Chapter One: The Peculiar System

Chapter One: The Eccentric System

Shi Bai longed for success.

He craved it like a caterpillar dreams of turning into a moth. He yearned for it like a kernel of corn jittering on a hot pan, desperate to burst into popcorn. He wanted it as fiercely as a toy poodle catching sight of a female dog.

He often wished he were a “gong”—for then, all he'd need was to add a little “li” to achieve “success.” But life seldom goes as one hopes. In his twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine years, Shi Bai had almost never succeeded at anything.

As a baby, he would either choke or gag on his milk. When learning to walk, he stumbled at every step; when learning to eat, all his food ended up on the table. Other children called out “Mama” at one or two years old—he, at four, managed only “Uncle Wang” as his first words. Ever since, his father's gaze toward him had been peculiar.

He finally made it to elementary school, but his exam results were always thirtieth or thirty-first in class. To be honest, he might as well have been dead last; at least that’s a kind of first. But his ranking, even at the bottom, couldn’t break the top twenty.

He lost every fight, couldn’t out-argue anyone, always kicked the soccer ball into the crossbar, never made a basketball shot, and never once succeeded in wooing a girl.

He confessed to one girl—she said she already liked someone else. He tried with another—she apologized, telling him he was a good person. He persisted—she said, “Sorry, I’m still young and want to focus on my studies.” But the very next day, she ran off with an internet boyfriend she’d met playing “King of Glory.”

After nursing his wounded heart, he mustered the courage to confess to a girl weighing one hundred and eighty pounds. She flicked her hair and asked, “What do you like about me?” He replied, “I like that you’re a bit heavier.” He nearly got smothered to death.

From then on, his temperament changed. He threw himself into his studies, hoping to get into a good high school. But when the results came out, he was one point short.

High school was more failure. He gave up, thinking he’d just start working early. But without much effort, he got into a third-rate university—failing even at failing.

He picked a fourth-rate major, never had a relationship, did nothing of note, and was unemployed upon graduation. After pulling some strings, he landed a job at a company, serving tea and water for seven or eight years. He never got a raise, never a promotion. Even those who joined after him were now vice presidents, while he was still earning two thousand yuan a month.

To comfort himself, he adopted a dog, supposedly a Shiba Inu, but the more he looked, the more it resembled a mutt. Tell it to sit, it’d play dead; tell it to play dead, it’d roll over. Take it out to meet girls, and it’d burrow under old ladies’ skirts; if a young woman petted it, it would defecate on the spot. He had no idea who it took after.

That afternoon, he ran out of dog food and, exhausted from working overtime the night before, trudged to the supermarket in his flip-flops to buy more. At checkout, he realized his phone was missing. He asked customer service, but they said the cameras had caught nothing.

He walked home, more and more frustrated. When he saw a soda can on the street, he couldn’t help but kick it. But his flip-flop slipped, and he fell right onto a pile of dog poop.

He reached back to check, “Ugh!”

He stood there for a long while, then sighed deeply. After thirty years of life, he suddenly found everything tasteless and dull.

Buddha once said, all conditioned phenomena are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows, like dew or flashes of lightning.

“Maybe I should become a monk,” he thought.

Then he laughed bitterly, “Even monks need a college degree nowadays!”

“Ah… I’m truly a failure among failures…”

At that moment, in the sweltering ancient city, a cool breeze seemed to blow. He felt a chill from head to toe.

“Ding-dong!”

Suddenly, a clear chime sounded in Shi Bai’s mind, ringing like a celestial bell, and his thoughts became uncannily sharp.

“Congratulations on achieving ten thousand failures. You are specially rewarded with the Turn-the-Tide System!”

Shi Bai jumped in fright and spun around. “Who’s talking?” He instinctively wiped his poop-stained hand on his backside, but no one was there.

“Congratulations, you’ve obtained the Turn-the-Tide System. I’m not a person—I’m the system in your mind,” the voice spoke again, utterly devoid of emotion.

“What? A system?!”

“That’s right. Because you’ve failed so much in your life, the system has been unlocked.”

“You must be joking,” Shi Bai stammered, unable to believe it.

“Believe it or not, it’s up to you. With this system, if you aim for failure, you’ll succeed. But if you strive for success, you’ll fail.”

The system continued, “For example, if you play a game and want to win, once the system’s mission mode is activated, trying your best won’t cut it. But if you deliberately throw the game, you might actually win.”

Shi Bai was bewildered. “That can’t be right. How can losing on purpose lead to winning?”

“No need to ask. Just activate the mission mode and you’ll see. Also, failing earns you Failure Points, while succeeding reduces them. Failure Points can be used in the system’s shop to buy various items. You can take a look.”

Sure enough, a virtual shop button appeared before Shi Bai’s eyes, visible only to him. He clicked it, half-believing, half-doubting. Instantly, a game-like shop interface appeared, displaying a variety of items.

The first tab was Money—one Failure Point could be exchanged for one hundred yuan.

The second tab was Physical Fitness—an upgrade cost five hundred Failure Points.

The third tab was Knowledge—an upgrade cost one thousand Failure Points.

The fourth tab was Charm—an upgrade cost ten thousand Failure Points.

The fifth tab was Cultivation Techniques, called the Immortal Arts, but the price was astronomical: one million Failure Points.

Shi Bai shook his head and opened his eyes—the interface was still there. He pinched his cheek hard. It hurt.

“It’s real! It’s actually real! I have a system now!”

“Because your life has been so thoroughly unsuccessful, the system is giving you a chance to be reborn. To which year do you want to return?”

“What!” Shi Bai was even more stunned. “I can be reborn?”

“Please select the age you wish to return to,” the system replied, unmoved.

“Well…” Shi Bai rubbed his hands together, barely containing his excitement.

“Which year should I choose? The year I regret most? Which year is that? It feels like every year is full of regret.”

“The year I was rejected by the heavyset girl? I was only fourteen—too young. If that’s the case, I might as well go back to the year I called Uncle Wang.”

After much deliberation, he finally chose the year he was eighteen—his final year of high school, just in time for another shot at the college entrance exam.

“I’ll go back to when I was eighteen,” Shi Bai said, his gaze suddenly resolute.

“Eighteen, meaning the year 2008. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” He wiped his hand behind him again.

A burst of white light flared, so bright he couldn’t open his eyes. When he did, he found himself standing on a concrete soccer field beneath a blazing summer sun.

Boys were playing soccer, their shouts mingling with the cicadas’ relentless “zhe zhe” chorus.

He raised his arm to shield his eyes, squinting into the distance, unsure exactly where he was.

He only knew that the sky was so blue, the clouds so white, and every now and then a few female classmates strolled by.

He looked down at himself—he wore the fifty-yuan athletic shorts of 2008, the ninety-yuan basketball shoes of 2008, and even his leg hair had that yellowish, not-quite-coarse look of 2008.

“This feeling is so familiar!” A melody echoed in his mind: “Back then, the sky was always so blue, the days passed so slowly. You said graduation was a distant dream, but in the blink of an eye, we’d all gone our separate ways.”

It was none other than his old high school.

Just then, two girls walked by. Shi Bai couldn’t contain his excitement and shouted, “I’m back!”

The two girls covered their mouths and giggled, tossing a casual barb over their shoulders: “Idiot!”