"Mr. Wald, I regret to inform you that your mother passed away in a car accident today, July 2, 1995, at 4:28 p.m." The middle-aged Black police officer spoke in a solemn voice.
The young man sitting across from the officer had black hair, fair skin, and sharply defined features. He looked a little immature, and was only eighteen years old.
Zucker Wald sat motionless in his chair.
At that moment, he was completely bewildered.
However, it wasn't because of his mother's tragic death.
He was a transmigrator!
That's right. Zucker was a Chinese man from Great China in 2020.
He had worked as a middle manager and associate producer for a film and television production company.
Of course, it was a small company.
The kind that would be impossible to find even in Beijing.
Although he was over thirty, he had no impressive accomplishments and had never produced a hit movie or TV series. Still, he was a fairly competent manager and had seen quite a lot, making him something of a pseudo-veteran in the industry.
"Damn it, I only took a nap. How did I end up transmigrating?" Zucker blurted out.
"What? What did you say?"
The middle-aged Black police officer was utterly confused. Zucker hadn't spoken in English, but in Chinese—specifically, a Sichuan dialect.
"It's nothing, Officer. I... I'm just very upset. I hope you understand," Zucker hurriedly explained.
His mother had died?
In his previous life in China, Zucker had been an orphan. Now, the mother he'd had in this life was dead too. Honestly, he didn't feel much of anything. It wasn't that he was heartless; the concept of a mother was simply unfamiliar to him. So at that moment, apart from the shock of transmigrating, he really didn't feel much.
He was bewildered because he'd transmigrated!
Before long, Zucker left the police station in North Hollywood, Los Angeles.
That evening.
Still bewildered, Zucker finally pieced together the general situation from his body's memories.
Zucker Wald, male, eighteen years old, had just graduated from high school. He hadn't gotten into college and had led an utterly ordinary life without doing much of anything. In short, he was a very ordinary American young man.
Of course, he did have one special talent: basketball!
At the 1995 NBA draft, held just at the end of June, Zucker's predecessor had entered the draft too. With his mediocre talent, he'd been rejected without the slightest surprise.
Oh, and he was mixed-race.
His maternal grandfather had come over from China in the late 1940s. Through hard work, he'd married an American woman and had a daughter—Zucker's mother, who had just passed away.
"Who would've thought that in my previous life, I was an orphan?"
Of course, it wasn't as if he had no family at all. Zucker still had an uncle, but apparently they'd fallen out with the family, and hadn't been in touch for over ten years.
"I've transmigrated, and I'm still all alone. What a shame about that seventy-square-meter apartment I bought in Beijing's Fifth Ring Road last month!"
Zucker sighed.
Over two million yuan!
Gone in the blink of an eye!
"But at least I'm used to it. Hmm... Wait! What do I have to be sad about? It's 1995, and the United States is practically overflowing with gold!"
As Zucker thought it over, he stopped feeling so miserable about transmigrating.
He'd been alone all along, after all. What difference did the era or location make? He was from 2020. Sure, he didn't know every detail of how things had developed over the years, but he knew enough to make a fortune by letting even a little slip!
"Forget that seventy-square-meter apartment. This time around, I'm going to live in an eighty-square-meter one!"
Zucker was thrilled!
All right, an eighty-square-meter apartment was only a little bigger than a seventy-square-meter one.
Besides, even now, the house Zucker lived in was 120 square meters. It was in the suburbs of Los Angeles, but it was worth a fair bit!
"1995 is the dawn of the Internet age. I'd better start thinking seriously about the future!"
A week later.
Zucker had finished making arrangements for his mother's burial.
"Ding!"
"Congratulations, host. You have successfully bound the Future Information Fragment System!"
A system?
A cheat?!
The transmigrators who came before him hadn't been lying after all! Transmigration really did come with a system. Zucker was thrilled for a while, but before long, he couldn't help grumbling.
"What kind of lousy system is this?"
"No quests, no rewards!"
"Not even an exchange shop. All you do is provide random snippets of future information."
"And most of them are about movies. What are you playing at?"
Zucker couldn't blame himself for complaining. This system was just too useless.
Future information?
He had to be the one to provide it? Did the system think Zucker didn't already know that?
Fine, Zucker couldn't know everything down to the last detail. But at the very least, it was a system—a cheat! This pathetic little function was completely worthless.
What use was a system like this?
"Ding!"
"Congratulations, host. You have received a beginner's gift pack!" The system's mechanical voice rang out without warning.
A gift pack?
Would it be useless too?
"I want to see what kind of gift pack this lousy system has to offer!"
"Oh my god... That's amazing!!!"
The beginner's gift pack provided two pieces of future information.
First: On August 9, 1995, Netscape's browser would go public. Its shares would open at $28 each, surge past $75 per share at their peak that day, and close at $58.25.
Second: On November 22, 1995, Toy Story would be released. It would earn $192 million at the North American box office and $360 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in North America in 1995.
As a result, Toy Story's production company, Pixar Animation, would become a household name!
Its market value would soar past $1 billion!
"Now that's amazing!"
Zucker couldn't blame himself for praising the system. The information it provided was just that good.
That's right, Zucker had come from the future and knew plenty about what would happen in the United States. But all he knew was that Apple and Microsoft would be worth over $1.3 trillion in 2020, and that Amazon's market value would come close to $1.3 trillion. Who knew the more specific details?
"Before transmigrating, I was just an ordinary person, when you got down to it."
"My job was in the film industry, not finance. I knew there'd be an Internet Bubble in the early twenty-first century, but how could I know the specifics?"
Zucker had already been filled with hope for the future. Now that he'd gotten a system too, his mood lifted even more!
He was going to make a fortune!
August 1, 1995.
Zucker walked out of the Los Angeles branch of Wells Fargo with a smile, carrying several document folders.
After more than twenty days of effort, Zucker had settled the inheritance of his mother's estate. He'd paid a hefty amount in inheritance tax and legal fees, and inherited a 120-square-meter house and $20,000 in savings.
"Damn it, banks really are crooks!"
"I put the house up as collateral for a year and only got $100,000, and the interest rate's a whopping 12 percent. What a rip-off."
In other words, a year later, Zucker would have to repay the bank $112,000, principal and interest, or lose the house.
It was no wonder Zucker was unhappy. The 120-square-meter house was worth more than $150,000 on the market.
"Never mind. I've got everything I need. All that's missing is the final push!"
Zucker wasted no time. Carrying his $120,000 in savings, he boarded a flight to New York that very day and found a fairly reputable investment firm.
Before you continue