APR 19

Water surged relentlessly into his nose and mouth, as if a soaked, heavy towel had been tightly pressed over his face.

The moment Zhong Su regained consciousness, he felt water choking his nostrils. Instinctively, he struggled, his elbow striking something hard beside him. A pained cry erupted from nearby.

“Fuck! This bastard, he broke my nose!”

The weight pressing down on his neck suddenly lightened. Zhong Su lifted his head, gasping for air. “Hah—!”

Water droplets slid down his drenched face as his blurred vision gradually cleared. He found himself in a restroom, surrounded by several menacing men. One of them had just forced his head into the sink.

What was going on?

His leg was suddenly gripped. Looking down, Zhong Su saw a chubby man clinging to his ankle, apologizing obsequiously to the leader, a man wearing a thick gold chain, now clutching his bleeding nose. “Sorry, sorry, Brother Da K! I apologize on behalf of my friend. He’s not right in the head, he didn’t mean to fight back!”

The chubby man turned to Zhong Su, his expression instantly shifting to panic, his plump cheeks squeezing together as he hissed under his breath, “Zhong Su, what the hell are you doing? Kneel and apologize to Brother Da K right now! Do you have a death wish?”

Zhong Su’s head throbbed with pain, flooded with a jumble of disjointed memories. In these memories, he was still called Zhong Su, but this version of him was a low-level thug in a minor gang called the “Xin He Society.” At twenty-one, he had achieved nothing, was buried in debt, and his girlfriend had run off with a local gangster.

Now, he and his chubby friend, nicknamed “Xiao Lao Dao,” had gone to trash the local gangster’s turf to confront his ex-girlfriend, only to be cornered and beaten by the gangster’s lackeys in the bar’s restroom.

Zhong Su glanced at the reflection in the nearby mirror, a face seventy percent similar to his previous life’s, but gaunter, with three ear piercings on each ear, exuding a gloomy, vulgar aura.

Pressing his throbbing temples, Zhong Su muttered under his breath, “What kind of mess is this?”

His mind sharp, he quickly pieced together that he had been reborn into a stranger’s body.

Seeing Zhong Su remain unresponsive, Xiao Lao Dao grew frantic, tugging hard at his arm. “Hurry up and kneel, you idiot! This isn’t the time to be stubborn!”

“Stop shouting. You’re hurting my eardrums,” Zhong Su snapped, irritated by the situation. He shook off Xiao Lao Dao’s grip and met Da K’s gaze. “So you’re Da K. Who’s your boss? Have you heard of Chen Huan from the Jiu Zhong Society? I know him. Let us go, and he’ll compensate for the damages.”

Da K had never seen anyone act so arrogantly while being beaten. He stared blankly for a second before bursting into laughter. “Hahaha, holy shit! Where did you two clowns come from? You’re fucking hilarious! That bullshit Jiu Zhong Society disbanded centuries ago. How dare you name-drop them to intimidate me?”

His lackeys, convinced Zhong Su was bluffing, joined in the mockery. “His brain’s waterlogged, turned him into a complete moron!”

“Still dreaming! Even if you knew the Jiu Zhong Society’s leader, you’d still be a worthless piece of trash!”

Da K wiped his face, his expression shifting into a sinister grin that revealed his gold-capped teeth. “I don’t care about your Jiu Zhong Society or Chen Huan, Zhang Huan, even if the King of Heaven himself showed up now, you two punks aren’t leaving here without coughing up eighty to a hundred grand.”

The negotiation had completely broken down, and the atmosphere instantly turned tense as a drawn bow. Seeing the thugs charge forward, Zhong Su’s restless irritability peaked. Unlike his original self who only knew how to bluff, he had clawed his way up in the streets through ruthless skill.

Beside Chen Huan, he seldom had to handle the dirty or exhausting tasks, and often earned praise from the society’s elders: “Exceptional fighting skills, but unfortunately too soft-hearted, not as decisive as Chen Huan.”

Yet that didn’t mean he wasn’t formidable. As Chen Huan often said, he never knew his own strength when he struck, either letting someone off entirely or beating them mercilessly to the brink of death.

Zhong Su’s eyes turned icy as he seized one thug’s arm, using the man’s own momentum to execute a shoulder throw that slammed him into the ground. The man screamed, then lay there unable to get up.

“You bastard,” another enforcer snarled, throwing a punch.

“Shut up,” Zhong Su’s voice was cold enough to freeze shards of ice. He sidestepped sharply and delivered a vicious side kick to the back of the attacker’s knee. A sickening crunch of dislocating bone echoed, and the enforcer collapsed in agony.

These were the same people who had held his head underwater earlier, nearly killing him. Now, he saw no reason to hold back.

In the blink of an eye, two of the five surrounding thugs were disabled, leaving the rest hesitating to advance.

Without giving anyone time to react, Zhong Su stepped forward, grabbed Da K by the collar, and yanked him downward, driving his knee hard into the man’s abdomen.

“Ah—!” Da K’s face instantly turned pale, the excruciating pain making his legs tremble uncontrollably before he crumpled to the floor. Pointing a shaky finger at Zhong Su, he gasped, “Y-you… just wait. I’ll remember your face. You won’t get away with this.”

Ignoring the threat, Zhong Su glanced at the two still standing and asked calmly, “What about you two? Still want to fight?”

They exchanged uneasy looks, staring at Zhong Su as if he were a ghost.

His sudden transformation from the beaten victim to this brutally efficient fighter had left them terrified.

When neither responded, Zhong Su stepped over the groaning Da K and headed for the exit.

Xiao Lao Dao stared, dumbfounded, as his friend took down the entire group in moments. Only when Zhong Su turned to leave did he realize he’d be left behind, scrambling frantically after him. “Hey, wait for me, Zhong Su!”

As soon as they stepped out of the bar, the towering skyscrapers and streaming traffic felt alien to Zhong Su. His pupils contracted sharply, his gaze fixed on the roadside.

A massive electronic screen stood there, clearly displaying:

[September 10, 2000 — 20:18]

“2000… So it’s seven years later?” Zhong Su murmured.

He vividly remembered the day he fell into the sea: September 10, 1993. That meant he hadn’t just been reborn—he’d been reborn into another person’s body seven years later. And what about Chen Huan? Had he managed to escape safely that day?

Xiao Lao Dao, though chubby, was quite tall. Huffing and puffing, he caught up to Zhong Su just in time to see him staring intently at the electronic screen, his expression grave.

He didn’t notice Zhong Su’s unusual behavior, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and said, “You walk really fast. Smart move. If Da K and the others had time to call for backup, we’d be in trouble.”

Zhong Su turned his head and asked Xiao Lao Dao, “Hey, do you have a pager? Let me use it. I need to contact someone.”

Xiao Lao Dao looked as if he’d heard something utterly absurd, his mouth gaping wide enough to fit an egg. “A pager? No way, did Da K really beat you stupid? It’s the year 2000, nobody uses those things anymore. Everyone uses mobile phones now.”

“Isn’t your phone on you?”

Zhong Su remained silent, the two sets of memories in his mind clashing, unable to sort things out for the moment.

Xiao Lao Dao muttered, “Looks like you left your phone at home again. What can you do? Here, you can borrow mine.”

He pulled a silver-gray flip phone from his pocket and handed it carefully to Zhong Su.

Zhong Su stared at the unfamiliar object in his hand, hesitantly pressed one of the buttons, and the screen suddenly lit up.

He gazed blankly at the screen full of strange icons, murmuring softly, “It’s only been seven years, and pagers are already out of fashion?”

“Zhong Su, what did you say? I didn’t catch that.” Xiao Lao Dao curiously leaned his head closer.

Zhong Su tossed the phone back to Xiao Lao Dao and said, “Forget it, I’m not used to this thing. I’ll just go find someone directly.”

“Whoa, be careful!” Xiao Lao Dao was terrified, flailing wildly to catch the phone. “This is an American brand I spent thousands on just last week! I saved up for three months! Ahhh, no—!”

He twisted comically several times, nearly falling flat on his face, but managed to catch the phone just before it hit the ground.

Xiao Lao Dao cradled the phone, blowing on it and frantically wiping it with his sleeve, inspecting it over and over, afraid it might have gotten even a tiny scratch.

He broke into a silly grin and said, “Lucky, it’s fine, not a single bump… If it had cracked, I’d be out big time.”

Zhong Su watched this large guy grinning foolishly over a tiny phone and couldn’t help but feel a chill.

Ever since joining the gang, aside from the initial period when he wasn’t valued and lived frugally, once he’d built up seniority, he’d never had to worry about money.

When pagers first became popular, he and Chen Huan had started using them, upgrading to every new model as soon as it came out. So, he’d never paid much attention to these gadgets—he just used whatever was convenient.

Xiao Lao Dao carefully put his phone away, looked up, and chattered, “Zhong Su, are you on something today? Usually, you’re even more careful with valuable stuff than I am, but today you just tossed it like it was nothing.”

“And earlier, when you were fighting, it was even weirder. Your punches were so fast and fierce, like you were a completely different person.”

Xiao Lao Dao circled around, scrutinizing his usually timid friend as if he didn’t recognize him.

Zhong Su couldn’t be bothered to respond. He checked his pockets and found only a few fifty-yuan bills and some coins.

Zhong Su flagged down a taxi and asked the driver, “How much to Anyou Street from here?”

The driver, a cigarette dangling from his lips, glanced at him sideways and said arrogantly, “Two hundred.”

Xiao Lao Dao’s eyes widened instantly. “A few miles for two hundred? You might as well rob us!”

Without hesitation, Zhong Su threw all the money in his hand to the driver, got into the passenger seat, and said, “Drive.”

Xiao Lao Dao swiftly pulled open the car door and scrambled into the back seat, all while continuing his scolding: “Are you running a charity? Spending hundreds on a taxi.”

“This damn driver is ripping you off, and you just take it lying down. How are you ever going to get anywhere in life like this? If your money’s burning a hole in your pocket, just give it to me, I’ll even kowtow and say ‘Thank you, boss, may good people live long and prosper.'”

Zhong Su’s face turned cold as he enunciated each word: “Zheng Leyou, if you don’t shut up right now, I’ll kick you out of this car.”

At that, Xiao Lao Dao instantly fell silent.

After a long while, he huddled pitifully in his seat and muttered under his breath, “If you think I’m noisy, just tell me to be quiet… But using my full name like that, it’s so hurtful.”

“Just because you won the fight, does that mean you can do whatever you want?… You never used to be this harsh with me before.”

Zhong Su had no patience for these complaints. From the rearview mirror, his lips were pressed into a tight line, his foul mood plain to see.

After collecting the fare, the taxi driver slammed the accelerator to the floor, and the car shot forward like a runaway wild horse.

“There’s a big truck ahead, slow down, you idiot!” The timid Xiao Lao Dao gripped the seatbelt for dear life, letting out pig-slaughtering screams the whole way, unable to stop himself.

The taxi sped through the last few seconds of three consecutive red lights, charging all the way to the intersection of Anyou Street. With a screech of tires, it swerved to a sudden stop, pulling up steadily beside the sidewalk.

“We’re here. Get out, I’m not seeing you off.” The driver flicked his cigarette ash leisurely out the window and tossed the words over his shoulder without turning around.

Xiao Lao Dao’s legs went weak. He flung the door open, rushed out, and hugged a trash can as he vomited: “Ugh, ugh, I can’t take it, I’m gonna pass out.”

Zhong Su stepped out of the car and scanned the street scene, somewhat surprised to find Anyou Street looking no different from how he remembered it—

Seven years had passed, yet the residential complex remained just as old and grimy. Many of the wall tiles had peeled off, revealing the gray concrete beneath. The mahjong parlor next to the complex was hazy with smoke, loud clacking sounds spilling out. A group of scruffy-looking young men loitered at the entrance, their hair dyed in chaotic colors, cigarettes dangling from their mouths as they laughed and shouted.