Is This Shinjuku?!

My name is Xia Jie, I am 23 years old, and I am a college graduate who has been working for one year.

I broke up with my girlfriend half a year ago, making me a newly matured bachelor.

I live in the area around Source Prosperity Community on Spring-Knowing Road and work at the Lucky Star Building on the nearby Nation-Building Avenue.

I arrive at work at nine sharp every day and return home at eight sharp every night, purely to take advantage of the company's coffee and dinner.

I don't smoke, and my drinking is limited to a light sip.

As an old-school otaku, although I watch anime, I never stay up past 1:00 AM.

I sleep at 1:01 AM every night, falling into a deep sleep the moment I close my eyes, and I sleep until dawn.

I wake up at 8:30 AM sharp every day, just like a baby, without any lingering fatigue or stress.

Doctors all say my body is perfectly normal.

I have always adhered to my own regular routine.

Until this night, when a classmate sent me the high-definition version of Jujutsu Kaisen 0.

For the first time, I broke the rules I had set for myself and watched anime past 1:00 AM.

Then, as if my body had been cursed, my heart suddenly cramped at 1:02 AM.

In my fading consciousness, the last image I saw was Suguru Geto, that pathetic bachelor, being shown up by Okkotsu's display of love.

After that, I didn't know what happened.

I don't know how much time passed, but a set of life memories belonging to a boy named Xia Jie appeared in my mind.

The life of this 15-year-old kid was like a fledgling bird that had fallen into a swamp, watching helplessly as the mud swallowed him whole, yet unable to do anything about it.

When he was 6, his mother passed away due to illness, and his father took him overseas to Shinjuku in Japan.

An unfamiliar country, an unfamiliar city, unfamiliar people... it made me feel at a loss and become reticent, which in turn made me a target for bullying by other classmates.

For various reasons, my relationship with my father had always been cold, and I had never told him about the things I had encountered.

I originally thought I would continue to be like strangers with my father... until yesterday, when an unprecedented riot broke out in Shinjuku.

Countless civilians on the streets were fleeing blindly, as if they were avoiding something terrifying.

At that time, I was still curled up in my rental apartment playing games when I heard explosions coming from all around.

My father suddenly opened my bedroom door, his expression showing visible tension as if he had seen something, and he tried to pull me to hide somewhere.

But I was stubborn and broke free from his hand, and just then, a huge black shadow slammed into the room we were in.

My father grabbed me in his arms and turned his back, trying to use his own body to block the thing, but the immense force sent us both flying...

Damn it!

Damn it!

Damn it!

Xia Jie's eyelashes fluttered, and he slowly opened his eyes, his face pale and his mind churning with countless thoughts.

This nightmare was truly exhausting; everything felt as if it had happened to him in reality, making it hard for him to distinguish the boundary between reality and dreams.

After a long while, Xia Jie slowly exhaled a breath of stale air, finally breaking free from that strange, oppressive mood.

He raised his head to look at his surroundings and suddenly realized he was not at home.

"Huh? Is this an IV drip?" Xia Jie looked at the bandage and infusion tube on his hand, slightly stunned.

The smell of disinfectant in the air and the white-and-blue striped hospital gown made him realize he was in a hospital.

Right! He had suddenly fainted from heart pain; someone must have brought him to the hospital! Xia Jie realized. But... no one else should have the key to his place. He wondered who had brought him here.

While Xia Jie was inwardly puzzled, a middle-aged nurse with a slightly plump figure pushed the door open.

"Patient 6, Xia Jie, time for your medicine!" the nurse said.

The nurse wasn't speaking Chinese; it sounded a bit like Japanese, but for some reason, Xia Jie understood the meaning perfectly.

His mind wasn't entirely clear yet, and he didn't distinguish the difference in language.

"I'm here!" Xia Jie called out, feeling an indescribable weakness in his body, lacking even a shred of strength.

The nurse pushed the medicine cart over, unplugged the infusion tube from Xia Jie's hand, and looked at him, saying, "I know it's you, put your hand down! And there's no need to shout so loudly! Be careful not to burst the wound on your head!"

The wound on his head... wasn't it heart pain?

Xia Jie was confused, then suddenly felt his head aching inexplicably. He raised his hand to touch his head and found it wrapped in thick bandages.

What was going on? Xia Jie looked bewildered.

The nurse continued, "The medicine is here! This is the daily dosage, once in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Remember to take it on time!"

Xia Jie's mind was a mess, his attention entirely on his head, and he hadn't noticed what the nurse said at all.

Seeing him like this, the nurse stopped his movements: "Don't keep touching your wound! Just wait for it to heal on its own!"

"It's fortunate the wound isn't particularly deep; you can be discharged after a few more days of observation!"

How did he get a head injury? Xia Jie felt his thoughts were in complete chaos, while the nurse continued, "If the ambulance hadn't arrived so quickly, your injury could have been dangerous!"

The nurse scolded Xia Jie a few more times, but seeing his dazed expression, as if he had yet to fully wake up, she pursed her lips and stopped talking, pushing the medicine cart out of the ward.

"My classmate..." Xia Jie muttered to himself, "Was it Wang Yang or Cheng Cheng? Both of them live quite far away from me!"

"And the fact that I was hit in the head by a vase—how could that be so suspicious!"

Xia Jie reached out to feel for his phone, intending to call them both to ask, but he turned over the hospital bed and couldn't find it.

Xia Jie found the locker key in the cabinet beside him, climbed out of the hospital bed with some weakness, and opened his locker.

What met his eyes was a high school uniform, its surface dirty and stained with patches of dark red blood.

Xia Jie's expression grew increasingly strange. He took the uniform out of the locker and held it up against himself; it was a perfect fit.

Xia Jie tentatively looked at his reflection in the hospital window, and the reflection on the glass was visibly panicked.

What the hell?!

Xia Jie was so startled that he dropped the uniform on the floor and slapped his face hard.

Hallucination, it had to be a hallucination!

The reflection in the window must have been too blurry, and he had just seen it wrong!

Xia Jie staggered toward the ward's bathroom, refusing to believe it, and looked into the mirror hanging on the wall.

The boy in the mirror looked only sixteen or seventeen, his head wrapped in bandages, his features quite delicate. His eyes were exceptionally clear, like mountain spring water. However, a scar about the length of a finger near his right eye inevitably muddied the spring water in the boy's eyes, also marring the beauty of his appearance.

Xia Jie stared blankly at the face in the mirror. He didn't care what the person in the mirror looked like; he only cared whether that person was himself.

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 hope in Xia Jie's heart was completely extinguished. Without a doubt, he didn't know how, but he had transmigrated into a completely unfamiliar boy.

No! He couldn't even call the other person unfamiliar!

The other person was the Xia Jie from his dreams!

No wonder he had felt the nurse's speech was strange earlier; she had been speaking Japanese! But why could he understand it?!

Xia Jie looked sharply out the window, where those familiar yet strange buildings came into view.

He suddenly realized: this was... Shinjuku!