After Fukuda Taro left, Fang Cheng sprang out of bed, where he had been lying half-dead.
He took off his clothes and removed the bloodstained bandages. The surgical wound on his side had completely healed, and the kidney that had been cut out of him had grown back.
The whole operation had been a close call. Fang Cheng had done his utmost to control how quickly the wound healed, preventing it from closing up midway through the procedure. Otherwise, he would have been taken for a monster.
But the rewards were substantial. He'd sold a kidney for fifty thousand Asian Yuan, paid Fukuda Taro two thousand as a broker's fee, and pocketed forty-eight thousand for free.
Based on Fang Cheng's experiments, any tissue cut from his body would gradually disappear, and the larger it was, the faster it vanished.
The kidney he'd left at the clinic would probably disappear without a trace within two days. But the clinic wouldn't suspect Fang Cheng; they'd just assume it had been stolen.
Fang Cheng had refused to stay in the hospital because he was afraid of being discovered. He didn't feel the slightest guilt about ripping off a medical black-market operation like that.
"Gurgle~"
His stomach rumbled again. As his wound and kidney healed, the hunger had returned.
Fang Cheng rubbed his belly and clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"I'm going to have to become a competitive eater. Hope I don't end up as a fat slob."
Still, he was in a good mood. After all, his financial crisis was behind him.
Whistling, he changed clothes and headed out to grab a meal and buy a new SIM card. While he was at it, he got his long hair cut short, giving him a much sharper look.
On his way home, he stopped at the supermarket and bought a pile of ingredients that would keep well, planning to cook for himself from now on.
Although he didn't have to worry about money for the time being, he couldn't afford to spend recklessly. He still needed to budget carefully, and cooking at home would cut down on unnecessary expenses.
After putting the groceries in the fridge, Fang Cheng took a shower, went back to his bedroom, and turned on the computer. Then he opened a blank document.
His money troubles were settled, but his situation was still far from good.
He wasn't some clueless high school shut-in. Inside his young body was a mature soul, and he had to think about the future and make a clear plan ahead of time.
Especially after that crazy woman had followed him all day. It had made him feel a sense of urgency.
That's right. Kanzaki Rin thought she'd followed him without anyone noticing, but Fang Cheng had spotted her sneaking around when he left home that morning.
After all, things hadn't gone well between them the night before. Fang Cheng didn't believe she'd be generous enough to let him off the hook.
With Kanzaki Rin watching him like a hawk, he couldn't afford to let his guard down.
He edited the blank document, deleting and revising until he'd quickly listed three essential priorities.
The first was money. The more, the better. So he shouldn't stop taking advantage of opportunities to make a quick buck. He couldn't go back to Fukuda Taro, but Tokyo wasn't short on brokers like him.
That was only a short-term solution, though. He still needed to find a way to earn money in the long run.
The second priority was threats: the threat from Kanzaki Rin, the threat from the Vampires she'd mentioned, and even the threat from society as a whole, which wouldn't take kindly to someone like him.
So, in the short term, he had to acquire the ability to protect himself.
Fang Cheng had no ambition to rule the world, but he couldn't let himself be some low-level grunt who got taken out at someone's whim, either. He had to at least become a sports car.
The third priority was exploring his own body and figuring out whether his immortality came from a Vampire or something else.
Most importantly, he had to find a way to gain more lives. That mattered far more than money.
As Fang Cheng finished writing and checked his list for anything he'd missed, a friend on social media named Fuping messaged him.
"Fang, why can't I get through to you? Teacher Togawa keeps asking about you. Are you coming back to school soon?"
The original owner's sixteen years of memories were a lot for Fang Cheng to keep track of. Without a reminder, it was hard to remember everything.
Fuping's message reminded him that he was a second-year high school student, and that he'd been skipping class a lot lately.
Fuping was his classmate and had always been pretty considerate toward him.
"I lost my phone and got a new number. Save it."
When Fang Cheng typed, "I'm dropping out," he hesitated, deleted it, and wrote instead, "I'll think about school tomorrow."
He hadn't figured out what to do with his life yet. School was hardly a priority, but he couldn't just give up on it completely, either.
Fuping: "I understand. Hope I'll see you at school tomorrow. Good night."
A smiling face appeared in Fang Cheng's mind, along with a gentle goodnight and a pair of breasts.
Wait, why breasts?
Fang Cheng rubbed his forehead and saved the document.
He left the bedroom and rummaged through the storage cabinet until he found a pair of dumbbells.
The original owner had bought them in middle school, but they'd soon ended up gathering dust alongside a baseball bat. After all, video games were a lot more fun than exercise.
Holding a dumbbell in each hand, Fang Cheng began working out slowly in the living room.
[Exercise +1] [Exercise +1] [Exercise +1]
A line of text appeared in his field of vision every now and then, roughly once per minute of exercise.
Fang Cheng suspected that his body's condition might be connected to the mobile game he'd played before transmigrating.
The characters in that game also had a limited number of lives, and the game displayed notifications when they ate or exercised.
So he planned to test his theory by working out.
Outside the apartment building, a drone silently made its way to the floor where Fang Cheng lived.
Its camera filmed Fang Cheng's every move in the living room through the window.
The footage was then transmitted wirelessly across most of Ibaraki District to a room in an upscale apartment building, where it played in real time.
Kanzaki Rin was reclining on her bed in a light nightgown, with a laptop in front of her.
She watched Fang Cheng working out while munching on potato chips.
About twenty minutes later, Fang Cheng set down the dumbbells, panting, and sat on the floor to rest.
"Heh."
Kanzaki Rin let out a scornful laugh, apparently mocking Fang Cheng's stamina.
She reached into the chip bag and found it empty. Only then did she realize she'd eaten the whole thing without noticing.
Still not quite satisfied, she licked her fingers and picked up a bowl of cold noodles from beside her, slurping them down in small mouthfuls.
In the video, Fang Cheng had already finished resting and was back to exercising.
"235... 236... 237..."
He counted under his breath as he did push-ups, ignoring the tearing pain in his arms.
The advantage of immortality was that he didn't have to worry about high-intensity workouts injuring him.
So Fang Cheng stuck to the idea that if it wouldn't kill him, he should push himself until it nearly did, wringing every last bit of strength from his muscles and body.
Kanzaki Rin had been chewing on a chicken leg, but she gradually stopped eating. To her surprise, Fang Cheng had been exercising for over two hours without her noticing.
Apart from a few short breaks, he'd spent the rest of those two hours doing high-intensity workouts.
A Vampire's body could recover, but that didn't make pain and fatigue go away. It took real determination to keep going for that long.
Even among the Disaster Countermeasure Department's trainees, that kind of determination would make him stand out.
Watching Fang Cheng's body rise and fall, Kanzaki Rin murmured, "Who exactly is this guy...?"
She didn't believe an ordinary high school student could be so driven and determined—selling a kidney the day after becoming a Vampire, then disciplining himself to do high-intensity workouts.
Even during their fight the night before, Fang Cheng had shown a mature, seasoned mindset. He hadn't acted like an immature high school student at all, except for his foul mouth.
But he'd been completely unremarkable at school. Otherwise, Kanzaki Rin would have recognized him.
After watching him all day, Kanzaki Rin hadn't gotten to know Fang Cheng any better. If anything, he'd only given her more questions.
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