Rebirth 2003: From Street Vendor to Tycoon

Before his rebirth, he was the second-in-command of an e-commerce empire, kicked out by his partner and died in a rented room costing 300 yuan a month. Opening his eyes, he returned to April 2003. SARS had just locked down the campus, roommates were scrambling for Banlangen, and his counselor urged him to sign a state-owned enterprise tripartite agreement. He touched the Nokia 3310 in his pocket—his mind held every map of China's e-commerce and logistics for the next twenty years. So he did something everyone thought was crazy: he turned down the state-owned enterprise and set up a street stall at the night market. The whole school laughed at him. The counselor said he had lost his mind. Roommates feared being infected by him. Three months later, he rented the first warehouse behind the school. One year later, he had visited thirty cities and signed distribution agency agreements for seventeen prefecture-level cities. Three years later, Alibaba people found him and said: Mr. Ma wants to see you. But that wasn't what mattered most. The day he returned to his hometown, his mother was still doing that same gesture—standing on tiptoe, looking out at the village entrance, holding an enamel mug filled with his childhood favorite: sugared tomatoes. In his previous life, he was too busy to taste that sweetness. In this life, he crouched by the roadside, red-eyed, finishing the entire bowl. This is a story of a man who earned a second chance with one life—from a street stall to changing the way a country shops.