My name was Xia Jie. I was 23 years old, a college graduate who had just finished his first year on the job.
I'd been single for six months since breaking up with my girlfriend. I was a newly matured, single loser.
I lived around Source Prosperity Community on Spring-Knowing Road and worked nearby at the Lucky Star Building on Nation-Building Avenue.
I started work at nine sharp every morning and got home at eight sharp every evening, all just to take advantage of the company's coffee and dinner.
I didn't smoke, and I only drank occasionally.
As a longtime anime fan, I kept up with new shows but never stayed up past one in the morning.
Every night, I went to bed at 1:01 sharp. I'd close my eyes and fall asleep at once, then sleep straight through until morning.
Every day, I woke up at 8:30 sharp, as rested as a baby, without a trace of fatigue or stress.
Even the doctors said I was perfectly healthy.
I'd always stuck to my regular routine.
That was until one night, when a classmate sent me a high-definition version of Jujutsu Kaisen 0.
For the first time, I broke my own rules and stayed up past one to watch anime.
Then, as though my body had been cursed, my heart suddenly seized up at 1:02.
As my consciousness faded, the last thing I saw was poor Suguru Geto, a single loser who'd been thoroughly outclassed by Okkotsu's public display of affection.
After that, I had no idea what happened.
I didn't know how long it had been when the memories of a boy named Xia Jie suddenly appeared in my mind.
The life of this fifteen-year-old kid was like that of a fledgling trapped in a swamp. He could only watch helplessly as the mud swallowed him up.
When he was six, his mother died of an illness. His father took him overseas to Japan, to Shinjuku.
An unfamiliar country, an unfamiliar city, unfamiliar people... It all left him at a loss and made him quiet and withdrawn, which turned him into a target for bullying by his classmates.
For one reason or another, he'd always had a distant relationship with his father. He'd never told him about any of the things he'd gone through, either.
I'd thought he and his father would go on like strangers forever... until yesterday, when Shinjuku was rocked by unprecedented chaos.
Countless civilians fled blindly through the streets, as if they were running from something terrifying.
At the time, I was still holed up in my rental apartment playing video games when I heard explosions all around me.
My father suddenly flung open my bedroom door. He looked visibly panicked, as if he'd seen something, and tried to pull me somewhere to hide.
But I stubbornly shook off his hand. Just then, a huge shadow came hurtling toward the room we were in.
My father pulled me into his arms and turned his back to the thing, trying to shield me with his body. But the tremendous force sent both of us flying...
Damn it!
Damn it!
Damn it!
Xia Jie's eyelids trembled as he slowly opened his eyes. His face was grim, and countless thoughts surged through his mind.
What an exhausting nightmare. Everything had felt as if it had really happened to him, and he could barely tell reality from a dream.
After a long moment, Xia Jie slowly breathed out, finally emerging from that strange, heavy gloom.
He raised his head and looked around. To his surprise, he wasn't at home.
"Huh? An IV?" Xia Jie stared at the bandage and drip line on his hand, momentarily dazed.
The smell of disinfectant in the air and his blue-and-white hospital gown told him he was in a hospital.
Right! He'd suddenly collapsed from a heart spasm and must have been brought to the hospital! Xia Jie realized. But... no one else should have had the key to his place. He wondered who had brought him here.
As Xia Jie was puzzling over it, a slightly plump, middle-aged nurse came through the door.
"Xia Jie, bed six. Time to take your medicine!" the nurse said.
The nurse wasn't speaking Chinese. It sounded a little like Japanese, but for some reason Xia Jie understood what she meant.
His head still wasn't quite clear, and he didn't register the difference in language.
"Here!" Xia Jie called out. He felt so weak that he could barely move.
The nurse pushed over the medicine trolley and removed the IV line from Xia Jie's hand. "I know it's you. Put your hand down! And don't shout so loudly! You might split open the wound on your head!"
A wound on his head...? Hadn't he had a heart spasm?
Xia Jie was still confused when he suddenly felt an odd ache in his head. He raised a hand to touch it and found it wrapped in thick bandages.
What was going on? Xia Jie looked completely bewildered.
The nurse continued, "I've left your medicine here. It's enough for one day. Take it three times a day, morning, noon, and night. Remember to take it on schedule!"
Xia Jie's mind was a complete mess. He was so focused on his head that he didn't hear a word the nurse said.
Seeing him like this, the nurse stopped him. "Don't keep touching your wound! Just let it heal on its own!"
"Fortunately, it wasn't a particularly deep cut. You can be discharged after a few more days of observation!"
How had he hurt his head? Xia Jie felt like his thoughts were a total mess. The nurse was still talking. "If the ambulance hadn't arrived so quickly, your injury could have been serious!"
The nurse said a few more things to Xia Jie. When she saw how dazed he looked, as if he still hadn't come around, she pursed her lips, said no more, and pushed the medicine trolley out of the ward.
"My classmates..." Xia Jie murmured. "Was it Wang Yang or Cheng Cheng? They both live pretty far away!"
"And how did I get hit on the head by a vase? Something about this is so strange!"
Xia Jie reached for his phone, meaning to call the two of them and ask what had happened. He searched the bed but couldn't find it.
Xia Jie found the storage locker key in a nearby cabinet. Feeling weak, he got out of bed and opened his locker.
A high school uniform came into view. It was dirty, with dark-red bloodstains on it.
Xia Jie's expression grew even stranger. He took the uniform out of the locker and held it up against himself. It fit perfectly.
Xia Jie cautiously looked at his reflection in the hospital window. The figure in the glass looked visibly panicked.
What the hell?!
Frightened, Xia Jie dropped the uniform and slapped himself hard across the face.
A hallucination. It had to be a hallucination!
The reflection in the window must have been too blurry. He'd imagined it!
Xia Jie staggered into the ward's bathroom and looked, still refusing to believe it, at the mirror hanging on the wall.
The boy in the mirror looked only sixteen or seventeen. His head was wrapped in bandages, and his features were delicate. His eyes were especially clear, like a mountain spring. But a finger-length scar over his right eye muddied the spring in his gaze and marred his good looks.
Xia Jie stared blankly at the face in the mirror. He didn't care what the person in the mirror looked like. All that mattered was whether it was him.
He slowly raised his hand, and the person in the mirror raised his hand too.
He pinched his cheek, and the person in the mirror pinched his cheek too.
The last of Xia Jie's hope vanished. There was no doubt about it: somehow, he'd transmigrated into the body of a completely unfamiliar boy.
No, that wasn't right! He wasn't entirely unfamiliar with him!
The boy was the Xia Jie from his dream!
No wonder the nurse's speech had sounded strange just now. She'd been speaking Japanese! But why could he understand her?!
Xia Jie abruptly looked out the window. Familiar yet unfamiliar buildings came into view.
It suddenly dawned on him: this was... Shinjuku!
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