Whether or not there were any good people inside the Toyokawa Family — that was something Minami Yuji wasn’t clear on.
But he was perfectly clear on one thing — the Toyokawa Family’s luxury cars were genuinely comfortable to ride in.
When Minami Yuji sat down in one, he could distinctly feel as though his entire body sank slightly into the seat.
As for everything else…?
The rest of it Minami Yuji actually didn’t really understand.
Things like interior trim, materials, and the like — in his eyes they really weren’t all that different from one another.
After all, the past-life version of him hadn’t ridden in this kind of luxury car much either.
It had to be said.
The Toyokawa Family’s driver really did possess superb driving skills.
The black vehicle slid quietly into the lane, fast and steady, so smooth that Minami Yuji could hardly feel any jolting whatsoever.
If it weren’t for the neon dots of light flashing rapidly across the window outside…
Minami Yuji might have even wondered whether the driver had actually started the car at all.
Driving onward like this for about half an hour, the vehicle suddenly stopped.
Minami Yuji’s gaze followed along through the car window and looked outward.
Beneath the dark indigo night sky, he could see, far in the distance, the black silhouette of that magnificent building hidden behind the mountain road.
To be honest.
This wasn’t Minami Yuji’s first time coming to the Toyokawa Family residence — he had been here once before.
But no matter how many times he came, the moment he saw the scene before him, he couldn’t help but let out a heartfelt exclamation —
“So much money, huh.”
It really was rich — even just looking over from here, you could already feel just how grand the residence perched halfway up the mountain truly was.
These big Japanese conglomerates really were on another level.
“Let’s go,” Minami Yuji said to the driver up front.
“Yes.” The cap-wearing driver responded softly.
That stopping just now hadn’t been to drop them off at the front gate — rather, the driver had been reporting in to the staff on the inside, having them control the gate to open.
After all, the Toyokawa Family estate was simply too vast.
As for the exact size, Minami Yuji actually didn’t quite remember — his last visit had been some two or three years ago.
He only remembered that this entire mountain seemed to be the property of the Toyokawa Family.
Because of this, getting out at the front gate would mean walking this long mountain road alone for at least ten minutes — all you could say was that the overbearing-CEO web novel trope had genuinely been mapped into reality; the Toyokawa Family estate truly belonged to the category of place so vast that you could get lost just trying to go to the bathroom.
Along with the gate swinging open to either side.
The vehicle slid onward into the mountain road, continued driving up for about another minute or so, and the full sight of the Toyokawa main mansion naturally enough came into view.
White and pale yellow columns alternated, supporting the building’s overall structure, allowing the entire Toyokawa main mansion to loom three-dimensionally before Minami Yuji in its grand, laterally-stretched form.
The white light that streamed outward from the windows made the entire main mansion seem like a tower standing tall along the coastline.
And at the entrance, Minami Yuji could clearly see — a middle-aged man, wearing loose, exquisitely tailored sleepwear, his hair already slightly graying, was standing there.
“…So you’ve come after all, Yuji-kun.”
The man spoke as he watched Minami Yuji getting out of the car.
The man had an authoritative presence even without anger — his expression calm, his voice steady when he spoke, his gaze always seeming to fix tightly on the other party — naturally giving people the feeling of being a head shorter than him.
If it had been an ordinary child being stared at like this by an adult male, their face probably would have flushed bright red on the spot — they would have stammered, fidgeted helplessly, not knowing what to say.
But —
“Oh, you’re here.
Old Man Sadaharu, long time no see.
You—”
Minami Yuji blinked, paused his voice for a moment, and after looking him up and down without the slightest reservation, opened his mouth.
“You’ve aged quite a bit.
Is the workload at the Toyokawa Family really that stressful?”
Toyokawa Sadaharu’s originally serious, taut face — upon hearing this overly familiar remark — first went blank, and then a rare hint of a smile appeared on it.
But very quickly, he realized that this smile was somewhat inappropriate, gave a slight shake of his head, and reined the smile back in.
“You really are just the same as before…Yuji-kun.”
So saying, he turned around.
No need for many more words — Minami Yuji caught his meaning and followed in his footsteps at a slow, measured pace.
“…” Toyokawa Sadaharu.
He lifted his head and glanced slightly at Minami Yuji walking alongside him.
Toyokawa Sadaharu had met Minami Yuji before.
After all, he did at least bear the ‘Toyokawa’ family name, and was also the nominal head of the Toyokawa Family on the surface — when it came to selecting candidates for adoptive son-in-law, he did have at least some say in the matter to one degree or another.
And at that time, when he had heard that the next adoptive-son-in-law candidate who had been chosen — Minami Yuji — came from an obscure orphanage on Mameshima, he had indeed clearly voiced his objection.
After all, in his view, no matter how much they hungered for fresh blood to be infused into the Toyokawa Family, there ought to be some attention paid to matching social standing at the very least — his granddaughter Toyokawa Sakiko was, after all, a proper, full-fledged bearer of the Toyokawa Family bloodline.
And weren’t there many more exceptionally talented young people in Tokyo?
That was how he had thought.
Only, all of these thoughts of his underwent a change after he met Minami Yuji and conversed with him.
Because this child really was unlike any child he had been familiar with.
It wasn’t a difference in the well-worn cliché of ‘talent’, but rather something more pure — a quality almost like that of a superhuman — the kind of thing that even ordinary people could pick up on at a single glance.
And so, Toyokawa Sadaharu’s attitude shifted gradually from initial opposition to acceptance, and then later still to regret.
Yes — regret.
Truly…immense regret.
Because Toyokawa Sadaharu — himself likewise an adoptive son-in-law of the Toyokawa Family — knew perfectly well just how arduous this path was to walk going forward.
To outsiders, he was the head of the Toyokawa Family clan, possessed of great virtue and reputation.
But that was completely an illusion.
An awkward, neither-here-nor-there standing within the family — even though he now sat in the position of family head, he had to be on guard at every moment against being pulled down from his post.
At the same time, he also had to deal with the intricately tangled power struggles of the various factions within the Toyokawa Family.
Like Sisyphus, ceaselessly pushing and pushing at the boulders that kept tumbling down from this great mountain that was the Toyokawa Family — even with his head being bashed bloody, he could not dodge them.
Yet however well they performed, even tired to the point of collapsing limp on their desks, those of them who were adoptive sons-in-law would forever be unable to obtain true recognition or attention from the Toyokawa Family.
Because between those of them who were adoptive sons-in-law and the people of the Toyokawa main bloodline, there existed an innate yet impossible-to-cross barrier — blood ties.
So Toyokawa Sadaharu genuinely felt that it was a great pity.
With Minami Yuji’s talent, even without entering this outwardly dazzling gilded cage that was the Toyokawa Family, he would still be more than enough to make a name for himself in society.
But that was already an impossible thing now.
Having been targeted by the Toyokawa main bloodline…that bunch who wanted the Toyokawa Family bloodline to continue being passed down…
Even Minami Yuji would…
“Where’s Sachiko?”
The voice suddenly rang out, interrupting Toyokawa Sadaharu’s train of thought, and he simply found it inconceivable.
Things had already come to this point.
And Minami Yuji was actually still concerned about his granddaughter?
In this situation, shouldn’t he be worrying about himself first?
He didn’t believe for a moment that Minami Yuji — who possessed the ‘Superhuman’ trait — was unaware of his own current predicament.
But looking at the way Minami Yuji was gazing over at him — those curious, jet-black eyes that seemed to glitter with bright color —
He maintained that consistently calm expression of his.
“Asleep.”
“Is that so?
That’s nice.
I recall she’s the same age as me this year?”
“More or less.”
The two of them carried on chatting like this, exchanging a line here and a line there.
Finally, just as they were about to reach their destination, Toyokawa Sadaharu’s footsteps came to a stop — finally breaking out of the household-small-talk rhythm of Minami Yuji’s conversation, and unable to hold back, he opened his mouth to ask.
“Are you still concerned about Sachiko’s matter?”
Was it any wonder he was the current head of the Toyokawa Family?
Toyokawa Sadaharu’s expression was as serious and steady as ever, but his speaking pace had — rare for him — quickened.
“Don’t you think you ought to be worrying about what you should do?
I recall you weren’t all that willing to become an adoptive son-in-law?”
With an ordinary child, Toyokawa Sadaharu wouldn’t actually have said any of this.
But Minami Yuji was different — he knew that the other party would absolutely catch the meaning within his words.
“…The one you’re about to meet is my mother…mm…Madam Miki — do you really think she’s going to listen to what you have to say so easily?”
He posed three questions in a row.
In the original work, the specific family tree of the Toyokawa Family and the timeline of their ages were never spelled out.
And after Minami Yuji had transmigrated over, some details that hadn’t been explained in the original gradually unfolded before him.
Toyokawa Sadaharu was, at present, already at the advanced age of his fifties; his wife had passed away many years ago.
(Rationally analyzed, Toyokawa Sadaharu’s age right now is at most somewhere around his fifties — anywhere past sixty I genuinely cannot imagine how Toyokawa Sadaharu could have bloomed on an iron tree and produced Misumi Hatsune…that would be a bit too vigorous-in-old-age.)
But unlike his wife, his mother-in-law…that is, Toyokawa Miki, the one who had recognized him as adoptive son — she was still tenaciously alive.
She was the real deal — from the post-war era onward, by means of energy, real estate, and metals, the true power-holder who had witnessed the Toyokawa Family rise to become a top-tier Japanese mega-conglomerate.
In response to this, Minami Yuji just shook his head: “It’s not as if we haven’t met before — this time will definitely go smoothly too.”
And this overly optimistic attitude likewise made Toyokawa Sadaharu shake his head — he felt this view of his was just far too naive.
“You don’t know the first thing about the darkness of the Toyokawa Family.”
However, what he hadn’t anticipated was — no sooner had these words left his mouth than Minami Yuji on the other side raised his own question.
“Even if I did know — what could be done about it?”
“That—”
The instant this question was raised…
He was stunned for a moment.
That was true…
Even if you knew the darkness of the Toyokawa Family, what then?
It was, after all, the Toyokawa Family!
Situated within this enormous conglomerate of interlocked interests, Toyokawa Sadaharu was the person best able to understand the power that lay behind the Toyokawa Family.
An eight-year-old child, even if he possessed a sharp wit that ordinary people could not possess —
In the face of a colossal entity like the Toyokawa Family, what could he possibly accomplish?
“Relax, Old Man Sadaharu.” Minami Yuji smiled and tried to pat Toyokawa Sadaharu on the shoulder, but after one attempt found that his own height was simply what it was — and could only cough once: “When the cart reaches the mountain, there’ll surely be a road.”
“…When the cart reaches the mountain, there’ll surely be a road, huh?”
A trace of weariness appeared on the face of the perpetually-serious Toyokawa Sadaharu — he neither affirmed nor denied Minami Yuji’s words.
His footsteps came to a halt.
Minami Yuji followed his lead and lifted his head.
The two of them had walked up to a room with a pair of heavy reddish-brown double doors.
“…What a pity it is.”
Leaning slightly against a wall with baroque-style patterning, as a member of the Toyokawa Family clan, Toyokawa Sadaharu’s perpetually steady voice seemed to carry within it a slight sigh.
As if in regret.
And as if in reminiscence.
However —
“A pity?
I don’t think so.”
Minami Yuji’s voice rang out.
“Hm?”
These words made Toyokawa Sadaharu unconsciously lift his head.
Immediately afterward, he saw it.
Minami Yuji, standing in front of the door, was watching him with a smiling expression.
“Actually, seeing how full of life you are, Old Man Sadaharu — it makes me pretty happy.”
“…” Toyokawa Sadaharu.
Once again, he couldn’t help but let out a quiet laugh.
Inside the Toyokawa Family residence, he had always worn a serious and stable mask — even when gazing at his own granddaughter Toyokawa Sakiko, this was no different.
Yet for some reason, when facing Minami Yuji, he simply couldn’t hold that expression together.
This really is exactly the same as before…
Watching the way Minami Yuji walked into the room without the slightest hesitation.
Toyokawa Sadaharu couldn’t help but feel a touch of emotion welling up.
He knew — he himself was far less strong than his outward appearance made him seem; he was a cowardly, fragile, and timid person.
That was also why, after his deeply beloved wife had died, he had been desperate to seek out new emotional comfort — and as a result had made a grave mistake with the mansion’s female head housekeeper, secretly fathering Misumi Hatsune — terrified that the people of the Toyokawa main bloodline would seize upon this point and drag him down from the position of Toyokawa family head.
Just as Toyokawa Sakiko had said in the original storyline — ‘The one who truly fears the darkness of the Toyokawa Family — isn’t it you?’
He had been afraid of the Toyokawa main bloodline this whole time…
But Minami Yuji was different.
This child who was only eight years old.
From way back, he had always given Toyokawa Sadaharu the feeling of someone who could solve any problem.
No…
In fact, he clearly remembered that Minami Yuji had also met Toyokawa Miki once before.
And that one time…if memory served, it had ended with Toyokawa Miki taking a step back.
But this time?
Would things…still end in victory?
He stared at that pair of reddish-brown double wooden doors, his always-serious expression now — rare for him — carrying a touch of anticipation.
Meanwhile.
On the other side, inside the room.
Looking at the elderly woman before him — half-reclining on the bed, kept alive by an IV drip, her body already withered and gaunt, wrapped up entirely in just a single black peony nightgown.
Minami Yuji narrowed his eyes, and beneath all the curious gazes turning his way inside the room, opened his mouth.
“So you’re not dead yet, Old Lady Miki.”
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Samsara Game: Starting in The Long Dark with My Waifus
Let’s hit these goals: