The day my skull got smashed in by that car accident was sometime in July of 2020.
I was thirty-two years old.
It was the beginning of that sad age when male hormones get slapped around by stress and female hormones, and you even lose your morning tent.
But right now…
“Wh… what? A high school desk?”
I saw the textbooks and workbooks stuck into the desk.
My eyes landed on an old bag and a summer school uniform as well.
They overlapped with my memories of the past.
The gloomy habitat of a teenage male.
The ruins of hardship where I had cried alone in adolescence.
Now, pieces of memory I used to let nap in some corner of the room of nostalgia began surfacing.
“Holy… wh-what the hell is this!”
I shot up from the bed.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
But my senses were far too vivid.
The prickly texture of the blanket and the musty smell soaked deep into the room screamed that all five senses were operating normally.
My hand naturally reached for my face.
“Ow!”
The moment I pinched my cheek hard, a sharp sting shot through me.
The numbness was strong enough to make even Cheongyang chili peppers cry.
“Da… mn!”
My visible hands and feet were as firm and tight as they were back in my high school days.
It was exactly the childhood appearance I remembered.
My high school days in 2006 — the ones that remained only in old photos.
My body trembled.
My brain scrambled in disbelief at this impossible reality.
“Then how old am I right now?”
It was such a forgotten part of my past that I had to count on my fingers.
“Eighteen!”
Eighteen — the legendary age where nothing in the world is scary.
“This… this isn’t a dream, right?”
My whole body shook.
A second wave of shock crashed over me, stronger than I could handle.
“That old man wasn’t bullshitting?”
Everything was too clear for it to be just a prophetic dream of a life I’d already lived once.
Even the humiliation of being drunk on my first college blind date came back in full detail.
The memory of getting chewed out by a senior in the army and getting smacked behind the bathroom was vivid as well.
The lonely misery of being an unemployed graduate at my university’s graduation ceremony resurfaced.
The joy of getting my first paycheck!
The heart-pounding thrill of love!
Thirty-two years’ worth of joys and sorrows flashed before my eyes.
“What the hell is the truth?”
But my common sense slapped me in the face, saying it was impossible to believe this moment.
This was the kind of massive incident that only exists in novels or movies.
How could someone die and return to the past?
Smack!
“Ah!”
When I slapped myself again to check, a deep pain spread across my cheek.
Ah, it hurts.
So it wasn’t bullshit.
“What the… did I really win the regression lottery?”
My body shook violently.
It was like magnitude 9 earthquake levels of trembling.
I staggered.
I simply couldn’t believe it.
“Does that mean I can go back to school again?”
Among my stored memories, my high school days automatically resurfaced.
My previous life(?) — no, my past life — replayed as vividly as if I were watching a movie.
They were the sloppy high school days I had lived carelessly.
“Ohhhh…”
My face flushed red.
Even I had to admit I had walked the perfectly pathetic loser-grade, trash-tier tech-tree path.
I half-assed everything.
At school I mostly passed time sharing novels with classmates or sleeping.
It was an era before smartphones became popular.
The moment class ended, I’d run to the PC bang and grind StarCraft.
At home, I used puberty as an excuse to rebel.
Instead of study guides, I borrowed novels and scribbled in them.
My brain wasn’t bad.
Using the foundation I’d built by studying hard in middle school, I maintained an average rank at a prestigious local high school.
But any dreams or foresight I could’ve had toward the future, I spent entirely on game fees and books.
“Damn… embarrassing.”
The shame was entirely mine to bear at this moment.
With a foundation built on such a pathetic life, the next course was obvious.
“But the university entrance exam… again!”
The moment I thought about the CSAT, suddenly mem—
Memories came flooding back.
“Ah! Ah!! Aaaaah!!!”
A scream burst out of me.
I covered my mouth with both hands to muffle it.
‘E-everything is coming back!’
What the hell am I supposed to do with this?
Every single exam question surfaced in my mind.
During my repeat-year study, I had solved all the CSAT problems out of frustration.
Even the essay prompts for each university.
Because I had been so desperate and regretful back then, I had struggled like crazy.
They were old problems, but I solved them with everything I had.
“E-even the bar exam… it’s coming back!”
During my bar-exam studies, I memorized past questions day and night.
Not only first-round questions but second-round questions as well.
Understanding past exam problems was the core of all studying.
If I took the exam next year, I could probably score top marks.
Damn it. This isn’t a dream, right?
My trembling heart and hands slowly calmed down.
No — there was no doubt.
It wasn’t a dream.
The past exam problems from each year were drifting through my mind.
I had become a walking bar-exam question bank.
“That’s right! I d-did stocks too!”
While working at the brokerage, I got completely sucked into the world of stocks.
Since I worked in IT, I spent countless hours after market close analyzing charts.
A system error in a securities firm could decide the fate of the entire company.
Even in that environment, I dealt with stocks and various financial products.
To get hired as a full-time employee, I studied for the ‘financial three certifications’: securities, funds, and derivatives investment consultant.
I prepared everything from KOSPI and KOSDAQ stock prices to foreign stock indices, stock-index futures, interest-rate futures, currency futures, commodity futures — and even options derivatives and FX margin trading.
I worked hard, telling myself I was studying to become a regular full-time employee.
When I got home, I spent endless nights in my rooftop room digging through charts.
For a securities worker, nothing mattered more than charts.
I even printed stock charts and wallpapered my room with them.
With what little money I had, I bought stocks recommended by other securities employees.
I made some nice returns — until I got caught in a pump-and-dump scheme and exploded.
It was the moment I had worked the hardest in my life.
“Why… why me?”
This wasn’t just a lottery — it was like hitting the Super Bowl ten times in a row.
Every word that old man had said about rubbing through a hundred thousand winters felt believable now.
Regression to the past was something I had thought existed only in fictional imagination, but it had become real.
I lifted my head and looked around my room again.
“What other bonus gift did the old man give me?”
Pop!
The moment the words left my lips, a burst of intense light exploded in midair.
Ugh! So bright!
I was getting eyeball-terrorized.
And then…
“Sit in the lotus position. I shall now pass down to you the Taeguk Five-Elements Dual-Intent Internal Method.”
‘Wh-what?’
My vision went white, and suddenly a Daoist master with long white beard fluttering sat before me.
Whoooosh.
A gust of wind spun around, and in an instant I was standing on the peak of a massive rocky mountain.
The time was right as the sun was about to rise.
Pure white clouds hung below the mountain, creating an overwhelmingly mystical atmosphere.
It really felt like a world where immortals roamed.
“Who are you? Where is this place?”
The environment changed so fast it would make even ghosts stupid.
After the absurdity of regression, now came spatial teleportation.
“Me? I’m Director Celestial Dragon Divine Lord of Immortal Healthcare.”
“What? D-Director of Immortal Healthcare?”
My mind went blank.
Immortal Healthcare was a profession I had never heard of.
“Let’s hurry. If we get caught doing illegal private tutoring, we’ll get hit with business suspension!”
“Cough!”
I had no idea what kind of situation I was in.
Immortal Healthcare, illegal private tutoring, Celestial Dragon Divine Lord — all of these words were unfamiliar.
“Your bones and muscles are top-notch… but why is your body so full of murky impurities?”
Celestial Dragon Divine Lord scanned me and frowned deeply.
“Wh-what? My bones are good?”
That was news to me.
“Quit porn. It rots your bones.”
“……”
Damn it. He went straight for the kill.
My face burned.
“And stop eating so much instant ramen. It drains your blood.”
That made no sense.
In this harsh world with no money, what exactly are unemployed people supposed to eat?
“Close your eyes. Let’s finish this fast.”
The director glanced nervously around.
It was an empty mountain peak, so he was cautious.
“Isn’t it dangerous to just do something like this openly?”
I didn’t want to waste this second life instantly.
“You don’t know the three pillars of ace private tutoring? Speed! Accuracy! Core!”
“Oh!”
Why… why did that absurd logic make sense?
Without even thinking, I assumed the lotus position.
“You’ve at least seen it before?”
Celestial Dragon Divine Lord looked at me with a mocking expression.
“I’ve seen it in martial-arts movies and novels.”
“You’ll cripple yourself if you use that sloppy stuff.”
Ah! Sloppy!
I momentarily lost the ability to speak.
If he was the director of Immortal Healthcare, then he had to be the real deal.
“We begin.”
At his words, I felt the palm of the so-called Celestial Dragon Divine Lord against my back.
“We’ll start from Mingmen, circle through Baihui and Jeonjeong, and run a full cycle through the Ren meridian. After the great circulation, you’ll figure out the rest on your own.”
“How?”
“Kid! There’s a way. Now here we go~.”
Ruuuuuuuuuumble.
What the hell?!
Why does my back sound like waves crashing?!!