Thunder rumbled, low and heavy.

Rain crashed down in sheets.

Howard Lancaster jolted upright in bed like he’d been yanked out of a nightmare.

And yeah—he really had just had one.

In the dream, his wife was sneaking around with some random guy. He’d caught them red-handed in bed, and the bastard turned out to be his own private driver.

Any man would lose it seeing his wife with another man.

Howard had gone completely off the rails. He grabbed a fruit knife and charged at the guy.

Too bad he’d played himself.

When he’d hired that driver, he’d specifically picked a retired soldier. It was supposed to be for his own protection.

After all, as the richest man in Binhai City, plenty of people had their eyes on him.

Howard was a businessman through and through, not a fighter. He was no match for the adulterer. In the end, he got stabbed three times and thrown straight off the twelfth floor.

Thank god it was only a dream.

Lately, he’d been so swamped with business that he suddenly realized he hadn’t even called his wife in ages.

So he reached for his phone, planning to give her a quick call, check in, say a few soft words.

But the moment he saw the thing in his hand, he froze.

It was an ancient Motorola keypad phone, the kind that looked like it belonged in a museum. On the screen, the date was displayed clearly:

August 15, 1999.

“What kind of busted phone is this? It can’t even get the time right,” Howard muttered, instinctively roasting it.

He had no idea whose phone this was, but one thing was certain—it definitely wasn’t his.

The first phone he’d ever owned in his life had been a Huawei flagship smartphone he bought in 2016.

The room around him was pitch-black, so dark he could barely see his own fingers. Using the weak glow from the Motorola, he fumbled around the bedside and found a red pull-cord. He gave it a tug.

A 20-watt bulb flickered on with a tired buzz, spilling dim yellow light across every corner of the room.

The place was only about thirty square meters, cramped and shabby. The furnishings were ridiculously bare-bones. A battered wardrobe stood against the wall, with a bronze mirror hanging from it. Even the floor was rough hard-packed dirt, uneven and full of dips, like it had never properly been finished.

It was an old house straight out of the ’90s.

Howard Lancaster’s eyes went wide. For a second, he honestly thought he was still half-asleep. He gritted his teeth and pinched his thigh hard.

“Hiss—!”

The pain hit so sharply that he sucked in a cold breath on the spot.

His face turned pale. He stumbled backward several steps, so shaken his footing almost gave out.

Only after taking a few deep breaths did he slowly move toward the mirror.

In the dim mirror, a burly man in his thirties stared back at him in total disbelief, his face rough with unshaven stubble, his expression stiff with shock.

Howard lifted a hand and touched his own face, his voice low and shaky.

“So I really transmigrated... It wasn’t a dream. It was all real. My wife cheated on me, and she teamed up with her lover to kill me.”

Bang!

He clenched his jaw so hard the muscles stood out, then smashed his fist into the wall.

The mud wall caved in on the spot.

At the same time, a fierce stabbing pain exploded inside his head.

Countless strange memories rushed in like a flood, rooting themselves deep in his mind.

So this body’s owner was also named Howard Lancaster.

His parents had split up when he was three. When he was five, his father died in a car accident.

The driver who caused it paid three thousand yuan in compensation, but Howard’s second uncle swindled every last bit of it away. In the end, the boy had to go begging door to door just to scrape together enough money to bury his father.

Later, his mother remarried, and he was taken along with her. But his stepfather never treated him well.

From then on, Howard fell in with a bunch of useless street punks.

He had been lying and cheating people since he was a kid. Once he grew up, he only got worse, doing all kinds of rotten things.

Still... it wasn’t like he had never done a good thing in his life.

When he was twenty-two, Howard had once saved a female college student working away from home from a group of traffickers. Later, that college girl became his wife.

Not long after they got married, they had a child.

But when the child turned three, Howard offended a rich second-generation brat at a skating rink. After that, he was framed and sent to prison for three full years.

Less than a month had passed since Howard Lancaster got out of prison.

After forcing himself to digest all those chaotic memories, Howard sat on a narrow wooden stool, looking completely dazed, like his soul had been yanked halfway out of his body.

So this kind of thing actually existed?

Transmigration?

What the hell.

Knock, knock, knock!

A hurried pounding came from outside the door.

Howard pushed himself up and shuffled over, his steps unsteady, then reached out and opened the door.

The door had barely cracked open when a woman, soaked from head to toe, quickly slipped inside.

She looked about twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. Her face was stunning in a way that didn’t even feel real, the kind that could make people forget to breathe. She wore no makeup at all, yet she could still outshine those top-tier actresses people chased after like crazy.

She was his wife.

Serena Lancaster.

Because her clothes were drenched through, they clung tightly to her body, outlining every soft, full curve with almost cruel clarity. Howard’s throat moved, and he swallowed before he could stop himself.

In his previous life, he had been the richest man in Binhai. He had gone to more private clubs than he could count for business dinners and endless networking. He had seen plenty of beautiful women, dozens upon dozens of them. His wife back then had even been a famous internet celebrity.

But compared to Serena, none of them came close.

Not even a little.

Serena kept her head lowered, her voice small and careful.

“I... I want to borrow some money from you.”

Borrow money?

Howard froze for a second.

Borrow?

Between husband and wife, why was she even using that word?

He instinctively reached into his pocket. After fumbling around for a moment, all he found was that Motorola phone and a bit of lint and grime. Nothing else.

Only then did it slam into him again.

He was no longer the king-like tycoon from Binhai.

He was just Howard Lancaster now—

a broke loser drowning in rotten debt.

This wasn’t the first time Serena had come to ask him for money. Every single time before, the original Howard had answered her with fists and slaps, leaving her bruised and swollen.

Half a year before Howard got out of prison, their daughter had fallen seriously ill. Now the girl’s condition had become critical. For the sake of her child, Serena had no choice but to swallow all of this pain in silence.

She worked at a nearby textile factory, grinding through fifteen hours a day. At the end of the month, all she could bring home was 680 yuan.

Howard’s chest tightened.

What a complete bastard.

Howard Lancaster’s face was dark with anger.

A wife this beautiful should’ve been cherished, spoiled, held like something precious. And that bastard had actually been able to hit her.

What the hell kind of animal did that?

The second that thought hit him, Howard wanted nothing more than to slap himself across the face.

Seeing the vicious look on him, Serena Lancaster was so scared she dropped straight to her knees. Her voice trembled as she begged, “Please don’t hit me. I won’t ask you for money anymore. I-I’ll find another night job. I should be able to pay it back soon...”

The debt was owed to the clinic.

If they still couldn’t repay it, the clinic would stop the medicine.

Howard’s chest tightened. “Get up. Hurry, get up. I’m not hitting you.”

He reached out to help her, but Serena flinched away like a bird startled by a snapped twig, shrinking back on instinct.

Only then did Howard notice it clearly.

She was trembling.

And yeah—how could she not be?

In just one month, the original Howard had beaten her at least ten times.

Otherwise, why would she rather stay in the communal dorm than come home?

Howard turned and rummaged through the old, battered wardrobe. After a moment, he pulled out a shirt and a jacket, then handed them to her.

“Change into these first,” he said, his voice low. “Don’t catch a cold.”

Serena looked down at the clothes in her hands, then slowly lifted her eyes to him, disbelief written all over her pale face.

The man in front of her suddenly felt unfamiliar.

He... actually cared whether she was cold?

If this had been before, even if she died in front of him, he probably wouldn’t have asked one extra question.

A gust of chilly wind slipped in through the cracks.

Serena shivered hard, her whole body jolting from the cold.

Her fingers shook as she undid the buttons. In the dim light, her smooth, fair shoulders were exposed to the air, soft as polished jade, carrying a faint, fragile sheen.

Howard’s throat moved.

He swallowed, then quickly grabbed the pack of Panda cigarettes and the box of matches from the table and headed for the door.

He had already lived through storms far bigger than this, but Serena was still, in the end, the wife of the former Howard.

Outside, wind and rain tangled together, slashing across the dark night.

Howard pulled out a cigarette and set it between his lips.

The matches had gone damp. He struck several in a row before one finally caught, a weak flame jumping alive in the gloom. He lit the cigarette, then took a hard drag.

From inside the room came the faint rustle of clothing.

Howard drew deeply on the cigarette again, the smoke burning all the way down his throat.

Even now, Howard Lancaster still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it.

Time travel?

Landing on him of all people?

It sounded insane, straight-up fantasy stuff.

But the busted-up room in front of him, the sour smell in the air, the memories that didn’t belong to him yet somehow lived in his head like old scars—every single thing was screaming one fact at him.

This was real.

No matter how absurd it felt, he had no choice but to accept it.

A moment later, Serena Lancaster changed into clean clothes and came back out.

She stood in the room quietly, not moving an inch.

Her fingers were clenched so hard the knuckles had gone pale. Her back was stiff, and her face was tight with nerves, like she was waiting for something terrible to happen at any second. She didn’t dare meet Howard’s eyes for too long.

Howard finished the last drag of his cigarette, crushed the butt out, then turned around.

Seeing that Serena had changed, he paused for half a second before speaking, his voice lower than before.

“How much is still missing at the clinic?” he asked. “I’ll figure something out.”

Serena froze.

She looked at him, clearly stunned, as if she couldn’t believe those words had actually come from his mouth.

Before she could answer, a voice suddenly floated in from outside.

“Brother Howard!”

An old man, fat to the point of looking greasy, waddled in through the door with a grin plastered across his face.

“I’m here to bring you money!”