That same night, in the cheap inn deep in the alley, Liu Xiaolei lay on the squeaking single bed. The thin mattress offered almost no cushion against the hard wooden slats, yet sleep would not come.
He stared at the ceiling, where damp had cracked the plaster into mottled patterns that, in his eyes, seemed to twist into sneering faces, mocking the ridiculous, tragic life he’d led in his previous life.
A riot of feelings churned in his chest, threatening to tear him apart: bitterness, unwillingness, resentment, jealousy… and the dizzying, terrified exhilaration of getting another chance. They tangled into a knotted mass that squeezed his ribs and made it hard to breathe.
This trip to Shanghai had been planned and fought for by him.
Only last month, after he fully awoke inside his eight-year-old body and confirmed he hadn’t fallen into some surreal dream but had truly returned to 1985, the idea began to grow in his mind like wild grass.
In his former life he had been trapped in that barren land: facing the earth, back to the sky—his birth and fate woven into an invisible net that held him fast in the countryside.
Only when his mother, Liu Xianglan, lay near death, in a voice thin with fatigue, did she finally reveal the secret she’d buried all her life: his biological father was not the peasant who died young, but a man in Shanghai named Fang Yuming.
The news detonated inside him.
Shock first, and then a nearly mad elation followed.
Maybe he didn’t have to be stuck in the mud forever. Maybe he could be reborn, rise up.
Fortunately, the internet was already available. Clutching a sliver of reckless hope, he typed “Fang Yuming” into a search box.
The top hit read: “Ex-husband of female billionaire Su Minzhi.”
A hot light ignited in his eyes.
He dug out the yellowed photos his mother kept and compared the man in the pictures with the face on his screen.
It was him.
But when he, full of trembling hope and dread, rushed to Shanghai, the scene he had imagined a thousand times—father and son embracing, tears, forgiveness—never came.
Reality was a cold bucket of water dumped down over him.
By then Fang Yuming was nearing retirement; his temples had turned gray, yet he retained the aloof dignity of a cadre. Years in high places had carved restraint and indifference into his features. He already had a new wife and a pampered daughter, draped in finery and bright smiles.
The first time Liu Xiaolei faced the man, he trembled so hard he could barely stand. Something felt lodged in his throat; he wanted to cry out “Father,” but the word would not come.
Fang Yuming glanced at him without warmth or the vague tenderness of a long-separated parent. The look was more like the examination of a stranger.
Then, in the tone of polite routine, he asked a few perfunctory questions—name, what he did at home, the mother’s condition—his voice flat as if listening to a subordinate’s report.
After a single, cool “Tell your mother it was hard on her,” he took twenty thousand yuan from a drawer and pressed it into Liu’s hand, as if dismissing an uninvited guest.
That moment tasted of humiliation. He took the money silently and left with his head bowed, returning to the choking poverty of his village life—back to toil in the fields.
Even so, in that life he kept tracking Fang Yuming’s every move.
Later, when Fang Yuming died, Liu made the trek to Shanghai again, convinced he might finally claim a share. The result struck him like a blow: he was treated like an absolute outsider.
The estate had already been distributed immaculately—documents and legal formalities neat and precise. One portion went to the current wife and beloved daughter; another portion was, in effect, donated to a charity fund established under the name of Fang Niannian, the daughter who died young and for whom Su Minzhi had created the foundation.
There was nothing for him.
He could understand giving to the wife and daughter who had cared for him at his bedside. That was expected. But why did Fang Niannian occupy such an exalted place in the will? Why, years after her death, did her name sit enshrined in a glossy charity, while a living son—his son—was treated like air?
Rage surged in his chest.
Why?!
All his grievances, all the shame and fury of his former life reached a breaking point. Only one thought screamed inside him:
Unfair! This world is rotten with injustice!
Maybe fate heard the dying bitterness in his cry. Maybe he’d been granted a second chance.
In a single night he opened his eyes and was no longer the bent, numb, humiliated middle-aged man. He was back in 1985, inside the small, eight-year-old body full of possibility.
The first thing he did after being reborn was press his mother, Liu Xianglan, about who his father was.
She startled, needle and thread nearly slipping from her fingers; her eyes flashed, and she instinctively asked, “Where did you hear that? Who’s been gossiping?”
He tightened his chest, smothered his urgency, and put on the wounded child’s face. “Someone behind my back called me… an illegitimate child.”
The words landed on her like a pin. She was stunned, then the corners of her eyes reddened. Finally she sighed, quiet and long: “You’re not a bastard. You have a father. He’s in Shanghai—Fang Yuming.”
Anger, hope, and the weight of years rose inside him, but he kept his expression blank and probed a few more times until he was satisfied she hadn’t lied. The repressed resentment that had gnawed at him for years ripped open and poured out.
“I don’t want to be trapped in the village my whole life. I’m going to Shanghai. I want to be a city kid!”
Seeing the stubborn light in his son’s eyes, Liu Xianglan’s heart ached and panicked, but a mother’s love prevailed. “Alright. I’ll try to find out. Your father… he should acknowledge you.”
He was eager, but he couldn’t blurt out the precise work unit he’d memorized from his past life—that would make his mother suspicious. At that time a returned educated youth named Zhao happened to be visiting the village.
Biting her lip, Liu Xianglan persuaded Zhao to inquire. After twists and delays, they finally found the Fang family address.
So the mother and son set out for Shanghai.
Although travel was tiring, Liu Xiaolei felt no fatigue. He didn’t feel like a child; he carried the calculations and ambition of a grown man.
At last they stood before the door of the strange household that had significant power over his fate.
He remembered the scene at the Fang home: Father Fang’s measured tone and the faintly lenient words—signals that the family might accept him. The real obstacle was Fang Yuming’s wife, Su Minzhi.
Her cold hardness, her willingness even to threaten divorce, had been the wedge that kept him out. At the time Fang Yuming clung to the life he had; he didn’t want divorce.
A shadow passed over Liu Xiaolei’s eyes. In his previous life he knew clearly that Su Minzhi and Fang Yuming eventually divorced—but he couldn’t recall precisely when.
If in this life he could push them apart earlier, perhaps make Su Minzhi take Fang Niannian away when she left, then he could secure his place as the sole child of the Fang family.
He clenched his small fist until his nails bit into his palm. The sting brought him deadly clarity.
In the dark his gaze glinted with a cold, ruthless intent far beyond his years.
This time, everything that should have been his—he would seize it, piece by piece, with his own hands.
As for Fang Niannian?
Thinking of the little girl he’d seen today, a rancorous, cold smile crept up in his heart.
She was nothing but someone who had died young.
Reborn and clearer than anyone else, he vowed: if he could get to the Fang family first and claim that place, he refused to believe a living son would be inferior to a dead girl.