Volume One: The Southern Boy and the Girl

Chapter 1: The North Hollywood Orphanage

　　"I'm sorry, Mark Carter, I don't want this either. If we keep being together, my dad..." The long-haired girl let go of the hand she had held for ten years, walked away without looking back, and finally disappeared into the distance.

　　"Ashley Carter..."

　　The young man called Mark Carter murmured to himself and opened another can of beer. Several months had passed, but every time he thought of that breakup, his heart still ached uncontrollably. After all, it was a ten-year relationship!

　　Actually, he knew this scene would happen sooner or later. He just kept holding onto hope, but reality eventually burst the bubble of his fantasy.

　　He was an orphan who grew up drifting between the streets and the orphanage. After graduating from middle school, he became a movie projectionist through self-study. She, after ten years of hard work, became a well-known music producer. The gap between them grew wider and wider—one lost in the haze of movies, the other famous and raking in money. Breaking up was only natural, wasn’t it?

　　Growing up in coldness and loneliness, having lost his only ray of light, he could only numb himself with alcohol.

　　After downing another can of beer, Mark Carter suddenly felt short of breath and weak all over. He couldn’t help but recall his long-dormant alcohol allergy, which had nearly killed him the last time it flared up!

　　Is it over? His eyelids grew too heavy to lift. Regret filled his heart. I’m just a fringe figure in the entertainment industry—why didn’t I work harder? If I could have become a dazzling superstar, would all this still have happened?

　　……

　　"Waa..."

　　A baby’s clear cry rang out. Mark Carter opened his eyes and was hit by a devastating truth—he had become a baby, an abandoned infant lying alone at the orphanage gate!

　　Could it be... could it be that he was reborn? Back to the moment he was abandoned? Didn’t this mean he could start over and do things his way?

　　As soon as this thought surfaced, he felt a wave of dizziness and immediately realized something was wrong. A baby’s brain couldn’t support so much thinking—he was running out of oxygen.

　　Damn! Am I going to die right after being reborn? Before losing consciousness, he saw a white-haired old lady pick him up.

　　Some higher power had played a not-so-small joke on him. Although he was once again an abandoned child born in 1980, the location had shifted from an ancient country in the East to the North Hollywood Norston Orphanage in Los Angeles.

　　According to the cursive English engraved on the necklace around his neck, he now had a new name—Ryan Jenkins!

　　I’ve become a little white boy? This was the reality that Mark Carter, or rather, Ryan Jenkins, had to accept.

　　Life in the orphanage was cold and dull. Ryan always felt a desire inside, pushing him to learn everything he could get his hands on. Thanks to his extraordinary language talent in this life and the careful guidance of the old director, by the age of four he could already speak, listen, read, and write English fluently.

　　Staying in the orphanage was not a long-term plan, but he didn’t know what else to do, so he immersed himself in study and reading as much as possible. Before he knew it, he had read through the books in the library several times.

　　That year, in order to get more funding, the orphanage organized all children over four to participate in Hollywood’s Halloween parade. It was only then that Ryan realized that the famous Hollywood was just south of the orphanage.

　　The moment he set foot on the Walk of Fame, all those classic movies he’d seen and English songs he’d heard in his previous life flashed through Ryan’s mind, as clear as if they were carved into his memory.

　　The parade made him feel incredibly clear-headed. As time went on, Ryan discovered that his body was much stronger than other kids his age, his mind was unusually sharp, he was especially sensitive to music and rhythm, and he had an extraordinary ability to construct images and words.

　　Although he didn’t know if he had any talent for acting, from the moment he opened his eyes, he had been acting—first as a baby, then as a child, and in the future as a teenager and young man. Even if some people thought he was a bit odd, no one ever suspected anything. Acting had become instinctive for him.

　　Could it be that heaven heard my dying wish from my previous life and sent me to Hollywood? Ryan understood what his heart desired—to become a dazzling superstar!

　　That’s not so bad. Maybe I’ll even get to meet my favorite stars from my previous life and become friends with them?