Volume One Chapter One: Rebirth in 1958

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"Squad One, seal off the entrance as planned. Not a single criminal is to escape. Squad Two, follow me inside for a full sweep. Move!"

With a metallic clang, the door was kicked open. "Hands on your heads! Crouch down!" The team, as previously briefed, surged into the rooms.

The place was already a mess, and the blaring music drowned out the sound of the door being kicked in. As they saw people rushing in, everyone inside seemed frozen in time, staring toward the doorway.

A moment later, someone shouted, "Cops are here! Run!"

Instantly, chaos erupted.

"Captain! Someone’s jumped out the window over there!"

"Secure this area and wait for backup. Qiangzi, you’re with me—give chase!"

"I’ll go this way, you circle around from there. Split up!"

With that, Zhang Xiao leapt out the window, catching sight of a shadow darting through the alley ahead.

"Stop!" he roared, taking three steps in two and quickly closing the distance...

Suddenly—buzz! His mind went blank, his vision fading rapidly.

"Captain! Captain, wake up! Wake up!"

"Doctor, you must save him! He’s our hero, please, I’m begging you..."

"The patient’s brainstem was struck by a blunt object. We did everything we could. Go in and see him one last time."

The sound of crying and pleading grew weaker and weaker...

"My son, wake up! Please, wake up!" a woman’s anxious voice echoed beside him.

"Brother, you’re awake!" a little girl’s childish voice piped up. "Mama, brother’s awake!"

Zhang Xiao’s eyes fluttered open.

"You should’ve died from the fall! Just wait till I get my hands on you," a hoarse voice cursed.

"Our son just survived, and you want to beat him? How could you?"

Smack! Smack! Two loud slaps echoed. "If you don’t want to stay, get out! There’s no food left in this house for freeloaders!" With that, the man stormed out, hands behind his back.

Zhang Xiao slowly opened his eyes, paying no heed to the woman’s sobs as he scanned the room.

"My son? Could I be this woman’s son? And this little girl—my sister?"

Where am I? Zhang Xiao shook his head and asked in a weak voice.

"My child, are you alright? Did you hurt your head? Did you become silly from the fall? This is our home. This morning you said you were going up the mountain to set a trap for pheasants. At noon, Uncle Zhao found you while chopping wood and carried you home."

Zhang Xiao rubbed his head. Hadn’t he just been apprehending criminals?

How did he open his eyes to find himself in this dilapidated house, so bare that you could see the sky through the rafters?

His mind was spinning rapidly. He remembered being the captain of the Falcon Special Operations Team, having carried out countless missions.

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He had been awarded countless medals—an entire wall covered in honors.

He remembered catching up with the criminal, taking him down with a flying kick, then grappling with him. After subduing the suspect, something struck his head...

"The patient’s brainstem was struck by a blunt object. We did everything we could. Go in and see him one last time."

Could it be that he had been reborn?

Good heavens! In novels, people always travel from poverty to become emperors or royal consorts—or at the very least, great generals.

But what’s this? He glanced at his clothes and at what his mother and sister were wearing.

No more thinking—let me sleep! Maybe I’ll wake up back in my old life.

"Ahem." Zhang Xiao cleared his throat. "Mama, I want to sleep a while."

"Go on, sleep," his mother replied. "Xixi, come play outside with me. Let your brother rest."

"Mama, will my brother be alright?" The two voices faded as they left the room.

Zhang Xiao tried in vain to sleep his way back to the time when he was a special ops captain, but no matter how he twisted and turned on the kang, he couldn’t sleep.

He decided to get up and look around.

Inside was an old wooden table missing a leg, propped up with bricks, and a few battered stools worn smooth from use. There was nothing else resembling proper furniture.

The family’s few ragged quilts, patched upon patches, were folded neatly on the earthen kang.

On the wall hung a New Year’s print that had probably been there for years.

Wait—what’s this? A battered calendar. No, in this era it would be called a Western almanac.

Zhang Xiao leaned in for a closer look: December 12, 1958. Damn! He really had been reborn.

He looked around again.

What luck is this? He hadn’t even had the chance to drive his two-hundred-thousand-yuan car more than a few times, nor finish renovating his hundred-square-meter apartment, and now, with this reincarnation before “Liberation,” both house and car were gone.

And to top it off, not only was he dirt poor, but he’d nearly died right after being reborn.

He went to the kitchen to steady his nerves with some water.

So-called kitchen—just a makeshift stove cobbled together in a corner with a few stones, a chipped iron pot sitting atop it.

He picked up a half-broken water ladle and gulped down several mouthfuls.

Gotta admit, the water was surprisingly sweet. After all, this was an era without all that modern technology and pollution.

"Brother, you’re up?"

A little girl was peeking through the door, calling to him.

Since I’ve been reborn, I must live well for the sake of the boy whose life I’ve inherited.

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The original owner of this body was named Lin Xiao. Though only sixteen, he was already a pillar of the family.

To let his mother and sister eat a full meal, he’d risked his life.

He was the second son, with an older half-brother named Lin Mu.

His mother, He Yulan, had been bartered for by his father Lin Fugui with twenty pounds of coarse grains.

As for his so-called brother, they shared a father but not a mother—his mother had been beaten to death by their father and hanged herself.

Lin Xiao and his sister Lin Xi were He Yulan’s children.

After Lin Fugui beat Lin Mu’s mother to death, Lin Mu’s uncle beat Lin Fugui until his nose bled and his body was bruised all over, leaving him kneeling at his in-laws’ door for three days and nights.

But after marrying He Yulan, Lin Fugui’s nature didn’t change. In the early years he restrained himself a bit, doing some work, but in recent years, he’d grown worse.

All the farm work and house chores fell to their mother, who also had to help at the grandparents’ house.

In the dead of winter, she shuttled daily between their home and the grandparents’ house, her hands and feet cracked and chapped from frostbite.

Even so, their grandmother ordered her about, and returning late would earn their mother a beating from their father, sometimes nearly to death.

Once, Lin Xiao almost got beaten to death for pleading on his mother’s behalf.

So he and his mother discussed moving out, but she hesitated, worried the children were too young.

But after this accident—her son trapping pheasants to supplement the family and getting injured, while her husband remained so vicious—she knew that if things went on like this, she and her children would perish here.

So, steeling her heart, she decided that even if it meant dying, she wouldn’t do so in this place that was no home.

Thus, they left, moving into a small cabin in the mountains.

The cabin had once been a hunting lodge for his great-granduncle, who used to guard the mountains.

Though weather-beaten and in disrepair, the cabin still stood.

His great-granduncle had been a renowned hunter in the area. With no wife or children, he had fewer worries and was later chosen by the villagers to guard the mountain.

Now too old to manage alone, his grandparents took him in to live with them.

"Mama, I’m going out to play!"

But in truth, Lin Xiao was sneaking up the mountain.

His only goal was to scout out the terrain, preparing to trap wild game to support the family.

The biting northern wind cut his face like knives. His small hands, covered in bloody cracks, were numb with cold.

"Tracks—these are pheasant tracks!"

Lin Xiao stopped, breathed warm air into his palms, and watched as it drifted away like curling smoke.