Chapter 1: The Man with Amnesia

  "Ah!"

  A shrill cry pierced through the dark night sky.

  It was the depths of winter, but a young man who looked to be in his late 20s was lying under an overpass in the dead of night. The scream had just come from his mouth, and he sat on the ground panting heavily. His tattered clothes and stubble-covered face made him look utterly defeated. Despite the freezing cold, the dream had left him drenched in a cold sweat. To keep himself from turning into an ice block, he slowly got up from the ground and started moving his limbs to warm himself up. This was already the nth time he'd woken up from a nightmare this year; every time he slept, he'd be startled awake by the same bad dream. As his body warmed up a bit, he began to think back on the dream again.

  In the dream, he was standing on a high floor, and a man in black was pointing a gun at his head. He felt an inexplicable sense of tension, as if he had no way to escape. The man in black spoke, but he couldn't remember what he said, only that it started with the word "Lei", which might be his name. The man's smile was colder than the weather outside, and then there was a loud gunshot. He felt pain on the right side of his head, three centimeters above his ear, and his body fell towards the ground. With a splash, he landed in the river below, and the icy water made him regain some consciousness. "I won't die, I won't die like this," he shouted to himself, and started struggling with all his might, using his weak hands to paddle through the water and move his body forward.

  Lei stretched out his right hand and touched his hair, yes, the dream he had just now should have really happened, because on the upper part of his right ear, a centimeter away from his hair, there was a scar hidden by his hair. Every time it rained on cloudy days, he would feel a splitting headache, that bullet should still be in his head. Lei didn't remember how he survived, since he started having that dream, he forgot who he was, where he was born, if he had any relatives or friends, and what he did for a living. All of this, he had completely forgotten, possibly because the bullet pressed against his nerve endings. He walked out of the overpass and looked at the city in the dark, although it wasn't very prosperous, but you could see that it was developing rapidly, the beautiful lights were like stars in the black sky, constantly twinkling. It had been five days since he arrived in this city, he didn't know why he came to this city, only feeling that he should come to this city, and in this city, he might be able to find clues about who he was.

  "Cuckoo..."

  His stomach growled with hunger, and he realized that he hadn't eaten all day. No wonder he was feeling so hungry. Lei reached into his pocket and felt around, finally pulling out five coins - the sum total of his worldly possessions. Without an ID card, and lacking any particular skills beyond physical strength, not to mention having to constantly travel in search of his own identity, Lei hadn't been able to find stable work for a year now. Of course, that meant he didn't have much money either. Only when absolutely necessary would Lei resort to selling his labor for a pittance, then carefully rationing the little bit of money he earned as he traveled on in search of memories.

  The five dollars on his body was still the two months' salary he earned in another city over a thousand kilometers away from here. Lei put the last five dollars back into his breast pocket and walked out of the pedestrian bridge. Although it's already very late, his hungry stomach forced him to go out and find something to eat. If he were in the wilderness, it would be easy for him to catch some mountain flavor or fish to eat, but in this city, it was really difficult to get something to eat without spending money.

  After wandering around in the dark night for more than half a day, Lei still couldn't find anything to eat. Finally, he took out those five coins again. Forget it, just use them to exchange something to eat, so Lei walked towards the bustling area, looking to see if he could find some cheap food from the 24-hour supermarket to fill his stomach.

  "Hey, buddy, can I get a light?"

  A voice sounded from behind the thunder, and three people blocked his way forward. He stopped and turned to look at the person who had just spoken. From the other's messy yellow hair and a scar on his face like a centipede, as well as the tattoos on his hands, it could be seen that he was absolutely a street thug. Thunder replied coldly to the blond thug: "Sorry, I don't have a light."

  The blond thug sneered and said: "That's no problem, brothers are a bit tight on cash now, can you help us turn it over?"

  Just as Huang Mao was speaking, Lei found that there were a few more people around him. Now he was surrounded by eleven people in total, some of whom were holding daggers and others were carrying steel pipes. Needless to say, they must have wanted to rob him. However, Lei didn't feel any fear in his heart. He smiled lightly at the thug Huang Mao and replied slowly: "Sorry, I haven't eaten for dozens of hours, so I don't have any extra money to give you." If possible, Lei really hoped that the other party would leave him alone like this. He simply didn't want to get into unnecessary trouble.

  "Cut!", the yellow-haired man spat a mouthful of saliva on the ground and waved his hand at others, saying: "Brothers, let's go up. It seems that this old brother doesn't know how to appreciate favors."

  "Damn it! Go die!" Along with a curse, a thug on Lei's right side swung a steel pipe at him.

  Lei's body shape was quick, completely out of instinctive reaction. He took a step to the right, and before the steel pipe in the hand of the thug had not come down, he had already punched that thug in the stomach. Then, taking advantage of the thug's waist bending, he snatched the steel pipe from his hand. Lei's movements were really too fast, the rest of the thugs hadn't reacted yet and saw the thug who was just on the ground unable to get up. Lei threw the steel pipe at the feet of the yellow-haired thug and said coldly: "Get out of here quickly, I don't want to hurt you!"

  The blond thug felt the muscles on his face twitching involuntarily, he bent down to pick up the steel pipe on the ground, and after standing up, he looked around with both eyes, finding that the other thugs were all staring at him, waiting for his command. In order not to lower his position in the hearts of his subordinates, the blond thug steeled himself, swung the pipe at Lei, and shouted: "Go die!", The other little thugs saw their boss take action, so they also plucked up the courage to strike.

  "Cut, no way." Lei cursed in his heart and didn't hold back anymore. In less than a minute, all eleven thugs were lying on the ground unable to get up. Lei didn't know why his movements were so fast, he only knew that he seemed to be very good at fighting, and such thugs even if there were several times more wouldn't be his match.

  After all the hoodlums had been dealt with, Lei walked up to that blond-haired hoodlum. The moment he saw him approaching, the blond-haired one grew tense and cried out: "Big brother! Spare me, I won't dare again, little brother really didn't know any better, just let this one slide!"

  Lei didn't bother to ask Huang Mao what he was saying, but instead reached out and lifted up Huang Mao's jacket. At this moment, Huang Mao was extremely frightened and didn't dare move a muscle as Lei looked at his waist. In Huang Mao's waistband was inserted a short knife, with a black leather scabbard covering the entire blade, and on the exposed hilt were engraved in red the two characters "Ba Yi". Lei pulled out the knife, which had a 15cm long handle and a 20cm long blade that was 3cm wide, with serrations on it, looking like a military knife. Lei looked up at Huang Mao and asked: "Have you been a soldier?"

  "Huh?" Huang Mao was initially puzzled as to why Lei asked this, but when he saw the military sword, he immediately understood and hastily replied: "No, I've never been a soldier. This sword was bought by me with my own money from someone else."

  Lei carefully examined the military sword, feeling very familiar. He casually played with the sword, and it seemed to be connected to him as one, spinning rapidly in his hand. Finally, Lei inserted the sword into its scabbard, muttering to himself: "I seem to have had a sword like this before."

  Huang Mao thought that Lei had taken a liking to the military knife, and with Lei's skilled knife techniques, Huang Mao hastily smiled and said: "Big brother! If you want it, then just take it, anyway I won't be using this thing."

  Lei lightly laughed, inserted the knife into his undershirt, then dug out the five coins from his upper garment pocket and tossed them in front of Huang Mao, saying softly: "I only have this much money left, consider it as me buying this knife."

  Huang Mao hastily picked up the scattered coins on the ground and held them out to Lei with both hands, saying in a trembling voice: "Consider this knife as my gift to you, take your money back." In fact, Huang Mao was thinking to himself: "Damn it, only five bucks, not even enough for the knife sheath, today is really a terrible day."

  Lei smiled lightly again, he no longer paid attention to those thugs lying on the ground, and walked away with a steady pace. Now that he didn't even have the last five bucks, he had to think of a way to get some food.

  Scan the QR code at the starting point, everyone rushes to answer cold knowledge, gets a medal, and wins a big prize! Click on the + sign in the upper right corner of WeChat, select Add Friends, search for the public account "qdread" to participate! Various big prizes, easy to get!