Warm light pressed gently against his eyelids.
A soft hum.A kettle boiling.The faint scent of sesame oil drifting from a tiny kitchen.
He opened his eyes slowly.
A ceiling he had never seen before.White, plain, slightly cracked.A hanging mobile with pastel clouds turning lazily above him.
He blinked again, trying to push away the confusion—but the shock hit him like a tidal wave.
This wasn't his moldy, dark rented room from 2025.
This place was bright.Clean.Alive.
He tried to sit up—But his arms were too short.Too light.Too small.
His breath hitched.
He looked at his hands.
Tiny.Chubby.Baby-sized.
A tremor rippled through his chest.
A woman walked into view—a young woman with soft Korean features, wearing a faded apricot sweater. Her hair was tied loosely, strands falling around her tired but warm eyes.
She stopped in surprise when she saw him awake.
"Oh—! You're up," she said in gentle English, heavily accented. "Good morning, my baby."
Her voice.
Her face.
The tenderness in her expression.
He had never seen this woman in his old life, but something deep in his bones tightened. His throat burned. She held him with a softness he had never received during the last years of his adult life… when he was starving, alone, and forgotten.
His chest squeezed painfully.
This is my… mother?
In his old world, he was from a small, humble country.Poor.Struggling.Always working.Always chasing something.
But here—In Korea—He was reborn to a woman who looked like she had weathered storms far too early.
She lifted him gently into her arms.
"You're so warm today," she murmured, resting his head on her shoulder. "My little miracle."
Her English was clumsy but full of sincerity.She was foreign too, in her own way—connected to a small country he once belonged to. Maybe she had worked abroad. Maybe she met his father in that small country. Maybe life had pushed her into hardship, just like he had known too well.
He tried to speak—but only a tiny whimper escaped.
A baby's cry.
His mind was twenty-seven years old.His body wasn't even two.
He felt helpless, ridiculous… and overwhelmingly determined.
Because the reality was clear:
He had died in 2025.And now he was reborn in South Korea.With all his memories intact.
His mother gently rocked him.
"You must be hungry," she whispered.
The irony struck him so hard he almost cried.
In his old life…he starved for days.He died with an empty stomach.
Now, in this life, the first thing given to him was warm milk.
His throat tightened.He drank slowly, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes.
His mother paused.
"Oh? Why are you crying?" she whispered, wiping his cheek with her thumb. "Bad dream?"
If only she knew.
He watched her face carefully—the exhaustionthe faint worry linesthe quiet strength.
A woman raising a child alone in Korea.Not easy.Not safe.Not respected.
And he…was a mixed child.Half from her small country.Half from her blood.
There would be discrimination.Financial struggle.People whispering behind their backs.
But he wouldn't let her suffer.
Not this time.
As she carried him toward the small kitchen, he silently made his first vow in this new life:
"I will become rich."
Not for greed.Not for pride.Not for revenge.
But because he remembered starving in darkness.He remembered rejection emails.He remembered hunger.He remembered his mother's voice from his old life—telling him to be strong.
He looked at the tiny apartment.
The cheap furniture.The worn-out slippers.The small heater fighting the winter cold.
This was their beginning.
Not their ending.
If he played this life right—If he used all his knowledge—If he seized every opportunity—
He could build something massive.
For her.For himself.For the future he never had.
His tiny fist curled tightly.
And in that warm, bright morning in a small Korean apartment…
a future tycoon was reborn.