Back to 1978: Rising from the Shantytown

In the spring of 1978, He Chang'an, an eighteen-year-old living in the Guangzipian shantytown of Northeast China, stands at a crossroads of fate. In his previous life, he would die in a factory accident in 1985; now, fate gives him a second chance. Armed with memories of the next forty years, he is determined to rewrite his life. But instead of going it alone, he seizes the opportunities of the era—selling watches on the black market, heading south to Guangzhou, venturing into Shenzhen, and investing in Hainan real estate—while holding onto the simple human warmth of Guangzipian: rescuing a neighbor's child from a fire, fighting for the rights of old neighbors, and repaying kindness for enmity when his foe falls. He is no saint. He is shrewd, calculating, and uses information gaps to crush opponents; he also struggles between ruthless means and moral boundaries. It is this struggle that makes the humanity of a reborn man more real than any cheat code. From 1978 to 2020, Guangzipian transforms from a shantytown into a bustling commercial street, and He Chang'an rises from an unemployed youth to the helm of a business empire. He loses his father, misses out on some "faster" paths, but holds onto the most precious thing: humanity. When Guangzipian is finally demolished, he buys a bouquet of flowers and stands at the old site for a long time. Ordinary people of that era spent their entire lives interpreting the meaning of "living."