Fang Cheng was jolted awake by an intense feeling of hunger.
He opened his eyes and realized it was already the next morning.
His stomach was growling like he hadn't eaten in ten days or half a month.
Fang Cheng's face turned pale. The hunger was so intense that his head spun, his vision blurred, and his whole body felt weak.
He struggled to roll out of bed, then crawled to the kitchen on all fours and opened the fridge, stuffing everything edible inside into his mouth.
As he wolfed down the food, Fang Cheng noticed a line of small text appear in his field of vision.
[Food consumed +1]
He was so startled that he forgot to swallow the food in his mouth.
The words appeared and vanished in an instant, but they were perfectly clear.
Fang Cheng reflexively swallowed the food in his mouth, and another line of text appeared in his field of vision.
[Food consumed +1]
This probably wasn't a hallucination caused by hunger.
But Fang Cheng didn't have time to worry about it. He devoured all the food in the fridge, and his hunger only eased a little. He regained some of his strength.
Lying on the floor, Fang Cheng finally had time to think.
He'd just crossed over last night and been killed once by the Blood Queen. After returning home, he'd nearly been killed by Kanzaki Rin, too. In the end, he'd managed to drive her off, but he was so exhausted that he'd collapsed into bed and fallen asleep.
Looking back on it now, his body seemed to have revived after being shot even before the Blood Queen bit him. The Blood Queen had even said there was something wrong with him.
Along with the numbers in his eyes and the prompts that appeared when he ate, Fang Cheng had reason to suspect that his immortality wasn't because he was a Vampire, but that there was some other explanation.
Could it be a Golden Finger that came with crossing over?
Fang Cheng eagerly tried for a while, but he couldn't summon any kind of system.
His stomach soon growled again. The food he'd just eaten had already been completely digested, without a single scrap left.
Fang Cheng had no choice but to grab his wallet and head outside to find something to eat.
Fang Cheng had never been to Tokyo in his previous life, but he could still tell that the city was very different from the one he'd known.
The buildings were denser and taller. Looking up from the ground, the sky was divided into irregular squares, like a cage, which made the city feel oppressive.
Fang Cheng thought the city already had a bit of a cyberpunk vibe, especially with the brightly colored neon lights and signs decorating the high-rises, and the steel pipes everywhere.
This was because many of the most livable places in Area 11 had been overrun by supernatural monsters. The countryside was especially bad; at its worst, entire villages would disappear without a trace.
Faced with this threat, humanity had no choice but to concentrate in the big cities. As a result, buildings grew taller and taller, while the space available for people to move around grew ever more cramped.
It wasn't just Area 11. The same was true of other countries around the world.
Police drones occasionally flew overhead. If they spotted an illegal act, they would swoop down and issue a warning over their speakers. The more advanced drones even carried guns.
Fang Cheng felt uneasy whenever he saw a drone. Last night, Kanzaki Rin had tracked him to his home using one.
Kanzaki Rin's face flashed through his mind, and Fang Cheng suddenly remembered her warning from the night before: the Blood Queen had created many Vampires, and those Vampires would drag him into a bloodbath.
He had no idea whether she was telling the truth or just trying to scare him. If it was the former, that was really bad news.
Fang Cheng picked a ramen shop at random and ordered an extra-large serving. He polished off five bowls in a row, leaving the owner dumbfounded.
Fang Cheng didn't care what anyone thought. He kept his head down and ate, while the words "Food consumed +1" appeared again and again in his field of vision.
After he finished the five bowls of ramen, the words in his field of vision changed to "Fullness +1."
The hunger in Fang Cheng's stomach finally disappeared. He was about eighty percent full.
With the original owner's appetite, one small bowl would have been enough to stuff him, never mind five huge bowls. Fang Cheng had just eaten at least twenty times his usual amount.
After leaving the ramen shop, Fang Cheng went to the bank to check his savings.
The money in his bank account was in Asian Yuan, the currency used by the East Asian Revolutionary League. He had just over three thousand.
The Asian Yuan had decent purchasing power, but three thousand was still far too little.
Fang Cheng did some quick math on what he'd spent that day, and started to panic.
If he ate like he had just now at every meal, he'd eat himself into bankruptcy in less than a month.
Even if he ate only one meal a day, his money wouldn't last long.
The inheritance his parents had left him wasn't small, and it would have been enough to get him through college. But the shut-in he'd been before loved spending money on in-game purchases, blowing a huge chunk of his savings on his fictional waifus.
Looking at his pitiful balance, Fang Cheng couldn't help letting out a long sigh.
Before crossing over, he'd been constantly struggling to make ends meet. He hadn't expected to escape the life of a wage slave after crossing over, either.
Fang Cheng pushed thoughts of Kanzaki Rin and Vampires aside. First, he needed to figure out how to earn enough money for food.
After leaving the bank, Fang Cheng headed home, weighed down by his worries. He didn't notice the furtive figure not far behind him.
Kanzaki Rin stood on a street corner in a black hoodie, her gaze fixed on Fang Cheng's retreating figure.
She had kept her promise the day before and hadn't reported Fang Cheng's identity to her department, but that didn't mean she planned to leave him alone.
Vampires craved blood more than humans craved any other desire. They periodically went out to attack people and cause carnage.
Newly turned Vampires especially needed blood to grow stronger.
Kanzaki Rin didn't think Fang Cheng was an exception, so she'd gone to stake out the area near his home first thing that morning, hoping to catch him in the act.
But to her surprise, Fang Cheng hadn't attacked anyone. Instead, he'd gone to a ramen shop and stuffed himself silly.
Vampires could eat food, but ordinary food could no longer ease their hunger. Only blood could.
Yet Fang Cheng seemed to have filled his stomach with ramen.
Not only that, he showed no fear of daylight. Even if the sun hadn't come up, ordinary Vampires wouldn't choose to go outside during the day. It made them feel awful.
Everything about Fang Cheng made him seem unlike a Vampire.
Kanzaki Rin had nearly thought she'd found the wrong person, but she was certain that after the Blood Queen bit him, Fang Cheng had died and come back to life. He'd also been able to run around just fine after a dagger was plunged into his chest.
But then again, he seemed immune to silver daggers, too, even though silver weapons could easily kill newly turned Vampires... It was all too contradictory.
In short, Fang Cheng was full of mysteries Kanzaki Rin couldn't understand. She couldn't just ignore him.
Besides, those humiliating photos were still in Fang Cheng's hands. The thought that he might be doing something weird with them sent a chill down her spine.
She had to find a way to get them back!!
Seeing Fang Cheng get farther away, Kanzaki Rin tugged at her hood and followed at an unhurried pace.
After Fang Cheng got home, he started testing his body.
He used a knife, fire, and even an electrical outlet to hurt himself, observing how quickly his wounds healed.
After all that testing, Fang Cheng had figured out a few things.
First, as long as the injury wasn't fatal, the number in his eyes didn't decrease.
Second, he could control how quickly his wounds healed. Speeding up the healing noticeably drained his stamina.
Third, once an injury healed, he would feel hungry.
Also, whenever Fang Cheng exercised, a prompt like [Exercise +1] appeared over the body part he was working out, as if he were playing some kind of game.
Fang Cheng still couldn't figure out what was going on with his immortality. The number in his eyes might represent the number of times he could revive. If he used them all up, he might be done for.
He could take his body's condition slowly and figure it out later. Money was the priority. Fang Cheng didn't want to find out what it felt like to starve to death.
He went back to his bedroom and turned on his computer, hoping to find some job listings online. He could start with any kind of work.
He searched around, but found very few openings, and they were all looking for highly skilled workers.
After a massive influx of rural residents into the cities, the workforce had grown to an unprecedented size. Several people competed for each job, so there weren't going to be many positions available for a high school graduate like him.
After searching for over an hour without finding even a temporary job, Fang Cheng couldn't help feeling discouraged.
He opened a hidden folder and pulled up the "artistic photos" he'd taken of Kanzaki Rin the night before. He stroked his chin as he studied them.
If he sold these artistic photos to the boys at school, he should be able to get a good price.
The artistic photos Fang Cheng had were definitely worth a fortune.
The idea left Fang Cheng extremely conflicted. It would be easy to sell them, but Kanzaki Rin would definitely come after him.
Besides, these photos were a great way to keep her in check. If he sold them, they'd lose their leverage.
Still, the idea had given Fang Cheng another thought. If he really ran out of options, he could sell the photos to Kanzaki Rin. She ought to be interested.
"Beep, beep..."
Just then, a friend sent him a message through the social media app that had opened automatically when he turned on his computer.
Fang Cheng opened it. The other person had sent him a single line: "Fang, have you made up your mind?"
Made up his mind about what?
Fang Cheng curiously checked their chat history, and a memory he'd buried deep in his heart came rushing back.
Fang Cheng's eyes grew brighter and brighter. He felt he'd found a way to get rich.
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