Early the next morning, as the sun crested the horizon…
When Mimi opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the huge Digi-Egg sitting quietly behind her door.
"So it wasn't a dream after all."
Rubbing her sleepy eyes, Mimi reluctantly crawled out of her small bed.
As a child who would officially start elementary school next year, Mimi was like every other kid her age—she hated getting up early.
Especially during summer vacation, her favorite activity was sleeping until the sun was high overhead, then waking up to enjoy the breakfast her mom had made.
Today was different, though. Determined to prove she hadn't lied, the typically spoiled Mimi had uncharacteristically woken up early.
But before she could prove her honesty, Mimi decided to visit the living room first, while also announcing that today she had decided to have fried eggs for breakfast.
"Mommy! I'm hungry!"
Dragging her bunny-shaped plush doll, Mimi ignored the Digi-Egg behind the door and pushed her bedroom door open.
"Mommy, today I want fried eggs! And make it two eggs!"
"Oh? Our little princess is up so early today? Are you plotting something again?"
Unlike his pitiful state the previous evening, Mr. Tachikawa had clearly managed to calm his wife down. His voice was now filled with undisguised smugness.
"Mommy! Daddy's bullying me again."
Blinking innocently, Mimi clutched her bunny plush and glanced accusingly at her father, who was teasingly winking at her, then immediately tattled to her mother, who was busy in the kitchen.
"Mimi, you know I can hear you from here, right?"
In stark contrast to her strictness last night, Mrs. Tachikawa responded from the kitchen in a gently teasing tone.
"Don't think you can drive a wedge between me and Daddy. We have true love, you know!"
This was Mrs. Tachikawa's normal state—a gentle woman who dearly loved her family.
In fact, aside from when Mr. Tachikawa secretly drank behind her back, Mrs. Tachikawa spent most of her time openly showing affection for her husband.
Mimi had long since grown accustomed to this, but she was still annoyed by her father's playful teasing.
"Hmph! I hate the Tachikawas! I'm never speaking to either of you again!"
Puffing up her cheeks in anger, Mimi momentarily forgot about the Digi-Egg in her room, casting an exaggeratedly fierce glare at Mr. Tachikawa, who was still making silly faces.
"All right, all right. Daddy was wrong."
Smiling, Mr. Tachikawa walked leisurely toward the angry Mimi, scooping her up in his arms.
"Our Mimi is the most beautiful princess in the whole wide world. If you stay angry, you might turn ugly, you know!"
"I'm not a little kid anymore—I won't fall for your tricks!"
Even as she said this, Mimi nervously tightened her grip on her bunny plush, as though truly afraid that getting angry might make her ugly.
Squeak…
Less than a minute after Mimi had left the room, the previously motionless Digi-Egg gently shook.
In the next instant, cracks visibly spread across the surface of the egg, quickly covering the entire shell.
Crack…
Then, just like any newborn creature, a fluffy, furry little thing suddenly burst through the cracking shell and rolled onto the floor.
It was a soft, snow-white fluffball with a body as squishy as mochi.
In fact, rather than an actual living creature, the newborn looked more like a stuffed animal—a white plush toy that consisted entirely of a head and a pair of long ears.
"Yaa! Yaa!"
Clearly unable to adapt to his new body, the white puffball that had just rolled out of the egg immediately fell backward again.
At that moment, the colorful eggshell fragments shattered completely, dissolving into data and scattering into the air, sending the little newborn rolling helplessly backwards.
"Yaa! Yaa!"
After tumbling around awkwardly several more times, Chen Ze—reborn at last—finally managed to stabilize his small body.
It was only at this moment, as Chen Ze regained full consciousness, that he suddenly realized something critically alarming—had he actually lost the ability to speak?
Or rather, as a freshly-hatched, In-Training-level Digimon, Chen Ze hadn't yet evolved any organs that could produce speech.
Forget vocal cords or a throat—even his basic survival capabilities were nonexistent.
This had completely exceeded his expectations.
After all, Chen Ze never would've imagined that powerful Digimon like Agumon or Renamon would have absolutely zero motor skills upon hatching!
In the end, this was simply Chen Ze making careless assumptions.
He'd imagined egg-born creatures—like crocodiles or dinosaurs—that hatched with nearly mature mobility, completely forgetting that Digimon couldn't be perfectly equated to real-world creatures.
Moreover, in the anime and manga of his previous life, depictions of baby Digimon as fragile and helpless were quite rare, causing Chen Ze to overlook this critical detail.
"Yaa! Yaa!"
Realizing this, Chen Ze anxiously wriggled his body, panic clearly written all over his fluffy little face.
After all, to avoid the digital explosion last night, Chen Ze hadn't had the luxury of choosing a safe "birth" environment; he had just jumped out of cyberspace through the nearest available data cable.
Theoretically, each cable connected to a computer, and each computer naturally had a user.
Right now, Chen Ze could only desperately hope that the port through which he'd emerged wasn't in some dangerous place. Otherwise, he would've literally jumped from the frying pan straight into the fire.
"Yaa! Yaa!"
After carefully glancing around his surroundings, Chen Ze finally let out a relieved sigh—this didn't look like some ominous laboratory at all, but an ordinary-looking room.
From the decorations, it appeared to belong to an innocent and imaginative young girl—stuffed animals and Barbie dolls covered nearly every corner.
Other than that, Chen Ze didn't notice anything that resembled a "computer" in the room, nor had he seen any sign of the room's actual occupant.
How did I get into this room?
Has the owner of this room already discovered me?
And if that little girl has discovered me, where did she go?
Countless questions flashed through his mind, but Chen Ze knew that these questions would inevitably be answered sooner or later. Right now, his top priority was to confirm if this "rebirth" had truly succeeded.
"Yaa! Yaa!"
With great difficulty, Chen Ze "rolled" his way to the mirror in the room, finally getting a good look at his new appearance—
A small, round, snow-white ball of fluff.