The Poor Wretch's Predicament

Fang Cheng was awakened by a sense of intense hunger.

He opened his eyes to find it was already the next morning.

His stomach was growling violently, as if he hadn't eaten for ten days or half a month.

Fang Cheng's face turned pale; the hunger was so overwhelming that it left him dizzy and weak.

He struggled to roll off the bed, crawled to the kitchen on all fours, opened the refrigerator, and shoved everything edible inside into his mouth.

While devouring the food, Fang Cheng noticed a line of small text appearing in his field of vision.

[Eating +1]

For a moment, he was so startled that he forgot to swallow the food in his mouth.

These words appeared and vanished quickly, fleeting yet incredibly clear.

Fang Cheng subconsciously swallowed the food, and another line of text appeared in his vision.

[Eating +1]

This shouldn't be a hallucination caused by starvation.

But Fang Cheng had no time to worry about that now; he wolfed down all the supplies in the fridge, yet the hunger was only slightly relieved, and his body had only regained a fraction of its strength.

Lying on the floor, Fang Cheng finally had a moment to think.

He had been killed by the Blood Queen right after transmigrating last night, and upon returning home, he was nearly killed by Kanzaki Rin again. After finally managing to drive her away, he had collapsed from exhaustion.

Recalling it now, his body seemed to have been shot and resurrected even before being bitten by the Blood Queen, and she had even remarked that there was something wrong with him.

Combined with the numbers in his eyes and the prompts that appeared while eating, Fang Cheng had reason to suspect that his immortality was not due to being a vampire, but something else entirely.

Could it be a cheat code that came with his transmigration?

Fang Cheng tried excitedly for a while, but he couldn't summon any kind of system.

His stomach soon growled again; the food he had just eaten had been completely digested, leaving not even a scrap behind.

Fang Cheng had no choice but to grab his wallet and head out to find something to eat.

Fang Cheng had never been to Tokyo in his previous life, but he could tell that this city was vastly different from the one he remembered.

The buildings were denser and taller; looking up from the ground, the sky was cut into irregular squares, like a cage, which felt oppressive.

Fang Cheng felt that this city had a touch of cyberpunk to it, especially with these high-rises decorated with colorful neon lights and signs, along with steel pipes visible everywhere.

The reason for this was that many habitable locations in Area 11 had been occupied by supernatural monsters, especially in the countryside, where in the worst cases, entire villages of people would disappear.

Under such threats, humanity had been forced to concentrate in large cities, leading to taller buildings and increasingly cramped living spaces.

This was true not only for Area 11 but for other countries around the world as well.

Patrol drones flew through the air from time to time; if they detected illegal activity, they would descend to broadcast warnings, and more advanced drones even carried firearms.

Fang Cheng felt disgusted whenever he saw a drone; it was through a drone that Kanzaki Rin had tracked him to his home last night.

Kanzaki Rin's face flashed through his mind, and Fang Cheng suddenly remembered her warning from last night—that the Blood Queen was creating many vampires, and these vampires would drag him into their mutual slaughter.

He didn't know if it was true or if she was just trying to scare him, but if it were the former, that would be truly terrible.

Fang Cheng found a ramen shop by the roadside, went inside, and ordered an extra-large portion. He downed five bowls in a row, leaving the owner stunned.

Fang Cheng didn't care about the stares of others; he buried his head in his food, while the words "Eating +1" kept appearing in his vision.

By the time the five bowls of ramen were finished, the text in his vision changed to "Satiety +1."

The hunger in Fang Cheng's stomach finally vanished, leaving him about eighty percent full.

Compared to the original owner's appetite, let alone five large bowls, even a single small bowl would have been enough to stuff him; he had eaten at least twenty times the normal amount in this one sitting.

After leaving the ramen shop, Fang Cheng went to the bank to check his savings.

The balance in the bank was in Asian Yuan, the currency of the East Asian Revolutionary League, and he had only a little over three thousand left.

The purchasing power of the Asian Yuan was not low, but three thousand was still far too little.

Fang Cheng did a quick mental calculation of his expenses for the day and began to panic.

If he ate like that every meal, he would be bankrupt within a month.

Even if he only ate once a day, he wouldn't last long.

The inheritance left by the original owner's parents wasn't small, and it would have been enough to last until university, but the original owner had been a die-hard otaku who loved "gacha" games, spending a large portion of his savings on his 2D waifus.

Looking at the pitiful balance, Fang Cheng couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

He had spent his previous life struggling to survive, and he hadn't expected that even after transmigrating, he still couldn't escape the fate of a corporate slave.

Whatever Kanzaki Rin or the vampires were, Fang Cheng pushed them to the back of his mind; he needed to figure out how to earn some meal money first.

After walking out of the bank, Fang Cheng headed home, preoccupied with his thoughts, failing to notice a sneaky shadow not far behind him.

Kanzaki Rin stood at the street corner in a black hoodie, her gaze fixed on Fang Cheng's retreating back.

She had kept her promise yesterday and not reported Fang Cheng's identity to the department, but that didn't mean she would just let it go.

A vampire's craving for blood exceeds any human desire; they regularly emerge to attack people and commit atrocities.

Newborn vampires, in particular, have an urgent need for blood to strengthen themselves.

Kanzaki Rin didn't believe Fang Cheng was an exception, so she had rushed to his neighborhood early in the morning to stake him out, intending to catch him red-handed.

To her surprise, however, Fang Cheng hadn't attacked anyone; instead, he had gone into a ramen shop and stuffed his face.

It wasn't that vampires couldn't eat, but ordinary food could no longer alleviate their hunger—only blood could.

Yet, Fang Cheng seemed to have filled his stomach with ramen.

Furthermore, he showed no fear of the daylight; even when the sun wasn't out, most vampires wouldn't choose to go out during the day, as it made them feel extremely uncomfortable.

In every way, Fang Cheng didn't act like a vampire.

Kanzaki Rin almost thought she had found the wrong person, but she was certain that Fang Cheng had died and been resurrected after being bitten by the Blood Queen, and that he was still jumping around after having a dagger driven into his chest.

Then again, he seemed immune to silver daggers, even though silver could easily kill a newborn vampire... it was all too contradictory.

In short, Fang Cheng was shrouded in mysteries that Kanzaki Rin couldn't decipher, and she couldn't just ignore him.

Not to mention, the photos that caused Kanzaki Rin such deep shame were still in Fang Cheng's hands. Just thinking about him potentially using those photos for strange purposes made her shudder.

She had to find a way to get them back!

Seeing Fang Cheng walking further away, Kanzaki Rin pulled up her hood and followed at a steady, unhurried pace.

After returning home, Fang Cheng began to test the state of his body.

He used knives, fire, and even touched a power outlet to inflict damage on himself, observing the speed at which his wounds healed.

After a series of tests, Fang Cheng figured out a few things.

First, as long as the injury wasn't fatal, the number in his pupils wouldn't decrease.

Second, the speed of wound recovery could be controlled; accelerating it consumed a significant amount of stamina.

Third, a sense of hunger would emerge once the injuries healed.

Additionally, whenever Fang Cheng exercised, a prompt like [Exercise +1] would appear on his body parts, making it feel as if he were playing some kind of game.

Fang Cheng still couldn't figure out what was going on with his immortal body; the number in his pupils might be his number of resurrections, and if he used them all up, he might be finished.

He could figure out the secrets of his body later; money was the priority. Fang Cheng didn't want to experience what it felt like to starve to death.

He returned to his bedroom and turned on his computer, hoping to see if there were any job postings online; even a temporary gig would do.

After searching for a while, he found very few job listings, and all of them required highly skilled personnel.

Since the massive influx of rural population into the city, the labor force had skyrocketed to an unprecedented level, with several people fighting for a single job. There were simply no positions left for a high school student like him.

After searching for over an hour without even finding a temp job, Fang Cheng couldn't help but feel discouraged.

He opened a hidden folder and pulled up the "artistic photos" he had taken of Kanzaki Rin last night, stroking his chin as he pondered while looking at them.

If he sold these photos to the boys at school, he should be able to get a good price.

The photos in Fang Cheng's possession would definitely fetch an astronomical sum.

This thought made Fang Cheng quite hesitant; selling them was easy, but the consequence would be Kanzaki Rin coming after him with everything she had.

Besides, these photos were excellent leverage against her; if he sold them, he'd lose that edge.

Of course, this idea also gave Fang Cheng a bit of a lead. If he really reached the end of his rope, he could just sell the photos back to Kanzaki Rin; she should be interested.

"Beep..."

Just then, the social media app that auto-started on his computer chimed as a friend sent him a message.

Fang Cheng opened it and saw a single line: "Fang-kun, have you considered it?"

Considered what?

Fang Cheng curiously checked their chat history, and a memory buried deep in his heart surged to the surface.

Fang Cheng's eyes grew brighter and brighter; he felt he had found a path to wealth.