The night air of Shanghai was heavy with the damp chill of recent rain. Streetlamps glowed faintly through the mist, their light spilling across the cracked pavement. Rang Chunghee lay sprawled on the sidewalk, his breaths shallow, his shirt clinging wet to his skin—though the dampness wasn't rain, but blood seeping steadily from the wound in his side. He had been stabbed.
A crowd had already gathered, people were drawn in by the sight of the man. Some whispered, others stood in stunned silence. No one stepped forward. No one dared to touch him. No one even called for help.
That's him, right?
He's the one who assaulted that one CEO's son...
His family must be ashamed...
Chunghee's vision swam. Faces blurred into one another, voices warped into a hollow ringing. His body felt heavy, tethered to the earth, while something within him tugged upward.
I didn't do it...
I didn't do it...
Someone get help...
Help me...
Above the crowd, past the glowing lamps, he saw it—a pale light, suspended like a doorway in the night sky.
His lips parted. No sound came out. His chest rose once, then shuddered. His soul tore free of the body below. For a fleeting moment, he looked down at himself—the lifeless shell on the pavement, the crimson blooming like a dark flower beneath. Then he was weightless, drawn into the brilliance overhead.
The light swallowed him.
—
When he opened his eyes again, he wasn't lying on stone. He was seated at a wooden desk. Dusty sunlight slanted in from tall windows. Chalk dust lingered in the air. The muffled drone of a teacher's voice carried through the classroom.
Chunghee blinked.
Or rather—someone else's eyes blinked. His hands, resting on the desk, were slim and youthful, his skin free of scars, his nails clean. His clothes weren't the worn, blood-stained garments of Shanghai but a neatly pressed school uniform—navy jacket, brass buttons, white collar.
A wave of disorientation struck him. Where…?
He glanced around. Rows of students slouched at their desks, some scribbling notes, others stifling yawns. At the front, a weary-looking instructor was sketching strange symbols on a blackboard—symbols that shimmered faintly, as though they were alive with magic.
Then, from beside him, a voice whispered:
"Hey, you're drooling in your sleep again."
Chunghee turned. A girl with bright silver eyes smirked at him, her quill poised above parchment covered in glowing runes.
His heart thudded. His last memory had been of dying—bleeding out on a Shanghai street. And yet here he was, reborn, seated in a classroom not of the modern world but of something altogether fantastical.
The whisper of the silver-eyed girl lingered in his ears. Drooling? Sleeping? He hadn't been doing either a heartbeat ago—he had been dying.
Chunghee's pulse quickened. He pressed his palms to the desk, staring at them as though they weren't his own. They were younger, smaller, unscarred. He curled his fingers into fists, half-expecting them to vanish. But they remained—real, solid, and alive.
"Is something wrong?" the girl beside him tilted her head, her silver hair catching the sunlight.
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. What was he supposed to say? I just bled out in Shanghai and woke up in someone else's body? His throat went dry. He forced a weak shake of his head.
"Then pay attention," she whispered sharply. "Professor Draiven hates repeaters."
Her words meant little, but the warning tone made him glance forward. The teacher's back was turned, chalk scraping over the blackboard in long, elegant strokes. Symbols took shape—spirals, angular runes, strange characters that shifted as though they were alive.
Chunghee narrowed his eyes. For a moment, he thought it was a trick of his blurred vision. But no—the markings moved, glowing faintly, fading, and then glowing again.
This… this isn't any language I know.
The realization hit him like a blow. This wasn't China. This wasn't Earth at all.
Something inside him lurched. He was no longer Rang Chunghee, he had died while bleeding out on the street. He was now someone different.
His hand trembled as he raised it to his face. His features were unfamiliar: a smoother jawline, a narrower nose, strands of dark hair falling over his brow. Younger—by at least ten years.
The teacher's droning voice cut through his thoughts:
"…and as you can see, the invocation of even the simplest fire rune requires precise balance of aether flow. A single misstroke, and the entire sigil collapses."
He tapped the chalk against the glowing rune. A spark leapt from the board, bright as lightning, before vanishing into smoke.
Several students gasped. The rest barely looked up.
Chunghee's stomach dropped. Magic. Actual magic.
Runes?
Magic?
Where the hell am I?
The silver-eyed girl leaned closer. "You really did sleep through all of last week's lessons, didn't you?"
He swallowed. "…Maybe."
She rolled her eyes but smirked. "Well, don't worry. I'll explain later. You'd be hopeless without me."
Her voice was teasing, but he barely heard it. His thoughts raced, tangled, suffocating.
He remembered the cold stone beneath him in Shanghai. The blood soaking through his clothes. The silence of his final breath. And then—light. Brilliant, all-consuming light.
It hadn't been a dream. It had been death.
And this… this classroom, these runes, this new body—this was his rebirth.
A new life in a world where chalk glowed, where runes sparked with fire, where the girl beside him had eyes like polished silver.
Chunghee sat back slowly, trying to calm the storm inside him. He didn't know why he had been given this second chance—or what this world demanded of him.
But one thing was certain: Rang Chunghee, the man who died on the streets of Shanghai, was gone.
And whoever he was now—his story was only beginning.