Han Jiang blinked once.
Everything snapped back sharp in his head. Like a curtain got yanked open hard.
He sat there. On a bed.
Not the old lumpy mattress from that cramped Jiangnan apartment. The one that always sagged in the middle after too many restless nights. This bed felt different. Wider. Softer. The dark blue comforter under his palms felt thick. Familiar. It carried that faint lavender smell from the detergent his mother always used. The wooden headboard behind him had those same scratches near the top. Marks from all the times he kicked it without thinking while reading late.
His body felt normal. Too normal. No burning in his lungs. No legs heavy and screaming from all that running.
He sat up slow. Heart still pounding from the memory of falling through that endless black void.
"Huh… where am I?"
The words came out hoarse. They cracked in the quiet room.
"…Huh?"
Cold confusion washed over him. He stared at his hands. Same fingers. Same faint scar on the left knuckle from that dumb bike accident in middle school. But the clothes were wrong. He wore a loose gray hoodie he had not touched in months. Soft and worn from too many washes. Not the cheap white T-shirt and shorts he remembered right before the Shift hit him like a hammer.
He pushed his legs off the bed.
Bare feet touched the cold wooden floorboards. They creaked loud under his weight.
The whole room slammed into him like a sudden punch.
In the corner sat that small wooden desk. Old notebooks stacked high on it. A half-eaten pack of crackers lay there too. Pens scattered all over. On the walls, posters of the games he used to play peeled at the edges. The narrow window still showed the same quiet residential street outside. Same trees. Same parked scooters he saw every single day for years.
In the air floated that faint smell of instant noodles mixed with dusty old books. It made his throat feel tight. Strange. But somehow comforting.
He stood there frozen for a second. Everything looked exactly the same. Yet nothing felt right anymore.
"Wait… this is my fuckin' apartment. Back on the original Earth?"
His voice rose louder. Disbelief leaked out from every single word while he turned around slowly.
He stared at the cracked ceiling fan that never spun right. At the pile of laundry dumped in the corner. At the small shelf holding those worn paperbacks he had read a dozen times.
"No way. No fucking way. I was just in that factory—running until my lungs felt like they were on fire, falling into that darkness, the helmet strapped to my head, everything shattering around me—"
He pressed both palms hard against his temples. His breath came fast and shallow.
"I remembered falling into that void… the system said something right at the end, but I couldn't catch the words clearly. Did I die? Did I get transmigrated back here? Like those webnovels I used to binge on the forum?"
No truck hit him. No lightning. No big dramatic death. Just nothing. One second he was Han Jiang in that parallel world. Next second he woke up here. Wearing these old clothes. In a room that felt like a life he had almost forgotten.
He searched the room fast. Eyes jumping from corner to corner. They finally landed on the phone sitting on the nightstand.
That phone.
His real phone. The thick one his mother brought back from abroad when he was fifteen. Edges scratched from years. Faded sticker he stuck on himself one bored afternoon. Not the cheap generic one from the parallel world that only lasted a miserable month.
He grabbed it. Fingers shook as they closed around the familiar weight.
"Buddy… it's really you."
His thumb moved over the screen. Muscle memory unlocked it. Home screen showed photos he forgot he took. Him smiling awkward at some school event. Another with old friends laughing in a park he had not seen in forever. Apps had different icons. Folders moved the way only he would know. Files with names that pulled at buried memories.
Time glowed at the top: 11:47 PM, April 17, 2026.
Same cursed timestamp that started everything.
Han Jiang let out a shaky laugh. Half relief, half pure terror mixed in his chest.
"Eleven forty-seven again? You've gotta be kidding me. Is this some kind of sick loop? I didn't even die properly… or maybe I did and just forgot everything. Truck-kun never showed up. No electricity accident. Nothing dramatic like in those stories. Just… woke up here like the last month never happened."
He scrolled old messages. Heart ached at how normal they were. Friends asking about homework. His mother's last text from two weeks ago: "Eat properly, Jiang'er. Don't live on takeout every day. I'll send more money next month when I get paid."
He stared at the phone in his hand.
"This phone… it's been with me for years. That other one in the parallel world was just a cheap stranger I used for one month. This feels real. This is home. But then why does my chest still feel tight, like I just finished running through that nightmare factory?"
Bare feet thudded softly as he paced back and forth in the small room.
"If I really came back… does that mean the entire Shift was just a long, twisted nightmare? The doctor's post on the forum, that water-stained box appearing at my door, the entity dragging its feet in the hallway—"
Memories flashed quick and jagged through his head. The spiderweb crack on the other ceiling. The blue work uniform on the patient dead for twenty-six years. The helmet lifting itself and spinning slow like it had its own will.
He stopped suddenly. Leaned his weight on the desk. Gripped the edge until his knuckles turned white.
"I don't remember how I even got to that parallel world in the first place. No truck. No fall from a building. No getting electrocuted like the protagonists in those novels I read on Strange Tales. Maybe it happened and I just forgot. Or maybe… maybe this is the real world and everything else was some kind of hallucination the system forced on me."
The thought twisted his stomach hard.
He looked down at his hands again. They looked exactly the same. No golden glow. No strange power under the skin. Just normal hands that spent the last month eating microwave dinners and scrolling forums alone.
The silence in the room grew heavier. It pressed down on his ears until every little sound became sharp and clear. Distant hum of a scooter outside. Soft tick from the cheap wall clock. Faint creak of floorboards settling in the dark.
Han Jiang rubbed his face hard with both hands.
"Get it together. If this is really back home, then I need to figure out what the hell happened. Check the date. Check everything."
He picked up the phone again. Opened the calendar app. April 17, 2026. Same night. Same hour. Everything matched too perfect.
A cold shiver ran straight down his spine.
Right at that moment, the doorbell rang.
Not the cheap tinny sound from the thin wooden door in the parallel world.
This one sounded deeper. Heavier. Solid. His door here was reinforced metal. The kind his mother made them install years ago after that break-in scare. The sound echoed thick through the whole apartment.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Three times. Same exact rhythm.
"Hmm?"
Han Jiang froze right in the middle of his step. Phone still gripped tight in his hand.
The sound hit his chest like a warning that wouldn't go away.
He swallowed hard. Throat felt dry like sandpaper.
"No, it can't be possible right? Did it follow me here?"
"Impossible it must be some neighbor or a delivery, but I don't remember ordering something, maybe it's a friend?"
His legs moved anyway. Pulled toward the door like invisible strings were dragging them. He pressed his eye to the peephole. The hallway outside looked empty. Yellow fluorescent light that never reached the corners. Nothing moved. No one there.
But right in the center of the doormat sat a small cardboard box.
Water-stained. Edges warped from moisture. Old. Faintly fuzzy like the fibers started breaking down.
"The Fuck?!!"
"Am I not seeing things right?"
His hand shook as he unlocked the heavy metal door. Left the safety chain on from habit. Reached through the gap. Grabbed the box. Yanked it inside. Slammed the door shut and threw every bolt and lock with trembling fingers.
The box felt too light. Too familiar. Same weight that dropped his stomach back in the other apartment.
He carried it to the small kitchen table. Pushed aside empty noodle cups and crumpled receipts. Surface was the same scratched wood from years of homework.
Up close the box looked exactly wrong. Not just worn. Aged in a way cardboard should not last. Damp stains on the sides. Flaps held weak. Like one tug would tear them. But the whole thing kept its shape somehow. Like neglect preserved it.
Han Jiang stared at it long. Breath shallow.
"I shouldn't open this. I know I shouldn't. Last time…"
[The system detected that the host doesn't want to open the box.]
[Protocol: compliance enforced.]
But his hands moved anyway. Fingers pried the softened edges. Top flap lifted with a faint wet tearing sound, he can't control his hand.
"What the fuck???"
"My hand is moving on their own, I can't control it!"
Inside sat the blue work helmet.
Faded to dull blue-gray. Hard shell full of scratches and dents from years of use that never happened here. Brass fitting for a headlamp tarnished green on the front. Empty like a blind eye. Stitched in the fabric lining on the side was the logo. Simple spool of thread with two characters below it: Jiangnan Textile.
Han Jiang's breath caught.
"Okay… okay, this crossed over. This isn't just a memory. This thing followed me back."
He reached out slowly. Fingers hovered just an inch above the helmet.
The moment his skin brushed the cold surface, something changed in the air. A faint pressure started building behind his eyes.
He lifted it anyway. The weight felt solid. Real. The strap dangled loose while he turned the helmet over. Checked every faded corner. Every small company stamp.
Memories rushed up fast. Factory floor back in 1997. Dragging footsteps that never sped up but never fell behind. Wet hollow sound the thing made when it got too close.
His hands moved by themselves. He raised the helmet. Lowered it onto his head.
The strap tightened around his chin with a cold mechanical snap. Brass fitting pressed against his forehead like an icy brand. A jolt shot straight down his spine.
The world shattered.