Chapter 1 : Accepting the SSS-Level Mission - Heartbeat Hide and Seek
1: Accepting the SSS-Level Mission: Heartbeat Hide and Seek
"Crazy crazy Thursday, double McNuggets for nine-nine~ Crazy crazy Thursday, double McNuggets for~ nine-nine~~~"
Next to Su University City, in the bustling Vanke Beautiful Plaza filled with flowing crowds, the brainwashing advertisement jingle that university students knew by heart echoed repeatedly.
Stirred by the music, a young couple who weren't even hungry began walking toward the white-bearded old man's shop as if on autopilot. Hand in hand, while queuing to order and listening to the advertisement, the girl playfully stood on her tiptoes and whispered in the boy's ear.
"Honey, didn't you say you wanted to stuff my belly on Thursday? Now's the chance. My favorite McNuggets are double portions for only 9.9. Hurry up and stuff me, I want two servings."
Feeling the soft warmth transmitted from the girl's arm as she spoke, the boy's face bloomed with happiness. Just as he was about to order two McNugget meals following the girl's wishes, he froze mid-order upon seeing a young male server.
The server was seventeen or eighteen years old, with slender sword-like eyebrows, star-bright eyes, an upturned nose bridge, and gentle facial contours that perfectly assembled his features. His skin had a somewhat sickly pallor that conveyed both weakness and delicacy.
At first glance, he stirred feelings of pity from the heart while simultaneously evoking a desire to bully him.
If not for his neat black short hair and overly flat chest being too conspicuous, those overly feminine features might have been mistaken for a girl's.
Looking at this handsome, delicate young man and recalling the recent folk legend of the "McNugget Hero" that had been circulating on Su University's forum, the boyfriend spoke under his girlfriend's surprised gaze.
"Two portions of crispy original chicken, two Cokes, and 'one' promotional McNugget combo, thank you!"
"Alright, sir, here's your receipt. Please wait a moment."
After paying and receiving the order receipt from the young man, as soon as the couple left the counter, the girl pouted her cherry lips with slight dissatisfaction.
"Honey, why did you only order one original chicken combo? I told you beforehand that one portion won't stuff me enough!"
Regarding the girl's odd complaint, the boyfriend didn't answer directly. Instead, he silently moved closer to the girl and whispered in her ear.
"If it were the usual double McNuggets, it might not be enough, but that young man just now should be the legendary McNugget Hero!"
"McNugget Hero?"
At her boyfriend's chuunibyou-like statement, the girl was slightly surprised.
How could eating at the white-bearded old man's place involve hearing such a chuunibyou title?
Just as the girl was puzzled, the handsome server had already placed the meal tray in front of them, politely saying.
"Sir, miss, here are your meals. Please enjoy!"
Looking at the food on the tray, 1-2-3-4-5-6~ this was a normal McNugget portion. But this promotional McNugget combo had a full 8+8 pieces!
Faced with these 16 golden, fragrant McNuggets, the girl finally understood the legend of the "McNugget Hero" through personal experience.
Watching the "McNugget Hero" about to return to work, the university student couple exchanged glances and said in unison softly: "Thank you, McNugget Hero!"
Then they dove into their delicious feast.
What the two didn't know was that with their words of gratitude, an electronic synthesized voice rang in the mind of the handsome young man who had returned to work.
[Ding, congratulations host for completing C-level challenge mission: Who says only those standing in the light can be heroes.]
[Mission description: Please increase McNugget portions from 6 to 8 pieces while selling KFC, and receive twenty instances of customer gratitude without any inducement.]
[Mission reward: 100 Challenge Coins]
Hearing the mission completion sound, the handsome KFC server's eyebrows curved slightly, and his lips revealed a faint smile.
The young man was named Su Mo, 19 years old, a sophomore male student with a "special" constitution studying broadcasting at Suzhou Media University.
What made Su Mo special?
From the electronic synthesized voice that had just sounded in his mind, it wasn't hard to see that he was a man with the legendary system. Besides that, Su Mo's body was also somewhat special—specifically weak.
Unlike other normally produced children, Su Mo was premature. Perhaps due to incomplete development from being born at seven months, he had contracted an extremely rare congenital heart rate deceleration from childhood.
This condition was similar to ALS, except the affected area wasn't the limbs but the heart.
As time passed, the heart's beating speed would gradually decrease.
Su Mo had accidentally bound with this challenge system five years ago when he was hospitalized in a coma due to his slow heartbeat condition.
Unlike the heaven-defying golden fingers in web novels where the protagonist becomes a "Dragon King" upon getting a system, receiving money, abilities, and wives before starting a pleasant life.
Su Mo's bound challenge system emphasized equivalent exchange.
As the host, Su Mo needed to complete challenge missions of different levels that made hearts race (D-C-B-A-S levels) to obtain "Challenge Coins," which could be exchanged for various system items in the system shop.
These items covered an extremely wide range and were diverse in type: clothes that added various attributes, potions that temporarily changed attributes, mysterious books, and even hypnotic abilities that could change people's common sense in indescribable ways.
Among all the item choices, Su Mo's attention had always focused on only one thing: the "Cardiac Stimulant" that could treat his condition.
Although Su Mo also yearned for money, wealth, social recognition and such, those were fundamentally granted by values and couldn't compare to health and life.
Of course, some people might disagree with Su Mo's thinking.
Su Mo felt this was easy to explain with a simple example: if you're heartbroken and feeling terrible, but during this time your tooth also hurts badly, you'll quickly be able to compare which pain is worse!
Looking at the 100 Challenge Coins that had just arrived in his account and weren't even warm yet, Su Mo didn't hesitate and skillfully clicked on the Cardiac Stimulant in the system shop and used it!
[Ding, congratulations host for using Cardiac Stimulant, increasing heartbeat by 0.1. Removing work clothing enhancement effects, host's current average heartbeat: 30.5 (normal human average heartbeat: 60-100)]
[Ding, friendly reminder: heartbeat below 60 is sinus bradycardia, easily causing chest tightness, dizziness, fatigue and other symptoms. Heartbeat below 30 is severe sinus bradycardia, prone to sudden death, nocturnal vagal nerve excitement and other sudden dangers.]
[Ding, host is currently at the critical threshold. Host has 'congenital heart failure,' with daily heartbeat decreasing by 0.005-0.007 by default. Please strengthen heart activity.]
Hearing the system's friendly reminder echoing in his mind, Su Mo's delicate eyebrows showed deep helplessness as dusk fell and he prepared for shift change.
To complete this C-level mission [Who Says Only Those Standing in the Light Can Be Heroes], he had paid quite a price recently.
Because KFC had strict audit mechanisms, to avoid being discovered while doing missions, Su Mo had to pay for all the "extra" McNuggets he gave out himself.
During this month-plus of part-time work, calculating carefully, Su Mo was truly "working for free," and often even losing money.
Looking at the heartbeat results, it could only be considered roughly maintaining balance.
Taking off KFC's yellow work uniform, without the system's work state attribute bonuses, waves of weakness and heart palpitations immediately descended upon Su Mo.
Feeling this weakness, Su Mo silently opened the system mission list he had reviewed countless times in his mind.
The challenge system had quite a few missions, nearly 1000 in total. The mission trigger mechanism relied on keywords heard in daily life.
The difficulty varied greatly and was diverse. For example, this one:
[Mission Name: Save Chinese Football]
[Mission Difficulty: S-level]
[Mission Description: In China, countless people hope that one day the Chinese team can qualify for the World Cup. They have waited for this for who knows how long. Please host lead Chinese football to the World Cup.]
[Mission Rewards: Reaching quarterfinals grants 3000 Challenge Coins, semifinals 6000, and so on.]
[Failure Penalty: Failing to reach quarterfinals reduces intelligence by 50%]
Looking at this S-level difficulty mission accidentally triggered three years ago while watching the World Cup with his father and brother, Su Mo decisively gave up.
After all, with his current weak body due to heart problems, not only could he not undergo high-intensity training, but expecting such a self to "lead" Chinese football to the quarterfinals was simply wishful thinking.
Skipping this mission, Su Mo began searching for others. Soon, a decent one appeared before his eyes.
[Mission Name: A Boy's True Wish]
[Mission Difficulty: B-level]
[Mission Description: As a boy, girls' panties always hold infinite beautiful fantasies. To generously follow your heart, please host find a beautiful girl within one day and complete the skirt-lifting challenge!]
[Mission Reward: 300 Challenge Coins, one random decorative item]
[Failure Penalty: Bad luck debuff for one week]
Faced with this evil mission, Su Mo, who had received nine years of compulsory education and had proper values, honestly felt a little tempted. But after thinking it over, he ultimately chose to refuse.
After all, he didn't have a girlfriend, and lifting girls' skirts was sexual harassment that could get him arrested by the police.
Illegal missions absolutely couldn't be done.
After passing on these two missions, Su Mo rejected many more inappropriate missions afterward.
Such as kicking a disabled person's good leg and running, telling ghost stories to a little loli in front of her mother, walking a tightrope on a 50-story building, cuckolding his roommate, stealing customers' takeout, and so on.
After refusing countless missions, Su Mo's attention finally stopped on one particular mission.
It was an SSS-level mission marked with a golden emblem that Su Mo had read countless times.
[Mission Name: Heartbeat Hide and Seek, Become a Beautiful Girl if Discovered~]
[Mission Difficulty: SSS-level]
[Mission Description: Lu Xun once said that the greatest and most universal art in the world is men dressing as women, and vice versa. Please host "Su Mo" engage in crossdressing as female-to-male for one month. Under the premise of not having "Su Mo's" identity discovered, complete 10 random missions that only girls can do. Each completed mission increases host feminization and mission difficulty. Success is achieved if not discovered by three or more people.]
[Mission Rewards: For each successful "crossdressing" mission challenge, host receives 100/200/300/500/800 Challenge Coins in increasing order]
[Failure Penalty: High rewards mean high risks. Since your female identity has been exposed, please host pay the price and become a true beautiful girl in every sense!]
Unlike regular missions that were only described in text, this SSS-level mission also thoughtfully displayed an image below. The image showed a pure, gentle, and completely unclothed delicate girl.
The girl had a delicate frame that made people instinctively want to protect her at first sight.
Her skin, smooth as blown glass, radiated warm jade-like white light. Three thousand strands of black hair fell unrestrainedly across her slender, pristine white back, creating a scene of black and white color interweaving.
Her pale small hands, though spread with five fingers and doing their best to shyly cover her sensitive areas with delicate wrists, made her tender white soft skin even more alluring due to the curves of her chest pressing together.
Most stunning was the girl's slightly blushed cheeks. It was a face full of pure and cute elements, with large peach blossom eyes full of spirit and curiosity, and cherry blossom-colored lips with a crystalline luster that made one want to taste them.
The two dimples beside her cherry lips maximized this beautiful girl's sweet fragrance, combined with her seemingly shy blushing fair face, making one feel a desire and impulse to mark her with one's own color just from looking.
Looking at this girl, regarding this high-reward SSS-level heartbeat mission accidentally triggered while reading Lu Xun's literature during the college entrance exam period.
In fact, Su Mo had studied it countless times, and the reason he had never chosen it had many factors.
First, as a male, although he would only be completing missions for Challenge Coins, the thought of experiencing being a girl still made Su Mo psychologically uncomfortable.
Setting aside male dignity issues, looking at this absolutely beautiful girl who seemed to carry some mysterious aura, having seen many poorly acted "crossdressing" scenes in period dramas, Su Mo, as a media major, could naturally see that the difficulty of "disguising as a male" was extraordinarily high.
High risk meant high probability of failure, and failure meant accepting the penalty of becoming a beautiful girl.
This failure risk was unacceptable to Su Mo.
After all, if he really failed, how would he explain to his parents, to the school, to his roommates... well, that last one might not need explaining.
In any case, it was terrifying just thinking about it.
However, although Su Mo had always been somewhat resistant to this failure penalty, recalling the system's recent reminder that his heart was about to enter the dangerous sub-30 range that threatened his life, and considering the system's other missions that were either impossible to succeed or would trouble others, going against his life principles.
After much consideration, Su Mo ultimately chose life over dignity in this difficult choice.
After all, dignity is precious, love is more valuable, but if it's for life, both can be abandoned.
Isn't it just pretending to be a man? He'd been a real man for 18 years—surely he could manage the act?
Accept!!!!
[Ding, congratulations host for accepting SSS-level mission: Heartbeat Hide and Seek, Become a Beautiful Girl if Discovered~]
Hearing the system's confirmation tone ring in his mind, Su Mo's heavy mood lightened somewhat. After all, there was no turning back once the arrow was shot—accepting the mission meant no chance of retreat!
Silently folding his work uniform and picking up the "empty McNugget box" he'd ordered before shift change to make up numbers, he walked out the back door of KFC.
Looking at the bright moonlight scattered by the full moon in the night sky, Su Mo, having finished and quit his KFC job, silently stretched and was about to check the first random mission issued by this heartbeat hide-and-seek challenge in his mind.
But at that moment, a sweet girl's voice carrying a faint orchid fragrance suddenly rang out from behind him.
"The legendary McNugget Hero, what a coincidence meeting you here!"