Chapter 2

"Sweetheart, what were you doing going out so late at night? You're sweating so much…" Nathan's mother, Viola Maine, looked at him when he got home. She was reproachful, but more of it was concern. Nathan did not answer. His eyes were heavy and filled with unspoken emotions as he looked at Viola, who was now over ten years younger than he remembered from the last time he had seen her. To Viola, her son was only about eight feet away from her. However, Nathan knew that they were separated by two lifetimes, as well as life and death. It was a divide that could not be crossed. "Mom." "Why are you acting so strangely?" Viola had been about to scold Nathan, but at that moment, she suddenly felt that she could not bring herself to do so. Nathan's father, Nicholas Frank, was curled up on the couch. He was smoking while watching television. "Honey, our son has grown up and probably has his own affairs. Don't interfere too much." "Alright, alright! I won't meddle, or else Nathan will think I'm a nag. Nicholas, can't you put that cigarette out? How many times do I have to tell you not to smoke in front of our son?" Nicholas chuckled and immediately stubbed out the cigarette. Nathan could no longer help himself, and his eyes reddened. It was such an ordinary, everyday scene. His family members were sitting around, and the lights in the room were warm and cozy. It was such a simple happiness, but in his previous life, it had been an extravagant wish despite his success and fame. Viola looked concerned as she said, "Sweetheart, why are your eyes so red? Are you crying? Did something happen to you?" Nathan squeezed out a smile. "No, the smoke just stung my eyes. Mom, can you make Dad quit smoking? The smell is so strong that it's going to affect my revision." Nicholas muttered, "Affect his revision? He had his mock exam just a while ago, but his results weren't all that great. I don't even know if he'll be able to make the top-tier university admission cutoff!" Viola snapped, "Don't talk about my son like that! He just wasn't in the best condition that day. I'm sure he's going to get into an elite university with his college entrance exam results!" Nicholas said, "I'll be thanking my lucky stars as long as he gets into a halfway decent college!" "I'm going back to my room to study." Nathan was afraid that he would burst into tears if he watched his parents bicker any longer, so he hastily found an excuse to go to his room. It seemed both familiar and strange at the same time. The paint was peeling on his desk, which was covered with books. A very thick book with the striking title of "College Entrance Exams Practice" caught his eye first. There was a poster of the cartoon "Dragon Fighter" stuck on his table. Nathan calmed himself down and muttered to himself, "System, can you make a sound? Cutie, are you there?" There was no sound at all, but it was alright. Successful people like him who had built everything up from scratch did not need any cheats. Being reborn was already the biggest boon. Nathan wanted to make money. Lots and lots of money. However, now was not the time yet. He would still have to accomplish his main mission, which was to pass the college entrance exams. The alternative would be to go and tell Nicholas and Viola that he did not want to study and needed to get ready to welcome the trends of the era so that he could become the top entrepreneur of his time. Nicholas and Viola would be sure to tear him apart. Nathan did miss life at university a little. In his past life, all he did was make Cheryl the center of his life. How many amazing things had he missed because of that? Now that he was doing it all over again, Nathan did not want to have any regrets. As for the college entrance exams… Nathan tried to remember what kind of student he was back then. He began to reminisce. He had scraped by the top-tier university admission cutoff and ended up in a community college in the state capital. After his results were released, Viola and Nicholas were a little disappointed. Even his homeroom teacher had shaken her head and said that it was a pity. Nathan had ranked second in his class for his middle school exams, so he should've been a candidate who had a shot at the elite universities. Many of his classmates had laughed at him for being foolish enough to throw away his future just because he was hankering after a girl. What was even dumber was that he didn't even get the girl. Nathan had wasted too much energy on Cheryl during high school, and he had wasted the innate academic abilities that he had been blessed with. Nathan finally came to his senses in his third year of university, which was when Cheryl had found herself a tall, handsome, and rich boyfriend. That was when he chose to go to graduate school. There was a streak of resilience in Nathan which had gotten him from community college into graduate school at the Riverfield College of Economics, which was an elite university. He made full use of the resources of his alma mater and successfully started up his own business—NutriGen Technologies. It would be great if he could get into Riverfield straightaway. Nathan glanced at the calendar beside his bed as he made some calculations. It was April 30th, 2009. There were less than 40 days left until the college entrance exams. Damn it! An elite university? He had forgotten almost everything he had learned in high school. It would probably be hard for him to even get into a community college… Nathan wiped away his sweat. He picked up the "College Entrance Exams Practice" textbook and found a mock test for math. He forced himself to go through it. He had thought that he wouldn't understand any of it, but after looking at it, the corresponding knowledge began to rise up in his mind. The first question was a multiple-choice question that was about sets. As soon as he read the main question, the answer popped up in his mind. He looked at the second question, which was on trigonometric functions. It was slightly harder than the first question, but he solved it easily after thinking about it for a couple of seconds. Nathan wondered what was going on. He continued doing the test, and gradually, Nathan realized something. When he was reborn, his 36-year-old soul hadn't completely replaced his 18-year-old self. Both souls had merged with each other. Perhaps as a benefit of that merge, he could remember most of what he had learned at university too. "Oh! I do have a cheat!" Nathan's heartbeat sped up slightly. He had been pretty good at math to begin with, and now that he had university-level knowledge in his brain that would just pop up from nowhere, the high school-level questions were a piece of cake. Euranic had given him the biggest headache as a student, but he didn't actually need to have a huge vocabulary for high school. In his past life, he had buckled down to study Euranic and practiced exam strategies so that he could get into graduate school. He would be able to get a high score easily this time. Just math and Euranic alone would get him at least an extra 50 marks or so compared to his previous life. As for science, he would probably be able to score at least 10 or 20 marks more based on his improved math skills. He would only need to pass Hanvian, just like he had done in his past life. Hang on—he could remember the questions he had gotten for the college entrance exams! That would make it possible for him to score an extra 20 marks on his essay, which would raise his overall score! He made a rough calculation and realized that he could get a hundred marks more than he had in his previous life. With such a huge upgrade, he might actually be able to get into the elite universities! "Wow, I'm really going to shock everyone at this rate," he exclaimed to himself. Linkon City was a small city in the Roudeclaus urban district, and the standard of education there could not be compared with the state capital. There were only two or three candidates every year at most who would actually have a chance at getting into the country's top two universities. Anyone who got a score with even the slightest chance of doing so would get prize money of more than a hundred grand from the leading enterprises in the city. That was a sizable sum in 2009. As long as Nathan could get to the threshold score needed to apply for the top two universities, he would be able to get his start-up capital. The old saying that studying was the key to earning money was true, after all. It only took Nathan an hour and a half to complete the math practice test. He checked the answers and found that he had gotten almost all of them right. There were just a few minor flaws in how he had solved the last big question. "147!" Nathan shocked himself when he projected his own score. He was doing a real college entrance exam mock exam! That would mean that he would probably be able to get around 140 in the real thing. Great! That was the benefit of getting cheats. There was a knock on the door. Viola brought in a bowl of mushroom soup for Nathan and instructed him, "Don't stay up too late studying, sweetheart. Get to bed early." "Alright." Nathan nodded and closed his book. In his past life, he would've been sure to find Viola's nagging annoying, but now, he only felt blissful. After drinking the mushroom soup, Nathan pulled out a slide phone from his drawer. It was a Nokia 5200 that ran on a Symbian S40 operating system. It was the birthday present that Viola and Nicholas had given Nathan on his 18th birthday. It was the first phone he ever owned. After he familiarized himself with using it, Nathan logged into the WAP version of MySpace. His profile photo was still the old one that came with the system, which was a faceless profile photo. Nathan cringed when he saw that his profile name was set as "DeterminedDude". Determined, his foot! Nathan hastily changed it to "Nathan Frank". He glanced at his status, which was a lyric from a sappy love song. Had he really been so cringey? Nathan's toes curled in embarrassment. He deleted the status at once, but the empty space didn't look right, so he added another one. It was a line from a poem, which read, "Remember the ambition of your youth and become part of the elite!"