He was a member of the prominent Lin family from Shiliang County, Dongyang Prefecture—Edward Sullivan. In early autumn, he hurried to Liujing, Jiangning to take the provincial examination. Although he barely squeezed in at the bottom of the list when the results were announced, he was still one of the lucky few among the three thousand candidates from all over Jiangdong. For someone like him, there were only about a hundred and fifty such lucky ones in all of Jiangdong’s eleven prefectures and eighty-six counties every three years.

The day after the provincial exam results were posted, as was customary, local officials held a Luming Banquet to celebrate the new provincial graduates (named so because the banquet included the recitation of the “Luming” poem from the Book of Songs). In these decadent times, a few singing girls would also be invited to enliven the event. At the Luming Banquet, Edward Sullivan first met the famous courtesan of Jiangning, Grace Bennett, and was instantly captivated, unable to extricate himself from her voluptuous beauty. After the results were posted, Edward Sullivan stayed in Jiangning for half a month just for Grace Bennett. Grace Bennett was invited by the wealthy merchant Charles Parker to sing at a private banquet for his father’s sixtieth birthday, and Edward Sullivan, not knowing his place, hired a small boat and followed along with his attendants.

A few nights ago, he tried to climb onto the roof of a black-awning boat to secretly watch Grace Bennett play the zither, but slipped and fell into the water. By the time he was rescued, he had already stopped breathing. He had become a drowned ghost, but unexpectedly, after a bizarre dream, he slowly woke up again, nearly scaring the hired mortician to death.

Edward Sullivan sat in the boat cabin, feeling that he must now be someone else, someone who didn’t belong to this world, with another name—Brian Carter.

The bow of the boat bumped gently against the dock, making it tremble. He instinctively clutched his chest, as if the bullet that had shot through the window in his dream was still lodged inside, causing a sharp pain. The sensation was so vivid, like a dream he couldn’t shake off even after waking…

In the dream, his name was Brian Carter. After serving in the army for a few years, he retired and immigrated overseas with his family. It was a city entirely populated by Chinese, no different from home, and even being treated as a third-class citizen didn’t feel strange. He worked as a busboy in a restaurant and had a girlfriend he met through a blind date. If he hadn’t left the restaurant that night and kindly tried to help a girl he met on the street—who claimed to have sprained her ankle—get to the hospital, none of what happened afterward would have occurred.

Brian Carter never expected that the girl was a bait set by the local security team, and he was detained for fifteen days and fined. He hadn’t meant to cause trouble; he paid the fine, lost his job, and his girlfriend left him. Compared to his comrades who died on secret missions, it was nothing.

But his father was stubborn and hot-tempered, unable to swallow the insult. After being mocked about the incident and unable to win the argument, he got into a fight, fell down the stairs, broke his neck, and died in the hospital two days later. Only then did Brian Carter feel that if he didn’t seek justice, he would be letting down his father, who died from the fall—his father would never rest in peace.

After multiple appeals were ignored, Brian Carter steeled himself and waited for an opportunity. He went to a bathhouse called Bangkok Palace and took hostage the security officers and the leading policeman who had framed him, hoping to use the media to expose the truth and demand justice. He knew he would face years in prison, but at that point, Brian Carter thought it was worth it—he was poor, had nothing to lose, so he might as well live fiercely.

He thought his plan was foolproof. After negotiating terms with the police negotiator, he threw the boning knife out the window, intending to end the farce. But he completely underestimated how ruthless these bastards were—they would never let him live. As soon as he gave up resistance and let his guard down, the sniper outside fired, and the police waiting at the door kicked it in and stormed inside. He didn’t even know if he managed to crush the last policeman’s throat; he was shot more than ten times, his strength spent. Maybe he didn’t kill him—damn, what a pity…

The dream was absurd, but the feelings were real, as if he had lived a life in a completely different world—taking police hostage, being shot to death, and then his soul unexpectedly entering the body of this young man named Edward Sullivan—who must have drowned in the Baishui River, and the one they rescued was someone else.

The overwhelming sense of reality was baffling—if the soul inside this body was that of Brian Carter, yet Edward Sullivan’s memories remained intact; if it was just a bizarre dream, he could still clearly feel as if he had a new mind, had become a different person. Seven days ago, he couldn’t swim, and when he fell into the water, he sank like a stone. Now, if he weren’t afraid of alarming others, he’d really want to jump in and test his swimming skills…

“Please trouble Master Foster to inform Miss Bennett that Lord Foster is waiting for a reply…” George Cooper urged John Foster at the bow.

Edward Sullivan could hear the conversation outside the cabin clearly. He thought to himself how that damned Baisha county magistrate Samuel Foster was really good at finding excuses to please his superior by asking Grace Bennett to come ashore and drink with him. The errand-runner George Cooper was a clerk in the criminal office of Baisha County and was also very eager to do a good job, urging them repeatedly.