XianHong Cafe, Second.
In a seemingly ordinary cafe bustling with people entering or leaving, two males could be seen seated inside. They were both average in looks, sporting the same plain short black hair like 90% of Chinese guys.
"Hell no, Xiao Lao was the prettier character. Were your eyes blind when you were playing the game?" one of the males, Hong Ye, grumbled, saliva starting to drop subtly from his unexpected hot take.
"Fuck you! Qin Xu was the hot one. Did you play the game with your fucking eyes in your ass?" the other male, Long Tian, retorted.
They were both students of Qinlin University and, foremost, true best friends who had been friends since the time they couldn't remember.
And the argument right now? It was over who was the hotter girl in the newly launched MMORPG game called Savior Takes It All!—a game where players customized their looks, every little detail, even lewd content. Ironically, that was one of the main reasons it gathered a million players within a week, alongside its hellishly beautiful graphics that just sucked you into its world.
"Shut yo bitch ass up! Xiao Lao had bigger breasts. She is naturally superior to Mid Xu. Don't you dare spout nonsense!" Hong Ye argued back, his mindset as hard as a rock, with neither of them backing down.
"Ugh, brat, your audacity is palpable. However, Qin Xu got the bigger ass! Breasts compare to jack when it comes to the holy asset of any girl, the Almighty ASS."
"Oh-ho! So you're saying... that you agree Xiao Lao's breasts are still better than Mid—"
But before Hong Ye could continue teasing Long Tian about the vague response, Long Tian slammed his fist onto the table, a small dump of spittle flying from his mouth as he shouted, "I DIDN'T SAY THAT, YOU RETARDIOUS MOTHERFU—"
Just then, the saliva that had been left inside his mouth from all the saliva spitting he had just done earlier turned out to be more fatal than he could ever imagine... and... He choked on them.
He coughed up, his breath janky as he gasped, "Wa...wa-water..." He desperately asked, but Hong Ye remained unmoved, the shock of seeing his best friend actually choking on his saliva getting the better of him.
"O-oh, wait!" But he quickly came back to his senses and tried handing Long Tian the water he asked for, but Long Tian was nowhere to be seen... He had fallen to the ground like a dying chicken.
"T-there's a dying person there!!" The people who had been annoyed by their banter panicked, each of them taking out their phones to either call the ambulance or record a meme that could boost their social media.
"B-bro, you okay???" Hong Ye quickly sat on the ground, sweat pouring down his forehead as he tried to cope with the idea that it was all a joke, that his friend would soon get up and laugh it off.
However, that moment never came. Instead, an ambulance arrived, its dignified siren honking on repeat.
"Where's the patient?" The paramedics rushed to the second floor with a stretcher.
But it had already started to become too late, as Long Tian's vision began to blur.
"Ass... supremacy... is... eternal..."
Right after that, his trembling hands gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.
"SHIT!"
UNKNOWN
In a pitch-black void, seemingly infinite in size, there floated a soul-like dude with the head of Long Tian—the same guy who just went through one of the most embarrassing deaths in human history.
"W-where am I?" he muttered, eyes filled with pure panic as he looked around, trying to figure out where the fuck he was. However, just as he was about to run somewhere—only God knows where—he heard something.
"Sup, mortal."
A deep, resounding voice echoed, making him shiver and jolt around in surprise.
"HOLY SHIT, WHO THE FUC—" Before he could finish, he felt a tightness around his mouth that forcibly shut it closed.
"Ayo, chill out. We keepin' raw but kid-friendly in this space."
As he finally took a good look at the speaker, he saw... a literal blue screen floating in front of him.
'Holy shit, what the hell is this screen? How can it talk?' he thought, still struggling to process his recent death, completely forgetting that back on Earth, he'd read thousands of stories about systems like this.
"Sigh, how sad. You read about my kind in those trashy webnovels, but when you're in front of one—no, in front of the literal godfather of Systems—that's your reaction? Ah, that kinda hurts me..." The blue screen faked a tear-jerking scene inside its floating box, weirding him out even more.
'Shit, what? A system? Is this even real? But wait, if I'm using Earth's logic, shouldn't I be erased or something?' He debated with himself, making a statement and countering it in his own brain.
"True, you don't have to use Earth logic here. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you might get out of this place with a very good thing." The floating screen replied. Long Tian ignored the content for a moment as his heartbeat raced like a bullet train. The screen reading his thoughts again confirmed this wasn't a dream or a gimmick. It was real.
"W-w-wait, so you are... the godfather of systems?" he stuttered like a kid meeting his idol.
"Yeah. I'm the creator, the godfather, the god of every little system you've ever read about."
"Cool, no?"
'Damn, that's kinda scary—meeting some system god right after dying. But also kinda cool that I might get a system if I beg hard enough.' His thoughts were a rollercoaster, full of arguments nobody asked for.
"And no, you don't have to grovel or beg while kowtowing a thousand times. I'm a generous old system that's just here to grant you one and send you to your choice of world."
The godfather of systems replied. Long Tian was still creeped out by how it kept reading his thoughts, but he slowly accepted that there was nothing he could do other than get a system and get the absolute fuck out.
"But why are you doing this? I don't believe you're THAT generous to hand out systems like they're some kind of candies." Long Tian questioned, the 1% of his brain that had been thrown out earlier crawling back in.
"Ho ho, you do have some brain."
Long Tian was on the verge of throwing hands because of the insult, but he kept his composure. He was "wise" enough to look at the long-term gain rather than the short-term pleasure of lashing out.
"But to answer your question—no, there's no special reason I'm doing this. Just think of it as an old soul having fun playing around with the powers he's got." The system replied, the blue screen flashing the eye of an old man with a bored look.
'It looks like there's more to it, but again, I don't want him to change his mind. Let's just get over this quickly.'
"So, choose your pick... which system do you want? Or do I choose for you? I've basically got your whole life's logs, so I'm quite capable of guessing your interests in such matters."
"Nahh, I don't wanna play around with my interests since they change every few days, but I WAN—"