Hong Kong, Sham Shui Po.
Lin's Café.
It was lunchtime, the busiest time for the café. Ordinary workers, tired from their labor, often came here to eat — it was cheap and affordable.
Lin's Café had been open in Sham Shui Po for more than thirty years and had earned a decent reputation in the neighborhood. With many loyal customers, it was always bustling during the noon rush.
Even though the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Lin, had help from their eldest daughter, Lin Shufang, they still found themselves overwhelmed.
Downstairs was busy, and upstairs was no quieter.
"Swish, swish, swish…"
The sound of writing filled the room, as character after character flowed swiftly onto the paper.
Anyone peeking over would see it was a martial arts novel — the story of Xiongba, Nie Feng, Bu Jingyun, and others.
The writer was a young man not yet twenty years old, a bright and handsome youth, though now his face was marked with exhaustion.
After all, anyone who had written day and night without much rest for half a month straight would look the same.
It was 1977.
By all rights, a story like Fung Wan (The Storm Riders) shouldn't exist in Hong Kong yet — and besides, Fung Wan was supposed to be a comic, not a novel.
But the reason this story existed was because the young man writing it carried the soul of someone from fifty years in the future.
His name was Lin Baicheng. Before his rebirth, he had been an ordinary man in his thirties in mainland China — and the year had been 2027.
Lin Baicheng had graduated with a degree in computer science. At first, he worked as a programmer, but the job was too tiring, too stressful, and not very profitable. Eventually, he switched to a lighter office job.
The pay was modest, barely enough to live on. Since he had been reading online novels for years, he decided to try writing them himself as a part-time job.
His writing skills, however, were average at best — he wasn't a literature major, and he lacked fresh, innovative ideas. His results were always mediocre.
Still, since he loved reading novels, writing remained a hobby, something he enjoyed even without much financial return.
Ironically, it was because of writing novels that he died. After years of obscurity, one day a wealthy reader suddenly tipped him with a golden reward worth millions. Overjoyed, he pulled an all-nighter writing new chapters in return.
But Lin Baicheng didn't die from overwork. One sleepless night alone wouldn't have killed him.
He died the next day on his way to work — exhausted, he failed to notice the red light, crossed the street, and was hit by a car.
It was a senseless, unlucky death. But fortunately, he was reborn.
After death, Lin Baicheng quickly realized he had been reborn in the body of a young man of the same name in 1977 Hong Kong.
This Lin Baicheng was only 18 years old, had just finished Form 5, and had failed to get into university.
He had been able to take over the body easily because its previous owner had been attacked from behind during a fight two months earlier and declared in vegetative state by the hospital.
That very night, Lin Baicheng's soul had taken over. The doctor was shocked at the sudden recovery but could only chalk it up to a misdiagnosis.
At first, Lin Baicheng was bewildered by the memories he inherited. But once he accepted reality, he was filled with excitement.
In his previous life, he had been an orphan — no parents to miss, no family ties to grieve.
Now, not only had he gone from a man in his thirties back to being a youth, but as long as this body was healthy, he had essentially gained extra decades of life. That alone was a huge profit.
Even more importantly, this was 1977 Hong Kong. With fifty years of future knowledge, the opportunities before him were endless.
Back in his previous life, while writing web novels, he had once written a story set in 1980s Hong Kong Entertainment. Because of that, he was well aware of the city's coming economic boom.
He also knew about major events worldwide — if not in detail, then at least the big picture.
To Lin Baicheng, this era was filled with gold. Opportunities to make money were everywhere.
But while opportunities were abundant, capital was not. Without money, it was impossible to strike it rich.
Right now, he was just a fresh graduate with no job and no money of his own.
His family ran Lin's Café, which had been in business for over three decades. The property was theirs, and they had some savings. By Hong Kong standards, they lived comfortably.
But at under twenty years old, he couldn't expect his family to hand over all their assets just to let him do business. That wasn't realistic.
So, to earn his first pot of gold, Lin Baicheng turned to the only skill he had brought from his past life.
He knew programming and game development. But in this era, computers were still new, personal computers were rare, and there was no way to make money from it.
His other skill was writing.
And this was where he saw an opening. After all, Jin Yong himself had built his fortune through novels serialized in the Ming Pao.
Of course, Lin Baicheng knew web novels as he had known them in the future would never work in this era. They'd flop.
But martial arts fiction was wildly popular.
Though he had never written a Wuxia story before, he had watched plenty of adapted TV dramas in his past life — Twin Dragons of the Tang, World's Number One, The Storm Riders, Snow Flower Goddess, and so on.
In the end, he chose The Storm Riders, deciding to adapt its storyline into a martial arts novel.
He knew The Storm Riders was originally a Hong Kong comic, and perhaps the comic would succeed more. But he couldn't draw, so writing a novel was the best option to earn his first fortune.
With years of web novel experience and full knowledge of the plot, he was confident he could adapt and flesh it out. It wasn't difficult.
Whether it would actually become popular was another matter.
But at the very least, he had to write it first. So, after leaving the hospital, Lin Baicheng immediately began his new life as a novelist — and he had already been at it for more than half a month.