Part One: The Eagle Spreads Its Wings

Chapter 001: Dream Back to '79

"Where am I?"

David Clark rubbed his head and opened his eyes, finding himself lying in a shabby room. Beside him sat a policeman wearing a large-brimmed cap, smiling at him. David Clark felt that something was off. Thinking carefully, he realized that the policeman’s uniform was not the navy blue he was familiar with, but white on top and blue on the bottom, with a red collar tab.

"Comrade, you’re awake?" the policeman asked kindly.

"What is this place?" David Clark asked.

The policeman replied politely, "This is the Hongshan Police Station in Yuyang County, Xiangping Province. I’m the chief here, my name is Richard Brooks."

"How did I end up here?" David Clark was still not fully awake. He vaguely remembered that just a moment ago, he was doing experiments in the lab at Huaqing University. His mind had drifted, and then, inexplicably, he entered a chaotic space. He didn’t know how long he drifted there—it felt like an instant, yet also like a whole century. When he opened his eyes again, he was already in this even more baffling Hongshan Police Station in Yuyang County, a place he’d never even heard of.

"Yesterday, the long-distance bus you were on passed through the Hongshan Pass. Several criminals blocked the bus at the pass, attempting to rob the passengers. You and a few other passengers stood up and subdued the criminals—just you alone took down three of them. At that moment, the last criminal detonated a homemade bomb. To protect a little girl on the bus, you were injured by the explosion. The people brought you to our station, and you’ve been unconscious until now." Richard Brooks patiently explained. He knew that people who experience severe trauma can sometimes suffer temporary amnesia, and his job now was to help this young man recover his memory.

So I have such a glorious deed? David Clark thought to himself. He already understood his situation. In his previous life in the 21st century, if you hadn’t experienced time travel a few times, you’d be embarrassed to even greet people. He must have had a stroke of luck and caught the time-travel train, naturally arriving in a strange era. As for the era, it was definitely in New China, because the policeman in front of him was a New China policeman, though the time was probably much earlier.

David Clark was silent for a while, and some residual memories from the body his soul now inhabited gradually surfaced. The owner of this body was also named David Clark, 18 years old, a recently discharged soldier who had just returned from the battlefield of the counterattack war. Before enlisting, he was the child of a worker at the Hanhua Machinery Factory in Fenghua County, Jiangnan Province. He had just escorted his wounded platoon leader back home from the battlefield and was now taking the bus back to his own hometown, waiting for job assignment. The reason for his coma was just as Richard Brooks had said: he acted bravely, fought the criminals, and was finally injured by the homemade bomb. As for the current date, the calendar on the wall clearly read: August 25, 1979.

"Um... Chief Brooks, were the criminals caught?" David Clark made small talk with Richard Brooks, needing to quickly adapt to his new identity through this kind of conversation.

"One of the criminals was killed by the explosion on the spot, and the others were caught by the people," Richard Brooks said.

"Everyone is safe, right?" David Clark continued. Actually, this wasn’t what he wanted to ask, but he felt that any hero in this situation ought to ask this question.

Sure enough, this made Richard Brooks feel even more favorable toward David Clark. What a good comrade—after being unconscious for most of the day, the first thing he does upon waking is care about the people he protected.

"Don’t worry, Comrade Clark, everyone is safe. How are you feeling physically?"

David Clark reached out and felt his body. A few wounds still hurt, but nothing serious. He thought wryly, maybe the original owner of this body really did suffer fatal injuries and his soul had already departed. Now, the one taking over this body was the graduate student David Clark from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Huaqing University, more than thirty years in the future. It was like a system reset and restart, so naturally there was no major problem.

As David Clark explored his body, he still felt a bit unfamiliar. His original self, though smart, was physically weak—he always failed the pull-up test. But this body was muscular and strong, and according to Richard Brooks, he alone had taken down three criminals, so his skills must be quite good. The residual memories told him that the original David Clark was a soldier in a reconnaissance company of the PLA, with excellent military training.

"Chief Brooks, I’m fine. I was a reconnaissance soldier—these injuries are nothing," David Clark said with bravado.