Click. Click.
The crisp sound of high heels rang through the marble corridor of the inpatient wing at Woodrow Hospital in San Francisco's Sunset District.
"This is the room, Ms. Berg."
Chris Berg turned to look at the number on the door. Room 305.
When the nurse beside her pushed it open, she stepped inside without hesitation.
It was a double room, though for the moment only one bed was occupied. The space was washed in sterile white, thick with the sharp scent of disinfectant.
Chris frowned slightly. She had never liked the smell of hospitals.
Her eyes settled on the young man propped against the bed. He looked barely nineteen. His face still carried the softness of youth, though the pallor in his skin and the faintly vacant look in his eyes made him seem fragile.
"Mr. Guo?"
The young man was slow to respond. After a brief pause, he turned his head toward her.
Chris's brow tightened.
The accident had not been entirely their fault, but if her side walked away unharmed while the other party turned out to have a head injury, no judge would look kindly on that. Money could open a lot of doors in America, but that was not the same as walking away clean. Legal trouble was one thing. Bad publicity was another.
"You are...?" the young man asked, studying her.
Chris straightened her jacket.
"Chris Berg. I'm the assistant to the other driver involved in the accident. Dr. Reed told me you were awake, so I came to see how you were doing."
"Thank you."
He reached out and shook her hand. The gesture was brief and polite.
Chris looked every bit the corporate professional: sharp suit, sharp expression, sharper tone. After the basic pleasantries, she moved directly to the point.
"Mr. Guo, let me be clear. Responsibility for this accident does not fall entirely on our side. If you had not run the red light, none of this would have happened. Even so, given the circumstances, we have no intention of pursuing the matter. We will cover all medical expenses related to your hospitalization, and we will also pay for the repair of your vehicle. In return, we'd like to settle this privately and consider the matter closed."
Bruce S. Guo looked at her in silence.
She was good.
Very good.
First, draw the line of responsibility. Then offer compensation. Simple, controlled, effective.
And technically, she was right. The accident had started because he had run the red light.
Still, he disliked her tone.
"Fine," he said after a moment.
Chris let out a quiet breath of relief.
According to the file she had read, the young in front of her was brilliant, far more perceptive than most people his age. She had expected this to be difficult.
Instead, he agreed almost immediately.
"Since you've accepted the arrangement, please sign this."
She handed him the document.
Bruce took it, read every page carefully, then signed his name at the bottom.
Only then did a trace of a smile appear on Chris Berg's face, though it looked more practiced than warm.
"Mr. Guo, I wish you a speedy recovery. Oh, and one more thing. Your car keys."
She placed a keychain on the bedside cabinet, offered a curt goodbye, and left the room with the same efficient composure she had entered with.
The door had barely shut before the nurse who had remained silent until now muttered under her breath, "Rich people always act like that. They hit someone with a car and somehow still manage not to apologize."
Bruce gave a faint smile but offered no comment.
"Emma, could I ask you for a favor?"
The nurse turned back. "Sure. What do you need?"
"Three notebooks. A fountain pen. And a bottle of ink."
Bruce shook his head, then opened the drawer beside his bed, took out his wallet, and handed her a 50 dollar bill.
"This is too much."
"If there's anything left over, just buy more notebooks."
She hesitated, then nodded. "All right. Try to get some rest."
Once she left, the room fell silent.
Bruce let out a long breath and leaned back against the bed, staring at the unfamiliar room with eyes full of disbelief, excitement, and something close to awe.
He had truly made the jump.
As a veteran web novelist from the post 80s generation, someone who had spent years scraping by and failing more often than not, he had never imagined that one day he would experience something straight out of fiction.
And yet here he was.
He had crossed from China to America, from 2019 back to the year 2000, and landed in the body of a Chinese American young man who not only shared his face, but also his exact name.
"Well," he murmured to himself, "there goes my masterpiece."
Before the accident, after six straight years of struggling as a mediocre online writer, his latest novel had finally exploded in popularity. He had bought a house in Shanghai. Bought a car. Found a beautiful girlfriend. At long last, life had started to come together.
He had been on the verge of settling down, getting married, maybe even starting a family.
And then, for no reason he could understand, he had been thrown into another life.
Even so, there was not a trace of despair on his face.
Why would there be?
He had gone from 2019 back to 2000.
That meant nearly twenty years of knowledge, memory, and foresight.
In an era about to erupt with opportunity, that was more than luck. That was a loaded hand.
In his previous life, he had lived thirty five years, and for most of them he had been broke enough to know exactly how ugly poverty could be. Once you had tasted that kind of life for long enough, "making a decent living" stopped sounding ambitious.
This time, Bruce had no intention of earning a little money and then settling into a quiet life.
No.
If fate had handed him a second chance this outrageous, then only one outcome felt worthy of it.
He was going all the way.
At that thought, he suddenly clicked his tongue.
"Too bad it's already mid February."
The Nasdaq collapse was only days away.
If he had arrived just a little earlier, he could have used that single event to complete his initial accumulation of capital in one brutal, beautiful sweep.
A missed chance was a missed chance, though.
There was no point dwelling on it.
What mattered now was recovering as quickly as possible, then using his time in the hospital to make a detailed plan for the future.
Emma moved quickly. In less than half an hour, she returned with everything he had asked for.
"By the way, Emma, when can I be discharged?"
He had already missed the Nasdaq crash. The last thing he wanted was to waste even more precious time lying in a hospital bed.
"That depends on how well you recover," she replied. "But don't worry. Ms. Berg already paid for a full month, so you won't have to spend a dime."
Bruce watched her leave without saying anything else.
Money was not what concerned him.
Time was.
And from the memories he had inherited, this body's original owner, the Chinese American young man also named Guo Shouyun, or Bruce Guo in English, was not exactly poor. In ordinary terms, he could even be considered a second generation rich kid.
But compared to the family assets, what impressed Bruce most was the man himself.
This guy had been a real genius.
At eleven, he had won first place in the junior division of the California Science Competition.
At thirteen, he had taken gold in mathematics at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
At fifteen, he had won first prize in the International Mathematical Olympiad.
At seventeen, he had entered Stanford without needing the usual path, after graduating from one of the best private high schools in America, Harker School.
Now, at nineteen, he already held a master's degree in computer science and a bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford. Before the accident, he had just completed the defense for a bachelor's degree in history, and from what Bruce could gather from the inherited memories, that diploma was basically already in the bag.
And that still was not the end of it.
The man had also been a starting guard on the university basketball team, stood six foot one, had a strong athletic build, played both guitar and piano well, and happened to have the kind of face that made life easier before he even opened his mouth.
Compared to Bruce's old self, a second tier literature graduate with no family backing, no connections, average looks, a slight gut, and the romantic luck of a damp sock, this version of Bruce Guo looked like someone built in a lab to win at life.
He had lucked out.
He had inherited a body that came with incredible hardware already installed.
"No wonder my memory suddenly feels so much sharper," he said softly. "I thought it was some bonus from being reborn, but this is just his natural talent. Old memories are crystal clear, and anything I read sticks after two or three passes."
He shook his head and forced himself to settle down.
Then he unscrewed the ink bottle, filled the fountain pen, took one of the thick black notebooks, and opened it.
After a brief pause, he began to write.
There was an old saying that the faintest ink was better than the best memory.
If he wanted to make full use of everything he knew about the future, he had to put it on paper while his recollection was still razor sharp and while he still had time.
Of course, he was careful.
Whenever his notes involved dates, names, company identities, or any information too sensitive to leave in plain sight, he replaced them with phonetic spellings, numbers, or symbols that only he could understand.
At first, he thought two or three notebooks would be enough.
He was wrong.
By the time he left the hospital a month later, all seven notebooks Emma had bought were filled.
He changed out of the hospital gown, packed the most important notebooks into a bag, and slung it over his shoulder with the kind of care most people reserved for gold.
Then he took one last look around the room where he had spent his first month after returning from the dead.
Without another word, he turned and walked out.
After handling the discharge paperwork, Bruce told no one.
He got into the yellow Chevrolet he had bought not long ago and drove away from Woodrow Hospital alone.
His new life had officially begun.