Chapter One: Hong Kong, a Place I Never Wanted to Come

"It hurts! It really hurts!"

Amidst utter darkness, a streak of white light slowly spread out.

Yan Xu’s eyelids opened with effort. What greeted him was not a beautiful landscape, but a piercing, blinding glare. The brightness stung his eyes, a sensation both sour and indescribable, making his eyes instantly water in self-defense.

“It hurts too much!”

Slowly, Yan Xu lifted his arm and reached for his head. After a period of confusion and haze, memories of what happened before he lost consciousness flashed distinctly through his mind.

He had been in the director’s office, discussing the next day’s shoot. When the lead actress barged in to have a “deep talk” with the director, Yan Xu, sensible as ever, volunteered to check over the set props for the following day.

But as soon as he entered the studio, someone shouted—a voice he couldn’t quite place—and a wooden staircase wall came crashing down. Yan Xu was the unlucky one caught beneath it.

Normally, shoddy, anachronistic set pieces like that wouldn’t cause much harm even if they collapsed. From the front, the set looked solid and convincing, but it was really just an illusion created by clever lighting; the walls were assembled from thin planks, and some sections were nothing more than painted cardboard.

However, the previous day, the temperamental male lead, in a fit of overacting, had punched a hole clear through the wall. The props master had to patch it in a hurry with a solid plank. That very plank was now the culprit responsible for striking Yan Xu on the back of his head.

A headache, Yan Xu could understand. But what he couldn’t make sense of was the searing, tearing pain burning down his back. He didn’t recall injuring his back. Had he been further hurt after passing out?

Soon, his eyes adjusted to the room’s light. Propping himself up, he managed to roll his aching body over and sit up halfway.

“Where am I?”

Everything around him was unfamiliar. The room was tiny, barely ten square meters. Aside from a rickety bunk bed, there was only a battered wooden table. The walls were plastered with old-fashioned posters of Mi Xue, each showing her in different period costumes from her youth.

Who would have such taste? Where did they even find such retro posters? These days, everyone idolized the likes of Bingbing or busty starlets—who would be so devoted to Mi Xue? Granted, she’d been stunning in her youth and still carried mature allure, but she was now well into her fifties or sixties.

Looking around at his environment, a surge of anger rose in Yan Xu’s chest. Even if the production company was strapped for cash and he, as the assistant director, was little more than a gofer, an injury like his should at least be considered a workplace accident. If they wouldn’t send him to the hospital, they should have brought him to the crew’s hotel to recover.

Instead, they’d thrown him into this shabby, cramped room with only a wooden bunk and a blanket that reeked of sweaty feet.

“Jiu Ri, you’re awake!”

Just as Yan Xu was plotting how to wring some compensation out of the production team, the door burst open. Two men entered, each carrying boxed meals and beer. Their faces lit up with joy when they saw Yan Xu half-sitting on the bed.

Yan Xu was completely at a loss. The first man, long-haired and dressed in a simple black tank top and faded jeans, had a dragon tattoo curling up his left arm to his chest and a thick gold chain around his neck. Beside him was a chubby, half-foreign man in a floral shirt, baggy shorts, and slippers. When he stretched his arms, his sagging belly was visible, adorned with a large wolf’s head tattoo.

Yan Xu had never seen these two in the crew before. The show they were filming was a Republican-era youth idol drama—he’d read the script several times, and there were no gangster characters like these.

“Gentlemen, you must have mistaken me for someone else. I’m not this Jiu Ri,” Yan Xu said cautiously. He didn’t dare offend these street toughs, especially in his injured state.

“Jiu Ri, come on, did you get hit on the head too hard? Don’t joke around,” the long-haired man said, stunned.

“Jiu Ri, he’s Ji Mao, and I’m Ghost Dong. Don’t tell me you really don’t recognize us?” The foreign-looking fat man set his beer on the table and leaned in.

“Ji Mao? Ghost Dong?”

Those names sounded oddly familiar, echoing in Yan Xu’s mind. As he pondered, a rush of strange yet familiar images flooded his brain, making his already aching head throb violently.

“Argh!” Yan Xu cried out in pain, clutching his head as he collapsed back onto the bed.

“Jiu Ri…”

“Jiu Ri, what’s wrong? Lie down…”

“That quack doctor said he’d be fine—let’s go tear up his shop…”

…

Yan Xu slept long and deep this time, half a day passing before he stirred. Yet this slumber brought clarity to the memories swirling in his mind—memories that told him, incredibly, he had traveled through time.

Back in university, he’d often daydream about time travel, imagining himself waking up in a wealthy family, or as a prince or minister, living a life of luxury and surrounded by beauties.

But after years in the real world, those dreams had faded into mere fantasies.

He’d been a drifter, a graduate from a third-rate film academy’s directing program, spending years bouncing between Beijing and Hengdian. The only reason he landed an assistant director’s job at all wasn’t due to talent, but because he could introduce the director and producer to fresh-faced girls hoping to get ahead by trading favors.

Given the choice, he wouldn’t have wanted to transmigrate. He’d already resigned himself to his life—a nobody in the industry, but still surrounded by aspiring starlets eager to curry favor.

He’d just started seeing a new girl who wanted a role in the show, and hadn’t even had the chance to “discuss the script” in depth. Now, that opportunity was lost.

Worse, others who transmigrated became emperors, princes, or landed gentry. But he’d ended up in 1980s Hong Kong as a nobody—a small-time member of the Yan syndicate's minor branch, known on the street as a “short mule,” or a low-ranking triad punk.

He was at the very bottom of the organization, and his “boss” was just a mid-level member with ten years in the society.

He belonged to the “four-nots” youth: no car, no house, no money, no woman.

At least he wasn’t entirely alone—he still had Ji Mao and Ghost Dong, his childhood friends and fellow small-time punks.

Right now, the 15K society’s forty-five branches were fractured and divided, rife with conflict. New forces like Lao Xin and Victory Union were constantly provoking them, making life for low-level punks like Yan Xu a daily struggle of brawls and bloodshed.

According to his new memories, their latest clash had been a failed negotiation with a rival branch, escalating into a brutal fight. Yan Xu had been stabbed and struck on the head during the melee, an injury that had triggered his transmigration.

There was one small comfort: this body was solid and muscular, nothing like his former pampered, flabby self. He was now twenty-two, seven or eight years younger than before.

Even his name remained unchanged—only now he had a new nickname: Jiu Ri.

From what he could tell, the nickname came partly from a play on his real name, and partly from his bold performance the first time the boss took him to a nightclub.