He spun the capped ballpoint pen between his fingers, sitting there in a pair of big shorts (it wasn’t cold indoors, just a bit damp and stuffy), head lowered as he looked at a sheet of paper on his desk, beginning to reflect on whether there was any problem with what he’d said to Ian Murphy tonight—this was his job-hunting plan, and he was always methodical in his actions.

　　Set your goal: Be clear about what you need and what you want;

　　Face reality: Consider whether your goal is realistic. If it is, assess the environment, understand what difficulties and obstacles you might encounter, and be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses;

　　Make a plan: Break down what needs to be done to achieve your goal into individual, independent tasks, prioritize them by importance, and prepare contingency plans for possible surprises;

　　Strict execution: A plan is meant to be carried out, otherwise it’s meaningless! No reasons, no excuses—do your utmost to complete every item in the plan, in order;

　　Finally, calmly accept the result—whether it’s good or bad, accept it calmly, reflect deeply on it, and then you can set a new goal.

　　These are his five steps for getting things done. It sounds simple, but with these five steps, he started from an ordinary single-parent family, taking one solid step after another. Even when his father passed away in high school and his main source of income was cut off, it didn’t defeat him. In the end, he got into a prestigious university, even managed to earn his tuition and living expenses by working part-time, and soon after enrolling, he was highly valued by his mentor. By sophomore year, he was already being taken along to film sets, truly treated as a protégé.

　　Now, having been forcibly transported to a parallel world’s Tokyo, he maintained the same approach. In his job search, he had already done everything he could.

　　He looked at the plan for a while, felt that its execution had gone smoothly—better than expected, in fact. Many contingency plans hadn’t even been needed. He put the paper away, deciding to wait three more days before thinking about it again.

　　No longer concerned with that matter, he pulled out another outline, jotted down a few lines, and closed his eyes to recall.

　　In his previous life, as a good student majoring in directing, while keeping up with his own country’s cultural and entertainment circles, he inevitably had to learn about those of neighboring countries as well—what new hit show formats were out there, whether those formats could be borrowed or adapted, what made them so popular, what nerve they touched in the audience...

　　Because of this, he still remembered quite a lot: various best-selling books, hit songs, manga that had once been all the rage in Japan, as well as some related historical background, customs, and traditions—China, Japan, and Korea’s cultural and entertainment scenes were all mutually influential. He’d memorized a lot about Korea too, and believed that if he’d ended up in Korea, he’d do just as well.

　　Of course, he couldn’t possibly recall every detail word for word of everything he’d ever seen or heard, but since he’d only recently arrived in this parallel world, his memories were still vivid. It was always right to jot down the main points first—who knew when they might come in handy?

　　Never be lazy; being prepared means no worries.

　　He’d been doing this ever since he figured out his environment—never stopped, not even once—

　　“Occasional flashes of light may be lonelier than endless darkness; to see the light, only for it to be extinguished—now that is truly unbearable…”

　　“Who wrote this poem again? Never mind, just write it down for now…”

　　“Oh right, there’s also ‘Don’t Bind Me Into a Bundle,’ a classic modern poem every Japanese high schooler has to memorize. I need to jot that down too, though I can’t remember it all—will fill in the rest later.”

　　“Railgun’s theme song, the electric light dancing at your fingertips… ‘A Certain Scientific’ is gone, so is this theme song still useful?”

　　“Did anything major happen in the world in ’95? Windows 95 released? Personal computers started becoming widespread? The internet began to enter ordinary people’s lives? JAVA was born? The WTO was established? Barings Bank collapsed? Will these things happen in this parallel world? Better write them down and compare later.”

　　Through the long night, he hunched over his desk, diligently working on cultural exchange between two worlds, until he grew tired and finally unrolled his bedding to rest.

　　The next morning, he woke up early, made himself a bowl of instant noodles and ate a few bites before getting back to work. After all, he was waiting for Ian Murphy’s reply, and with nothing else to do, this was all he could focus on—for his previous life had the internet, and all this written material was basically external memory. Whenever he needed something, he’d just look it up. He’d hardly stored anything on his laptop; most of his hard drive space was reserved for video files that took time to download. Now, he could only force himself to recall.

　　If only he’d known he’d be transported, he would have deleted some movies and TV shows to free up a dozen gigabytes and copied over a digital library. But people can’t see the future—what a pity.

　　And so, he holed up at home for two whole days, ate six packs of instant noodles, and before he even had time to start worrying about whether Ian Murphy’s project application had gone through, the apartment manager came looking for him.

　　“Mr. Chandler, there’s a call for you.” The apartment manager knocked on the door, called out, and left. In these days, cell phones weren’t common yet, so it was normal for apartment managers or convenience stores to take calls for residents. But the manager didn’t much like the original Ryan Chandler, so he just knocked once and left.

　　Ryan Chandler quickly got dressed and went to the apartment office. After thanking the manager, he took a deep breath, picked up the receiver, and tried to ask as calmly as possible, “Hello, this is Chandler. May I ask who’s calling?”