Do good people receive good karma?

If you had asked Chen Ze this in the past, he would have staunchly disbelieved it. But now...

He's starting to believe.

Looking at the familiar yet strange environment before him, Chen Ze was stupefied.

He never imagined that he would be reborn...

Who would believe it if he mentioned it?

Nonetheless, the reality was right in front of him. Whether he believed it or not.

Chen Ze vigorously rubbed his temples, still somewhat unable to register the situation.

At this moment, the date displayed on his mobile phone was July 15th, 2018 by the lunar calendar, which was August 25th by the solar calendar.

He was sent back to five years ago!

...

Put simply, Chen Ze was a man as ordinary as they come. His only selling point may be his handsome appearance. Apart from being handsome, his other redeeming quality was being a good person.

In the literal sense of the word.

But in today's society, is being a good person an advantage? So, he only had one real advantage.

Chen Ze dropped out of school at 18 and started working. At 20, he moved to Jinling to hustle for five years. He picked up a few skills and earned some money but he was still quite a distance from affording a house. Jinling's property prices are around 30 to 40 thousand per square meter, something an average worker can hardly afford.

Although his family was willing to provide a down payment for him, Chen Ze was not willing. After all, he knew all about the housing market in 2023, where prices might fall the day after you buy. Who dares to make a purchase?

Houses in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen might not drop in price, but the cost of those homes was not something a family of his status could afford.

In the end, Chen Ze returned to his hometown with a disappointed look, a small county town under Lin'an City.

After returning home, he spent his nights chatting and drinking with a few friends, talking about the things he witnessed and experienced while out of town.

Of course, these were generally irrelevant matters. Nowadays, everyone has mobile phones and knows about any major news the moment it breaks.

Yet, these enthralling talks occupied their time, there wasn't much else to converse about.

The night before his rebirth, which is to say, yesterday night, his friend Tang Cheng came to him and asked him to help film a short video.

Naturally, Chen Ze, who was idle at home and bored, agreed. He was just lazing around anyway, not to mention, he wasn't adept at declining others' requests, or else he wouldn't have such a reputable good-guy image.

However, as soon as Chen Ze learned about the task Tang Cheng sought his help with, he immediately chickened out.

Why?

Tang Cheng was asking him to help play "Spirit of the Pen" game and film it as a short video for TikTok.

This ...

The worst part of it was to film it in the middle of the night outdoors, which made Chen Ze especially unwilling to comply.

However, Tang Cheng kept buttering him up, and his younger brother also tried to persuade him, forcing Chen Ze to eventually give in.

As for why the "Spirit of the Pen" game?

In 2023, the wave of Internet celebrities on Douyin and certain applications has reached a saturation point. People like Tangcheng, who choose to pursue profit through these platforms, are forced to follow the path that common people are reluctant to take, that is, the path focusing on supernatural events — the same path as the million-follower Internet celebrity - Forest of Supernatural

anti-feudal superstition

.

Yet, this path was a challenging one for him. At the beginning, Tangcheng did have a bit of success with streaming supernatural videos — the views were high. Yet, only a few days later, he was warned that his account was behaving unusually, which was a significant setback for him.

It wasn't until someone gave him an idea: to have a friend post such videos from remote areas. This idea worked well in practice; at the very least, it didn't take a few days to be warned this time. The only problem was that it was hard to find actors, as most people are superstitious about it.

Just recently, Chen Ze, who had just returned, was sought out by Tangcheng. Chen Ze really didn't know how to say no.

So, the two of them went to the outskirts of the village, suppressing the unease in their hearts. It took more than an hour to finish recording the video material before they returned home.

This was the first time Chen Ze realized that a mere one-minute, or even tens-of-seconds-long video took this long to film.

Once the filming was over and he had returned home and cleaned up, he couldn't sleep. He was feeling unwell all over and shivering slightly.

Chen Ze constantly reminded himself that it was just a psychological reaction, yet that didn't help to alleviate his physical discomfort.

He didn't fall into a fuzzy sleep until about four or five o' clock in the morning, and without realizing it, he found himself back to his past when he woke up. How would he not be stunned?

Was this the good recompense for his good deeds?

As someone who had experienced the Internet boom, all that Chen Ze could do was to comfort himself with this thought. At the very least, he was reborn, not time-travel.

If he had time-traveled somewhere else, he would have been inconsolable. Now, he must say, things were taking a turn for the better.

With a familiar environment, familiar relatives and friends, as well as the ability to see five years into the future, isn't this a great start?

Armed with the knowledge five years ahead of his current timeline, Chen Ze believes he can lead his family towards a life they had always dreamed of.

Chen Ze glanced at his surroundings, hitting his thigh hard.

Pain...

It confirmed his suspicion.

After scanning the vicinity again, Chen Ze remembered where he was.

Renting a room in the Talent Apartment in Yuhuatai District, Jinling City.

The reason he initially didn't remember was because he only lived here for a month.

When he first came to Jinling in his previous life, he was unfamiliar with the surroundings, so he randomly found an agent online. He rented this place through the agent's introduction, and after finding a job, he rented a house closer to his company.

If it wasn't for the fact that he was in a rental house at this moment, he would've completely forgotten about this place.

Scratching his head, Chen Ze was just about to get up and wash up when his phone beeped, indicating a new message.

He picked up his phone, unlocked the screen with his fingerprint, and didn't think much of it, assuming it was some sort of spam message.

Even though he had this suspicion, he still planned to open it, glance at it, and then turn it off - he had a little bit of OCD.

But when he successfully unlocked his phone and saw the message at the top of the screen, he was stunned.

He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He immediately opened his message inbox, trembling, he clicked on the unread message at the top.

"Your card ending in 6495 has received an income

transfer from other banks

of 1,000,000 RMB on August 25 at 11:25 from Jiangqiu Bank. Your balance is now 1,011,256 RMB. The name on the other party's account: Jiang Qiulan, last four digits of the other party's account: 9852. [Jiangqiu Bank]"

Chen Ze stared blankly at the message on the phone screen.

What the heck??

Six zeros???

One million???

He was too familiar with the name Jiang Qiulan, this was his own mother's name, after all. It was just because of his familiarity that he didn't dare believe it. When did his mom get this kind of ability?

Let's not even talk about one million, a person who couldn't even take out ten thousand, now transferred him one million??

What kind of joke is this?

Is this still his real mother?

One million is a lot, but this kind of event that exceeded his memory range made Chen Ze feel a bit at a loss.

He couldn't have been reborn in a parallel timeline, could he?

His mother was gone after his rebirth??

Chen Ze was a little panicked, but for the time being, he had no way to verify this.

"Ding dong"... The phone rang one more time, it was the sound of receiving a message on WeChat, a new message appeared at the top of the phone screen.

At this moment, although Chen Ze was looking at his phone, he was already caught in a dilemma and didn't notice this message. When he heard the notification and came back to his senses, the message had already disappeared.

He hastily exited the message interface and returned to the main screen, immediately opening WeChat.

It was a message sent by his mother, Jiang Qiulan.

As he clicked to view, Chen Ze was taken aback.

Jiang QiuLan: "Why did you run off, child? Isn't it just asking you to go to work at the company?"

Chen Ze was somewhat baffled. What was going on?

What was this about him running off?

And what was this about working at a company?

Wasn't he supposed to be out earning money at this time?

Just when Chen Ze had no idea what was happening, Jiang QiuLan sent another message over.

"If you don't want to go, so be it. Let your sister hold the fort at the company for now. I've transferred a million to you. Use this money first, if it's not enough, then ask mom for more."

Chen Ze: "…."

Confirmed, with this tone, it was his real mom.

Aside from the transfer amount changing, the tone hadn't. Good, good, his real mom was still there...