Chapter One Andrew Clark

1997, Beijing.

It was early spring, still very cold, and people on the street had yet to shed their winter clothes.

Andrew Clark wrapped himself tighter in his leather jacket, squatting by the roadside.

This leather jacket was last year’s most popular style, a favorite among young people, and quite expensive. Andrew Clark, who even counted his cigarettes one by one, certainly couldn’t afford it—he had snatched it.

The original owner must have been a prodigal, somehow slashing a cut into the jacket—a tiny slit at the collar—which made the owner despise it and toss it away.

At the time, both Andrew Clark and another old scavenger friend had their eyes on this prize. In the end, he relied on his youth and strength to grab it, and from then on, he and that old friend parted ways.

He felt it was worth it; with his income, it might have taken a month’s work to buy such a jacket.

Just a drinking buddy to shoot the breeze with—gone is gone.

The sky was a bit overcast, no sun in sight. Both vehicles and pedestrians seemed lazy, even cyclists pedaled lightly.

The New Year had just passed; nothing had really started yet.

Andrew Clark hadn’t been home in four years. To be precise, he had been reborn into this era for two months.

Two months—not long, not short—at least enough for him to calmly sort through piles of junk and dig out things he could sell.

At seventeen, he had come alone from a small village in the northeast to Beijing, hoping to make something of himself, though his goal was rather odd—to become a chef. Four years later, all he’d managed was to bury his head in the dirt. Andrew Clark couldn’t understand this kid’s dream, nor the actions taken in pursuit of it.

In his previous life, he was only thirty—young, whether alive or dead.

He’d spent his whole life in his hometown’s small county, not very bright, didn’t get into college, took over his father’s shoe repair shop after high school, worked for over a decade, had decent skills, enough to support a family. Later, he bought a house, married a good wife, and when he was reborn, his daughter had just turned two.

Such a plain life—maybe it would have stayed that way until the day he died. If there was anything different, it was the set of impressively named martial arts his grandfather had drilled into him with a stick since childhood—the Three Sovereigns Cannon Hammer Fist.

This style was said to be formidable, but he’d only learned the basics, just enough to be unbeatable in schoolyard fights in the county. As he grew older, he mellowed out.

A chilly wind blew by. Andrew Clark pinched his nose hard, turning the salty sting in his eyes into snot and blowing it out.

So, for someone like him—easygoing, with a harmonious family—he really didn’t understand much about the word “dream.”

In his view, being a chef was no different from repairing shoes, but he didn’t want to keep pursuing this body’s inexplicable ambition.

Two months—he’d gotten used to rummaging through trash bins, but not to the city that produced all this garbage.

Andrew Clark really disliked the city—afraid of it, annoyed by it, especially this imperial capital.

He missed his hometown’s small county, where you could buy anything within a mile; he missed his wife and child, the family going to the little bridge by the city after dinner to watch the stream. Then curling up on the sofa to watch TV late into the night, and after coaxing the child to sleep, still having some fun in bed.

A lowly life—being reborn didn’t make it any nobler.

Andrew Clark fished around in his inner pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, weighed it—one white-tipped cigarette poked out from the torn opening.

This pack cost three yuan—a luxury for him.

“The last one.”

Andrew Clark hesitated, but still pulled out that cigarette, sniffed it under his nose. The fresh tobacco scent cleared his muddled head a bit.

He clamped it in his mouth, took out a match, and struck one.

“Puff!”

The flame went out, leaving a wisp of smoke drifting away on the wind.

He curled his lip, took out another, struck it.

“Puff!”

Out again.

“Hey! I don’t believe this!”

Andrew Clark stubbornly struck match after match, but each one turned to white smoke.

Before long, a small pile of spent matchsticks had gathered at his feet.

Often, people like to do things like this—not out of stubbornness, just out of spite, utterly pointless spite.

Andrew Clark looked at the last match lying quietly in the box, its red tip mottled, like a gaping mouth mocking his childishness.

He finally gave in, stood up and looked around, then retreated a few meters to the base of a wall, turned his back to the wind, and struck the match.

“Whoosh!”

He took a deep drag, then exhaled slowly.

He kept hesitating about whether to go back—back home, back to that northeastern hometown he didn’t even know.

That little village still had the old house left by his deceased parents, and two acres of land.