Chapter 1

【The wind belongs to the sky,

I borrow it to blow,

But it stirs the烟火 of the human world.】

—— *One Hundred Years of Solitude*

………

………

"Such a hard bed." Luo Mo lay on the wooden bed, thinking to himself.

At this moment, he could not move his limbs, nor could he open his eyes, but his mind was extremely clear.

It felt a bit like sleep paralysis.

He didn't know how long this feeling had lasted, so he had almost no sense of time.

Many people might have had such an experience: you have a very long dream, and when you wake up, only ten minutes have passed.

And sometimes, you feel like you just closed your eyes for a moment, but when you open them, an hour has already slipped by.

Luo Mo's experience was even more bizarre.

He dreamed about the life of a 24-year-old young man.

A young man who was also named Luo Mo.

He wasn't even sure now—did I dream about him, or did he dream about me?

"Zhuangzi dreamed of the butterfly, and the butterfly dreamed of Zhuangzi?"

He felt that the two sets of life memories had somehow inexplicably overlapped, and everything was so clear.

The only thing he could be certain of now was that this was not the Earth he knew.

Because the Earth version of himself was already dead.

"Did I travel through time?" Luo Mo thought.

"And I might have become a vegetative state patient." He thought again.

After all, if he couldn't move at all and couldn't even open his eyes, he would be no different from a vegetative state patient.

After accepting the reality of his time travel, his first thought was: "What about my cat?"

He had a white cat, a Munchkin, with very short legs.

Since the little female cat was completely white and he was too lazy to name it, he simply called it "Bai Bai Bai."

After having this thought, he quickly realized: "Oh, my cat is gone too."

The Earth version of himself died from electrocution.

Yes, he died along with the cat.

The last memory of both of them was probably the other convulsing.

Apart from that, Luo Mo didn't have much to worry about.

Since he couldn't move for the time being, he organized the memories of the two lives.

This feeling was particularly strange.

The Earth version of Luo Mo died at the age of 30, and his profession was—celebrity.

To be precise, he was an idol.

In his youth, due to poverty, he decided to debut as an idol out of frustration.

However, his career path was somewhat bumpy.

At first, he just wanted to make a living.

A company was recruiting trainees. Although the conditions were strict, the training was tough, and the pay was average, at least it provided a basic living.

Luo Mo passed the company's selection with the lowest score and then, among the trainees, he successfully won a debut spot with the lowest score, and debuted smoothly.

At first, he was the last because he was inexperienced.

Later, he was the last because he was ugly.

When he participated in the trainee selection, he knew almost nothing about singing, dancing, or rapping.

But he was good at basketball.

This was mainly due to his 183 cm height, excellent physical fitness, and athletic talent.

In fact, after becoming a trainee, he discovered that he had a great talent for singing and dancing as well.

Combined with his background as a poor child who was willing to work hard, he made rapid progress during his years as a trainee. Starting from almost zero, he eventually became the best in the entire batch of trainees in terms of skills.

However, in the entire group, his appearance was a significant shortcoming.

This was why, when the company's executives evaluated his future, his overall score was not high.

In the idol industry, appearance is indeed very important.

Some people might do nothing and still gain hundreds of thousands of fans with a single god-like GIF.

As for Luo Mo?

As his fans later put it—“If Luo Mo weren't ugly, he would actually be quite handsome.”

In fact, as the group's [vocal and dance ace], although his skills were excellent, he remained lukewarm in the group from the start.

Of course, this was also related to his company.

The company was unwilling to allocate resources to him because the return on investment was not as good as with others.

Moreover, the male group itself was not very popular, only a third-rate group, so resources were even more scarce.

Ironically, the biggest turning point in Luo Mo's career a few years after his debut was when his agent fought hard to get him a spot on *Masked Dance King*.

His 183 cm height, proportionally perfect long legs, and the eight-pack abs that were faintly visible when he raised his arms, without showing his face, indeed made the women in front of the screen drool.

This was the moment his career took a turn.

In fact, a person's charm is not entirely about their face.

But without resources, without the camera, and with an appearance that didn't pass muster, many people simply had no interest in understanding his stage charm.

Luo Mo was aware of this.

So he seized this opportunity with all his might.

Thus, the entertainment industry gained another typical "ugly but handsome and capable" idol.

It was quite strange; some people could be both ugly and handsome.

Although he never became a huge star, and due to the cutthroat nature of the entertainment industry, Luo Mo experienced several ups and downs, and the group eventually disbanded, he could still give himself a high score for the effort he put into his career when he looked back.

But now, when he recalled it, there were still too many regrets and compromises.

In the entertainment industry, those who have cooled down are very free—debuting for half a life, returning as a nobody.

Those who have become famous also have a certain degree of freedom—having a high level of influence and not being easily manipulated by the company and capital.

Luo Mo was neither; he lived a very unfree life.

"Should I live differently in this new life?" he thought.

Why not be more carefree? If it all falls apart, I'll just quit and retire!

Either become famous and free, or retire and be free!

It seemed that the heavens were really here to make up for his regrets.

The body he now possessed had an excellent appearance.

He was 182 cm tall, one centimeter shorter than his Earth version, but in exchange, he had an almost flawless face.

Although men are very sensitive to centimeters, Luo Mo had to admit: "This one centimeter is worth it!"

"With this face, what can't I do?"

According to the memories he had, this Luo Mo, who grew up in a world very similar to Earth, learned to sing opera as a child and studied classical dance in college.

In fact, these two fields had a lot in common.

On Earth, classical dance in China was established in the 1950s and was once called "opera dance" by some people.

However, it later evolved in many ways.

His opera teacher and classical dance teacher were both well-known figures.

"In a certain sense, I was a lucky person," Luo Mo evaluated.

However, for some unknown reason, the memories of the past three years were a bit blurry, causing him to temporarily not know where he was or what he was doing.

At this moment, he found that he was gradually regaining control of his body.

The feeling of sleep paralysis completely disappeared, and he suddenly opened his eyes.

What he saw was a dim room with only a faint light, allowing him to barely see.

After his hearing recovered, he also heard the intermittent breathing and snoring sounds.

"How many people are there?" Luo Mo sat up from the very hard bed.

Is this military training?

He found that his bed was in the far corner. He looked around with the faint light and counted the number of people, then fell into a brief daze.

"Wow, a hundred big men sleeping in one room."

As his memories became clearer, Luo Mo began to understand where he was.

"Ha, truly the whims of fate." He couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

"No wonder, this factory-converted room still has so many machines running."

At this moment, he was in the recording site of the large-scale talent show *Create Idol*!