Chapter 1: A Long Dream Lasting Sixteen Years

"Xu Heng, you son of a b*tch, your Human race troop production is so slow, you don't even know how to pull militia, and you keep making me team up with you, you've tanked me two games in a row, I'm done, I'm done."

Hearing someone call his name, Xu Heng stared blankly toward the source of the voice; sitting on a wooden stool behind him was a dark-skinned youth, cursing and swearing in local dialect.

His mind felt suddenly dazed, and for a moment, he couldn't tell what had happened.

"Old Xu, are you still giving the flowers today? I bought them back for you while I was downstairs getting food."

"Giving what?"

"Flowers! Giving flowers!" The fair-skinned youth shoved a bouquet of roses onto the table in front of Xu Heng with an impatient tone, "Haven't you been giving flowers to Ying Ziyun every day for over a month? Did you get amnesia today?"

Xu Heng frowned: "Ying Ziyun is married, why would I give her flowers? Also, may I ask who you are?"

He clearly remembered that he had just been at work, busy processing documents for others.

And Ying Ziyun... that name was quite distant; she was his first love, though the two of them broke up in the second semester of their freshman year, and even though he later regretted it and chased her for three years, it all sank like a stone into the sea, with no result.

He heard that after graduating from university, she went abroad to study, not only finding a broader path but also becoming a junior executive at some company, thriving.

Of course, none of this had anything to do with Xu Heng; not long after graduating from university, he was persuaded by his parents to take the civil service exam, and in his thirties, he found a partner through matchmaking, got married, and had children; the two had stepped into different worlds since then, and in over a decade, they hadn't had much interaction.

Though, last night, she had sent him a WeChat message for the first time, inviting him to France to attend her wedding...

Did this have any connection to him giving flowers? Or was there some cause and effect?

Xu Heng was completely bewildered, and the fair-skinned youth on his left wasn't a face from his memory of his colleagues either; at the very least, that face full of unhealed acne wasn't a mark that a thirty or forty-year-old could carry.

The fair-skinned youth widened his eyes: "Xu Heng, did you break your brain from being in love? Even if she broke up with you and refused to get back together multiple times, you can't curse her like that, right?"

"Curse? No, I'm wishing her well, wishing them a happy marriage."

Xu Heng was still in a half-dreaming, half-waking state, swaying as he picked up the mouse to handle official business, but upon seeing the image on the computer screen, he fell into a state of bewilderment once again.

This colorful screen was a game called Warcraft; he remembered playing it often when he was young, but he hadn't touched it since he started working.

And around 2008 or 2009, this game also started to go downhill, gradually losing its popularity, replaced by the rise of some RPG maps within it, especially that MOBA game called Dota, but Dota was also slowly replaced by League of Legends after 2011...

No! He was still at work, how could he possibly have opened a game!

Xu Heng suddenly realized something and immediately exited the game interface; what greeted him was a classic Blue Sky grassland image and computer UI—the XP system!

His breathing suddenly stalled as he looked toward the time bar in the bottom right corner of the computer.

13:11

He moved the mouse over the time, and the more specific date digits were revealed.

2007/6/04!

2007!

After the initial confusion and chaos, his mind began to clear, and Xu Heng gradually started to understand what had happened to him.

He had been reborn.

Yes, he had been reborn from his thirty-six-year-old self in 2023 to his twenty-year-old self in 2007.

Now he was still a sophomore at Jinling University, not that diligent yet mediocre minor civil servant of the future.

This was truly an absurd and ridiculous thing, yet it made him so excited he couldn't control himself.

Xu Heng had once spent sleepless nights flipping through those urban rebirth novels on his phone, envying the protagonists who used their ten-plus years of future foresight to become elites, but he had never imagined that he could be reborn himself.

He had spent his whole life walking in the life arranged by his parents, knowing what was virtual and what was reality.

Living a down-to-earth life until the end, looking back, there was nothing in the human world worth lingering over; that was the true portrayal of his life.

But now, he was reborn!

He was truly reborn!

The immense joy almost overwhelmed his reason; he even wanted to roar out toward the window, but the mindset of a man in his thirties ultimately allowed him to control his words and actions.

This was a university dormitory, not his own home.

Although even if he told others, they wouldn't necessarily believe him, and it was very likely they would just treat him as a madman.

"Old Xu, are you okay..." The fair-skinned youth saw his flushed face and trembling hands, hesitated for a few seconds, and said, "It's just a breakup, there are plenty of fish in the sea, don't hang yourself on one crooked tree!"

"No, I'm fine, I'm perfectly normal, I'm too happy if anything!" Xu Heng smiled at him.

"No wonder you couldn't even change into militia just now, you really did break your brain from being in love, Cheng Ge, hurry up and send Xu Heng to the school hospital!"

The one speaking this time was the dark-skinned youth.

After sobering up, Xu Heng recalled his name.

Zhao Gaoyang, from a rural area in the south of Hebei, one of his roommates; his family background was unknown, but it shouldn't have been good; during university, he often used other people's shampoo and body wash, and would also have people bring him food without paying, and the clothes he wore were basically off-brands.

In Xu Heng's impression, Zhao Gaoyang was someone who loved to take advantage of small things; for example, the computer he was using now wasn't his own, but that of another roommate who had gone out and hadn't returned yet; he always used the excuse that "computers break if they aren't used enough" to take it for himself to play games.

As for that fair-skinned youth, his name was Cheng Huaiyu, a proper Modu resident with superior family conditions, three large apartments of over a hundred square meters in XH District, and because he was quite handsome, he considered himself the big brother of the dorm wherever he went, and often used high-end products to show off, either directly or indirectly.

However, he did have the capital to show off; the houses in XH District would skyrocket to a level incomprehensible to ordinary people in the next few years, and Cheng Huaiyu, who graduated from university, therefore lived a post-retirement life early on.

Xu Heng could remember the names, personalities, and family conditions of these two purely because they lived together in university for four years.

In fact, after graduating from university, the four roommates didn't have much contact; initially, they often found a place to have dinner and talk about life ideals, but as time passed, everyone was in different places, different cities, and had different jobs, so they stopped contacting each other.

Life is just this capricious; when Xu Heng thought he had no more entanglements with these people, a long dream lasting sixteen years sent him back to the midsummer of 2007.