July 2006, Hell's Kitchen, New York.
On this scorching summer day, even the street thugs of Hell's Kitchen didn't want to brave the blazing sun to collect protection money.
As for Harvey Ferguson, a corporate slave working nine to six.
Waking up, his greatest terror wasn't finding out he was late for work, but suddenly finding himself in an unfamiliar world.
"Who am I? Where am I? How did I turn into a little brat?"
Looking at the strange surroundings, and the greedy glares from a few passing tattooed black men looking his way.
It made Harvey break out in a cold sweat despite the sweltering heat!
After barely calming down, he was shocked to realize he had turned into a cute, brown-haired, blue-eyed boy who was barely four feet tall???
"No wonder those guys were looking at me like they wanted to eat me alive..." Harvey muttered to himself, staring at his significantly shrunken little hands.
"Wait, they couldn't be thinking of..."
Stricken with fear, Harvey opened his little mouth, and fluent English blurted out at the ill-intentioned men—
"Fuck you! What the hell are you looking at? My big brother is in the Crocodile Gang, believe it or not, I'll have him gun you down!"
Those men just gave a cryptic smile and actually walked away.
When you're out and about, your identity is whatever you make it.
Fortunately, Harvey was quick-witted, making up a fake background on the spot to bluff them away.
As for how he had mastered fluent English, perhaps the crisis had unlocked his linguistic potential... right?
Whatever, the most important thing right now was to figure out what this place was.
Harvey cautiously observed his surroundings.
"Wait, why am I so sleepy? Damn it! It's a knockout drug..."
Caught completely off guard, Harvey's small face was filled with horror as his tiny body swayed unsteadily before he finally collapsed on the side of the road, drained of strength.
As his consciousness gradually blurred, he watched helplessly from a short distance away.
A few street thugs were rubbing their hands together with burning eyes, walking toward him.
...
Two hours later.
A delicate-looking little boy wearing thin clothes slowly woke up on the side of a street in Hell's Kitchen.
Harvey panicked and hurriedly checked his body first.
"Thank God, everything is fine!"
"It's just that all the money on me was robbed."
Still shivering with lingering fear, Harvey climbed up from the curb, dusted off his dirty clothes, and looked around; those men had long since vanished without a trace.
"Forget it, money is just a worldly possession. Being able to keep my virginity is good enough, I shouldn't ask for too much."
"Besides, the money belonged to the original owner of this body, it wasn't mine to begin with. Easy come, easy go..."
After comforting himself with some mental gymnastics, Harvey planned to get the hell out of this cursed place quickly.
The sun hung high overhead; it looked like it was noon.
Braving the 32°C heat, Harvey wandered straight along the street.
He hadn't walked far before he spotted a burger joint.
Smelling the tempting aroma of fried chicken and burgers, he couldn't help but stop at the entrance, rubbing his growling little stomach.
"It's hard to take a single step without money, I'd better leave here fast."
He was left with psychological trauma by those guys just now, terrified of being drugged again. Anyway, temporary hunger was bearable.
So Harvey continued along the street, cautiously looking left and right non-stop while heading towards the intersection.
Based on his years of life experience.
Busy intersections like this usually have traffic cops directing the flow.
If he could just find a helpful police officer, he'd be able to go home.
But when Harvey reached the intersection, his small face was full of shock: "Can someone tell me what's the deal with that curly-haired, blue-eyed white traffic cop?"
At this moment, tormented by the hot weather and sweating all over, Harvey's slightly curly brown hair stuck to his forehead. He felt miserable and helpless.
If he kept walking under the sun, this frail body would probably succumb to heatstroke and collapse first.
Just then, a gentle breeze blew past.
A few strands of sweaty hair were blown aside, and Harvey finally felt a hint of coolness, his mind clearing up significantly.
In his field of vision, a discarded newspaper drifted in the air, flying right past his face.
Quick-handed and sharp-eyed, Harvey snatched the newspaper out of the air.
He squatted under the shade of a tree by the street, enjoying the cool breeze while spreading the somewhat wrinkled newspaper on the ground.
"Why does this newspaper have a puddle of unknown liquid on it?"
Realizing what it was, Harvey's expression changed. He instinctively pulled his little hand back like lightning and shook it wildly in the air, as if trying to flick off something filthy.
"Who the hell has zero public decency and jerked off on a newspaper?"
Just as a disgusted Harvey was about to get up and leave, he caught sight of the newspaper's headline out of the corner of his eye.
It was a photo of a weird-mustached man in a sharp suit, holding a pair of twin models at a party.
He involuntarily paused his motion to stand up, continuing to half-squat on the ground as he frowned and said:
"No wonder someone busted a nut over this newspaper. Even by my standards, these twins are incredibly hot."
"Blonde, big boobs, exquisite facial features, sexy figures..."
"Wait, that's not the point."
"The point is, this guy with the weird mustache is actually named Tony Stark?"
"Holy shit!" Harvey exclaimed out loud.
He rubbed his eyes, focused his gaze, widened his eyes to look again, and stared until his eyes were perfectly round to look even closer.
"It really is fucking Tony Stark!"
[According to an interview by a CBA news reporter, the 36-year-old Anthony Edward Stark, a billionaire, inventor, genius scientist, and CEO of Stark Industries...]
[Announced at a press conference on July 3, 2006, that Stark Industries will be partnering with the military to co-develop a new type of weapon, tentatively named the Jericho missile...]
Seeing this, Harvey finally realized that he had really crossed over into another world!
"What a pity about my two million-plus in mortgage and car loans... looks like I won't have to pay them off after all."
"Hehe~"
"Wait, damn it, how could this be the Marvel Universe where superheroes walk everywhere?"
Upon realizing this, Harvey's small face was filled with bewilderment.
"Everyone knows how dangerous the Marvel Universe is; I have to figure out a way to survive!"
Harvey pondered, since he had transmigrated, he should have some kind of cheat code, right?
And so, a delicate-looking munchkin squatted on the street, shouting continuously into the void: "Open System Interface? Cheat code?"
Pedestrians passing by saw this scene.
They all assumed the child probably had some intellectual disability. No wonder he was abandoned on the streets by his parents—it was quite pitiful.
"Ding~ Clink."
Five one-dollar coins were tossed onto the ground in front of Harvey by a passing overweight black woman.
Feeling humiliated, Harvey couldn't help but clench his little fists. His expression shifted unpredictably, he took a deep breath, and then—
Silently picked up the coins and very sincerely said "Thank you!" to the kind-hearted black woman.
Earlier, he had seen on the sign outside the burger joint that a discounted combo of a burger, fries, and cola cost exactly five bucks.
Starving to the bone, Harvey couldn't care less about his dignity just to get a bite to eat.
After giving him the alms, the black woman saw the delicate face Harvey revealed when he looked up, and suddenly felt an urge to adopt him.
This child was just too pitiful.
But remembering the child's apparent intellectual issues, she shook her head with a face full of pity, turned around, and left.
As Harvey watched the kind soul walk away, he clutched the five coins he had earned through his own "hard work" and hurriedly jogged a few hundred meters back to the burger joint he had just passed.
But before he could even walk through the door.
"Bang! Bang-bang!"
The sudden gunshots made Harvey's pupils shrink instantly.
"Ah—"
The customers in the burger joint screamed and scattered in all directions.
"Is this... America? A shootout over the slightest disagreement?"
Harvey, shocked, froze for a moment before reacting and hurriedly running outside along with the crowd rushing out the door.
Amidst the chaos, he suddenly felt a piercing pain in his shoulder.
"Argh..."
Harvey let out a cry of pain and fell to the ground.
The crowd, focused only on fleeing for their lives, didn't even glance at the unlucky kid who had fallen by the roadside, just stepping right over him and continuing to run.
Everyone seemed possessed by Usain Bolt, sprinting past Harvey like lightning bolts.
As for Harvey, shot and collapsed on the ground, blood stained his shirt red. In his beautiful blue eyes, a look of helplessness and despair inevitably surfaced.
Just as his consciousness began to blur, a portal with edges shimmering in blue light suddenly appeared in front of him.
Seeing this miraculous sight.
Hope swelled once again in Harvey's eyes. Dragging his increasingly weak body, he used every last ounce of his strength to crawl toward the portal...