My name is Yan Xiaoliang, a post-90s office drone with a bachelor's degree. Today I got chewed out by the boss again. Five years of grinding away at the company, always cautious and dutiful, pouring my heart into it—there was even a shot at becoming department director right in front of me. Then some parachuted-in relative of the boss swooped in and stole it. Furious, I quit on the spot, bought groceries at the wet market, and planned to drown my sorrows in cheap booze for an even more miserable future. While crossing the street, a speeding car slammed into me.
Everything went black.
"Where… am I?"
"You're awake, kid. How's the body feeling? Anything still hurt?"
Yan Xiaoliang forced his heavy eyelids open and stared at the middle-aged man in front of him—forty-something, half his hair already white.
"Kid? Uncle, look how old I am—stop calling me that." Yan Xiaoliang lifted both hands in helpless protest. Then his eyes widened. "Huh? What the hell is this? These soft, tender hands—no calluses at all, nothing like a single 90s bachelor worker's paws."
A sudden, splitting headache knocked him out cold again. The uncle panicked. "Kid! Kid, why'd you pass out again?"
Deep inside the mind, Yan Xiaoliang's soul arrived. Countless memories flooded in all at once. The body's original owner was named Gol D. Yujie—yes, you heard right, a distant nephew of One Piece's Gol D. Roger. Because of their blood tie to the Pirate King, Yujie's parents had been secretly executed by the World Government. The night before, Yujie had slept over at his buddy Yasuo's house, which spared him. When he returned home and saw his parents' gruesome corpses, shock made him faint—and that's when Yan Xiaoliang's soul from Earth seized the body and reincarnated.
Watching Gol D. Yujie's memories, he clenched his fists. "Yujie, your childhood was the cruelest hell. Starting today, I, Yan Xiaoliang, will live on in your place. I'll make the World Government pay a brutal price. Ten years remain until your cousin Portgas D. Ace is publicly executed. Trust me—I'll save him."
Yan Xiaoliang slowly opened his eyes. The uncle's face lit up with joy. "Kid, you're awake! Feeling better? You passing out again nearly gave me a heart attack."
"Uncle, I'm fine. Where are we? What happened to me?"
The uncle explained, "I found you floating on the sea while fishing and brought you back. This is Strawstack Village, a small island hamlet in the East Blue. Kid, what's your name? If you're okay, I'll contact your family to come pick you up."
Yan Xiaoliang hesitated. "Uncle, call me Xiaoliang. My parents… are gone. Uncle, can I stay with you?"
The uncle's eyes dimmed. Another child whose home was destroyed by pirates. "Sure, stick with me. As long as I've got a bite to eat, you won't go hungry. By the way, Xiaoliang, how old are you?"
"Uncle, I'm fifteen. In a few days—December 12—I'll turn sixteen."
The uncle grinned. "Then you're sixteen now, kid. It's already January 1, Sea Circle Calendar 1511."
"What? I was out that long???" Do people in the One Piece world not starve after a month-long coma?
His stomach suddenly roared like war drums.
The uncle chuckled at the now-flushed Xiaoliang. "Hungry, huh? Come home with me—I'll cook something up. Name's Namikaze Obito. Just call me Uncle Obito."
"Got it, Uncle Obito."