"Cut! Are you out of your mind? Who rigged this cable?"
The stunt coordinator's voice cracked like a whip across the freezing studio lot.
Up on the three-story scaffolding, Cha Tae-kyung tightened his grip on the cold metal railing. The bitter November wind was biting through his thin, historical silk robes. He was thirty-five years old. Every joint in his body felt like it was packed with crushed glass, a souvenir from fifteen years of throwing himself down stairs, crashing motorcycles, and taking punches for actors who couldn't be bothered to sweat.
Down below, bathed in the harsh glare of the set lights, the stunt coordinator was currently screaming at a man in a ridiculously expensive designer coat. It was Kang Min-ho, the personal manager for the movie's lead actor, Ryu Seung-jo.
"Seung-jo says the heavy safety harness makes his waist look thick on camera," Manager Kang said, waving a hand dismissively while checking his phone. "He refuses to wear the bulky one for the close-up shot."
"It's a thirty-foot drop!" the stunt coordinator yelled, his face turning a dangerous shade of red. "We need the thick cables. If he does the landing without the main support, the tension will snap. He could break his legs, or worse!"
"Then have the stunt double test the thin wire first," the manager snapped back, annoyed. "If it holds the double, Seung-jo will come out of his trailer and do the hero landing for the camera. He's the star. If he says the harness ruins his outfit, it ruins his outfit. Fix it, or I'm calling the studio head."
Up on the scaffolding, Tae-kyung let out a long, exhausted breath. A cloud of white mist plumed in front of his face.
This was the reality of his life. In the glittering, glamorous world of the entertainment industry, stuntmen didn't have voices. They didn't have faces. They were just meat shields for the pretty boys.
"Hey, Tae-kyung!" the coordinator called out, looking up at the scaffolding with an apologetic grimace. "They're switching the rig to the thin wire. Just do one test jump for us, okay? Aim for the center of the crash mats. We just need to make sure the line doesn't snap under a grown man's weight."
"Yeah. I got it," Tae-kyung called back.
He didn't argue. Arguing got you blacklisted.
While the crew scrambled to swap the thick, safe steel cables for the dangerously thin ones, Tae-kyung reached into his robe pocket to warm his hands. His rough, calloused fingers brushed against something cold and hard. It was a prop the art director had aggressively shoved into his hands an hour ago—an antique jade ring.
The art director had warned him, looking stressed. "Do not lose this, and don't scratch it. It's a genuine antique from the Joseon era. We rented it specifically for the extreme close-up of Seung-jo's hand. Keep it safe until the jump is over."
Tae-kyung rubbed his thumb over the smooth, flawless green stone. It felt strangely warm against his freezing skin, almost like it was humming. He tucked it deep into his inner pocket and zipped it safely shut.
"Wires are set! Safeties are off!" a crew member shouted from the ground. "Action in three, two, one!"
Tae-kyung pushed his tired thoughts away. The moment he heard the countdown, his mind went blank. He slipped into character. He took a deep, steadying breath, ran toward the edge of the wooden platform, and pushed off.
He launched himself into the empty air.
For a split second, it was beautiful. The blinding studio lights washed over him. The wind rushed past his ears. The feeling of weightlessness made him forget the pain in his knees and the ache in his back. It was the only part of this miserable job he actually loved.
Then, he heard it.
Snap.
It wasn't a loud noise. It sounded like a guitar string breaking. But to a veteran stuntman, it was the sound of the grim reaper clearing his throat. The thin wire, completely unable to support his weight and the massive momentum of the jump, gave out entirely.
The safety tension vanished from his waist. Gravity grabbed him violently.
Tae-kyung fell.
He didn't hit the thick blue safety mats. The broken wire threw his trajectory wildly off course. He missed the padding by three feet.
He hit the solid concrete floor of the studio lot.
The impact was catastrophic. A sickening, wet crunch echoed across the silent set. It was followed instantly by the horrified, blood-curdling screams of the camera crew.
Tae-kyung couldn't breathe. He couldn't feel his legs. He couldn't feel his arms. The pain was so absolute, so massive, that his brain simply couldn't process it. His vision blew out into a blinding white light, leaving only a high-pitched ringing in his ears.
He lay twisted on his side. A pool of hot, thick blood began to spread out from beneath him, rapidly soaking through the expensive historical silk robes. The blood seeped through the fabric, soaking into his inner pocket and completely coating the ancient jade ring.
Through his half-open, fading eyes, he saw the crew rushing toward him in slow motion. The director was screaming for an ambulance. The stunt coordinator was falling to his knees.
But Tae-kyung wasn't looking at them.
His eyes were fixed on a massive, luxurious VIP trailer parked just fifty feet away. The lights were on inside. Through the large tinted window, he could clearly see the silhouette of Ryu Seung-jo. The twenty-two-year-old idol was sitting on a plush sofa, holding a glass of champagne, laughing at something his makeup artist said.
Seung-jo hadn't even looked out the window. A man was dying on the concrete because of his vanity, and the star was drinking alcohol.
Tae-kyung tasted heavy copper in his mouth. A single tear tracked through the dirt and blood on his cheek.
I gave my entire life to this, he thought, his vision narrowing into a dark tunnel. Fifteen years of bleeding. Broken bones. Empty bank accounts. And nobody will even know my name. Just once... I just wanted my own face on the screen.
The cold concrete faded away. The screaming stopped.
Deep inside his soaked pocket, the jade ring absorbed the blood of a true, wronged actor. It glowed with a faint, blinding crimson light that no one on the panicked movie set noticed.
Across the lot, inside the warm VIP trailer, Ryu Seung-jo suddenly dropped his champagne glass. It shattered on the floor. The idol clutched his chest, his eyes rolling back into his head, and collapsed violently against the coffee table.
The scales of the universe balanced.
Cha Tae-kyung closed his eyes for the last time.
Beep... beep... beep...
The rhythmic, electronic sound was incredibly annoying.
He frowned in the darkness. Was he dead? Did heaven have heart monitors?
He tried to open his eyes, but a harsh, bright light forced him to squeeze them shut again. He let out a low, rough groan.
Wait. He could groan. He had a voice.
His eyes snapped open. He was staring at a pristine white ceiling. He wasn't lying on the freezing, wet concrete of the studio lot. He was lying on a ridiculously soft mattress. The air didn't smell like dirt and blood; it smelled like expensive lavender room spray and sharp medical alcohol.
He slowly, carefully sat up.
He braced himself for the agonizing, white-hot pain of a shattered spine. He waited for his crushed ribs to scream at him, for his lungs to fill with blood.
Nothing happened.
There was no pain. None at all. In fact, his body felt impossibly light. His left shoulder, which had ached every time it rained for the last five years, felt brand new. His lower back, ruined from a bad car crash stunt in his twenties, felt completely fine.
"What the hell?" he muttered.
He looked down at his hands.
He froze, his breath catching in his throat.
These weren't his hands. His old hands had been tanned, covered in thick calluses, and heavily scarred across the knuckles from years of martial arts and missed punches.
The hands resting on the white hospital blanket right now were pale, slender, and flawlessly manicured. They looked like they had never done a single day of hard labor in their entire existence.
Breathing heavily, his heart hammering against his ribs, he ripped the IV needle out of the back of his hand. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He didn't feel dizzy. He felt strong. He felt healthy. He felt young.
He practically sprinted into the attached VIP bathroom and stopped dead in front of the wide mirror.
The face staring back at him was beautiful. Unfairly, aggressively beautiful. He had a razor-sharp jawline, dark, intensely long eyelashes, and flawless, pale skin that belonged on a billboard. It was a face that sold millions of dollars in luxury watches and high-end cologne.
It was the face of Ryu Seung-jo.
He gripped the edges of the marble sink so hard his knuckles turned white. He leaned in close, watching the reflection mimic his every move. He blinked. The idol in the mirror blinked.
"You've got to be kidding me," he whispered.
His voice sounded different. It wasn't the rough, gravelly bark of a thirty-four-year-old stuntman. It was deeper, smoother, and incredibly magnetic.
He slapped his own cheek. Hard.
It stung. It wasn't a dream.
He was inside the body of the pampered, arrogant idol whose negligence had just killed him.
He walked slowly back into the hospital room, his mind racing to catch up with reality. Veteran stuntmen didn't panic. When a stunt went wrong, when a car flipped the wrong way, you assessed the damage and found a way to survive the wreckage.
He scanned the room. He looked at the bedside table. Sitting right next to a glass of water was the antique jade ring. It was perfectly clean, but right down the middle of the green stone was a faint, thread-like line of deep red. Like a vein of blood permanently frozen inside the rock.
Before he could process what the artifact meant, the heavy door to the hospital suite banged open.
A short, stressed-looking man in a wrinkled suit rushed in, looking like he was on the absolute verge of a nervous breakdown. He recognized the man instantly from the movie set just hours ago. It was Kang Min-ho, the manager.
"Seung-jo! Oh, thank god you're awake!" Min-ho gasped, running over and practically grabbing his shoulders. "Do you know how scared I was? The doctors said your heart just stopped out of nowhere! You were drinking champagne one second, and the next you were on the floor of the trailer!"
Seung-jo stared blankly at the manager.
His heart stopped, Seung-jo realized, the final puzzle piece clicking into place. Right when I died. The bastard actually died of a heart attack while I was bleeding out on the concrete.
"Are you okay? Should I call the doctor back in?" Min-ho babbled, pulling out his phone with trembling hands. "The studio is in total chaos. That stunt double died on set, and the press is trying to leak that it was our fault because of the harness! We need to release a statement that you collapsed from exhaustion and—"
"Quiet."
The word wasn't shouted. It was spoken softly, but it carried a heavy, terrifying weight that sucked the air right out of the room.
Min-ho blinked, his mouth snapping shut instantly. He looked shocked, taking a step back. Usually, the old Seung-jo would be screaming, throwing glass vases, and complaining about the hospital food. This cold, sharp, heavily grounded tone was completely alien.
"Get my clothes," Seung-jo ordered, his voice flat and commanding. "I'm leaving."
"Leaving? But the doctors said they need to run tests—"
"I said get my clothes, Min-ho. I'm going home."
Seung-jo didn't know exactly how this mystical swap happened. He didn't care. Cha Tae-kyung was dead. The man who had spent fifteen years eating dirt while guys like the old Ryu Seung-jo lived like kings was gone.
If the universe had decided to hand him the keys to the kingdom as an apology, he wasn't going to sit in a hospital bed whining about it. He had a flawless face, millions in the bank, and the physical memories of a martial arts master. He was going to take this perfect, healthy body and show this rotten industry what a real actor looked like.
From this moment on, he was Ryu Seung-jo.
"Min-ho," Seung-jo said, his dark eyes locking onto the trembling manager. "Bring the car around. We have work to do."