Late at night.

In a bedroom, moonlight shone in through the gap of the curtains, casting a beam on the floor, becoming the sole source of light.

The grayish-white moonlight faintly reflected the shadows of tiny insects crawling on the window.

Vroom~

A car with a softly humming engine passed by downstairs outside the window.

The pale car lights passed through the gap in the curtains and drew a fan-shaped halo on the ceiling before gradually dimming as the car drove away.

Click.

An old tape was inserted into the machine, and then the lid closed, making the sound of a switch closing.

Li Chengyi frowned as he plugged in his headphones and adjusted the volume. Immediately, faint music floated out of the headphones and entered his ears.

The music had no lyrics. It was just pure classical music mixed with a guzheng and a pipa.

The rhythm was soothing and clear.

The sounds of the two instruments were like two slender and sharp threads that sometimes intertwined with each other and sometimes separated distinctly.

It was just like the telling of an ancient story or two pale fingers constantly intertwining.

Li Chengyi lay on his side on his pillow, looking at the black curtains, listening to the music in his headphones without moving.

The cool pillowcase gradually warmed up on the side of his face and began to emit the faint smell of laundry detergent.

He opened his eyes, seemingly in a daze or thinking about something.

He clearly remembered that he was still halfway up a mountain twenty minutes ago. Twenty minutes later, he found a small, beautiful flower. But as a result… his head became dizzy, and everything changed. He inexplicably changed bodies and appeared in this room. He was also much younger.

After ten minutes of shock, doubt, disbelief, and so on, he began to accept reality.

At this moment, a large amount of information and memories in his mind quickly fused with him. These were all memories of another Li Chengyi, who had been in this world for more than twenty years.

The information was not complete, and many things were very vague. But it was enough for him to have a preliminary understanding of his situation.

“I have a very important friend coming over to the house tomorrow. Go out with Li Chengyi and find something to do. Come back after five in the afternoon, understand?” A deep female voice faintly came from outside the bedroom.

The train of thought in Li Chengyi’s mind stopped, and a name automatically appeared to match the voice—Li Chengjiu.

This was the sister of this body, and she should be talking to their parents.

“Okay. Don’t worry. We definitely won’t affect your matters,” their mother, Feng Yurong, replied carefully.

Their father remained silent, but his breathing was a little heavier, which was his tacit agreement.

“Jiu… your brother hasn’t found a job yet. Can you…” The mother carefully brought up another matter.

“What’s the rush? I haven’t stabilized my situation yet. Let’s talk about it later. Don’t cause any trouble for me,” Li Chengjiu said impatiently.

“Don’t worry. We definitely won’t,” Feng Yurong replied gently.

“Go sleep. Remember, leave before twelve and don’t come back early. If you see me accompanying a fair-skinned girl out, don’t greet me. Just pretend you don’t know me, okay?” Li Chengjiu continued.

“Don’t worry. We’ll go farther away. We won’t delay your business,” the mother replied softly after a pause.

“By the way,” Li Chengjiu paused, “I have to pay my class fees this month. It’s about one hundred and ninety thousand. Give it to me tomorrow.”

 “One hundred and ninety thousand… Didn’t you just pay a large amount?” Feng Yurong was in a difficult position. She and her husband were a little tight on money because of the frequent payments.

One hundred and ninety thousand was not a small amount.

“This time, it’s the material and training fees!” Li Chengjiu said impatiently. “Don’t you still have your pensions? Just take it out and give it to me first. I’ll slowly make up for it later.”

“This…” Feng Yurong paused. “Okay, I’ll definitely give it to you.”

She didn’t say that she and her husband had already withdrawn their pensions and spent them on Li Chengjiu long ago.

Recently, the factory’s performance hadn’t been good, and their wages had been reduced repeatedly. The money on hand was really not enough.

Li Chengjiu hummed in response, pushed her chair away, stood up, and went to the bathroom to wash up.

Feng Yurong and their father, Li Zhao, were left sitting in the living room, talking quietly.

“We don’t have enough in the pensions. Take out the medical funds to make up for it. Our daughter’s business is more important,” Feng Yurong said softly.

“Little Yi also needs to find connections and give money for his job. If we take it all out, what should you do when you need to see a doctor? Don’t you care about your waist pain? You have to take prescription medicine every day,” Li Zhao replied stiffly.

“We can save some money later and make up for it soon. Don’t worry. My waist doesn’t hurt much now. It’s fine.” Feng Yurong urged softly, “Our daughter’s future is more important. Don’t drag her down at a critical moment.”

“I know, I know,” the father replied impatiently. He paused and let out a long sigh, seeming helpless and uncomfortable.

Then the two of them held their phones, studying how to operate them together.

Lying on his bed, Li Chengyi opened his eyes and sighed softly.

Uncontrollably, the scene of his father, Li Zhao, humbly asking to borrow money from relatives on the balcony the day before yesterday surfaced in his mind.

Although he had yet to familiarize himself with his situation, the parents of this body had the same kinship as his previous parents, making his inner uneasiness feel slightly better.

Different bodies, different worlds, but the dedication of parents to their children seemed to be the same.

Slowly, the sounds outside quieted down. Li Chengjiu closed her door and went to sleep. Their parents also got up to wash up and sleep.

Everything outside gradually became silent, and only the pure music in the headphones continued to play on loop.

The music repeated over and over, slowly becoming softer and softer in his ears.

Li Chengyi lay motionless. As he sorted out his memories, he began to feel confused.

Memories kept pouring into his mind.

‘He’ had studied seriously for twenty years, but in the end, he faced unemployment after graduating.

The various certificates that he had worked so hard for so long to attain had now become worthless in front of the army of the unemployed.

In the six months after graduation, he had sent hundreds of resumes, but there were very few responses.

The ambitions he had before graduation had now completely turned into confusion.

‘He’ didn’t know what he should do or what he could do. He had no plans, no ideas, no expectations.

He just stayed at home every day and lived one day at a time.

In addition to this, there was also the scene of his body’s previous owner arguing fiercely with his elder sister, Li Chengjiu.

Li Chengjiu had always regarded her family as a burden to her.

Outside, she was outstanding and dazzling, with a bright future, great talent, and ambitions. She looked down on all those without talent.

Their parents, who were just ordinary factory workers, and her mediocre younger brother were the targets of her impatience.

His previous Li Chengyi had been dissatisfied because of his sister’s attitude toward their parents and himself, so they had quarreled, but the result was meaningless. Their parents were willing to give in, and it was useless for him to try to dissuade them. The two of them even persuaded him instead.

On the single-plank bridge of the college entrance examination, he had worked hard, but he had only managed to get into an ordinary university. Compared to Li Chengjiu, who had been guaranteed admission to a top military academy in her second year of high school, he was completely different.

Although he had made a good internship resume, the biggest problem was that he had chosen the wrong major because of his naivety.

What the hell was a plant conservation major? Although he had heard that high-end plant conservation jobs indeed had high salaries, it required too much…

The only way out for students from ordinary schools like him was to enter the Forestry Bureau or an urban greening company.

Being able to barely get by on 3,000 dollars a month was already pretty good.

There was too much automation in this era, and many people couldn’t even find a job.

Turning over, Li Chengyi kept sorting out the memories of his predecessor. Although many places were a little blurry because of the forgetting mechanism of humans…

He could still obtain a lot of useful information.

The night was getting darker.

Another car passed by outside the window, honking and accompanied by a man’s loud cursing.

“Who the fuck parked in my spot again?! Fuck the ancestors of your whole family!”

After cursing for a while, the voice gradually weakened, and silence returned.

The mixed music of the guzheng and pipa kept repeating in his ears over and over.

The surrounding noises slowly faded away, leaving only the pure music.

Crisp, cold, quiet.

Li Chengyi’s consciousness kept sorting out his memories as though he were watching a movie. As his mind continued to be consumed, his body began to feel indescribably exhausted.

This fatigue became heavier and heavier, causing his consciousness to gradually become blurry. He was about to fall asleep.

His predecessor had slept like this every day. The long-term period of not resting well and the unhappiness from not being able to find a job made him more taciturn and less communicative.

As time passed slowly, Li Chengyi became more and more exhausted, and his mind fell into chaos.

He closed his eyes and adjusted his sleeping posture, intending to take a short rest.

Click.

Suddenly, a clear and crisp sound woke him up from his drowsiness.

His eyes slowly opened, and the sleepiness that had just gushed out began to disappear.

What was that sound?! He sat up and looked around, but he didn’t find anything. Then he found that there was no sound from his headphones.

Why is there no sound? Li Chengyi picked up the cassette player. This old-fashioned music player was a collectible bought from a flea market by his predecessor.

Now, in this grayish-white cassette player with some peeling paint, through the glass-like plastic casing, he could see the cassette tape spinning inside, but there was no sound from his headphones.

The music had disappeared, and only a slight electric current noise remained in the headphones.

Frowning, he picked up the machine and shook it, but there was still no music.

Li Chengyi took off his headphones and looked at the bedroom.

The street lights outside the window had disappeared at some point, leaving only darkness.

There were not many furnishings in the bedroom. Coupled with the white walls, it looked a little cold.

A wardrobe, a desk, a utility cabinet, two high-backed metal chairs with two backpacks hanging askew on them, and a pair of white plastic slippers with their toes facing each other…

Apart from these things, there was nothing else.

I keep feeling something is wrong. Li Chengyi frowned, feeling a faint sense of uneasiness creeping into his heart.

Having slept in this room for many years, he was clearly familiar with every place, but now…

Is it possible that my predecessor was fine after living here for more than twenty years, but something happened as soon as I came?

He looked around again, and his gaze slowly stopped on the door.

The door was open!

His heart turned cold.

He had clearly locked it when he went to bed!

But now, the door was slightly ajar.

Outside the dark crack, there seemed to be a faint humanoid shadow crouching at the door, peeping inside.

In the darkness, Li Chengyi felt his hair stand on end as he stared intently at the crack in the door.

He didn’t know if it was an illusion or a hallucination, but through the crack that was only as thick as a finger, there seemed to be a black eye staring straight at him sitting on the bed.

Creak.

A gust of cold wind blew into the room through the crack of the door.

The current of air pushed the bedroom door open wider.

Li Chengyi broke out in a cold sweat, and his vision was slightly blurry.

At this moment, he looked carefully again and found that there was only darkness at the crack of the door. There were no eyes or figures.

Everything just now seemed to be his illusion.

He sat quietly on the bed for a while.

After waiting for a few minutes, when his body was no longer too tense, he slowly relaxed his breathing, put on his slippers, and got out of bed.

He took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling, and calmed his emotions. He gently grabbed the metal bat standing in the gap between the headboard and the wardrobe.

It was the fellow that his predecessor had bought specifically for self-defense.

The solid feel of the cold bat made him feel a little more at ease.

He raised the bat silently and slowly walked to the back of the door, where he wouldn’t be seen through the crack.

Standing behind the door, he could see the night scene outside the window and the gap between the curtains.

However, what shocked Li Chengyi was that he just glanced out the window from the corner of his eye and found that it was still pitch-black outside the gap of the curtains. There was nothing.

Hallucination? Dream? He felt his throat go dry and gulped. He held the bat tightly in one hand and slowly grasped the door handle with the other.

Whoosh!

He suddenly pulled hard.

He turned to face the opened door and raised the bat high, ready to smash it down.