Hollywood, I became a legend with special effects.

Faye Wong's voice is like looking through frosted glass, hazy and distant.

"In this lifetime, if we meet on a narrow path, we cannot escape..."

Jiang Yu unconsciously hummed along a couple of lines, the dull pain in his temples causing him to furrow his brow.

He tried to raise his hand to rub it, but found his arm as heavy as lead.

After sleeping only three hours in 48 consecutive hours, my body is sending out its final warning.

As Jiang Yu listened to the music, he thought to himself.

If I were 20 years younger, I might have pursued her, but now...

My eyelids are getting heavier and heavier.

Outside the car window, the dazzling lights of Chang'an Avenue began to distort and melt, with the traffic lights trailing out as hazy ribbons of light.

The seat massage function of the Wenjie M9 was still working, and the slight vibrations felt like a hypnotic beat.

The car's air conditioning hissed, and the fragrance system emitted his usual cedar scent.

The last clear thought is: the final stroke of Wu Na's ink painting of the character "永" (yong)... the force is still too restrained... it should have the power of a thousand pounds suspended at the tip of the brush...

Darkness descended.

Violent shaking.

"...Sir? Sir!"

The sound of banging on the car window was rapid and forceful.

Jiang Yu suddenly opened his eyes.

My first thought: This isn't the right car.

This is not his question mark M9.

There was no Huawei SOUND audio system that he had personally helped to debug, no floating central control screen, and no cool breeze from the seat ventilation.

Second reaction: Kidnapping?

Adrenaline spiked instantly.

He looked around. The car was cramped, the gray fabric of the seats was worn and pilling, and the windows were covered with yellowed sun protection film with curled edges.

The instrument panel was made of simple plastic, and the pointer speedometer trembled slightly at "25 mph".

This is not China.

Outside the car window, tall palm trees swayed in the twilight breeze.

The road sign reads "FIGUEROA ST".

An Asian student wearing a red hoodie with "USC" printed on it sped past on a skateboard, with a Star Wars charm hanging on his backpack.

"Hey, man, wake up!" came a voice from the driver's seat, with a heavy Los Angeles accent.

Jiang Yu turned his head.

A burly Black driver, bald with a faded anchor tattoo on his neck, turned to look at him impatiently. "USC here. $37. Cash or credit card?"

Pure American English, with an American accent.

Jiang Yu opened his mouth, but his throat tightened, and he couldn't make a sound.

He looked down at himself: a dark blue down jacket over a light gray turtleneck sweater, dark jeans, and brand-new Nike sneakers.

This wasn't the custom-made suit he was wearing today, and he wasn't wearing a Patek Philippe on his wrist, only a black Casio G-Shock.

He stared at the watch face:

May 2005, 10 10:17

Outside the window, USC's iconic brick-red buildings stood in the twilight, and the bronze statue of the Trojan warrior reflected the last rays of the setting sun on the lawn.

A group of students walked by, chatting and laughing. One of them was holding a Nokia 7280, a fashionable model known as the "lipstick phone," which had just been released in 2005.

2005 years.

USC.

37 dollars.

These fragments spun, collided, and reassembled wildly in Jiang Yu's mind, forming a conclusion so absurd it suffocated him.

"Dude, are you alright?"

The driver frowned, his hand already reaching for the car radio. "I need to make this clear: if you're on drugs, I'll call..."

"No...it's nothing." Jiang Yu heard his own voice.

Young, clear-voiced, with a distinct Hubei accent, unlike the hoarseness he developed in his previous life due to years of staying up late, smoking, and drinking too much coffee.

"cash."

He almost instinctively reached for the inside pocket of his down jacket.

He pulled out a dark brown leather wallet; it was genuine leather and felt solid to the touch.

Open it: a stack of brand-new hundred-dollar bills, estimated to be at least two thousand dollars.

There's also a Chinese passport, a USC temporary student ID, a China Merchants Bank dual-currency credit card, and... two bank cards, one from Bank of China and one from Citibank.

Passport photo: A face that is much more youthful than I remember.

Short hair, clean eyes, a polite smile on his lips, not yet possessing the sharpness and weariness honed by the business world and laboratories that he would later develop.

Name: JIANG YU

Date of birth: April 1984, 3

Date of issuance: August 2003

21 years old. From Daye, Hubei Province.

Jiang Jianguo, the father, went into business in his early years, working in the mining industry. In the 00s, he caught the first wave of the real estate boom and became quite wealthy.

My mother, Zhou Wenhui, is an associate professor in the Chinese Department of Central China Normal University; she comes from a typical scholarly family.

He is an only child and was admitted to the School of Animation and Digital Arts at the Communication University of China in 2002. He is currently a junior and was sent by the school to the USC School of Cinematic Arts for a year of exchange.

Memories flooded back like a tide, all the memories of my past life.

At home the night before departure.

As his mother helped him pack, she nagged, "The $100,000 has already been transferred to your Citibank account. That's a year's living expenses, so be careful with it. Your dad said we can ask for more if it's not enough, but don't be extravagant..."

The father sat on the sofa, putting down his newspaper: "Boys should spend money when they're out there. But remember, you're on a government-sponsored program, representing the country's image; your studies come first. And..."

The father paused for a moment, then said, "If you have the chance, you can check out the building materials market in the US. I've heard about the new materials there..."

"So, the money?" the driver urged, already sounding impatient.

Jiang Yu took one of the hundred-dollar bills from the stack and handed it over.

"Keep the change, please."

"Thanks, buddy." The driver took the money, quickly tore off a receipt and handed it to him, his expression softening. "Need me to call campus security? You look..."

"No need." Jiang Yu pushed open the car door and stepped onto the sidewalk with unsteady steps.

........

The October evening breeze in Los Angeles was dry, slightly cool, and carried the scents of orange blossoms and car exhaust.

The deafening cheers from the football stadium echoed in the distance. It was Troy's home game day. I remember that in the fall of 2005, they seemed to have beaten Stanford.

That's so true.

The feel of the asphalt road underfoot, the aroma of fried chicken from the fast food restaurant wafting through the air, the hourly chimes from the library's clock tower in the distance... this is not a dream.

Dreams don't have this level of detail, this kind of texture that's ingrained in your very bones.

Jiang Yu stood still, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

one two three...

Open your eyes again.

The street scene remains unchanged.

He raised his hand and pinched the inside of his arm hard—

"hiss!"

pain.

Sharp, real pain.

Not a dream.

What is that?

Hallucination? Near-death experience?

He remembers the last time he was in the underground parking garage of the China World Trade Center Phase 3, leaning back in his seat listening to music, thinking about how he might have pursued Liu Yifei if he were 20 years younger.

My eyelids feel heavy... and then what?

So now, is it a world where wishes come true?

still...

Rebirth.

He really looked 20 years younger, like he was back in 2005.

21 years old. Government-sponsored exchange student.

With $100,000 in living expenses from his parents in his pocket, a huge sum in 2005, enough for a Chinese student to live comfortably in Los Angeles for a year.

In his mind...

It contains the memories of another forty years of life.

"Ha..." Jiang Yu laughed out loud, the laughter sounding abrupt and strange in the empty street.

A couple passing by gave him a strange look and quickened their pace to walk away.

He doesn't care.

He walked to a bench by the roadside, sat down, put his hands behind his head, and rested his elbows on his knees.

The brain is running at full speed, like an overclocked CPU:

Complete memories of past life.

From 2005 to 2026, twenty-one years.

Apple, Tencent, Bitcoin.

Financial crisis, Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.

Avatar, Marvel Universe.

Netflix's streaming revolution.

And then there's... the Age of Light and Shadow.

Wu Na, Zhou Mu, Chen Wei.

Those days and nights that changed China's special effects industry.

And... just a few hours earlier, Liu Yifei had parted ways with him in the rooftop tea room of the Park Hyatt Hotel.

2005 years.

She is 18 years old.

Has filming for "The Return of the Condor Heroes" just wrapped up?

Perhaps she's preparing an album for Liu Yifei? Or has she already signed with Williams?

Jiang Yu looked up at the lights gradually lighting up the USC campus.

If this is rebirth...

$100,000 in start-up capital.

Status of government-sponsored international student.

A 21-year-old's body.

A 40-year-old's mind.

A "future memory" worth hundreds of billions.

To what extent can he achieve this?

"Excuse me, do you need any help?"

A gentle voice sounded from the side, with a distinct Jiangzhe accent.

Jiang Yu turned his head.

An Asian boy wearing black-rimmed glasses stood next to a bench, carrying a huge hiking backpack.

It's not a student backpack; it's the kind actually used for hiking, and it looks like it can fit a person in it.

He was holding several thick books: "Principles of Computer Graphics", "Real-time Rendering Algorithms", and "Numerical Solutions of Partial Differential Equations".

He looked like a typical engineering student, with thick glasses and a few pimples on his face.

That face looked twenty years younger; Jiang Yu recognized it at a glance.

Zhou Mu.

Co-founder and chief algorithm scientist of the previous generation of Light and Shadow Era.

That genius who solved countless technical problems for him with mathematical formulas, that brother who stood by him through the most difficult period of starting a business.

At this moment, Zhou Mu looks to be no more than twenty years old, a junior at the USC School of Engineering.

His eyes behind the glasses were clear, carrying the earnestness unique to science and engineering students, along with a touch of social awkwardness.

"I..." Jiang Yu began, his voice a little hoarse, "I'm fine. I just got here and got a little lost."

"A freshman?" Zhou Mu sat down next to him, carefully placing his book on his lap. "I'm Zhou Mu, a junior in the School of Engineering, from Shaoxing, Zhejiang. You are...."

"Jiang Yu. Exchange student at Communication University of China, School of Film Arts, majoring in Digital Media."

Jiang Yu paused for a moment, then said, "Junior year."

"An exchange student," Zhou Mu pushed up his glasses. "Government-sponsored? Impressive. When I first arrived, I couldn't even speak English fluently; it took me half a year to get used to it."

"Thank you." Jiang Yu looked at him, one of his most important partners from his past life. "You're reading about computer graphics? The one about real-time rendering... is it the new edition by Eric Haines?"

Zhou Mu's eyes lit up: "You know this? Is it taught in China? This is our advanced topic this semester. The professor just talked about photon mapping, but I always feel that the storage overhead is too high. I'm thinking of using an adaptive octree to optimize it..."

He spoke at length for four minutes, covering topics from photon mapping to irradiance caching, and from octree spatial partitioning to the principle of locality of reference in memory access.

Jiang Yu listened quietly.

This is it.

In his previous life, he first met Zhou Mu at a computer graphics seminar organized by the Chinese Students and Scholars Association at USC.

Zhou Mu gave a report on "The Application of Adaptive Radiometric Algorithm in Film Rendering".

At the time, it was still a theoretical deduction, but the rigor of the mathematics and the clarity of the thinking impressed Jiang Yu, who had been working for many years.

In 2006, it took him nine months to "snatch" Zhou Mu away from a job offer from a major company in Silicon Valley.

Now...

"What if we use a sparse voxel octree?" Jiang Yu asked after Zhou Mu finished speaking. "We can voxelize the scene, storing voxels only in areas with geometry and skipping areas that don't exist. Combined with hierarchical frustum culling and LOD, real-time rendering of cinematic scenes is not impossible."

Zhou Mu was stunned.

2005 years.

The concept of sparse voxel octrees is just emerging in academia and is mainly used in the fields of medical imaging and scientific visualization.

Used for real-time rendering of cinematic scenes? This idea is at least five years ahead of its time.

"You..." Zhou Mu's eyes widened. "You've researched this in China? Do you have any papers on it?"

Jiang Yu realized he had said too much.

"I've just... looked at some cutting-edge materials." He glossed over the question, changing the subject, "Are you interested in the commercialization of real-time rendering? Not just academic research."

"Of course!"

Zhou Mu leaned forward, "But with the current hardware, the general computing power of GPUs is still insufficient, the CUDA framework hasn't been released yet, and OpenCL is still several years away..."

"What if we plan ahead?" Jiang Yu looked at him. "Before CUDA is released, we can use Shader Model 3.0 to experiment with general-purpose computing. Once CUDA is released, we'll be among the first to fully understand it."

Zhou Mu's eyes brightened, but then confusion appeared: "'We'? You mean...?"

"Collaboration." Jiang Yu stood up, stretching his stiff shoulders. "I have some ideas that I need someone with math and algorithm skills to implement. Are you interested?"

Zhou Mu's hand remained suspended in mid-air, without responding immediately.

"Why did you contact me?" he asked directly. "We've only known each other for five minutes."

Jiang Yu thought for a moment, then smiled: "Because when you mentioned 'optimizing photon tracking with SIMD,' your eyes were shining. I've seen that kind of light in the eyes of people who truly love technology. And..."

He paused for a moment, then said, "You're carrying a hiking backpack, not a schoolbag. That means you often go outdoors or to the lab, and you're not the kind of student who just stays in your dorm playing games."

Zhou Mu glanced down at his bag and smiled. "Good observation skills. I am indeed working with the professor on a NASA Mars terrain visualization project. Sometimes I need to go to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for meetings, and there are a lot of documents, so I carry this."

"The NASA project." Jiang Yu nodded. "That's even better. That's exactly the level of partner I need."

He stretched out his hand.

Zhou Mu looked at him for three seconds, then took his hand.

"Where do you live?" Zhou Mu asked, "The international student dormitory?"

"It should be GATEWAY." Jiang Yu glanced into the depths of the campus. "They haven't checked in yet."

"I'll take you there." Zhou Mu picked up the book. "We'll talk as we walk. What's the specific technical roadmap for your idea of ​​laying out CUDA ahead of time? Shader Model 3.0 does support limited general-purpose computing, but the instruction set..."