2021, New York City, Chinatown, Good Luck Restaurant
“Nate! One green pepper and shredded pork fried rice for Table 3!”
A clear shout came through the serving window.
“Lily, is it that guy again?”
A tall, fairly handsome young man leaned down and peered through the serving hatch.
“Yeah, the blind guy. It’s been a week now. He comes in every day right before closing. Give him some extra meat.”
“Got it. He’s a regular now. I’ll send him a little side dish later.”
Nate Lin kept his hands moving.
He slid the shredded pork into the wok and cooked it until half done, then tossed in the sliced green peppers and loosened day-old rice.
After adding a spoonful of chili crisp, he grabbed the wok and stir-fried everything over high heat.
Flames leaped high as grains of rice tumbled through the wok.
The aromas of meat, green pepper, and fermented black beans blended together and rushed into his nose.
Nate killed the heat and plated the fried rice.
Every grain was separate and glossy with oil, enough to make anyone hungry just looking at it.
“Nate, your cooking keeps getting better,” Lily Wang said casually as she carried the plate away.
Lily Wang was the daughter of Henry Wang, the restaurant’s owner.
She was thirty, though she looked barely past twenty.
Slender and well cared for, she had treated Nate like family ever since Henry took him in all those years ago.
Nate was slicing pickled vegetables in the kitchen when he glanced through the serving hatch.
At a table against the wall sat a middle-aged man with a familiar face.
He wore a dark gray jacket and sunglasses, with a black cane propped beside him.
He sat quietly in the corner, his expression calm.
Lily brought over the fried rice.
He accepted it politely, then reached unerringly into the chopstick holder, pulled out a pair, split them apart, rubbed them together, and lifted the bowl to eat.
Every movement was smooth and effortless.
He hardly looked blind at all.
Caine…
It was only after Caine first came here a little over a week ago that Nate finally confirmed he was in the world of John Wick.
In this parallel cinematic universe, America was even more “free.”
Here, being a hitman was practically a legitimate profession.
They had professional organizations, their own special currency, and went around in suits and ties looking perfectly respectable.
None of that existed in the original Nate’s memories, though.
In nearly twenty years, forget hitmen, he had never even seen a proper gunfight.
Gang shootouts happened often enough, but they were usually just small-time thugs wildly firing at each other, running off afterward, and leaving the police to clean up the mess.
Nothing like the movies.
But the man in front of him was the real thing.
A genuine top-tier hitman.
Images from the movies surfaced in Nate’s mind.
Caine moving as if someone had hit fast-forward, cutting his way through enemies with a sword.
Nate was a chef.
He had been working a wok for two and a half years.
A year ago, he had woken from an afternoon nap with a sudden stab of pain in his head, followed by memories from a previous life.
Back then, he had been an ordinary office worker.
One evening after work, he had just sat down at his computer, ready to jump into a round of Delta Force, when an ad popped up in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
The instant he clicked the X in the corner, a tingling electric sensation ran through his body.
Then everything went black.
Before coming to America in his previous life, he had always been curious about the place.
Now that he was actually here, the reality felt very different from what he had imagined.
Adjusting to a new life had taken time.
Even ordinary day-to-day conveniences worked differently from what he was used to, and it had taken him a while to settle in.
Fortunately, this world was mostly the same as his old one.
The world was largely as he remembered it, and the only obvious difference was that the U.S.
president was no longer Trump.
Instead, it was some guy named Braden.
The original Nate had been nineteen, shared the exact same name, and even looked identical to him.
A year ago, after that afternoon nap, the memories of the two lives had intertwined and merged.
Was this some kind of past-life memory awakening?
Nate had no idea.
What he did know was that his personality and way of doing things had barely changed between the two lives.
In his previous life, his parents had died in an accident the whole world had suffered through.
This life was not much better.
He had been too young to understand at the time.
According to Henry, his mother had fallen seriously ill more than a decade ago and couldn’t afford the treatment.
The medical bills consumed everything she had, including her home, and she eventually died.
His father, meanwhile, sank deep into debt before disappearing without a trace.
Henry had taken pity on the child left with no one to care for him and let him stay at the restaurant.
He had looked after him ever since.
Now Henry was in poor health and recuperating at home, so the kitchen had been left to Nate, with Lily helping out.
The two of them kept the little restaurant running.
Business was decent.
They were never going to get rich, but they made enough to get by.
Nate sliced the pickled vegetables into thin strips, rinsed them in water, tossed them with vinegar and sesame oil, then sprinkled crushed roasted peanuts on top.
He plated the side dish and walked over to Caine.
After spending so many years in a restaurant, he knew better than to bother regular customers.
But this regular was different.
“Sir, this is on the house.”
Caine felt along the edge of the plate with his left hand, picked up a bite with his chopsticks, tasted it, then nodded with a smile.
“Thank you.”
He took another bite of the shredded pickles, placed it over the fried rice, and ate them together, chewing slowly.
Nate noticed his hands.
Long fingers, clearly defined knuckles, clean skin, and none of the calluses he would have expected from years of training.
They did not look like a hitman’s hands.
They looked more like a pianist’s.
“Enjoy.”
Nate turned to leave.
“There aren’t many customers at this hour.”
Caine’s voice came from behind him.
“Want to chat?”
Nate’s heart tightened, and he stopped.
Caine leaned back in his chair and spoke at an easy pace.
“The fried rice is good. Plenty of heat, the green peppers are crisp, and the pork is cut evenly. Next time, though, give me a little more chili crisp. That stuff is excellent.”
Nate sat down across from him and studied the familiar-looking man, who seemed noticeably wearier and more run-down up close.
This guy was dangerous.
In the movies, Caine had already retired, only to return to the underworld for his daughter.
Threatened by the Marquis, he had been forced into a deadly confrontation with John Wick, the Baba Yaga, until the two eventually worked together to kill the Marquis.
Still, one thing had always seemed ridiculous.
How did a blind man use a gun and shoot that accurately?
Was he just guessing?
And Nate still had no idea whether John Wick had actually died in the end.
He had been a huge fan in his previous life and had rewatched those movies more times than he could count.
Now that he was actually here, he might as well meet one of the stars properly.
It was 2021.
He had no idea whether Caine had retired yet.
“You’ve been watching me for quite a while, haven’t you?”
Caine put down his chopsticks and raised his head to “look” at Nate.
Nate froze.
“Aren’t you…”
“Blind?”
Caine pointed at his sunglasses.
“Not that blind. I can still vaguely feel when someone’s staring at me.”
Are you psychic or something?
I have working eyes and even I can’t do that.
Nate kept the thought to himself.
Caine settled back into his chair, amusement creeping into his voice.
“You’ve been staring at me all this time. Curious?”
“Yes. You don’t really move like a blind person. And your cane…”
“Not bad. You’re observant.”
Caine cut him off.
“How long have you been here?”
“Since I was a kid.”
“Since you were a kid…”
Caine repeated the words, something difficult to read in his tone, as though they had stirred up an old memory.
He reached into his pocket, took out a crisp twenty-dollar bill, and placed it on the table.
Then he rose and picked up his cane.
“See you tomorrow.”
His steps were steady.
The cane tapped the floor at an even rhythm, each movement precisely avoiding table legs, chairs, and anything scattered across the floor.
Nate watched him push open the glass door and leave, his figure disappearing into the neon lights and drifting steam of Chinatown at night.
A top-tier hitman came to an unremarkable Chinese restaurant in Chinatown every day just to eat fried rice.
That was not normal.
Did he really like the food that much, or was there something here that had caught his interest?
Damn.
What else was there besides me?
Nate thought back over the past several years.
He had done nothing but work honestly in the kitchen, cooking and working the wok.
If anything, his skills had gotten even better than before.
During the past year, he had not done anything unusual either, and he had handled all of the original Nate’s relationships without causing trouble.
If there was anything about him that could possibly connect him to someone like Caine, it had to be his father, who had vanished without a trace.
Going by all the web novels he had read in his previous life, could Caine somehow be his dad?
If not, maybe his dad owed Caine money?
“Nate! One spicy tofu, takeout!”
Lily’s voice rang out from the kitchen, breaking his train of thought.
“Coming!”
Nate headed back, lit the burner, and heated the oil.
The tofu went into the wok.
Red oil rolled and bubbled as the peppercorns released their sharp, numbing aroma, strong enough to sting his eyes.
As he gently tossed the tofu in the wok, he kept thinking.
Had Caine been coming here all these days to scout the place?
Was he planning to kill him?
That made no sense.
With the level of skill Caine had shown in the movies, killing Nate would barely take any effort at all.
So Caine was probably friendly.
Could Nate use that connection to get into The Continental?
And if Caine had already retired, did he still have that kind of influence?
Being a hitman was dangerous, sure, but the money came fast.
In the movies, bounties worth millions of dollars appeared all the time.
It was easy to talk big online, but if the opportunity were right in front of you, who would not be tempted by a tense, exciting life as a hitman?
Besides, the hitmen in the movies had never seemed impossibly strong.
In his previous life, Nate had barely managed to get by.
If he kept living like this in his current one, things would probably turn out much the same.
Two lifetimes added together.
Surely he deserved to enjoy himself a little.
At the very least, he wanted to save enough money to finally live comfortably for once.
Of course, returning to his original world would be even better.
The problem was that if he wanted to become a hitman, he had no real means of fighting.
A gun?
He had never touched one in either life.
A few days ago, he had gone to a gun shop and asked about buying one, only to be turned away.
It wasn’t discrimination.
He simply was not old enough.
New York law required him to be twenty-one before he could apply for a gun permit.
He was only nineteen, and even after applying, getting approved would take more than half a year.
The half-baked martial arts he had learned from a college club in his previous life would be useless against a firearm.
If only that thing in his head actually worked.
The good news was that, like every proper transmigrator, Nate had a cheat.
The bad news was that he could not use it.
Inside his mind floated a pale green panel resembling a video game UI.
For the past year, it had displayed the same four words:
[Conditions Insufficient]
He had tried everything he could think of, but the damn thing had been as lifeless as a dead fish.
Not so much as a twitch.
Forget it.
Better to focus on cooking.
That evening, after closing up, Nate packed the late-night meal he had made for Henry into a thermal container.
Lily came out after finishing the dishes and changing her clothes.
Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, and her cheeks were still flushed from the heat of the kitchen.
She picked up the container.
“Mr. Shen’s convenience store got robbed again the day before yesterday. Things have been rough lately. Thanks for staying here to watch the place, Nate. Call me if anything happens.”
“Got it. Drive safe, Lily.”
Crime in Chinatown had been getting worse over the past few years.
Nate did not know whether it had anything to do with the changes higher up.
People at the bottom were struggling to survive.
Shoplifting was becoming more common, and so were smash-and-grab robberies.
American police were often slow to respond.
Quite a few shops in Chinatown had already closed for good, and those still in business generally needed someone to stay behind at night.
They could hardly leave Lily alone to guard the restaurant.
Henry also needed someone at home because of his health.
Naturally, that left Nate with the night watch.
He locked the door and pressed the remote.
The roller shutter slowly descended, and the restaurant grew quiet.
Nate turned off the faucet and checked the time.
8:26 p.m.
He went to the counter near the entrance and took out the baseball bat he had bought yesterday.
He gave it a few practice swings.
Not quite right.
It did not feel natural in his hands.
He needed something else for self-defense.
His gaze moved toward the kitchen knife sitting in the block beside the stove.
He had used that knife for more than half a year.
That one felt perfect.
Nate pulled it free and weighed it in his hand.
The blade caught the light with a cold gleam.
This would do just fine for chopping someone.
For no particular reason, something his old coach used to say popped into his head.
Coach always said I had a killer backhand.
Nate found an open space in the dining area, rested the kitchen knife against his shoulder, and swung it through the air a few times from an Eskrima stance, trying to recover the feel of the martial arts training from his previous life.
Just then, a flood of voices suddenly exploded inside his head.
[Warning! Host detected to be facing an imminent fatal crisis. System forcibly activating…]
[Partial system modules damaged…]
[Retrieving current world ability system… Retrieval complete!]
[Current world ability system: [Trait Entries]]
[Conflict detected between system architecture and the host’s current worldview. Modifying…]
[Adapting the optimal [Trait Entries] based on the host’s current condition…]
[Starter Reward being distributed. Beginner Protection has…]
“What…?”
The notifications piled over one another like a flood of messages, sending a sharp stab of pain through Nate’s head.
Before he could react,
BOOM!
A black sedan smashed through the restaurant entrance.
Glass exploded in every direction.
The front of the car plowed through the mangled roller shutter, tables, chairs, and stools, barreling straight toward him!