He was lost in thought, but his back suddenly pressed against an icy cold wall.

‘!!!’ William Thompson froze all over and quickly turned his head to look.

The bedroom behind him had, at some unknown point, turned into a grayish-white wall!

The room was gone!?

His bedroom was gone!?

Holding a baseball bat, dressed in gray pajamas, he stood there in a daze, unable to process what had just happened.

The room was gone.

The doorframe was gone too.

Behind him, there was only a stone wall identical to the others.

If it weren’t for the baseball bat still in his hand, he might have thought that sleeping in his room earlier was just a hallucination.

Reaching out, William Thompson gently touched the wall in front of him.

The hard, icy feel and the rough texture all told him that the wall before him was real.

There were even some tiny chips and dents on the wall, as if something hard and sharp had struck it, exposing a darker gray-black layer beneath.

‘What... is going on here!?!!’

William Thompson was utterly stunned.

He turned around again, looking toward the parking lot, taking a deep breath.

Hesitating, pausing for a moment, his expression gradually calmed, and the look in his eyes changed rapidly.

After a while, he finally let out a long breath and stepped forward.

Whoosh!

In an instant, the world spun, William Thompson’s vision blurred, and his consciousness became momentarily hazy.

He felt as if he was floating, the world spinning around him.

Beep beep beep...

A shrill alarm rang in his ears.

William Thompson’s vision gradually cleared.

The parking lot in his eyes turned into the white ceiling of his own room.

Square metal panels pieced together, white frames, black lines—this was the simple ceiling pattern at home.

He sat blankly on the bed, the phone on the nightstand vibrating slightly.

It was the alarm he had set.

On the pale blue screen, the word ‘exercise’ appeared.

The time was 7:32.

William Thompson took a deep breath, feeling his heart still pounding wildly.

The scenes he had just witnessed were so vivid that he still hadn’t recovered.

Sitting on the bed, waiting for his blood to slow down, he finally picked up his phone as the alarm continued to ring.

The phone’s background was a deep blue sea, with three young people in red life jackets lying on a round inflatable raft in the center.

All three had their hands behind their heads, smiling happily.

Golden sunlight, a gray inflatable raft, red life jackets, and the three bright smiles in the deep blue sea formed a warm picture.

William Thompson looked at the background photo on the screen, holding the phone in midair for a while, as only vague memories surfaced in his mind.

‘Samuel Clark, Edward Brooks.’

He remembered the names of the other two besides himself.

The girl was Samuel Clark, and the sturdy boy was Edward Brooks.

This was taken two years ago when the three of them went together to the Bishan Islands near Lanyang, and asked a sailor to take the photo.

Putting down the phone, he glanced at its appearance.

It was just a simple rectangular silver box, not much different from the phones in his previous life.

All screen, no buttons.

Swish.

He put down the phone, lifted the quilt, got out of bed, walked to the window, pushed aside a few jackets hanging there, and opened the window.

The cool air outside turned into a breeze, brushing against his face, and the aroma of fried eggs drifted into his nose.

The light outside was bright and white. The window was on the fourth floor, and below was a row of cars in various colors.

Across the way was another gray-white building over ten stories high. From here, he could see the windows on each floor, and the families inside gradually starting their day.

William Thompson turned his head and looked farther into the sky.

In the blue sky, a patch of hazy white clouds looked like cotton, sometimes blocking the sun, sometimes letting a bit of golden light through.

He steadied himself, turned to the table, and took a well-polished mirror from the drawer.

He looked at himself in the mirror.

Reflected was an ordinary young man’s face, with light yellow skin and dark eyes.

His eyebrows were a bit thin, the corners of his eyes slightly upturned, as if he was always smiling. Other than that, there was nothing particularly memorable about him.

His nose was neither high nor low, his mouth neither wide nor narrow, not thick nor thin.

He looked to be in his twenties, his gaze curious with a hint of surprise.

‘Doesn’t seem much different from my previous life?’

This thought flashed through William Thompson’s mind.

According to his old habits, he should be getting dressed and going out to exercise now.

Though his memory was fuzzy, he still remembered many things.

He opened the wardrobe, quickly found a set of gray sportswear to put on, then went out the door and into the living room.

The living room was empty; his parents and sister from before were already gone. There were fewer pairs of shoes on the rack by the door.

On the gray-white rectangular stone table sat a box of something gray and jelly-like.

William Thompson walked over and picked it up for a look.

There was a line of text on the box: Silver Ear and Mung Bean Porridge – Guding Brand.

After hesitating for a moment, he tore off the lid and drank it down.

It tasted sweet, just like what he used to have in his previous life.

He quickly finished his breakfast, changed shoes, and put on his running waist pack.