With the motorboat set to autopilot, Lei Zhengyang lounged on a deck chair, sunglasses shielding his eyes as he basked in the warm sunlight. Pure bliss.
If not for this cursed training, he could live like this forever. Born into a titan of a family, with a grandfather revered as a chief, a father leading a ministry, a mother heading a corporate empire, and uncles and cousins holding titles like secretary or general, even his two overachieving brothers had their own laurels. Spoiled by such a clan, how could he not have turned out rotten?
His brothers, crushed under the weight of family expectations, once envied him. "The third son was born to savor life," they'd said.
But that wasn't the full story. Lei's carefree existence stemmed from being the family's black sheep, the wastrel everyone agreed would squander their fortune. Yet, the Lei family's wealth was so vast, even he couldn't burn through it. Early attempts to rein him in gave way to indulgence, then neglect. Eventually, they wrote him off.
Lei didn't care. The role of family heir, successor, or patriarch held zero appeal. Watching his brothers and cousins scheme and backstab left him exhausted. Why bother with power plays when he could chase women and down drinks? That was true freedom.
From the moment he could think for himself, he'd lived for pleasure—women, wine, every vice a man could indulge in. He'd tasted it all, heedless of others' judgment. To him, a life of instant gratification was one without regrets.
Yet, he never imagined a mysterious time machine would hurl him forty years into the future, face-to-face with a regret-riddled version of himself. Only then did he see the hollowness of his past.
Despite the crushing weight of training, his mind never stopped churning. Slowly, he began to understand the old man—no, his future self—and the bitter remorse of a life wasted. Before this, he'd been aimless, a leaf adrift on the current, with no ambition or direction.
Without the Lei family's shield, a man like him would've starved in the streets.
He asked himself: Is this really who I am?
Beep-beep-beep! A shrill alarm snapped him back. In a flash, he was in the cockpit, eyes locked on the navigation chart. The first coordinate was reached. The submarine was due to surface here at 5:00 PM.
The ocean stretched calm, no wind or waves, but Lei circled a ten-mile radius, scanning every detail. In any environment, at any time, knowing the terrain was critical—a lesson drilled into him on day one of the training camp.
It minimized mistakes.
Instruments displayed the sea's depth, seabed conditions, and water clarity. Lei studied each metric meticulously. Data that seemed useless now could be a lifeline during the mission. No detail was too small—better to overprepare than fail due to negligence.
For him, failure meant no second chances.
This first coordinate wasn't his strike point. Lacking intel, he needed to observe the submarine up close—its condition, the duration of its surfacing, and the alertness of its crew. These were make-or-break for his plan.
A lone motorboat near a submarine would raise alarms, and the open sea offered no cover. Lei knew he had to plan every move in advance.
As the sun dipped westward, he checked the cockpit clock and stood, donning a diving suit, a handgun, and an underwater scope. He set the boat to cruise twenty kilometers away, returning in three hours. At that distance, a private vessel wouldn't draw suspicion.
Floating silently on the surface, he waited. An hour later, a surge of waves broke the calm, rippling like a shark's tail. Right on schedule, the submarine was here.
Lei dove, his suit blending seamlessly with the water. As the waves grew fiercer, he felt their force. A mile out, a massive black submarine breached the surface, its sleek form like a giant oil drum. Lei sucked in a breath. Conquering this behemoth was no small feat.
Through his underwater scope, he spotted armed soldiers on the deck, followed by crew members bustling about. Though too far to hear, he read their lips—they were chatting, their guard lax.
It made sense. In the vast ocean, with nothing but water for miles—no people, not even birds—what threat could there be? Their vigilance was mere protocol, not necessity. No one could fathom a lone man daring to hijack a submarine in the middle of nowhere.
After roughly thirty minutes, the submarine submerged, vanishing from his scope as night fell.
The autopilot boat returned, its position off by a mere forty meters. Lei marveled at the era's tech—near-perfect automation.
The sea's temperature had plummeted from 20°C three hours ago to 8°C now, proving the "constant ocean temperature" theory unreliable.
On the third and fifth days, Lei scouted the submarine at other coordinates, piecing together its patterns: six rotating soldiers and eight crew members. To succeed, he'd need to neutralize the six soldiers in a flash.
The submarine surfaced for 36 minutes. Given his swimming speed and the need to conserve energy for combat, his ambush point couldn't be more than a kilometer from the surfacing spot. Luck played a role—these coordinates spanned a five-to-six-kilometer radius. A slight miscalculation, and he'd miss the window, the submarine diving before he reached it.
The final coordinate was set for 9:00 PM—perfect for Lei. Darkness cloaked his approach, ideal for a stealth assault. Boarding the submarine was step one. The real battle—taking control—would test whether his training had forged him into a true warrior.
If pinpointing the submarine relied on luck, the assault demanded raw skill.
Luck was on his side. The submarine surfaced just 200 meters from his position. With a compact oxygen tank, he swam to its side in minutes. Searchlights swept the deck, but Lei's grappling gun fired, its hook snagging the highest platform. Shedding his diving gear, even the suit, he carried only a handgun and his military dagger. Every ounce slowed him down, and this lightning strike couldn't afford a single hitch.
Gripping the rope, he scaled the submarine's hull with agile leaps, reaching the deck. From above, he surveyed the scene: soldiers patrolled the perimeter, one lazily smoking by an exhaust pipe, puffing contentedly without a hint of alertness.
Of the other five soldiers, two shadowed the crew, while three guarded different corners, spaced 20-30 meters apart. Lei's eyes locked on the submarine's open hatch, glowing under the searchlights—an unguarded entry.
This mission was dubbed a "submarine assault," but a better plan sparked in Lei's mind.
The smoking soldier vanished, his neck snapped silently as Lei muffled his mouth. Within a minute, Lei donned the man's uniform, a cigarette dangling from his lips, hat pulled low. In the night's cover, no one noticed the switch.