Aging Superstar

In the noisy hospital room, Li Shixin gazed hazily at the incandescent lamp on the ceiling. He still could hardly believe what had happened to him. Once a proud idol trainee, he had somehow crossed over into the body of a man in his sixties. Judging by the looks of it, this old man’s time was nearly up—his oil was spent, his lamp flickering, with only a handful of days left.

He felt a wave of grievance crash over him. Other people who woke up in new worlds became rich heirs or hidden geniuses posing as fools. He, who had never hurt or cheated anyone, who had always worked hard at singing, dancing, and playing basketball—how could he be so unlucky as to get hit by a car and end up in such a dismal situation?

A sharp pain throbbed in his mind. Memories belonging to the elderly man’s body were flooding into his brain. From early childhood, all the precious fragments of a life replayed like a film fast-forwarded several times over: the friendships of youth, the love of adulthood, that rustic yet lively wedding, the applause beneath the stage when he joined the drama troupe, friends supporting each other through hard times... The birth of two little lives, the reluctant tears when his wife passed away, the bitter effort of raising two children into adults with families and careers of their own—decades slipping by in a flash.

After his daughter moved abroad for work in recent years, his relationship with his son grew increasingly distant. Gradually, all that remained in his life was endless, suffocating loneliness. Calligraphy, painting, opera, chess... those