Dating Caster Author: Moyan
What was so great about Medea, you asked?
She was considerate, gentle, and occasionally a little feisty.
She drew me in at every moment.
Except...
Ahem. Every now and then...
I just couldn't keep up in bed.
Chapter 1: Xiaoming, Get Out!
Asahi Shimbun
The balding supervisor hurried in from outside and shouted at the staff in the office:
"Wang Xiaoming, get in here!"
The supervisor's roar silenced the busy office. The black-haired man sitting at his desk rose at an unhurried pace and walked into the supervisor's office.
"Slap!"
A freshly printed newspaper, still smelling of ink, was slammed down on the desk in front of Wang Xiaoming.
"You little punk! What the hell is this you've written?"
"Boss, let's talk it out. Don't get worked up," Wang Xiaoming advised kindly.
The supervisor was so furious he laughed. Pointing at the bold headline on the newspaper, he demanded, "Explain this headline you wrote today."
[It's been dry for 100 days—finally, some wet weather!]
The black-haired man glanced at his own headline and replied:
"Isn't it a weather report?"
"You know it's a weather report! Couldn't you come up with a normal headline?!"
The supervisor didn't know what to say after hearing his answer. It had been the same when he'd asked Wang Xiaoming to write the book recommendations column.
[Childhood sweetheart on one side, gorgeous young woman on the other—which way will the little monk's heart turn?]
[Back to the days of beastly contests in ancient Greece: a mass escape game for beautiful young men.]
[Birth parents turn out to be beasts; underage girl forced to sell herself at a bathhouse.]
The supervisor suddenly regretted giving in to his old friend's pleas and transferring this guy from the editorial department next door.
No wonder that guy had been grinning like an old chrysanthemum at the time.
This kid was a menace!
The angrier the supervisor got, the more he seethed. Suddenly, he pointed at the office door and roared:
"Wang Xiaoming, get out!"
"Man, he's scary."
Wang Xiaoming sighed as he left the supervisor's office and returned to his seat.
Wang Xiaoming was a miserable transmigrator who had nearly forgotten who he was. He'd been in Japan for twenty-three years already.
Compared with those transmigrator predecessors who became singers and built harems, became directors and built harems, or became writers and built harems...
Wang Xiaoming's job as a reporter, which barely kept him fed, seemed pretty pathetic.
He didn't know much about the other transmigrators. But for him, transmigration hadn't been a wonderful experience. The completely unfamiliar surroundings and language had forced him to rebuild his entire worldview from scratch.
Fortunately, his name in this life wasn't very different from the one he'd had in his previous life, giving him at least a faint connection to his past. But all his other memories from his previous life had become like flowers seen through a fog.
Now, Wang Xiaoming was nothing more than an ordinary man, working himself to the bone and trying to get by.
"What'd the boss call you in for just now?" His friend from the next desk leaned over, raising an eyebrow curiously.
"What else? He chewed me out, obviously." Wang Xiaoming slumped over his desk and sighed again.
"That's why I keep telling you to use normal headlines." As Wang Xiaoming's friend, he knew exactly why he'd been reprimanded. Just thinking about that headline made his teeth ache.
"How about grabbing a drink after work?" Seeing Wang Xiaoming down in the dumps, his friend did what any good friend would do and gave him a knowing, man-to-man grin.
"Sure."
Wang Xiaoming glanced at the clock. There was still a while before the end of the workday. He looked at the stack of manuscripts on his desk and couldn't help feeling a little dejected. He'd been alive this long, yet he'd really let down all those transmigrator predecessors.
All right. If he wanted to avoid overtime, he'd better get through the work in front of him first. With that thought, Wang Xiaoming reached for the stack of papers.
[Teitan High School sophomore claims Kanto karate championship.]
He wondered who could put up with a girl like that. After a moment's reflection, Wang Xiaoming put the article in the approved pile.
All right, next...
[High school detective shines, helps police solve another baffling case.]
What a show-off.
Looking at the photo of the young man attached to the report, Wang Xiaoming thought uncharitably that someone was bound to take that cocky kid down a peg sooner or later.
[Kudo Shinichi]
Tsk—here we go again?
After a moment of dazed distraction, Wang Xiaoming came back to himself and sighed. It seemed this famous detective was another "character from the story."
He'd lived in this world for twenty years, but memories from his previous life weren't so easy to forget. Whenever he ran into certain things, he would space out for a moment, and then one or two bits of information would pop into his head without warning.
At first, it had startled him a little. But after it happened often enough, Wang Xiaoming realized that these bits of information seemed to be memories from his previous life.
That was when Wang Xiaoming realized he'd transmigrated. He'd originally thought he'd been reborn. No wonder so many things hadn't lined up.
But knowing that didn't help. He'd already forgotten most of his memories from his previous life. He was just a small-time transmigrator, powerless against the inexorable march of the world.
Enough of that.
Wang Xiaoming patted his cheeks, pulled himself out of his tangled thoughts, and got back to work.
"I'm dead on my feet!"
At last, he finished his work. Wang Xiaoming stretched and sighed.
"Let's go. I just got paid."
His friend, who'd been ready to leave for a while, patted Wang Xiaoming on the shoulder. "Some new girls just showed up in Ginza."
"Sure, let's go."
Wang Xiaoming was exhausted after a long day and wanted to unwind. But before he could get up, he heard a cough behind him.
"Ahem! Wang Xiaoming, stay behind for a moment."
He turned around. The balding supervisor was glaring at them, a stack of papers in his hand.
You've got to be kidding me. Wang Xiaoming's face fell as soon as he saw the supervisor. More overtime?
"What, you want to stay with him too?"
The supervisor glared at his friend, who gave Wang Xiaoming a look that said good luck before slipping away.
Some friend!
The supervisor had thought it over all afternoon. For his own health, he absolutely couldn't keep Wang Xiaoming around!
"Want to go out and have fun? Finish this job, and I'll double your bonus!"
The supervisor handed him the papers and said,
[Perverted Killer: Serial Murder Case]
Chapter 2: The Optimistic Young Man, Ryunosuke
As he drove down the road, Wang Xiaoming felt like he'd been royally screwed.
That balding supervisor was definitely making things difficult for him. Out of nowhere, he'd sent him to this place to cover some crime investigation.
Damn it! That old bastard had done it on purpose!
The stack of papers was sitting right there on the passenger seat. Wang Xiaoming had skimmed through them on the way over.
A serial killer had been traveling around the country and committing murders. The state the bodies were found in was also unusually "disgusting."
This killer had graduated from being a lunatic and advanced straight to being a full-blown psychopath!
Still, Wang Xiaoming figured he wouldn't be able to find out much. According to the files, most of the victims were already on missing-person lists, and the killer had covered his tracks so well that local police were completely lost.
He had some complaints about the investigative ability of those "public servants" the taxpayers supported, but Wang Xiaoming didn't think he'd be able to help the police figure anything out and catch the killer either.
And investigating a case like this was risky. The killer might have his eye on you before you even knew it. He'd heard stories of predecessors who'd learned too much and ended up being "humanely eliminated."
Wang Xiaoming's greatest strength was his respect for the unknown. So he'd just do the bare minimum: ask the local police a few routine questions and get by.
He was driving to the town where the killer had struck most recently.
The town's name had a strange sense of familiarity, even though Wang Xiaoming had never heard it before. Could it be a "setting from a story" too?
As Wang Xiaoming was nearing the town, he suddenly spotted someone standing by the road and waving him down.
He wasn't in the best mood, but he was naturally helpful, so he hit the brakes anyway.
"Can I help you?"
Wang Xiaoming rolled down the window and asked the man who'd flagged him down.
"Excuse me, sir. Could I get a ride to the town up ahead?" the man asked, bending down toward the car.
Wang Xiaoming looked him over. The man had short, reddish-brown hair. His purple outfit looked rather strange, but his sunny smile made up for it.
Wang Xiaoming thought for a moment. The town wasn't far, so he nodded.
"Hop in."
"Thank you so much!"
The man smiled like a child when Wang Xiaoming agreed. He opened the door, then paused when he saw the title on the stack of papers lying on the passenger seat. He placed the papers on the car's center console and got in.
Once inside, the man thanked Wang Xiaoming. "Thanks so much for giving me a ride."
"It's no big deal. It was no trouble." Wang Xiaoming kept his eyes on the road and didn't notice Ryunosuke Uryu's strange reaction earlier.
It seemed he'd been holding it in for a while, because Wang Xiaoming was in quite a talkative mood. He started chatting with Ryunosuke Uryu. "What are you going to Fuyuki City for, buddy?"
"My name's Ryunosuke Uryu. Just call me Ryunosuke." Wang Xiaoming thought this Ryunosuke Uryu seemed like a pretty nice guy, so he asked again, using his first name. "So, Ryunosuke, what are you going to Fuyuki for?"
"Tourism."
Ryunosuke Uryu gave him an answer he hadn't expected.
"I'd saved up some money from my part-time job, and the world's so big, so I wanted to get out and see it!" Ryunosuke Uryu's eyes shone with excitement as he said it.
"But things haven't been very peaceful in Fuyuki lately." Wang Xiaoming stole a glance at Ryunosuke Uryu in the passenger seat. Seeing how excited he was, he hesitated before adding, "Haven't there been rumors about a killer roaming around Fuyuki?"
"Is that what these are about?" Ryunosuke Uryu asked curiously, pointing at the stack of files on the center console.
"Yeah." Wang Xiaoming nodded, then couldn't help complaining to Ryunosuke. "I don't know what got into my boss. He actually sent me to cover this story..."
Once he started complaining, he couldn't stop.
But it turned out that Ryunosuke Uryu was an excellent listener. He listened to Wang Xiaoming ramble on the whole way without interrupting even once.
When they reached Fuyuki City, Wang Xiaoming dropped Ryunosuke Uryu off in front of a hotel and apologized. "Sorry you had to listen to all that." He'd vented all his frustration with his boss, but now he felt a little embarrassed.
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