Chapter 1

At 5:00 AM on February 25, 2001, in the box market next to the 119th Middle School in Quancheng, Shandong Province, on the second floor of a PS game hall on the east side.

A male high school student, who had been sleeping in a corner, suddenly sat up, looking around in disbelief. After confirming his surroundings, his eyes sparkled with an unusual light.

His name is Liang Kun. He had just received some memories from his youth. Looking down at the hideous dark blue cheap "pao fu" (padded jacket) and the faded jeans he was wearing, he realized he had been reborn in 2001, just before his high school graduation.

He had become young again! Liang Kun, who had been a greasy middle-aged man not long ago, was so excited that his heart felt like it was about to jump out of his throat.

To be able to return to the age of 18, the season of flowers and rain, was such an incredible and joyous thing. Even if he had to spend all his wealth and start over, he would do it willingly! Life and youth were things that money couldn't buy, and he had no money anyway.

His memories were very clear, and he knew how he got here.

At the end of 2019, he had stayed up all night playing the "World of Warcraft" classic server at home. He only turned off the computer to rest when he was extremely tired. In 2001, he and his basketball teammate, Zhang Gang, had stayed up all night playing PS games. He had fallen asleep on the table, letting Zhang Gang play by himself. When he closed his eyes and opened them again, his 37-year-old soul had traveled back in time.

The thought of being young again made him completely lose his sleep.

Reflecting on the past, he always regretted it. If he had studied hard and strived for progress, and changed his name to something that sounded more righteous, his life wouldn't have been such a mess.

The name his parents gave him was very ordinary, even a bit old-fashioned. One of the ten tigers of Guangdong in the Qing Dynasty was also named this. But after the "Young and Dangerous" movies came out in the 1990s, the name sounded a bit like it belonged to a bad guy.

Looking at Liang Kun's 37-year life experience, he indeed wasn't a good person.

Liang Kun's father, Liang Guohui, was a retired soldier who had practiced martial arts and was tall and strong. Liang Kun inherited excellent genes, standing 182 cm tall with an extraordinary physique. He had always been passionate about football and attended the 119th Middle School in Quancheng as a football athlete.

However, high school didn't mean much to Liang Kun. He was a serious underachiever in junior high, scoring less than 100 points in math, physics, and chemistry combined. His high school football career was also very short-lived. The school team was disbanded in his second year after a student was seriously injured during a game.

After the team was disbanded, Liang Kun, with all his energy and nowhere to channel it, started to misbehave and became a notorious school bully, similar to Takuya Sato from "Battle Royale." Good students would avoid him, and bad students would call him "Brother Kun." His close friends gave him the nickname "Liang Kun."

He bullied the school for two years, and his college entrance exam scores were so poor that he didn't even meet the minimum threshold. After graduation, his family suggested he learn a skill and enrolled him in the Xianglan Technical School in Quancheng, which would later become famous nationwide.

He soon took the path of "dominating Xianglan" and became a well-known school bully at the technical school. Fortunately, he had enrolled in a cooking class, so he usually fought with his bare hands. If he had chosen the excavator major, he might have driven an excavator to fight people when he was angry.

In his youth, he was hot-blooded and had unknowingly developed the habit of solving conflicts with his fists rather than words, finding it hard to control his emotions. "When you can't tolerate it anymore, you don't need to tolerate it anymore" was the only part of the saying he remembered.

Liang Kun was also a selfish and cold person, nitpicking about people and things, acting on his own whims, enjoying watching others suffer, and severely lacking in empathy.

He loved to take advantage of small benefits, was stingy, and suspicious by nature, rarely considering others' feelings.

He had almost never helped anyone and would never meddle in others' affairs, always refusing any requests.

In most people's eyes, Liang Kun was a humorous and playful bad guy. Only rebellious people liked to be friends with him, and the three girlfriends he had dated were also quite wild.

Due to his personality, his social circle became narrower as he grew older, and he gradually lost contact with his friends, becoming a loner. Even if he didn't work, he could only stay at home and play on the computer.

His career was extremely unsuccessful. He had worked as a chef in several restaurants, but none of them lasted long, and his monthly salary never reached 4,000 yuan. He often had conflicts with his colleagues and even fought with his bosses twice. Before his rebirth, he had just lost his job, and his social insurance was about to be cut off.

He had no girlfriend, no savings, and only a small two-bedroom apartment in a remote area of the western suburbs, Dayangzhuang, which his parents and his twin sister had helped him buy.

His relationship with his sister, Liang Shuang, was also poor, and he had been looked down upon for many years. His income was so low that he couldn't even take care of himself, let alone benefit his family.

Having experienced the ups and downs of life, the now mature Liang Kun vowed to cherish this second chance and not live a failed life again.

"I want to make a lot of money and achieve great success, both in fame and fortune.

"I want to find a beautiful and kind girlfriend, the kind that makes everyone envious when we go out.

"I can't lose my temper anymore. I need to be calm and composed, lead by example, and prioritize safety.

"I can't live like this anymore. I need to think carefully before I act. Life is like climbing a mountain, like crossing a river. Every step should leave a deep footprint, and every footprint should be a song.

"Eh? Why did I sing that out loud?"

Liang Kun began to think about what he was good at and what he could do in this era to rise quickly and change his poor situation.

It was already the second semester of his senior year, and it was almost impossible for his grades to improve dramatically. No one in the 119th Middle School had ever been admitted to a prestigious university.

As a chef, he was good at making home-style dishes with cheap ingredients, and the taste was decent. However, he wouldn't have many repeat customers, and he certainly couldn't get rich through his culinary skills.

He had learned some military combat skills from his father and was very good at fighting. He had even won a fight against five people last year, but he definitely wasn't at the level to participate in professional combat competitions.

Should he become an actor? He looked decent, a bit handsome. Unfortunately, his parents hadn't taken him to get his teeth fixed when he was young, so his teeth were crooked and decayed. Unless he got his teeth fixed first, becoming an actor was a pipe dream. How could he be as handsome as the Golden Bull Award-winning actor Feng Xiaogang with bad teeth?

He knew which movies would become popular in the future, but he lacked the professional knowledge to enter the entertainment industry, let alone work behind the scenes.

As for investing in business... where would he get the capital?

Liang Kun knew the future was the internet era, but he only knew how to play games on computers and had no knowledge of software or hardware. It was already 2001, and starting a tech company was a bit late. He had no skills, no resources, and nothing to compete with the already established tech companies.

He did know a bit about stock trading, including the timing of major bull and bear markets. He also knew that the stock price of Kweichow Moutai would exceed 1,000 yuan in the future, but that was in 2019 and wouldn't help his family's current situation.

The housing prices in Quancheng were very cheap, making it a good time to invest in real estate. However, even at these low prices, he couldn't afford to buy a house. His daily food expenses averaged only six yuan, and he had to rely on others to play PS games.

Should he write novels as a copyist? Don't even dream about it. His writing skills were so poor that he couldn't even write an 800-word essay. No matter how many novels he read, he couldn't write one. Just because many people had read Jin Yong and Gu Long's novels and watched their adaptations, did that mean they could write the stories if they went back in time? You needed to have good writing skills!

Liang Kun suddenly realized that being reborn was a technical job. Without any skills, he would probably just be an ordinary person. Having a long-term vision wasn't enough.

Writing movie scripts or copying popular songs was a bit easier. However, he knew a lot of things but didn't understand script formats, couldn't read sheet music, and didn't play any instruments. He needed to learn a lot to avoid being suspected of plagiarism. Otherwise, professionals could take his work, and he wouldn't be able to prove that he, a complete outsider, had written the classics.

The more he thought, the more anxious he became. He had a second chance but didn't know how to change his life. He felt like a failure...

He decided to play some games with Zhang Gang to relax. It was around 5:00 AM, and there was still some time before class started. The all-night gaming session hadn't ended yet.

He looked up and saw Zhang Gang, who was fully focused on playing a football game nearby. He froze.

He rubbed his eyes and pinched his thigh hard, confirming that it wasn't an illusion. Zhang Gang had a large green question mark above his head, not a green hat, but a real question mark.

What the heck?!

Bro, we haven't seen each other for over ten years, and I still remember you were a mess—late, early, smoking, drinking, fighting, and flirting with girls... But I don't remember you ever having a green question mark on your head! Do your parents know about this?

What was going on? Liang Kun swallowed hard, thinking the problem must be with him, a side effect of his rebirth.

As he was thinking, a faint blue light appeared on the back of his right hand, and a three-dimensional virtual projection appeared in front of him. It was a cool holographic screen from a sci-fi movie, floating in the air and operable.

Liang Kun was startled and jumped back, making a loud noise with his chair. Zhang Gang noticed his unusual behavior and paused the game to look over.

"What's wrong?" Zhang Gang asked with a smile.

Liang Kun was stunned for a moment and asked, "You can't see anything?"

"See what?" Zhang Gang yawned. "Are you still half-asleep?"

"Um, I just woke up." Liang Kun rubbed his face and replied casually.

Of course, he had no intention of sharing his secret with Zhang Gang. It was better that others couldn't see it. This would be his secret. Just a moment ago, he had felt helpless and depressed, but now the gloom in his heart had vanished, and he was so excited that he wanted to shout.

On the screen, he saw a message in Chinese: "The Good Deeds System has completed a mental link with the host and is now activated."

So, I'm a person with a system! But how do I use it?