At the washstand, tap water rushed and splashed.
Li Haorui bent at the waist, head lowered, cupping water in both hands and splashing it over his face again and again.
The cold stabbed at his nerves over and over. In the mirror, that unfamiliar face was covered in beads of water.
He stared at it for a long time, then slowly exhaled a breath of stale air.
Two days.
Whether he prayed to gods and Buddhas or called out for a system, nothing had worked.
The truth was already right before his eyes—he had taken Gu Xiao’s place, and he had to take over the other man’s life.
There was no point agonizing over why he had transmigrated, and he had no interest in putting on some philosophical act of “I think, therefore I am.”
Since birth, a person had responsibilities to shoulder; while alive, one had to bear burdens and keep moving forward.
Wiping the mist from the mirror, Gu Xiao stared at the sharp, three-dimensional features reflected there and mocked himself faintly.
“At least this face isn’t bad.”
Leaving the bathroom, he found the three-bedroom, one-living-room home cold and quiet. With more than a hundred square meters of space, it felt empty with only father and son living there.
Aside from the aged wooden sofa and coffee table, the most eye-catching thing was a heavy television set.
Gu Xiao returned to his own room. A wooden desk, a single bed, piles of test papers and cardboard boxes—everything radiated the dull ordinariness of high school life.
The only things in the room that could be called entertainment were a guitar in the corner and a CD player on the bookshelf.
After sweeping his eyes around, Gu Xiao’s gaze fell on the calendar hanging on the wall above the desk. March 5th and July 7th had both been heavily marked.
He wasn’t quite sure about the former, but the latter should be the date of the college entrance exam.
“What rotten luck.”
Gu Xiao sat down at the desk and pulled a scrap of paper covered in messy handwriting from beneath the base of the desk lamp.
Stock market, real estate, internet... Behind every keyword was an enormous fortune in the future, making his heart burn with excitement.
Unfortunately, he had no money.
A high school student, even knowing where the opportunities lay, would find it difficult to participate in these projects without startup capital or a suitable identity.
After thinking it over, the easiest way to seize his first pot of gold seemed to be the upcoming 2002 FIFA World Cup in South Korea and Japan.
“Senegal takes down France... South Korea goes dark horse all the way... Brazil wins the championship in the end...” Gu Xiao murmured to himself, as if he could already see banknotes beckoning to him.
But in the next second, his shoulders slumped.
This was 2002. Football lottery options were simple, and as long as one won, the prize would almost certainly be over ten thousand yuan. That required claiming it under one’s real name with an ID card.
Macau? Individual travel to Macau hadn’t opened yet! And casinos likewise banned minors from entering!
Online betting was an option, but the waters there were too deep, and almost all of it was a scam.
“What the hell, is this messing with me?”
Gu Xiao collapsed weakly onto the desk, burying his face in the crook of his arm as he let out a despairing sigh.
To possess a mountain of treasure yet be unable to obtain it—utterly merciless!
After a moment of silence, he suddenly sat up straight again.
He wasn’t someone who liked getting tangled up in things. Besides, having been reborn once, with the advantage of information disparity, there would be more opportunities to make money than he could count.
He pressed the note back under the lamp base, and his gaze landed on the calendar.
The college entrance exam.
Academic qualifications could not determine one’s life, but striving for a good diploma was never a bad thing in any era.
For the sake of future development, he at least had to test into a local school in the capital.
Judging from his family background, the most suitable choice was Beilin.
It was a first-tier university ranked relatively low. With the memories of his previous and current lives, if he put in some effort, there should be no problem at all. Even if he failed, there was still Beinong as a backup.
Thinking back to the hamster and the big yellow dog at the hospital two days ago, he mocked himself.
“I almost hope those voices really were hallucinations.”
The creak of the metal front door interrupted Gu Xiao’s thoughts. Footsteps slowly approached his bedroom door.
“So early?” He glanced at the clock, brows furrowing.
The zoo was open all year round, and Gu Hui’s position was area supervisor, which came with responsibility-based duties. If anything went wrong, he had to be on call.
One had to know that there weren’t many animal experts in this era. As one of the best among them, Gu Hui frequently had to engage in academic exchanges and provide technical guidance with other experts; sometimes he even had to go on business trips to other cities.
Counting from the day at the hospital, the man had already taken three days off. He shouldn’t have come back this early today, Gu Xiao muttered inwardly.
Knock, knock.
The knocking was dull and restrained, just like Gu Hui himself.
“Come in,” Gu Xiao replied, casually flipping the calendar on the desk back to the current date.
Gu Hui pushed the door open and came in, carrying the zoo’s unique scent on him—a mixture of fodder, disinfectant, and animal feces.
The former Gu Xiao had loathed it with every fiber of his being.
“Work unit gave these out. I don’t eat sweets.” Gu Hui handed over the transparent plastic box he was carrying. Inside were several small cakes.
But I don’t really like them either... Gu Xiao glanced at his cheap old man, took the bag, and probed,
“Is the zoo not busy?”
“School’s started. The temperature’s rising. Aside from repairing enclosures, disinfecting, vaccinating the animals, preventing fights during rutting season... there’s not much.” Gu Hui answered calmly.
This is called “not much”? Were workers in 2002 already this overworked...? Gu Xiao suppressed the urge to complain and changed the topic.
“Did you need something from me?”
Gu Hui glanced at his son, paused for a moment, then took a card from his pocket. It had a white background and red characters, about the size of an ID card, and was covered in cracks like shattered porcelain.
The large scarlet words at the very top were especially eye-catching—Beijing Film Academy.
Gu Xiao’s eyes widened in disbelief as fragments of memory surged up once more.
Liking singing, loving movies, longing to receive attention—the obsessions belonging to the original owner surged into his heart.
Gu Xiao swallowed, suddenly feeling that the way things were developing had far exceeded his expectations.
“I didn’t glue it very well... but I asked around. The most important embossed seal is fine. It can still be used.”
After saying that, Gu Hui turned and left without looking back.
Inside the room, Gu Xiao looked at the battered card in his hand, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly.
Name: Gu Xiao
Admission Ticket No.: 0208127
Department Applied For: Acting Department
Exam Location: Beijing Film Academy, Performance and Directing Building, Classroom 301
Exam Time: March 5, 2002, 9:00 a.m.
...
...
“What kind of joke is this!”
Gu Xiao cursed inwardly.
In his previous life, his only connection to the entertainment industry had been starting flame wars and ranting in the comment section.
As a qualified netizen, he had watched countless movies and TV dramas, and all kinds of jokes and skits came easily to him. But acting... this seemed no different from forcing Zhang Fei to embroider flowers.
Besides, he had already transmigrated. With the stock market and real estate, he could ascend on the spot. Why should he go suffer through acting?
Gu Xiao had just been about to toss the admission ticket into the trash can when he saw the fine cracks covering it and the guitar in the corner of the room. For a moment, he froze where he stood, unable to bring himself to do it.
After thinking for a long while, he still sighed.
“Forget it. I’ll just go take a look.”
A new life—seeing a different world wouldn’t be bad either.
At this time, at Beidian, Yao Chen and Du Chun had not yet graduated; Dong Xuan was still in her sophomore year; Huang Shengyi, Jia Nailiang, and Wang Luodan were freshmen who had only enrolled a year ago.
As for the 2002 class’s Zhu Yawen, Jiang Yiyan, Luo Jin, and Liu Yifei, Gu Xiao had no expectation at all of passing the preliminary exam, so there was nothing worth looking forward to.
“I’ll just treat it as going to see what the future stars look like bare-faced,” he consoled himself.
...
...
The next day, early morning.
At the entrance of Beijing Film Academy, an enormous crowd of art exam candidates with tense expressions surged back and forth.
They came from all over the country. Some, accompanied by their parents, repeatedly checked their admission tickets and talent-performance tools; others stood alone, silently reciting lines or adjusting their bearing.
Gu Xiao stood empty-handed in the crowd, looking utterly out of place.
Just as he was about to find an empty corner to loiter in, a young man with a buzz cut grabbed him.
“Bro, did you come alone?”
Gu Xiao blinked, then nodded. “I’m a local.”
The young man understood at once. “So that’s how it is. Then please take care of me—no, I mean, let’s both do our best. Haha, my name’s Luo Jin. I’m from Jiangxi. I’m a little nervous.”
Gu Xiao was dumbfounded. “Your name is Luo what?”
“Luo Jin.”
“What Jin?”
“...Luo! Jin!”