Chapter 1

" Wake up! "

" Don't scare me! "

" You can't die! "

" …… "

As he struggled to open his eyes, he heard urgent calls ringing in his ears. Although his head was a bit muddled, he could tell it was a woman, a woman with a very pleasant voice, speaking in English.

Then he heard the sound of an ambulance, and he realized he was in one.

When he finally managed to break free from his semi-conscious state and open his eyes, he found himself in the operating room of a hospital.

The bright lights on the ceiling suddenly enveloped his entire body, blinding him. He had to immediately close his eyes again and accept the treatment from the doctors and nurses in white coats.

It took a full hour before he was wheeled out of the operating room and into a ward.

The world suddenly became quiet!

……

In the ward, he opened his eyes wide, his mind a jumble of thoughts. He needed to take advantage of this quiet moment and the solitude to sort them out a bit.

First, he had to start with his name. He knew that he now had a new name, Jin Jingcheng.

Another thing was his age. He was no longer thirty-two but had become twenty.

Although he found it hard to believe, when he was taken into the operating room, he had already confirmed that he had been reborn!

He was originally a thirty-two-year-old man from China, named Huang Cheng. His name was very ordinary, just like his humble birth. He didn't go to college and lived a muddled life until he was twenty-five, when he suddenly realized that life shouldn't be so bleak and desolate.

With his extraordinary wisdom and hard work, he achieved a certain level of success in just a few years, transforming from a delinquent to a small businessman with some assets.

Actually, one of the reasons for his awakening was that he hoped to have enough money one day to travel to South Korea and meet some of his favorite Korean celebrities, especially some female stars.

Yes, he was a fan of Korean entertainment.

In the summer of 2015, on his thirty-second birthday, he took a month-long trip to South Korea.

However, life played a cruel joke on him. On his birthday, the night he arrived in Seoul, after eating at a night market and preparing to return to his hotel, he was suddenly robbed by a few delinquents.

The delinquents cornered him in an alley.

He knew that a wise man doesn't fight a losing battle, so he willingly handed over his money. However, the delinquents, seeing he was a foreigner and assuming he was easy to bully, wanted to humiliate him by making him crawl under their legs naked.

He couldn't tolerate it. The blood in his veins boiled, and he fought back. During the struggle, one of them stabbed him, the knife piercing his chest and taking his life.

The delinquents, seeing the situation, fled in fear, leaving him to fall alone in a strange alley in a foreign land, closing his eyes in great resentment, his life extinguished.

Unexpectedly, he was reborn.

Not only was he reborn, but he was reborn in the United States, and more specifically, in New York, twelve years earlier.

……

A summer day in 2003.

New York.

That night, a woman, deep in thought, was walking along a street when she was suddenly intercepted by a gang of motorcyclists. There were over a dozen burly men, and it didn't seem like a regular robbery; it looked premeditated.

Just as the gang was about to kidnap the woman, Jin Jingcheng, who was only twenty, happened to pass by and immediately came to her rescue.

In the intense fight, Jin Jingcheng was stabbed several times, one of which was fatal.

Jin Jingcheng died, but fortunately, he had given the woman a chance to escape.

Ten minutes later, the woman returned with a group of police, but the gang had already fled, leaving Jin Jingcheng, who had died, lying alone on the dark street.

It was at this moment that Jin Jingcheng suddenly came back to life. However, the one who came back to life was not the original Jin Jingcheng but Huang Cheng, who had been reborn in his body.

Jin Jingcheng was then taken to the ambulance, and the woman stayed by his side, which led to the scene he had experienced earlier.

……

"Jin Jingcheng? I like this name."

In the ward, Jin Jingcheng kept muttering this name, liking it more with each repetition. He felt it sounded much better than his previous name, Huang Cheng, and had more depth.

From the information in his mind, he knew that "Jin" was a surname, and "Jingcheng" came from an ancient Chinese saying: "A man of determination will achieve his goal." It means that a person with determination will eventually succeed, telling us that we must strive and fight in life, persevering through hardships and moving forward.

This information was left by the original Jin Jingcheng, who, though dead, had passed on all his memories and information to the current Jin Jingcheng. Additionally, the current Jin Jingcheng retained all the memories and information of Huang Cheng.

However, the current Jin Jingcheng was indeed Huang Cheng, as his soul was Huang Cheng's.

Reflecting on this, Jin Jingcheng found it somewhat unbelievable.

But the unbelievable had already happened.

Jin Jingcheng lifted his head and began to carefully observe the ward. By the moonlight and the scattered lights from outside, he realized it was a very luxurious private room.

He then realized that the American woman he had saved that night must have been someone of considerable means, at least financially, to have him admitted to such a luxurious ward.

He suddenly became curious about who this woman was.

At that moment, a ringing sound came from under his pillow. It was the phone of the original Jin Jingcheng. The woman had been very thoughtful, placing the phone under the pillow before his surgery and already obtaining the number.

Jin Jingcheng took out the phone, an old Motorola.

"Hello?" Jin Jingcheng answered in English, relying on the memories and information of the original Jin Jingcheng, as he himself was not proficient in English in his previous life.

"Hello, are you awake? I hope I'm not disturbing you. I'm really sorry, I know I shouldn't be calling at this time, but I had to."

The voice was the same as the one he had heard faintly in the ambulance, urgent yet very pleasant.

"It's fine, are you … um, okay tonight?" Jin Jingcheng suddenly felt a bit ashamed. The woman he had saved tonight was the original Jin Jingcheng, who had even lost his life, and now it seemed he was taking credit for the deed.

"I'm fine, thank you so much. If it weren't for you, tonight would have been a disaster! When I took you to the hospital, you were unconscious, and after the surgery, the doctor said you needed to rest, so I didn't want to disturb you and couldn't thank you in person."

Jin Jingcheng said calmly, "No need to go through so much trouble."

"No, it's not trouble, it's necessary. I really appreciate it. However, … I'm at the airport now, about to fly to Los Angeles for work. I know it seems very immoral to disappear now, and you must be upset, but I really have an emergency."

Jin Jingcheng "hmm"ed, feeling a bit disappointed, not for any other reason but because he really wanted to meet this woman.

"But don't worry, I've taken care of all your hospital expenses. I've already paid a deposit, and if it's not enough, the hospital will contact my agent to pay the rest."

Jin Jingcheng "hmm"ed again, having no objection to this. The original Jin Jingcheng was a poor student and couldn't afford such a high-end hospital, whereas this woman was clearly wealthy, as she even had an agent.

"Alright, I'll contact you after I finish my work. Don't change this phone number, so I can find you later," the woman instructed.

Jin Jingcheng replied, "Okay."

"Bye. Thank you."

"Bye."

The call ended.

Jin Jingcheng suddenly realized something. The woman had some means, an agent, and was heading to Los Angeles, home of Hollywood. Given her voice, which had a natural talent for the arts, could she be a celebrity?

"Who is she? Will we really meet again?"

Looking at the moonlight through the window, feeling the vastness of the ward, and hearing the beeping of the phone, Jin Jingcheng felt a bit empty. Perhaps it was because he had just been reborn and wasn't fully adapted yet, but from the conversation, it seemed his adaptability was quite good. After all, this was just the beginning, and the road ahead was long.

Jin Jingcheng didn't believe he would be so unlucky that his reborn life would also end in disaster.

If that were the case, he would be too pathetic.

"Since I've been reborn, I should live a good life and fulfill the wishes I couldn't in my previous life."

Jin Jingcheng muttered softly.

Looking at the old Motorola in his hand, Jin Jingcheng couldn't help but think that in his previous life, when he was in his twenties, he used this kind of phone. But by the time he was thirty-two, this brand had been phased out in his country, and everywhere, "Apple" had taken over.

Yes, phased out!

He was now determined to phase out his previous self and start this new life afresh.

He would eliminate the bad parts and retain the good ones.

……

Half a month later, Jin Jingcheng was discharged from the hospital, his injuries mostly healed. He had a few scars, but the doctor said the others would fade over time, except for the one on his chest, which might never completely disappear.

Jin Jingcheng remembered that in his previous life, Huang Cheng had died from a stab wound to the chest.

"It can serve as a reminder and a warning to myself."

Jin Jingcheng told himself as he took a car to Chinatown in New York.