The news shook the entire business world.
Arjun Malhotra — Founder & CEO of Zenith Core Technologies — dies in car crash at age 32.
Stock market froze for 6 minutes.
Employees cried.
Competitors celebrated.
And Arjun…
…opened his eyes.
He smelled chalk dust.
Not leather seats.
Not hospital disinfectant.
Not blood.
Chalk.
He looked down.
Small hands. Ink-stained fingers.
A cheap wooden desk. Scratched initials carved everywhere.
"Arjun! Stop daydreaming and read the answer!"
A ruler slammed on his desk.
He slowly raised his head.
Blackboard.
Fans spinning slowly.
Forty students staring at him.
And the date written above the board:
14 July 2010
His throat went dry.
That was… my Class 11 year.
His heart began pounding violently.
He stumbled toward the window — and saw his reflection in the glass.
A thin 16-year-old boy. Messy hair. School uniform.
Not the man who built a billion-dollar empire.
Not the man who was murdered in a staged accident.
Yes.
Murdered.
At first he thought it was a crash…
But now memories flooded back.
The brake failure.
The sudden truck.
The phone call from his CFO minutes before death:
"Sir, we should discuss the acquisition tonight… alone."
The same acquisition that would transfer majority control away from him.
His fingers trembled.
"They killed me… before the deal signing."
He sat back down slowly.
If this really was 2010…
Then everything hadn't happened yet.
No company.
No betrayals.
No empire.
But he still remembered everything:
Future market crashes
Startup booms
Tech revolutions
Crypto rise and fall
The exact stocks that would 3000x
And most importantly—
The three people who would betray him.
Arjun's eyes sharpened.
The weak boy was gone.
A calm, terrifying businessman now lived inside a teenager's body.
He picked up a notebook and wrote:
"Rule #1 — This time I build power first, trust later."
Then he added another line.
"Rule #2 — By 30… I won't just be CEO."
He looked out the window at the world he once struggled to conquer.
A small smile appeared.
"I'll own the system."
The bell rang.
And the world unknowingly welcomed back a monster who already knew its future.
To be continue.. In next chapter