Lin Mo's last conscious thought was stretched out by a sharp, continuous "beep—" sound.
Before his eyes was his cramped rental apartment from 2025, and the computer screen was still frozen on the final frame of Game 4 of the NBA Finals between the Dallas Mavericks and the Boston Celtics. Luka Doncic's tired figure was blurred in the pixel grid, next to his unfinished draft analysis report: "On Modern Basketball Space Theory and Offensive Choice Efficiency in Clutch Moments—Taking the Last 2 Minutes with a 5-Point Difference in the Fourth Quarter as an Example."
His head was throbbing, and his heart felt as if it were clutched by an invisible hand, suddenly ceasing to beat.
Late nights, caffeine, over-stimulated yet extremely fatigued nerves... The cumulative effect of all these factors exploded at this moment. He didn't even feel much pain, only a lightness in his body, as if his soul was drawn out, falling into a boundless, bizarre darkness.
There was no life review, no so-called heaven or hell.
Only fragmented light and chaotic sound snippets, crashing together like corrupted hard drive data... After an unknown amount of time, a heavy, real sense of detachment awakened him from the chaos.
Hearing was the first sense to return.
It was no longer the monotonous drone symbolizing death, but... slightly noisy human voices, with an inexplicable, clear, and impatient quality belonging to teenagers.
"Yohei! Yohei! You're awake? Doctor! Doctor!"
"Hey, Hanamichi, lower your voice, this is a hospital!"
"But Yohei he..."
"Shut up, red-haired monkey!"
Familiar address, unfamiliar context.
Lin Mo, no, the name this body instinctively belonged to—Mito Yohei, slowly opened his eyes.
His vision was blurry at first, then gradually cleared.
What met his eyes was a ceiling painted halfway green, with an old fluorescent light tube emitting a soft glow. The air was filled with the distinctive smell of disinfectant.
He turned his somewhat stiff neck and saw several faces gathered around the hospital bed.
A head of fiery, arrogant red hair, thick eyebrows and large eyes, currently staring at him with undisguised anxiety—Sakuragi Hanamichi.
Next to him was Takamiya Nozomi, wearing round glasses, slightly chubby, with a worried expression.
Noma Chuichiro, with a neat small mustache, feigning maturity.
And Okusu Yuji, with yellow hair, his expression equally concerned.
The Sakuragi Legion... alive, young, with the unique vibrant energy of the nineties, untouched by the digital age, stood before him.
Lin Mo's heart skipped a beat, not physiologically, but from a tremor deep within his soul.
He... had become Mito Yohei?
The Mito Yohei from "Slam Dunk," always calm, reliable, watching everything with a faint smile, known as "the only man who could control Sakuragi Hanamichi"?
"Yohei, how are you feeling? Does anything still hurt?" Takamiya leaned closer, his chubby face full of tension.
"Yeah, you suddenly fainted by the court, you scared us to death!" Ōkusu added.
Sakuragi Hanamichi even grabbed the bed rail directly and shouted, "It's all that damned basketball! If it weren't for me helping you pick up the ball, you wouldn't have been hit in the head by that flying soccer ball! Damn it! If I find out which bastard kicked it, I'll..."
"Hanamichi." Yohei (from this point on, Lin Mo's consciousness officially accepted this identity) spoke, his voice hoarse from just waking up, but his tone was strangely steady, with a sense of familiarity that even surprised him. "I'm fine."
Just three words, yet they seemed to possess magic, instantly quieting the restless red-haired teenager.
Sakuragi Hanamichi blinked, looking at his friend's eyes on the bed, which were still calm, but seemed... a little deeper, and he mumbled, "Are, are you really okay?"
Yohei didn't answer immediately. He just wiggled his fingers slightly, feeling the somewhat weak yet vibrant feedback from this young body. He raised his hand and touched his forehead, where it was bandaged, still faintly throbbing.
Hit by a soccer ball... fainted... He tried to access the original owner of this body's memories, and some blurry images surfaced: a street basketball court in the afternoon, Sakuragi taking out his frustration with shots after his "50th heartbreak," the basketball flying out of bounds, him running to retrieve it, and then a black and white soccer ball flying in from the side... followed by darkness.
And then... it was him, Lin Mo, waking up here.
"Mm, just a little dizzy." Yohei gave an affirmative answer, propping himself up with his arms, trying to sit up.
"Hey, don't move around!" Noma quickly stepped forward to help him.
Leaning against the slightly hard headboard, Yohei's gaze slowly swept across the hospital room. Old iron-frame hospital beds, a thermos and a few oranges on the bedside table, green wooden window frames, and slightly old buildings outside the window... No smartphones, no ubiquitous Wi-Fi signals, no high-definition LCD screens... This really was the world of "Slam Dunk," where passion and dreams intertwined, 1990s Japan.
"How long have I been asleep?" he asked, his voice already returning to its usual gentleness.
"Not long, from afternoon until now... about seven or eight hours." Takamiya looked at the dark night outside the window. "It's a little past nine in the evening now."
Seven or eight hours... For traversing time and space, it was incredibly brief.
Yohei (hereafter referred to as Yohei) nodded, but a tumultuous storm was brewing within him.
He, a basketball data analyst from 2025, who spent his days with data, models, and tactical videos, providing cold efficiency reports to professional teams, had himself died suddenly in front of his computer due to high-intensity work.
Then, he came here, becoming a crucial yet not absolutely main character in this passionate story.
Basketball... In his previous life, he loved basketball, but could only touch it through screens and data analysis. He understood all tactical movements, knew how to score most efficiently, but had never truly experienced the deafening cheers and the scorching heat of sweat dripping on the court in a real game.
And now, Sakuragi Hanamichi was right before his eyes, Rukawa Kaede, Akagi Takenori, Mitsui Hisashi... these characters who were once only vibrant in the two-dimensional world, were now truly living in some corner of this world.
A wild idea, like a seed breaking through the soil, quickly sprouted in his heart.
What if he wasn't just an observer, but a participant?
What if he used his basketball knowledge, twenty-plus years ahead of this era, to influence, to change, to participate in this legend?
Help Sakuragi avoid detours, allowing this peerless rough gem to shine brighter faster? Perhaps avoid Mitsui Hisashi's regrettable two-year blank? Perhaps... Shohoku could truly go further, even touch that national championship trophy?
This thought gave him an unprecedented thrill, more exciting than analyzing a championship-winning data model.
"Yohei, are you... really okay?" Sakuragi looked at the fluctuating expression on his friend's face, asking again with some uncertainty, "You look... a little different."
Yohei snapped back to reality, looking at Sakuragi. In those eyes, which always held a hint of playfulness and cynicism, something more complex had now settled. He smiled faintly, the reassuring smile that belonged to Mito Yohei.
"Ah, I must have been groggy from sleep." He brushed it off lightly, then changed the subject, "Speaking of which, Hanamichi, how does your 50th heartbreak feel?"
At the mention of this, Sakuragi immediately jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, his previous worry instantly thrown to the winds: "Ah ah ah! Don't mention it! That hateful woman! She actually said my hair looks like a delinquent! this genius is so handsome and dashing..."
Watching him gesticulate and complain, Takamiya and the others chuckled beside him, and the smile on Yohei's face deepened slightly.
This was youth... vibrant, passionate, a little foolish, yet incredibly real.
His gaze passed over the noisy Sakuragi, once again turning to the night sky outside the window.
Twinkling stars, completely different from the light-polluted night sky of 2025.
Here there was no big data, no AI recommendations, no convenient food delivery, and no omnipotent internet.
But here there was the purest basketball, burning dreams, and friendships you could rely on.
His cold data analyst career in his previous life had abruptly ended, and in this 15-year-old body in this life, a soul from the future, filled with basketball wisdom, was now housed.
A silent roar exploded deep within his soul, announcing the quiet arrival of a new era.
He, Mito Yohei, was back.
No, a brand new Mito Yohei was about to make his own voice heard on this passionate stage.
"Alright, I'm fine now." Yohei interrupted Sakuragi's "accusation," threw off the covers. His movements were still a bit weak, but his eyes were firm. "Let's go back."
"Eh? We can leave the hospital?" Sakuragi was stunned.
"Yeah, just a mild concussion. The doctor said we could leave after observation if there were no problems." Yohei said, based on the residual memories in his body. "If we stay any longer, the nurse will come to kick us out."
He put on the canvas shoes by the bed and stood up straight. This body was about 1.72 meters tall, slightly shorter than his 1.78 meters in his previous life, but lighter and full of youthful resilience.
Feeling the solid ground beneath his feet, looking at the vibrant friends around him, Yohei took a deep breath of the cool night air of the nineties.
A new life had begun.
And his first goal was to accompany this red-haired "genius" in front of him, to step into the basketball gym that would soon change their destinies.
From this moment, the gears of fate began a subtle yet irreversible shift.