CH 1

1972, When spring turned to summer in Hong Kong, the city was bursting with life.

Twilight comes, the sun going down, and the busy streets are bustling with activity, with modern men and women dressed to impress, muttering to each other while waiting for work to finish.

This thriving metropolis is filled with a mix of rich and poor people. There is a deterioration on one side and a blossom on the other.

Rickshaws creaked when they came to an abrupt stop.

It was a teenager, maybe seventeen or eighteen years of age, who got out of the car first.

As a result of his lean frame, the crumpled white shirt he wore looked bare. There was a pale paper face on his slender body, and even his lips were devoid of any blood, giving him a frail and sickly appearance.

Even though you might not notice his handsomeness at first, if you take the time to look at him closely, you will discover him to be rather charming.

Lips—even the pale ones—have exceptionally attractive curvatures.

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An aspiring killer was the novel’s antagonist.

Qiao Wen was the good brother of a villain who grew up with him. He was a small cannon fodder who died of illness.

Because he died too early and didn’t even appear in the book, this role is trivial. As far as the villain was concerned, it did not exist.

Qiao Wen read the book, yes.

2020, he traveled through this novel set in 1970s Hong Kong City, and he became the book’s supporting character of that same name.

On a specific desert in the west, which was a day ago, in the early fall of 2020.

July, it was a cool desert night with a steady flow of fire, and everyone in the camp was fast asleep. They could hear the heavy breathing coming from the tent next door.

Qiao Wen was watching over the bonfire. Hearing rustles and footsteps approaching “Brother Wen, do you smoke?” the person whispered to him after he had collected the fire.

Qiao Wen turned his head and saw that it was the guy from the camping team. A boy in glasses.

The only time he saw this group of hikers was during the day. I don’t know the boy’s name. I only heard him calling himself an Otaku.

For the first time in a long time, I decided to venture out into the world. For the past two days, I’ve been walking with the group. In the middle of nowhere.

“Thank you.” taking the cigarette out of the boy’s hand before lighting it with fire Qiao Wen said with a smile. “What? Can’t sleep?”

After feeling the cold night breeze, the boy couldn’t help but rub his arms and say: “It’s pitch black everywhere, and there are no people to be seen. It’s scary.”

Qiao Wen asked “Is this your first time in a desert?”

The youngster nodded “I signed up because the team leader said he was very experienced, but I didn’t expect it. To get lost after walking for more than a day. Fortunately, I met you; otherwise, I’d have no idea what was going to happen. I really admire that you dare to walk through the desert alone,” he said sincerely.

Qiao Wen shook his head and smiled: “Try a few more times. It’ll only happen once.”

He looked up into the distance, the vast sky covered in stars, and the desert that could not be seen at the end, hidden in the darkness, so quiet that only the sound of wind coming from nowhere could be heard, and no one knew how much danger lay hidden in that dark place.

And danger is always intriguing.

The boy stared at him calmly. During the day, the team crashed like headless flies. When the drinking water was about to run out, the young man appeared to fall from the sky, leading them to a water source and then camped nearby.

He had no idea who he was; all he knew was that he was an experienced hiker with superior physical strength and a calm demeanor, that he was well-equipped, and that he should be quite wealthy. In fact, most daring individuals that seek adventure are not short on cash.

He was also very attractive. The handsome face with a little stubble was almost distorted and handsome in the light of the campfire.

Qiao Wen ignored the boy’s stare, smiled, glanced at him, and casually said, “Or you’d just snooze by the bonfire? Don’t be afraid, I’m right next to you.”

“If you’re sleepy,” the boy said. “Call me, and I’ll switch shifts with you to watch the fire.”

Qiao Wen’s lower lip curled, noncommittal.

“If you’re bored, read a novel to pass the time,” the boy placed the kindle on the ground, while spreading a blanket under him and wrapping himself in a windproof suit.

Indeed, the night is long. Qiao Wen was bored and so picked it up, the kindle and flipped through the first book on the shelf.

“The Great Man of the Seventies.”

Looking at the name you can easily tell with it’s a cool text, it’s a YY on the internet.1

Qiao Wen rarely reads web articles, but when he considers how long he’ll have to wait for the rest of the group to wake up to replace him, he figures he’ll have to wait until dawn, so he’ll open it and read to pass the time.

When the sky finally turned bright and the people in the tent woke up one after another. The villain was already shot to death by the protagonist.

He handed the kindle back to the sleeping boy.

“What book were you reading?” the boy casually inquired as he rubbed his face and took it.

“It’s the first one on your bookshelf,” Qiao Wen stated.

The boy said “That online novel. By the way—” “There is a character with the same name as yours,” he continued while smiling.

“Really? I didn’t pay attention.” Qiao Wen passed the time.

I was scribbling and didn’t realize there was a supporting character in the book with the same name as mine.

The youngster wanted to be a novelist. When he discussed it, he became interested: “It’s was Chen Jianan’s, the villain’s friend, who died young and only exists in his memories. The two came from a poor family, and when the boy became seriously ill, he couldn’t afford to go to the big hospital. Chen Jianan went to assassinate the male protagonist’s father in order to pay for his medical bills. But by the time he finished killing, this young man had died in the Kowloon Walled City’s black clinic. Chen Jianan was greatly inspired and decided to pursue a job in finance. Where the road is fiendishly crooked.”

Qiao Wen finally remembered, after he was reminded, that there was indeed such a minor supporting role, who had already vanished before the beginning of the story.

He didn’t care about the name because he was just a character who appeared in the memories of the villain, Chen Jianan.

It was originally just a fun text to read to pass the time, and this kind of vulgar plot is nothing out of the ordinary.

The boy had just described how he was suddenly moved by the villain’s friendship in the book.

There was even a southern character in his name because he happened to have a fat girl who could save his life.

Other people came in one by one to say hello, interrupting the two people’s small talk.

Before the sun rose, the group washed briefly, ate some dry food, and hit the road. At noon, Qiao Wen dispatched them to the nearest highway and continued the unfinished desert journey alone.

Since Lin Nan’s absence, all of the adventures and journeys the two had planned together can only be completed by him.

This was his final stop on his desert adventure. When it was finished, he would return to the worldly fireworks and live a good life, just as Lin Nan had hoped.

It’s just that the world is unexpectedly unpredictable. Qiao Wen encountered a sandstorm about halfway through his desert journey.

The yellow sand swept across the sky, and he was quickly buried in it. His breathing became increasingly difficult, and eventually, the entire person fell into deep darkness.

He was aware that he was going to die.

I just don’t know if I’ll be able to see Lin Nan after death.

“Awen! Awen! You wake up, don’t die!”

The eardrum was shook by a harsh howling, and the violent shaking of his body drew Qiao Wen back from suffocation.

A fishy heat jumped up from his throat, forcing him to cough heavily, then gasp and breathe hard, like a drowning person regaining air, and the feeling of suffocation was finally relieved.

“Awen, you…you’re not dead?”

Qiao Wen struggled to open his eyes, and a strange young man with tears in his eyes appeared, holding his shoulder and shaking violently. He finally knew why, like seasickness, he dared to be shaken violently by the child.

He took two deep breaths, eased a little, and then said, dumbly, “Hao Tsai, are you a ghost?”

Hao Tsai?

Qiao Wen was stunned. He not only blurted out the name of the strange boy, but he also clearly spoke Cantonese.

Just as he was about to lose his mind, he was hit by a memory that didn’t belong to him, and the tide flooded his mind.

After a brief moment, he looked around incredulously.

The room is dimly lit. He deems himself to be aware, but he has never seen such a simple and dilapidated house in his life.

The yellow wall, a small window with broken glass, a few tables and chairs in the house that haven’t even been painted, and a few black pottery pots that boil medicine on the table, with a mixture of various medicines exuding throughout the room 

The strong odor on the table next to it, an old seated fan was creaking.

Darkness, damp, sweltering heat, filth…

The memory that had just come up told him that this is a clinic, a black clinic in Hong Kong City’s Kowloon Walled City in the 1970s.

When he saw him waking up, Hao Tsai finally let go of the hands that were holding his shoulders swaying wildly, wiped his eyes, and screamed excitedly: “Uncle Hua! Come on, Awen, woke up!” he said.

As soon as he landed, a thin old man in his 50s and 60s lifted the curtain and entered from the outside.

This man was born with a round nose and small eyes, a long beard, and a melon hat popular in the Republic of China. Unlike a doctor, he resembled a fortune teller with a stall under an overpass.

He walked over in disbelief, opened his hand to lift Qiao Wen’s, frowned and took a closer look, then grabbed his wrist and glared at his soya-bean eyes as he pulsed, and clicked his tongue unbelievably:

“It’s strange, right now. He obviously stopped his heartbeat and how do you come back to life after having breathed out?”

Turning his wails into sobs Hao Tsai sobbed sporadically. “Uncle Hua, you just said that Awen is gone, I almost died in fright,” 

Qiao Wen was sitting on this small wooden frame bed beneath him, allowed the elderly Chinese doctor to exercise insights and inquiries on himself while silently digesting the new memories he had just gained in his head and sorted out the present situation.

Obviously, he was caught in a sandstorm in the desert, but why did he arrive to this strange place as soon as he opened his eyes?

Fortunately, he had just finished reading “The Great Man of the Seventies.” on the web, so he was able to swiftly deduce that, due to metaphysical power, he who was supposed to die in the sandstorm but was reborn in the world of this novel instead.

In the novel, he became the cannon fodder of the same name, as well as the kind brother of the huge villain Chen Jianan, who belched early.

This universe is the Hong Kong City in the early 1970s, which is referred to as Kowloon Walled City in the book, it was equivalent to the real world where it was also chaotic and prosperous Hong Kong in the 1970s.

In his head, he explored the timeline.

He remembered that when Chen Jianan died, the author wrote a substantial book about his previous mental voyage. The most painful memory was the death of his grown-up brother Qiao Wen.

In this universe, Qiao Wen has been sickly since he was a child and he was diagnosed with a terrible sickness when he was 18 years old.

For several days, he lay in the Kowloon Walled City’s broken clinic. Hospitalization is an option. However, because they were both impoverished Kowloon Walled City youngsters at the time, neither of them could afford to go to the main hospital.

Chen Jianan agreed to a murder mission from the society’s boss in order to raise funds for Qiao Wen’s treatment. The father of the protagonist, Lin Zihui, was the target of the assassination.

This was his first murder, and it went smoothly. However, the teenager laying on the dirty crib of the black clinic was already cold and hard when he received the money and raced back to prepare to transport Qiao Wen to the foreign hospital.

That was the darkest point in Chen Jianan ‘s life; since then, he has pledged to make a lot of money and has begun on a path of no return of the evil villain, which has become the source of his future tragic conclusion.

If I’m not mistaken, today is the anniversary of Qiao Wen’s death and a turning point in Chen Canan’s life.

Combining the situation in which Hao Tsai had just grasped the original body and shook the soul and howled like a wolf, couple with the reaction of the old Chinese doctor Uncle Hua, Qiao Wen should have died in this world, but because his spirit entered, this body came back to life.

He became the Qiao Wen in the book.

But, in any circumstances, he who died in the desert was reborn as someone else in another universe.

He promised Lin Nan that he would live well, that even if he entered an alternate world as long as his identity, and his physique, is there then it was always better to be able to exist.
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