Chapter 1: Reborn Back to 2004

At the airport of a South Pacific Island Nation, Wang Chuan got off the plane, finished a call from home, and opened the door of the rented BMW X5.

Wang Chuan had a hobby: whether traveling domestically or abroad, if self-driving was possible, he would absolutely self-drive; he liked having the steering wheel under his own control.

However, in this island nation, the steering wheel was on the right.

Although this was his second visit, it still took quite some time to adapt.

He hadn't seen the famous fjords formed by glacial erosion last time; they were said to be the only landform missing in the domestic landscape, so this trip was to make up for that regret.

Driving all the way, he felt the scenery here was somewhat like that of several western provinces in the country.

Inside the car, Sun Yanzi's "Meet" was playing:

Hearing the departure of winter,

I wake up in some year, some month.

I think, I wait, I expect,

But the future cannot be arranged because of this.

Suddenly, a strange phone rang, pausing the music.

A strange man's voice: "Wang Chuan. Is this Mr. Wang?"

"Who is this?"

"Chen Chen, Chen Ran's younger brother. Do you remember Chen Ran?"

Wang Chuan remembered; this month there had been a blind date girl named Chen Ran, a fresh graduate from the university's Chinese Department, to whom he had politely given a business card.

"Can you tell me a few stocks, even one is fine, a stock that can triple? I'm short two million for the down payment on a house for my wedding?"

Wang Chuan was stunned for a moment.

A girl's voice came through: "Wang Chuan, it's me, Chen Ran. Didn't you leave the securities company? You opened Yuchuan Capital yourself; just giving a stock code isn't illegal, right?"

Wang Chuan was speechless, really wanting to explain to the siblings that they shouldn't have stereotypes.

Civil engineering graduates move bricks; mechanical and electronic engineering graduates tighten screws and do electric welding; computer science graduates play games and refurbish computers.

Securities company employees can easily trade stocks and make big money.

The "Securities Law" stipulates that securities company employees shall not directly, or under an alias, or in the name of others, hold or trade stocks.

Even though he was no longer at the securities company, he still had to abide by the "Securities Law" regulations, which prohibit insiders with knowledge of inside information from trading the company's securities before the inside information is made public, or leaking such information, or advising others to trade such securities.

Switching to the younger brother Chen Chen's voice: "Wang Chuan, if you don't help me this time, don't think you'll succeed with my sister. You're forty, right? An old ox still wants to eat fresh grass."

Chen Ran snatched the phone: "Wang Chuan, my brother speaks without thinking; sorry."

'If you were really my brother-in-law, I would really give you a set of houses in Shanghai,' Wang Chuan thought coldly in his heart.

To save face for the blind date introducer, Wang Chuan said: "Hello... what did you say... hello... bad signal..."

Wang Chuan simply turned off the mobile phone used for work.

His thoughts drifted for a moment; a sharp bend appeared on the road ahead, and he turned the steering wheel.

In the oncoming lane, a sign stood upright on the roof of a car: 'HOUSE FOLLOWS'.

Boom! A huge crash. Wang Chuan's car collided with a house on the road.

His upper body, tightly buckled by the seatbelt, lurched violently forward.

Crack! A steel rod pierced through the windshield and stabbed into his chest.

At the chest, the snow-white shirt was quickly soaked and spread by glaring scarlet, like a flower of death blooming instantly.

Intense pain swept over his entire body like a tsunami.

A sentence, as if carved deep into the marrow, floated up in his rapidly blurring consciousness: the most basic medical knowledge learned in medical school over twenty years ago:

"The heart lies between the thoracic mediastinum, two-thirds on the left."

Before his consciousness sank into boundless darkness, Wang Chuan's final thought was absurdly calm: The position it stabbed... was damn accurate.

"Huff~~~."

Wang Chuan, like a dying fish, suddenly sprang up from the computer chair, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, hitting his ribs until they ached.

Cold sweat instantly soaked his temples.

The tearing pain, the gushing hot blood... the feeling was so real it was etched into his bones.

But before his eyes—damn, this is an Internet Cafe.

Deafening keyboard clacking sounds exploded with a pitter-patter, and Wang Xinling's "Love You" was playing loudly from the internet cafe attendant's side.

The air was terribly thick, the smell of smoke mixed with sour instant noodles rushing straight to his brain, almost making him vomit.

Wang Chuan glanced over; at the bottom right corner of the bulky CRT monitor in front of him.

May 26, 2004. I... have been Reborn.

"Chuanzi, are you sleepwalking, damn it? Heal, I'm about to die."

Li Wei's voice? He was Wang Chuan's undergraduate classmate and roommate from Medical School.

Wang Chuan suddenly turned his head and saw Li Wei's face, eyes bloodshot and red, a cigarette butt with a long ash hanging from his mouth, the whole person greasy and sweaty, as if just fished out of a wok of oil.

On the screen, the health bar of his game character was dropping rapidly; this was the scene from the Online Game "A Chinese Odyssey 2".

Wang Chuan used his stiff fingers to control the mouse, clicked, took a health potion from his inventory, and healed Li Wei's game character.

"Damn, almost died there," Li Wei sighed in relief, grabbed the nearly empty can of cola on the table, and hopelessly poured it a couple more times, only a few drops of sugary water dripping out.

He irritably crushed the empty can and threw it aside, his cracked lips moving, a dry sound coming from his throat.

"Can't... can't hold on..." he panted heavily, his voice hoarse, "Last night, running that damn 200-ring quest... made me... almost turn into a dried corpse... dizzy... hands shaking like a sieve..."

While complaining, he unconsciously groped on the greasy table, his eyes glazed, obviously looking for something to moisten his throat, even if it was just a drop of water.

That hand, covered in sweat and ash, trembling slightly, brushed against Wang Chuan's right fingertips.

Ding.

All of Wang Chuan's memories from his previous life studying and practicing medicine between 2000 and 2007, including the Muscle Memory formed back then, all surged into the reborn Wang Chuan's body.

Of course, his past-life photographic memory talent was not lost after rebirth.

In an instant, Wang Chuan regained the medical level he had when he left the hospital in his past life—was this his Golden Finger?

Above Li Wei's head, a clear information tag appeared: 【Sinus Tachycardia, heart rate 118+, mild dehydration.】

His pupils contracted sharply, and a panel only he could see popped up before his eyes:

【Clinical Medical Insight】: Activation condition—focus and contact with a patient. Displays current key examination indicators and primary physical signs of the patient. Upgradable.

Below it was a gray-white section: 【Virtual Operation Training】—first activation condition: perform any basic surgical procedure in a hospital.

Further down, another gray-white section: 【Peak Medical Skill Experience】: First activation condition—receive one hundred patient thanks. Completing one Peak Medical Skill Experience grants a reward.

In the bottom right corner, small text read: System validity: 2004.5.26—2007.5.26.

There was also a three-year-limited Golden Finger: May 26, 2007—the day Wang Chuan left the hospital in his past life.

"Li Wei." Wang Chuan's voice suddenly rose, sharp and commanding, as he handed Li Wei a bottle of mineral water.

"Your hands are hot enough to fry an egg, your heart's racing like it's about to explode, and you're dizzy and trembling. All-nighter dehydration! Drink up. Right now. Get off that machine and go back to sleep."

Li Wei was stunned by the shout, cowed by that gaze, and instinctively gulped down several big swallows. "... I... I got it..."

Wang Chuan said no more and slammed his game shut.

The two of them bolted out of the stinking Internet Cafe like fleeing for their lives.

The cool morning air rushed into his lungs; Wang Chuan sucked in a deep breath, his mind clearing slightly.

He strode toward the dormitory building, placed a large cup of warm water on the table, and said, "Li Wei, drink some more water half an hour from now."

Li Wei mumbled a few incoherent replies and collapsed into sleep.

The public washroom at the end of the second-floor corridor of the Medical College Dormitory.

Wang Chuan turned on the rusted faucet.

"Splash—."

Icy, biting water slammed against his face, again and again.

He jerked his head up; water dripped from his soaking hair as he stared into the wall mirror.

In the mirror reflected a face so young it made him himself feel disoriented.

Sharp features, 182 centimeters tall, upright posture, smooth muscle definition, ivory-white skin pulsing with explosive vitality.

Twenty years old—this body... damn, it feels amazing.