Chapter 1: Chapter 1 – Hollywood 1988

 

"Hey, Eric, steak for table nine."

"Oh, okay," Eric replied, and clumsily delivered two steaks to the couple sitting next to the window.

Then, he returned to his previous position, leaning against the counter, and fell back into a daze.

July 13th, 1988, the third day since his rebirth, at an Italian restaurant in North Hollywood, Los Angeles.

Eric turned and stared at the glass window not far from him and saw the reflection of a young man about six foot tall, with an angular face, an aquiline nose, and short golden blonde hair. That handsome appearance now belonged to him.

---

A few days ago, Eric was still living across the Pacific Ocean in China in the year 2014. He was a 44-year-old advertising director who had graduated from a famous film school with a major in directing. As a young man, he had wished to be recognized internationally, and struggled for ten years before he finally understood the cruel reality. Even though he had solid professional knowledge and skills, that alone was not enough to make it in the film circle. He got married at the age of 35, had a son the following year, and finally settled down.

A few years later, at a class reunion, he drank too much while reminiscing about the past with his friends whom he had not seen in a long time.

Similar to the cliché openings of many thriller novels, after waking up, he found himself 25 years in the past and inside the body of an 18-year-old young man named Eric Williams, a fresh high school graduate...

---

"Eric, are you okay?" A chubby hand patted his shoulder. Eric turned around to see the restaurant's owner, Jeff Jones.

"I'm sorry, Jeff, I got distracted."

"It’s fine," Jeff rubbed his hands, seemingly trying to find the words before he continued, "About Ralph, I'm sorry, but life goes on, you know? You have to get over it, Eric."

Ralph Williams, Eric's father, was a skilled cook. He'd been working at this restaurant for many years, however, Ralph had a nasty addiction - alcohol. According to the memories of his body's original owner, Ralph's hobby was intricately related to the mother he had never met. In fact, a month ago, Ralph died due to excessive drinking that led to acute alcoholism.

"Thank you for your help, Jeff. I really don’t know how to repay you," Eric replied.

Following Ralph’s death, Eric’s life was thrown into chaos. Originally, he had planned to apply to UCLA, but with his father’s passing, his hopes for university ended. Even as a public institution, the tuition fee was still about $20,000 a year, not including other expenses. As Ralph’s boss and friend, Jeff talked it out with Eric who then began to work as a waiter in his restaurant. As Jeff said, life went on.

"Ralph worked here for so many years, so it’s a given I’d help. But I can only do so much. You’ll have to rely on your own efforts for the rest," Jeff stated.

Eric nodded in gratitude.

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Seeing this, Jeff turned to leave, and the young man returned to his thoughts. Since an unscrupulous god had sent him back to Hollywood twenty-five years in the past, if he continued to remain just a waiter, that god would certainly feel annoyed and frustrated.

After spending three days understanding his situation, Eric had toned down his initial excitement, and finally resigned himself to reality. During his previous life, despite being an outstanding film director, he did not attain success. Right now, he had neither qualifications nor connections, and even if he applied for an entry-level job at a film company, he might not succeed.

***

After a busy day at the restaurant, Eric drove back in the cheap Ford sedan that his father had owned. After Ralph’s death, Eric had wanted to sell the car to pay for his school fees, but after receiving the job as a waiter, he decided to keep it. After all, the United States was known as the land on wheels, and without a car, it wasn’t exactly convenient to get around.

Driving past a cinema theater, Eric saw a poster of plastered close to the entrance. Under the snow-capped mountains, with a helicopter in the background, a young and his muscles were enough to make any female fan squeal.

Without much thought, Eric parked his car in the parking lot nearby and inquired about the film. When he learned that a screening would start soon, he bought himself a ticket and went inside.

As it was still early, there were only about 30-40 people in the theater that seated around 200 people. Eric quickly found his seat and sat down.

Soon, the lights went off. After the screen titles, the film officially began:

Colonel Sam Trautman asked Rambo, who lived in seclusion in Thailand, to go to Afghanistan to carry out a joint operation with him, but Rambo rejected him. After the Colonel was captured, Rambo once again took up arms to save his old friend…

In the past, Eric had watched every single Stallone film, some more than once. The reason why he bought a ticket was because Eric connected Stallone’s experiences to his own former selves. During the ten years that he struggled, whenever he wanted to give up, he would use inspirational stories to motivate himself, which included the legendary Stallone’s, as well.

The film was still ongoing, so Eric’s swirling thoughts faded, and he focused on enjoying the show. Gradually, he relaxed his body and leaned back straight as he realized one thing. As he had seen the film before, whenever the plot advanced, Eric would subconsciously think about what would happen next, and then, something hit him.

As he kept thinking about it, the next scene would clearly show every part as he remembered them, that is to say, the whole film, every shot, every line, even every melody, was as if it had been engraved in his mind.

Eric suppressed his excitement, closed his eyes, recalled ’s classic - - and realized the result was still the same: he could recall every minute of it. After trying the same with several other films, he found it to still be the case. Excited, Eric tried to recall films whose name he had heard but hadn’t seen; unfortunately, he was unable to recall anything regarding such films. It seemed like he could only remember the films that he had seen, but that alone was enough.

When he had just been reborn, Eric also thought that he could use his past knowledge to produce some blockbuster films, but as someone who used to be a professional director, he also knew how difficult that would be. At best, he could only write something similar to the original, but now, his memory from his past life was clearer than ever, and Eric knew what that meant. As long as the conditions were met, he would be able to replicate those classic films down to the last details.

Eric was so excited that his cheeks flushed red and his fingers went numb. He finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and heavily slapped his chair’s armrest and blurted out, “DAMN!”

The pain coming from his palm brought Eric back to reality. Looking around the audience, several people were glaring at him in discontent, and Eric could only smile in embarrassment. The one hundred minutes of film was soon over, Rambo rescued his friend by a hair’s breadth again, faithful to the franchise's habits.

When he was sitting in the dark, Eric hadn’t noticed at first because he was too excited, but he didn’t have such a good memory in his past life. Like ordinary people, he had to read an article many times to be able to recite it, and also listen to a song many times to be able to sing it from memory. This newly acquired ability was obviously the work of an unscrupulous… ehm, compassionate god.

Holding onto this new found hope to make it to the pinnacle, Eric drove home in a rush. With such a cheat-like ability, if he still failed miserably like in his previous life, he might as well choke himself to death with a glass of water.

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