The final bow. Li Jingyu had lived for a thousand of them in his mind, every nuance rehearsed until it felt like breathing. The roar of the audience, the flash of a thousand cameras, the silent, reverent tension as he walked to the edge of the stage—this was his world. His kingdom. The premiere of his last film had been a triumph; critics were already calling his portrayal of the young emperor a career-defining masterpiece. He bowed, letting the elegance of the gesture settle around him, a moment of calm before the world.
And then the world tilted.
A grotesque shriek of strained metal split the air. His reflexes, honed by years of fight choreography, screamed at him to move. He looked up. A heavy stage light—a monstrous shadow in the blinding glare—was plummeting straight toward him. For one horrifying instant, time stretched: he saw the audience frozen in silent screams, his crew unable to move, and the horrified face of his director, a man who had once called him a genius.
He didn't feel the impact. There was no pain. Only a strange, impossible lightness. The roar of the crowd faded into a dull hum. The flashing lights dissolved into a kaleidoscope of colors behind his closed eyelids. He floated, unburdened by his body, by his legacy, by the life he had just lost. Voices drifted through the void—muffled, urgent, incomprehensible—a strange mix of commands and a language he didn't recognize. He was a ghost. An echo of a man who had already died.
Then, the jolt. Cold, shocking, immediate. Like being thrown into a bucket of ice water.
Music blared—saccharine, poppy, relentless. His ears rang. Neon lights stabbed at his vision. He tried to sit up and found himself sprawled on a polished rehearsal studio floor. Mirrors stretched around him, reflecting a sea of unfamiliar young men in absurdly tight, bright clothing. Their faces were painted, eyes sharp, bodies tense.
He looked down at his hands. Thin. Pale. Nails painted a ridiculous shade of glittery black. Panic coiled in his chest. This body… it was frail. Clumsy. Weak. Not his. His old body had been a finely tuned instrument, every muscle an extension of his will. This one barely obeyed.
And then he saw it. The reflection in the mirror. The face staring back at him: impossibly young, beautiful, trembling. Wide, fearful eyes, a quivering lower lip. He recognized it immediately from a novel he had once read—the cannon fodder character, Li Jingyu, a talentless trainee, a laughingstock destined for humiliation.
A sharp, cruel voice snapped him out of the mirror's gaze.
"Get up, Li Jingyu! Are you trying to get fired?"
He looked up and felt it instantly—the contempt radiating from the other trainees. One boy, sharp-featured and smug, kicked a water bottle in his direction. Heat rose in his chest—anger, disbelief, a flicker of shame that wasn't entirely his own.
He moved before he thought. Somehow, instinct took over. Despite the body's weakness, his rise was fluid, precise, practiced. A flicker of skill—someone else's skill, his skill—shone through. The boy's sneer faltered ever so slightly.
He clenched his fists. Pride and despair collided in his chest. The past was gone. The grand stage, the applause, his life's work—it was nothing now. But even here, in this small, harsh studio, the rules hadn't changed. Fundamentals remained. Observation. Discipline. Strategy. He could survive. He could rise.
The curtain had fallen on his old life. But a new stage had opened, and it was his turn to perform again—this time, in a body that wasn't his own, under stakes he had never imagined.