“……”

“Tsk, they sure left in a hurry!”

Wayne Baker finished counting his earnings, got started on today’s work files, and casually took out his diary to jot down the client’s praise for him.

The words were full of compliments.

Judging by this diary alone, he was undoubtedly a helpful, broad-minded, and passionate young man making a difference in society.

As for the quick cash he earned by bending professional ethics, Wayne Baker felt no guilt at all. Sure, he took the opportunity to make a buck, but he suffered heavy losses too.

Half of Mrs. Clark’s deposit had to be refunded, and a failed investigation would damage the detective agency’s reputation. He risked having his professional abilities questioned and even having a killer show up at his door, all to earn five times the usual commission—he was the one at a loss, really.

Money earned by skill—one willing to pay, one willing to take—no need to feel guilty.

By the time Wayne Baker finished today’s work, the sun had already set, darkness began to envelop the city, and the streets and alleys quickly quieted down.

With the darkness came a hazy mist.

As Wayne Baker calculated how much rent he still owed, he headed to the kitchen to prepare his dinner, sincerely saying, “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Clark. Thanks to your harmonious marriage, I won’t have to eat potatoes tomorrow.”

Not tomorrow, but today was unavoidable—at least tonight, he’d have to battle potatoes to the end.

Potato chunks, fried potatoes, pan-fried potatoes, potato salad, mashed potatoes…

At first glance, it looked quite a feast—several dishes, even.

Wayne Baker stabbed a chunk of potato on his plate with a fork, and out of the corner of his eye caught his reflection in the mirror on the bookshelf—a face with black hair and black eyes.

Nothing more to say—he was really down to potatoes!

Take Mrs. Clark for example: if Wayne Baker hadn’t insisted on refusing, he could have gotten long-term financial aid just like a flunked student.

This was Wayne Baker’s third month on the Divine Chosen Continent. He had inherited everything from the unlucky ‘Wayne Baker’—from the detective agency to the rent, right down to the potatoes in the kitchen counted by the basket—nothing was left out.

When he first arrived, Wayne Baker saw he owned a small building on a commercial street, complete with an attic and a basement. With his money-oriented outlook on life, he quickly accepted the change.

Until the landlord came to collect the debt and took away the radio.

When he found out he was in the red, Wayne Baker couldn’t laugh anymore. But then he thought, in his previous life he owed even more to the bank, so maybe it wasn’t so hard to accept.

Then he couldn’t accept it after all.

1938, Europe, the Kingdom of Windsor, London… The details were a bit different, but no matter how you looked at it, it felt like a city about to be bombed.

Just waiting for that someone to raise the national flag.

And then came the real deal-breaker: Wayne Baker hadn’t traveled through time, but through space. This Earth had only two continents—one Divine Chosen Continent, one Frozen Continent.

No familiar homeland, and no bald eagle banging drums and stealing oil everywhere.

The Frozen Continent was basically Antarctica, which centuries ago was also called the Dark Continent or the Forsaken Continent. The Divine Chosen Continent extended partly into the Arctic, which was frozen year-round and barely habitable.

Other than that, this Earth was a vast blue—look at the world map, and it was all water.

It took Wayne Baker a long time to convince himself that life is what it is because everyone has their own hardships. He told himself to keep his spirits up and look forward; if things really didn’t work out, he could always give up later.

And then he saw the potatoes.

“I hate potatoes!”

As Wayne Baker dismembered the potato chunks on his plate, he recalled the tough three months behind him. His predecessor was a die-hard romantic—no, just an idiot.

Clearly an amateur, yet confidently opened a detective agency; already had a detective agency, yet spent his days loafing around at social events; not a single client, yet still hired a secretary for show.

Wayne Baker couldn’t make sense of it and was deeply shocked. When he first arrived, the place was plastered with posters of female celebrities. The original owner wasn’t just brainless, but a brainless, fanatical celebrity-chaser.

For the sake of those golden-haired, wavy-haired starlets, Wayne Baker didn’t throw the posters straight into the trash after tearing them down, but instead stored them all in his bedroom on the second floor.

Maybe it was a side effect of transmigration, but Wayne Baker didn’t inherit much memory from his predecessor. The scattered fragments were too chaotic to piece together a clear story, so he just skimmed through them and set them aside.

The clearest memory was in a dark room, with a desk lamp on the table, surrounded by whispers, threats, even curses and beatings—apparently, the previous owner had a criminal record and was re-entering society.

Besides that, the original owner also had a “future diary”—like a summer homework journal, but the writing was a mess, completely illogical, and most of it was wild fantasies about marrying a female celebrity and living a shameless little life.

Three times a day, sometimes five.

Because it was so “artistic,” Wayne Baker kept the diary in his nightstand, occasionally taking it out late at night to study the grammar.

The original owner was undoubtedly a failure. In Wayne Baker’s view, his lack of professionalism only proved how outstanding the city’s other detectives were.

In Wayne Baker’s words, if there are no dark horses who solve major cases as soon as they enter the field, then the original owner was the black donkey of the detective world.

But to be fair, the original owner was very hardworking—hardworking at being unprofessional. If he hadn’t worked so hard at it, he wouldn’t have ended up like this!