Tangyuan

Ke Meng narrowed his eyes and turned his head, seeing sunlight stream through the window and fill the room with brightness.

"Woof!"

He heard Big Fur Ball expressing a desire to eat tangyuan.

Although Ke Meng did not understand dog language, this pet was different. It shared a close bond with him, so he could roughly understand what the dog wanted to say.

"If you want tangyuan that badly, why don't I just call you Tangyuan?" Ke Meng got up and gave the dog a tap on the head.

His hand met incredibly soft fur. Before he could even reach the dog beneath it, his hand was engulfed in fluff.

"Woof!" The dog voiced its approval.

And just like that, the dog's new name was decided: Tangyuan.

To celebrate the dog receiving a new name, Ke Meng messaged Chen Momo and asked her to bring up four bags of tangyuan. They would have tangyuan for breakfast today.

Ke Meng transferred the money to her, and Chen Momo replied.

"Momo": "I want some too!"

"Sure," Ke Meng agreed.

He put down his phone, moved Big-Faced Cat into the spare bedroom, fed the cat a small dried fish, then shut and locked the door to keep Chen Momo from accidentally wandering in and seeing Strange Cat.

Tangyuan did not need to hide. To outsiders, the dog looked like a giant plush toy and could pass for a decoration.

Tangyuan excitedly squeezed out of the bedroom. Upon hearing that the master would cook tangyuan in the kitchen, the dog went to wait beside the dining area in the living room.

When Tangyuan rolled over to the dining table, a rhythmic knocking sounded at the front door.

"Coming, coming."

Ke Meng opened the door to find Chen Momo standing outside in a blue face mask. Her hair was tied in two ponytails, and she wore a pale yellow short skirt that showed off her pretty legs.

"Come in. No need to change your shoes."

Chen Momo nodded, carrying four bags of tangyuan: two sesame-flavored and two peanut-flavored.

"Which flavor do you like?" Ke Meng put three bags of tangyuan into the fridge, then stood in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil.

"Either is fine." The moment Chen Momo entered, she spotted the round ball of fluff. It was so big that it was hard not to notice.

"Wow, this thing is huge! Can I touch it?" Chen Momo walked over to Big Fur Ball, her gaze completely drawn to the fluffy ball.

"Sure," Ke Meng called from the kitchen.

Chen Momo immediately pressed her hand into the fluffy ball. Her tiny palm seemed to be sucked into the fur, which was wonderfully soft.

She was 155 centimeters tall, only thirty-five centimeters taller than Tangyuan. Seeing the plush ball up close, she truly appreciated just how enormous it was.

"Can I sit on it?" Chen Momo tried to climb on, but it was too high and far too awkward. She could only abandon the idea of sitting on Tangyuan and give the dog a hug instead.

"Give it a try if you can reach."

After hugging the dog, Chen Momo changed positions and leaned against Tangyuan to play on her phone. Softness enveloped her back, and a look of comfort appeared on her little face.

For a while, a peaceful atmosphere settled over the living room, broken only by the music from short videos playing on her phone.

Yet the faint shadow behind Chen Momo quietly stirred, as though stretching.

She was completely unaware of the unusual movement in her shadow. Her eyes remained fixed on the screen as she happily scrolled through videos.

Tangyuan, who she was leaning against, did notice the shadow's unusual movement.

The dog's eyes were buried beneath the fur and could not see outside.

But Tangyuan had other means of perception. Every strand of fur could sense changes in the surrounding light, shadows, scents, and more.

Tangyuan noticed a subtle change in the distribution of light and shadow outside, which in turn changed the dark shadow cast across the dog's body. It looked like someone stretching.

But the change lasted only a few seconds before the shadow went still again, as if nothing had happened.

Tangyuan was puzzled but did not bark. After all, the dog was posing as a plush toy and could not make a sound in front of outsiders.

Before long, Ke Meng set two bowls of white tangyuan on the dining table.

"The tangyuan are ready."

Chen Momo sat down and removed her mask, revealing her fair, round face.

She cupped the bowl in both hands, feeling its heat against her palms. It was very hot, so she did not start eating right away.

Standing nearby as a decoration, Tangyuan saw the food and began drooling, but with an outsider present, the dog still could not move.

Ke Meng did not urge Chen Momo to hurry up and eat. He took out his phone and logged into Bilibili, only to discover that his Strange Cat review had already reached 760,000 views.

A video featured in the official recommendations really was different. Its views had rocketed upward in just two days, leaving Ke Meng very satisfied.

His Mighty Gloves test video had benefited as well, rising to 150,000 views.

He silently summoned the system with his mind. In the quest list, the target of 100,000 views had been reached.

Ke Meng mentally claimed the reward for the hard-difficulty quest.

"Skill acquired: Shadow-Grasping Hand"

"Shadow-Grasping Hand: Your hands can grasp shadows. You can also reattach a shadow to its original owner or attach it to someone else."

The Shadow-Grasping Hand had a rather unusual function. It could actually grasp shadows and even attach them to other people.

Ke Meng pondered this. The skill might be intended for pranks, specifically for messing with others.

But he had no idea what would happen if he took someone's shadow away. It would not be right to use another person as a test subject.

Should I use my own shadow as a test subject instead?

For the moment, Ke Meng could not make up his mind, mainly because he did not know whether losing a shadow would put a person's life in danger.

His system had no intelligent question-and-answer function, so he could not obtain any further information.

It would have been nice if Strange Knowledge Cat could give him some strange knowledge about "what happens to humans without shadows" right now.

But that was only wishful thinking. There was no telling with things like that.

"By the way, something strange happened last night when I was looking at your Bilibili feed." As Chen Momo ate her tangyuan, she glanced at the big fluffy plush ball beside her and remembered last night's eerie incident.

"What happened?" Ke Meng asked absentmindedly, his head full of thoughts about whom to experiment on.

Suddenly, inspiration struck, and Ke Meng thought of a brilliant solution. He could experiment on the shadows of small animals-or even the shadows of stationary objects.

"Brother A-Meng!"

Chen Momo's sharp cry snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Oh, right. Where were we? What happened last night?" Ke Meng came back to his senses and saw that Chen Momo looked very displeased.

"Last night, I was sitting in a chair messaging you, asking where you bought it and whether you could give me one. Then I heard my mom say no, because there wasn't room for it at home."

"But my mom wasn't behind me. She'd fainted in the bathroom. Do you know how much that scared me?" Chen Momo grumbled unhappily.

Ke Meng chewed the tangyuan in his mouth and said hesitantly, "Why do I feel like you're making up a ghost story?"

"It really happened. I promise there was nothing wrong with my ears. There weren't any customers in the shop, and I heard her clearly." Chen Momo frowned, swallowed a tangyuan, and continued, "After we got home, I asked my mom outright whether she'd peeked at me using my phone. Do you know what she said?"

"What did she say?" Ke Meng asked.

Thanks to "The Night Is Long, DreamsDian" on Qidian for the tip of 10,000 coins! I forgot to thank you yesterday.

Also, the dog's name is settled. Tangyuan it is.