you still want me to activate you, she thought and almost scoffed. Did it think she was an idiot, it had already attached itself to her.
She put the system business on pause and searched for her phone. Using voice activation, she commanded the AI assistant named Bandit to find Mingzhu. It reported back that Mingzhu was in a restaurant having lunch with Mo Jingzhe.
Relieved to hear that her daughter was okay, she turned back to the system. "Hi, system. Before we go further, you are not by any chance going to blow up my brains, right? I have to ask, with your name being C4."
"I was named by my dad, he is T4 I am C4." It answered.
Mei-Mei took a deep breath, for some reason she was still wary. Nothing called C4 was ever a good thing. Also who was this dad and where was he? To know all these things she had to activate the system.
"System activate." redundantly, she said.
Pain was what she felt next and she passed out for five minutes. When she opened her eyes again, she saw a light yellow virtual screen before her eyes and a baby red and white fox in a blue robe. It was so excited, jumping around from one end of the screen to another.
"What am I looking at?" Mei-Mei whispered to herself.
C4 stopped the jumping and composed himself, his father had told him to be wise on this journey. It put its hands together in a meditation pose and started to speak as if it was a sage imparting precious knowledge.
"Welcome host, I am the green tea pampering system. Since you have activated me, your task from now on is simple, you must pamper the green tea Mo Jingzhe and return to the pinnacle of your life or die."
The yellow screen turned red with little skeleton figures scrolling by which disappeared in a flash and the fox was back on the yellow screen.
Mei-Mei thought C4 was joking and she responded by laughing.
"Right..." she drawled out.
Suddenly, her body froze, it felt as if air was being sucked out of her and she was struggling to breathe. Fear overwhelmed her as if she had met a ghost in he path, she wanted to scream for help but her mouth wouldn't open. She wanted to tap a button, any button that would send the doctors rushing in to assist her but her hands wouldn't move.
"Help." she screamed in her mind. The thought of dying scared her, what was even more frightening was the thought of Mingzhu remaining with Mo Liang and Yue.
As suddenly as the feeling had set it in, it dissipated. She drew out a loud breath, coughing while slapping her chest lightly.
"That was just a taste of what it feels like to suffocate." C4 twirled around, so unbothered. "There are limitless ways to die host, I can list one thousand...no, they have been listed for you in a row. You can access them at any moment you need to."
"You are nuts!" Mei-Mei winced. She wanted the system out of her head.
"Isn't everyone a little nuts?" It replied.
"You are crazy!!" Mei-Mei whispered.
"And you are stupid, which is why we are both here." It gave a nonchalant shrug.
"I am not stupid." she hissed at it.
Her eyes darted wildly from one inch of the virtual screen to another, looking for the reject button. If it was not there them perhaps an extraction button so that she could pull out the fox and smack its butt.
"I beg to disagree." C4 stumbled around ad if he was drunk and the words stupid danced around on the virtual screen. "You went from pampered rich heiress that had the entire world at her feet to a rug which your husband and his family use to wipe their dirty feet. Stupid."
Mei-Mei folded her lips in anger.
"You started a company with Mo Liang, you owned sixty percent in the beginning. Today you own six percent. Stupid."
Mei-Mei wanted to cover her ears, she knew she had made some stupid decisions in life. She did not want them to be thrown in her face.
"You were a rich mans daughter that had never even washed her own brassiere but you were reduced to washing Mo Liang's underwear by hand. Stupid." C4 cackled.
Then pictures appeared on the virtual screen, they were of her in the past, from childhood to adulthood. C4 chose one, the picture from her eighteenth birthday and put it side by side with one of her taken from the airport the day before.
"You used to weigh fifty four kilograms, today you weigh thirty four and not even a healthy thirty four but a 'is she starving thirty four?' You once looked like a shining star and today you look like Smeagol from the movie Lord of the rings, especially your hair."
Mei-Mei felt as if a thousand shards of glass had been stabbed into her chest. One hand instinctively moved to cover her thinning hair.
"Smeagol had like six hairs on his head!" she exclaimed.
A blue light appeared above her head. "Let's count how many you have." C4 said. "One, two..."
"Enough!" Mei-Mei exploded. "I am stupid, I look ugly, I have become a rug, I have ruined myself. I get it, you don't have to rub it in. I was wrong, I should have listened to my mother she was right about Mo Liang."
She punched the pillow and clenched her hands. No more tears and no feeling sorry for herself, it was time to correct her mistakes, she thought.
C4 withdrew the images. "Host, I have detected a desire in you to teach the scumbag a lesson and return to your old self. I the mighty C4 will help you in this task and all you have to do is carry out a few tasks. To show you my might, I will deliver your welcome package."
[Mo Jingzhe keeps a picture of eighteen year old you in his wallet. Your physical appearance now is not up to par so it must be revitalized.
You have received one poison purification pill, one skin nourishing pill, one hair growth pill, one moisturizer, a box of face masks, a vitamin serum, secret skin oil, two small spider shaped small drone cameras and two blocks of special undetected C4.]
Mei-Mei's eyes almost fell out at the last gift she had received, C4!!!
"You are nuts."
"You think so now but later you will know why, now hurry and begin beauty treatment. This system likes beauties."