Reborn in a TV Drama: From the Start, I Steal Caroline

Brooklyn, New York, 2006.

When Lin Qi wakes up beneath a bridge, all he has in his pockets are three coins, an expired MetroCard, and half a pack of damp Marlboros.

No one knows he's from 2026, much less that his mind holds a financial timeline for the next twenty years and the fates of a cast of TV characters. Carl Gallagher is still throwing backyard punches in the garage. Max Black is still waiting tables at a basement-level diner. Caroline Channing is still an Upper East Side heiress, and her father's Ponzi scheme won't blow up for another three years.

“These people are all going to be worth a fortune,” Lin Qi thinks. “The problem is, I can't even afford a cup of coffee right now.”

So he makes a decision: first, he'll turn the laundromat on the corner into an unlicensed bank.

Brooklyn's underground canal begins with the first shovel of earth beneath the bridge.