Leo quietly hide the fox costume series under the couch, and another notification from the system popped up right in front of him.
This notification was already the one he had been waiting for.
This time, the newbie package of the system suddenly appeared on the coffee table in the living room.
After staring for a while at the Chinese New Year-themed gift box sitting on the table, Leo decided he would open it later.
Since the new gift box had a Chinese New Year theme, then maybe doing a few good luck rituals like the Chinese people, before opening it, could improve whatever was inside. After all, how the system worked was still a huge mystery.
Ignoring the fact that it was still dark outside, Leo went to his room and took a hot shower.
After doing a little bit of research online, Leo decided to pick a few of the Chinese people's most common good luck rituals. Since he learned that the Chinese considered the number 8 lucky, he specifically chose 8 different rituals.
First, he found an envelope in his father's study, colored it red with a pen, then opened a can of fish and put the fish can inside the red envelope. After that, he placed the red envelope with the canned fish on the table and called the cat.
This way, he completed two rituals at the same time: fish on the food table and giving a red envelope as a gift.
The third ritual required Leo to wear red clothes, but after digging around the whole house, the only red clothes he could find were his mother's evening dresses.
As Leo hesitated about whether he should wear his mother's clothes, he remembered the fox costume he had hidden under the couch.
If you removed the red fox tail on top of the costume, which was worn in a very naughty way, the whole set actually looked like a soft fur red nightgown.
Convincing himself over and over that it was really just a nightgown, Leo slowly broke down his own resistance and finally put on the red costume set. After all, at this hour no one would be home, and no guests would come, so nobody would ever see him wearing something this embarrassing.
When it came time for the fourth ritual, Leo couldn't find 8 incense sticks, so he grabbed 8 candles and lined them up around the gift box on the table. After lighting each candle, he checked the internet again to see what was still missing.
This time, what he did counted as both including the number eight and burning incense, so he had completed a total of six rituals.
To complete the second-to-last ritual, Leo used a vpn to enter Chinese video platforms and rearranged the qi flow of his room according to the advice of an old man who called himself a feng shui master. According to the old man, placing his furniture this way makes the luck inside the house increase.
After Leo finished all the preparations, he finally checked a video and started doing the eight circling motions around the coffee table, performing the dance known as the lion and dragon dance.
The white kitten was scared by his movements, but since there was a can of fish right in front of it, it showed no sign of running away.
The moment Leo finished the eighth lap, he opened the gift box without the slightest hesitation.
[Congratulations, host, you have a new skill: The Eyes of Fear]
[The Eyes of Fear (level max): If you kill everyone who comes to make trouble in your shop, you might experience large-scale, long-term customer loss. Thinking about this, your system decided to give you this ability; now, by looking into someone, you can show them the most terrifying scenarios of their entire life. Warning! The effect level of your ability may change depending on your opponent's mental strength and the mental strength difference between you and them]
When Leo tried to shout "YES!" he realized his voice cracked from excitement.
After jumping around and using up all his energy, he finally went to sleep.
...
As the first rays of sunlight reached the world, something really strange was happening inside Leo's house.
A cute white kitten was sleeping peacefully on one of the couches in the main living room, while Leo moved toward it like a tiger emerging from the darkness.
Leo was holding a laundry basket in his hands. Clearly, his goal was to ambush the kitten while it was still asleep.
At that moment, the scene slowly pulled away from Leo.
The camera slipped out through the window of Leo's living room and quickly moved farther and farther away from his house until Leo's home became just a tiny piece of the whole view.
"Hoh! Finally, something interesting is happening."
A man in a black suit pulled his eyes away from the binoculars and spoke in English as he handed the binoculars to his teammate.
"What's going on?"
The man in the suit B took the binoculars with a surprised expression and questioned his friend.
When he looked through the binoculars, Leo suddenly jumped, but the noble member of the kitty race, famous for its reflexes, woke up instantly and escaped.
But Leo had already predicted this, so without losing any speed, he attacked the kitten again.
Since the kitten was still midair, even if it reacted, it had no way to actually escape.
Leo reached out with the basket, caught the kitten inside, flipped the basket, and trapped it quickly.
The kitten attacked the basket with all its strength, but nothing worked.
After placing a heavy stack of books on top of the basket, Leo left the scene.
The man in the suit B, activated the infrared mode of his high-tech binoculars and continued watching Leo.
Leo went to his room, took out a leather glove from between his winter clothes, put it on, then grabbed a nail clipper from the drawers before leaving the room.
During the following process, Leo used his large build to contain the kitten and forcibly clipped its nails.
The suited man B watched this scene with his mouth wide open in shock.
"What a perfect example of Secure-Contain-Protect. If this were back in our academy days, with that talent, he could've at least gotten a B class rate."
The suited man A, watching the scene through another pair of binoculars, agreed with his teammate and specifically praised Leo's midair cat catch.
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Auther note's:
Could you guys give me some Powerstones and five-star reviews to motivate me? You can change the early reviews as the story progresses.
Should I also share chapters on Patreon? Maybe even early access chapters.
The MC doesn't normally have a calculating mindset and lives a relaxed lifestyle, just like any healthy person. As he starts to come under pressure, he will show a more careful and attentive personality.
I had already mentioned before that Leo has a lazy personality. If, after establishing that, he did everything seriously and carefully, it would go against the character design I created. And I don't think many people would laugh while reading novels where the main character is serious and cautious from the very beginning.
My main priority is to maintain a relaxed-horror-comedy tone to avoid boring the reader. If there are still parts where you feel Leo's personality is too unserious, don't hesitate to point them out with paragraph comments.
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Don't forget to support with power stones. Every 100 power stones gets an extra chapter.