"Ugh…"
The headache hit like a truck—if he had to describe it, it felt like getting blackout drunk and then forcing himself to climb ten flights of stairs. But it seemed to exist only to wake Nan Ling up; the moment his eyes opened, the pain receded as if it had never been there.
He slowly sat up and rubbed at his dry, gritty eyes. Once he adjusted to the darkness, he began to examine the unfamiliar surroundings.
The room was dim. The only light came from a yellow streetlamp outside, seeping through a gap in the curtains and laying a few thin, weak streaks across the floor. By that scant glow, he could just make out the tatami beneath him—old, stained, and clearly neglected for a long time.
A faint mildew smell drifted into his nose, and he frowned.
This definitely wasn't his home.
And besides… he was certain he had died.
Nan Ling tried to recall the details of his previous life, hoping to understand how he ended up here. But his memories were wrapped in a thick fog—blurred, incomplete, impossible to grasp.
"Where the hell did they dump me?"
He lifted a hand to his chin. The scratch of stubble against his fingers was sharp and real. Whatever was going on, at least he was still male. That removed one of the more terrifying "adaptation issues." The next priority was simple: figure out who he was now.
As for transmigration itself, he wasn't especially shocked. First, he was sure he'd died. Second, he'd seen enough supernatural nonsense in his past life to accept the possibility without spiraling.
Identity, however, didn't stay a mystery for long.
As he thought, information began surfacing in his mind—like someone slowly loading a file.
"I thought I got sent somewhere else… so this is the 'anime world.' Wait. Something's off. I'm… Daxiang's old man?"
Nan Ling's acceptance of transmigration was one thing. His acceptance of this identity was another. He nearly choked on it.
If he were just some background character, fine. But this was nightmare difficulty right out of the gate. He clearly remembered that Toyokawa's dad was supposed to be drowning in debt. In his last life, he'd been a decent person—so why did reincarnation toss him into a body like this?
"Let me check…"
He ran through the newly surfaced info again. Nothing. No name beyond the family name. No face for a former wife. No past memories. Nothing at all.
What was he supposed to do—pretend amnesia?
"And I don't even know whether there's debt, or how much."
He recalled the numbers he'd seen in fan works—always weirdly specific, always tuned to be "technically repayable" if someone worked themselves to death for a few hundred years. If that was the case, maybe it wouldn't be impossible. Worst case, he could go straight to the root of the problem and cut it out.
Arriving in a new world with potential crushing debt… Nan Ling forced himself to stay calm.
Money was secondary.
Because didn't he have a system?
He should check what it could do first.
A prompt appeared:
"Please confirm your name."
He stared at the family name already displayed: Toyokawa.
So he could choose a given name. Surprisingly humane. Though the idea of sharing a surname with Daxiang gave him a strange, awkward sense of déjà vu.
"Toyokawa Tomo" wasn't bad, but naming himself was something he took seriously. In the end, he chose the name he'd used in his previous life.
Toyokawa Ling.
He had arrived.
"System. Add points!"
If he had a system, he figured he could pay off whatever debts existed through legitimate means—somehow.
The system responded. A panel appeared in front of him.
Toyokawa Ling
Male
43 years old
Skills:
English — Lv. 7
Piano — Lv. 8
Music Theory — Lv. 6
Singing — Lv. 3
Business Management — Lv. 2
Guitar — Lv. 3
Demolition Engineering — Lv. 8
Cultivation — Lv. 4
Cooking — Lv. 5
Electrical Engineering — Lv. 5
Combat (Comprehensive) — Lv. 9
Available Points: 0
Quests: None
"…That's it?"
He stared at the panel, waiting for more. Nothing changed. Then he examined the skill list carefully. Aside from the first few, most of these were simply things he already knew. And that English level felt suspiciously low for someone who'd spent years operating in Catholic regions—plus, it listed English by itself while ignoring other languages he knew. It felt like a subtle jab at someone he'd heard about.
"This is bad."
This system screamed "growth type"—and worse, it looked like the kind with barely any interaction. A dead, silent, checklist-style system.
In other words: he'd landed in the one period of life where he needed fast money, yet the tool he was given demanded slow development.
And with his resume, he should've ended up in a high-power world—not here. Getting assigned to this setting felt like someone made a clerical error.
Still, the system's behavior suggested he was in the right place. Otherwise it wouldn't lump "combat" into one vague category while breaking music skills down into precise subfields.
As Toyokawa Ling thought, a sound came from the door: a key turning in the lock.
In the darkness, he could barely make out movement. Then he heard a quiet voice:
"I'm home…"
Today, Toyokawa Sakiko's mood was, as usual, terrible.
Objectively speaking, her day had gone well. No customer complaints. She received last month's perfect-attendance bonus. She even managed to buy a discounted bento she actually liked.
By all logic, this should've been her luckiest day in a while.
But the moment she reached the front door, that fragile stability shattered.
Sakiko could endure life's pressures—work, money, exhaustion—yet she was powerless against one thing:
Her father.
Ever since the last time Toyokawa Ling took the money she gave him and gambled it all away, Sakiko had started locking him in the house whenever she left.
To her, he was a ruined man. And if keeping him inside prevented him from causing trouble outside, then it was better for everyone.
If she had anything to be thankful for, it was this: he hadn't hit her. And he seemed to accept his confinement—no raging, no shouting, just hollow silence.
"Ah, Sakiko."
She heard his voice.
In the dim light spilling in from outside, she could see him sitting against the wall. Most days, he slept there. Empty beer cans were scattered around him like debris.
"I'm hungry."
That was the second line.
Those two sentences were the entirety of their daily communication.
"Bento."
Sakiko placed the still-warm bento on the low table. Beside it, she set down the last remaining multipack of beer in the house.
Drink.
Drink until you pass out.
And don't make her life harder than it already was.
She was numb to it now. At least this version of him wouldn't go out and embarrass her anymore. With the dead-eyed way he lived, she suspected she could chain him to the floor and he wouldn't even resist.
"…?"
Toyokawa Ling suddenly felt a chill run up the back of his neck. He instinctively hunched his shoulders.
A moment ago, he'd been staring—far too intently—at Sakiko's feet in the thin streetlamp glow. Unfortunately, the socks ruined any chance of further "investigation," leaving him only with frustrating imagination.
Transmigration or not, eating came first.
He opened the bento.
It was painfully simple: rice, a handful of bean sprouts and wilted greens, a little pickled vegetable, and three meatballs of questionable authenticity.
This was… bland, even by survival standards.
"…."
His expression twisted. If you removed half the rice and added more greens, this would've been an acceptable cutting meal.
But his stomach cramped, forcing him to eat anyway.
While he ate, Sakiko began picking up the empty cans one by one, bundling them together.
"Sakiko… don't bother. Eat."
Watching her clean up the mess left behind by the previous "him," Toyokawa Ling felt a pang of shame. That should've been his job. Instead, he'd been busy fiddling with the system.
"…!"
Sakiko froze.
The sudden extra words startled her so badly that an empty can slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor.
"…You eat. I'm not hungry."
The bentos were for him. She'd already bought a cheap bread roll after school to get through the day.
Was she hungry now?
Of course she was.
"Uh… then eat one. I'm not that hungry today."
He looked back at the bento. He'd eaten barely half—enough to stop the pain in his gut. The rest was still there, untouched.
The real reason was simple: it tasted awful. And for someone who could actually cook, that mattered.
"…Father."
The word came out thin.
Her eyes burned, tears gathering fast. When was the last time he'd said anything that sounded even remotely like concern?
She couldn't remember.
"Hm?"
Toyokawa Ling still wasn't used to being called that. He'd assumed he transmigrated into this story for the drama, the chaos, the spectacle.
He hadn't expected to become someone's father.
But the responsibility that came with the role made one thing painfully clear:
He couldn't let her wear that expression anymore.
"Tomorrow… don't lock the door."
He casually cracked open a beer and took a sip.
And immediately regretted it.
Cheap beer here tasted like watered-down bitterness—barely better than a prank.
"…."
The familiar sound of him drinking erased Sakiko's tears in an instant, like someone switched her emotions off.
Her face went cold.
She reached into her bag, pulled out a single 1,000-yen bill, set it on the table, and turned away without another word.
The bedroom door closed behind her.
"…What was that?"
Toyokawa Ling could feel her anger, but he genuinely didn't understand the trigger. He'd been thirsty. The beer was on the table. Wasn't it for him?
"…Forget it."
He searched around for cigarettes, hoping the old man had at least left behind some "spiritual rations."
Nothing.
He sighed, cleaned up the bento box, and lay back down on the tatami.
No cigarettes.
No answers.
Just a grim reality to untangle.
Because the original Toyokawa Ling hadn't really watched much of the source material. His knowledge came from derivative works—fan interpretations, exaggerations, character distortions. Those were never reliable.
Even someone like Chihaya Anon, in reality, probably wasn't as irredeemably awful as certain portrayals made her.
And then there was the debt.
He checked the phone and didn't see anything obvious. Did the ex-wife intentionally leave room to breathe? Was it because of Sakiko?
With no memories, he couldn't know.
But he also wasn't panicking.
If Sakiko could survive before he arrived, then with him here—if he truly tried—they'd survive now.
At minimum, he could guarantee food on the table.
He placed the phone aside and closed his eyes.
A lot had happened tonight.
He needed to sort it all out.
-------
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