"Ah~"

When Wen Fei came to, a lewd and pained groan came out of his mouth instinctively.

The masseur whose elbow was digging into dip of his client's shoulder blade blushed a little. While it's not uncommon to make noises when getting massaged, the handsome man's voice just now was really… wretched. "I'm sorry sir, was it too hard? Do you need me to softer?"

Wen Fei was immediately embarrassed, lifting his head up from the hole in the massage table he shook his head quickly, "No, no, it's really good. I'm sorry. Keep going."

"Okay." Both men put their heads down with heated cheeks for different reasons. Wen Fei enduring his shame, closes his eyes and silently calls out for his new system.

'Hello~ Hello~' A sweet youthful male voice chirps out, 'I am Side CP system TangTang~ Thank you for picking TangTang and TangTang hopes we will have a very sweet partnership~'

Hearing the coquettish and greasy tone, Wen Fei's mouth twitches. To be honest, in terms of personality, he still prefers his previous Counterattack System 9381 who was subdued and didn't talk much, but occasionally came out thoughtfully.

However the more specific and specialised jobs had less systems and thus limited availability and choice. Even if Wen Fei was an experienced veteran host with a lot of points under his belt, he could still only pick the systems currently available to be picked. Fortunately System 9381 was very professional and considered many of his requirements, in the end giving his recommendation to the current system.

Wen Fei trusted his system's judgement a lot, and despite his initial feeling of rejection of having this unfamiliar voice in his mind, he forcibly relaxed his mood to converse with TangTang. 'Hello, I am Wen Fei. I also hope we will both have a good time.'

'Of course~ Of course~ ♡(.◜ω◝.)♡ ' The system's voice was full of bright energy, it was a little infectious and Wen Fei's mood felt lighter as a result. '9381 is an old classmate of mine, TangTang admires him very much ah~ Therefore TangTang will do my best to live up to his expectations~!'

Wen Fei hums before quickly biting his lip and groaning softly as the masseuse once again began to work on a particularly tight spot in his lower back. Tsk, it seems the original body was very stiff and tense, it was really uncomfortable… but the painful and relieving feeling of the massage was really good, bringing a different sort of pleasure.

In order to ignore the mix of sensations, Wen Fei urges his new system to start work. 'Please bring up the identity and task.'

'Okay~♡'

Wen Fei feels a familiar rush of information running through his brain, it was not as painful or nauseating as before, and was more like a gentle stream of water running down his head. The memories of the original body also was stimulated gently like the nerves and muscles of a body that had just rolled out of bed being refreshingly awakened by a warm shower. Was this the difference in systems?

It was pretty good ah.

The original body is also called Wen Fei. To be honest he wasn't originally Wen Fei but because it was a pain, Wen Fei paid a lot of points in order to arrange to keep his name in every new world as much as possible. It was quite a popular purchase for rich hosts, however there were just as many who didn't mind completely embracing a whole new identity and name. Wen Fei thought it was quite admirable but it really wasn't for him.

Anyway, this Wen Fei was a character in a popular web novel called 'After Transmigration, the Cannonfodder Accidentally Counterattacks!' It was a fairly cliche story in the modern romance genre where the protagonist Wen Li transmigrates into a story, however unlike most transmigration stories she is completely unaware of the plot and unknowingly derails it just by living her life on her own terms. This sort of trope is getting more common but it was still very refreshing to read nonetheless.

The body Wen Li enters shares the same name as her, and lives poorly with unkind parents who prefer her bully of a younger brother over herself. In order to live her second life well, Wen Li chooses to use the cooking skills she had mastered in her previous life as a great 4 star chef to secretly make money. In order to do so, she beats her spoiled brother with her fierce temperament, completely different to the original's soft bun* personality, and makes him promise to help her hide her cooking from their parents.

*easy to bully

Scared of the hard fist and addicted to his sister's newfound cooking, the cheap brother quickly bends and stretches to accommodate her with only a few hesitations that is quickly beaten back after a few more hard lessons. Once the kitchen was taken over, Wen Li began to make school lunches for her brother, using him as a signboard to sell her meals, after all she was also a student and was greatly restricted in her options.

Wen Li's lunch plan was a success and soon many richer students were all vying for the limited edition lunch boxes by her. By chance the male lead's younger brother managed to reserve a lunch box, bringing it home and attracting the picky eater male lead's attention.

During this time, Wen Li fights with her cheap parents, face slaps some bullies, and just as she triumphs her mid-term exam her real biological wealthy parents come to the door to pick her up.

Yes, this was a Real vs Fake* daughter story.

*A trope where a rich family and a poor family's child is swapped at birth and it's found out x years later where the children will generally both live together in the rich family and fight. Even if the protagonist is real or fake, the parents will always be more biased to the other child, suppressing the protagonist until they counterattack usually via rebirth/transmigration

The rest of the story was pretty easy to understand. Wen Li enters the rich Wen Family, has to fight her new green tea 'sister', has to fight the bias of the Wen parents and the condescending family members, has to fight her new schoolmates who adore her 'sister', has to fight the fiancé who loves her 'sister' and so on and so on. At this point the male lead is also slowly entering the picture, becoming more interested in Wen Li's independent and fiery personality, and admiring the way she can stand so firm despite everyone pushing her down, while being distressed at the same time.

With the male lead's help, Wen Li slowly beats back everyone and conquers the rest with her cooking, making the Wen family regret, completely tearing the face off her 'sister', and reaching the peak of the culinary arts while holding the rich beauty of the male lead. It was simply a book that almost completely satisfied the hunger of everyone who was looking for this taste.

However the problem with a lot of romance books was that having a two-person world in them was less a strength and more a weakness. Maybe in the past it was okay, but now with more modern ideas many young people can't help but complain and want to see more character interaction, as well as have the main pair to have some support that wasn't just each other, which is objectively quite an unhealthy and codependent relationship.

To add to this, a majority of readers will also latch onto a certain character or three that was neither the protagonist or the male lead, wailing loudly in the comments for the characters to get more screen time, to get more love, and to have CP. For those readers, the end of the main CPs story may not be as painful as the fact that their favourite character barely got a proper ending or wasn't even seen in the final ten chapters.

That was where the Side CP System came in.

Under the Design Sector of systems in the System World, the Side CP Systems were unique in that they were not necessary to a world's stability but were still very much welcomed and loved. They were like the free tiny complimentary cookie that came with a perfectly delicious hot chocolate. Not necessarily important but it's presence definitely improved the experience greatly, turning something from good to great.

As a Side CP System Host, all one really needed to do was pick one of the characters that was not the main character or the main love interest, and form a side CP that develops as the plot does. As long as the main story is maintained or improved, and the target they chose is happy together with them, then it's considered a success. And for extra rewards one can also go along and fulfil the original body's final wishes, though it was not compulsory.

Because of the numerous benefits, the relatively easy tasks and fairly large amounts of freedom, such a system was of course something many hosts were vying to switch to once aware of this option. Of course such a good system, how can it be so easy to grab?

You need to have been a good host for a certain amount of time, completed a good number of worlds, and accumulated an even greater number of points and good reviews to be able to swap systems of a similar level much less be given options of high level or exclusive systems.

The exception to this is if the host's system specifically feels the host is suited for something and gives their personal recommendation, and even then one still needed to fulfil a certain number of the requirements to be considered worthy enough to apply. In some ways many people considered their second or third systems as their 'retirement system' with the Side CP System considered one of the golden retirement packages they could grab.

And with his counterattack system's kindness, Wen Fei grabbed it.

"Oh.. uhnm…" Suddenly Wen Fei hisses and groans as a painful pressure is aimed at his buttocks. Gritting his teeth he nearly begs for the masseur to go lighter. There was no way, this body was not used to being abused and clearly had a problem sitting too long resulting in stiffness everywhere. "Gentler… please… it, ah, my butt… it, nghn, hurts…"

Masseur: …Is it okay to be this sexy??? This is a normal spa treatment okay??

TangTang, listening in: TangTang was a bit worried since 9381 said the host was a bit clumsy in the romance line but now I'm sure he definitely has potential! As expected of 9381! (｡•̀ᴗ-)b✧

Feeling the pain ease and become more bearable, Wen Fei gritted his teeth and continues reviewing the original owner's memories.

Thirty-seven years old and the younger brother of Wen Li's father. That is to say, his identity in this world was the protagonist's uncle.

And as the little uncle of the biased and annoying Wen family of course he had many flaws. If one could summarise the original body's personality it would be; gossipy, greedy, mean and blindly doting on his son.

Wen Fei's mouth twitches. Yes, if his memory is correct he actually has a big fifteen year old son, Wen Muchen a year younger than the heroine. Also a cannonfodder in the story.

Fortunately Wen Muchen wasn't a completely detestable, obnoxious and arrogant cannonfodder character, that role belongs to the eldest uncle's son. Otherwise forget frying side CP, Wen Fei would have to embark on a child raising journey instead!

However while he wasn't the big bully, Wen Muchen was the cowardly and calculative lackey type, which was still quite an abhorrent role to play but salvageable enough. At the very least, the child had a brain even if he didn't have much courage. The best trait his son has in Wen Fei's opinion is he's just as close to his father as his father loves him, meaning there is at least no strong rebellious streak and it shouldn't be too difficult to straighten him out.

Both father and son were of course just one of the many stumbling blocks for the female protagonist when she entered the Wen family. They often showed their faces in the plot but usually standing behind others, such as the cheap Wen parents, the most ambitious and wolf-hearted eldest uncle and his son, the old patriarch of the Wen family, rich cannonfodder family A, rich cannonfodder family B, rich cannonfodder family C, D, E…

Wen Fei: To be honest, the original body really gets around a lot.

But in a way that was to be expected. After all, he didn't bring up the trait of being gossipy for nothing. The original body was worse then the neighbourhood aunt in terms of gathering and spreading information. From who slept with who in the upper circles, to what is up and coming, to which bigshot is unexpectedly going to possibly arrive at what event, the original body knows it all.

Many people dislike his nature but they couldn't deny their own love for gossip, not to mention the original body was slick with words, good at flattering and had a very handsome appearance befitting a blood-related family member of the protagonist. Therefore he became a man who had a larger social network than even the male lead. Unfortunately, the original body only used his ability to be malicious and didn't have the foresight to do big things, only chasing short-term rewards and finding pleasure in stirring the pot.

In short, he was quite a nasty man, but he was not a man who has directly done anything harmful. But because of his unique hobby, he was often faceslapped by the protagonist and male lead, with many of his rumours being overturned, or causing cannonfodder to underestimate the situation, and making him lose face again and again. In the end, with his reputation was ground up, his social network shattered, and the Wen family having long lost their original power and wealth because of various pressures from the protagonist, the original body decisively apologised to the protagonist, picked up his son and directly fled abroad.

His current body was not too important to the plot but was a little popular with fans. Simply because the original body was quite witty, could bend and stretch when needed, and was not as openly antagonistic to the main characters as the other family members. In fact there were even a few scenes of him inadvertently helping the protagonist Wen Li due to the fact his poisonous mouth was prone to friendly fire.

In the latter half of the story there was also a scene where Wen Li had also gave Wen Muchen a dessert she had made, bypassing the white lotus fake daughter and bully eldest cousins. And while it was definitely a passive aggressive show, the doting father Wen Fei in return was a little kinder to her and directly helped refute some big rumours that popped up during the last big conflict, showcasing that he at least could return kindness with kindness. Therefore his ending made a few fans a bit disgruntled, feeling this uncle was getting a redemption plot but it was thrown out hastily, a loose end that never got the resolution people wanted after all that build up.

So on top of making CP, Wen Fei's optional mission tasks was this:

[Satisfy the reader: Be more prominent in the story, showcase a redemption from heartless gossip to a kind uncle!]

[Wen Fei's request: Let Wen Muchen live a happier life, don't let him blindly follow people like a lackey anymore!]

Wen Fei glances at this optional missions and sighs emotionally in his heart. As expected of the system that is considered a gold-level retirement system, it's really quite kind. 'Okay, okay, these should be doable. What about the target, who am I frying CP with?'

'Because there are many characters that stood out to readers, and they all have their own personalities, TangTang will provide you the most popular options. You as the host can then consider it according to your tastes, preferences, the readers preferences, and compatibility with your current character~'

Tsk, it's really humane.

Satisfied, Wen Fei nods in understanding, 'Got it, please send me the list.'

'Okay~'

[Li Shirong, nineteen, loyal friend of the male lead. Likes to chase female idols, an open-minded rich second generation who has a very energetic personality. Originally was there to make the male lead feel more relatable and softer by providing lightheartedness to the scenes but was quickly ghosted when the romance began to kick in midway through the story.]

[Cao Shoushan, thirty-nine, a fierce and strict chef that is planning on leaving his current job to open his own restaurant and will eventually hire the protagonist to help. He likes raising chickens and eating chickens, and with the protagonist's aid his restaurant quickly boomed and also let the protagonist finally take her first official step into the gourmet world. Though considered one of Wen Li's first mentors he faded out of existence once she left for better things and was never mentioned again.]

[Ye Lan, twenty-nine, both a famous beauty blogger, secretly the heir to a big pharmaceutical company and one of the people who brought Wen Li's cooking skills to attention online as well as help in various things, a competent older sister character for the protagonist. Likes makeup, cooking, and fashion. Was fairly present throughout the story but again was neglected in the end and was not even mentioned during the main characters' wedding scene.]

[Su You, twenty-three, young genius teacher of the prestigious rich high school Wen Li transfers to. Arrogant and strict, if it wasn't for his handsome looks and impressive intellect he would probably be cursed at more often. It's unknown why he teaches but he seems to like it and is praised by readers for his objective and fair judgement. Likes making cocktails, cup ramen and reading interesting research articles.]

[Qi Bingwen, thirty, the male lead's business partner in his start up company. Often mentioned in comedic scenes where the male lead will throw his work to him unreasonably but also triple his salary at the same time. Likes to not work overtime, coffee, good suits and egg sandwiches.]

Wen Fei: There seems to be something wrong here.

Forget mouth twitching, the corners of his lips couldn't help but spasm uncontrollably and it was difficult to keep his composure.

'Why… why does it sound like most of the options are men?' Σ(°△°|||)