Back to 1980: Rising to the Top

Zhou Chen, a modern business strategy consultant, wakes up one morning to find himself in 1980, in a remote county town in northern China. He has become another Zhou Chen, a lazy good-for-nothing hated by everyone, even the dogs.

The original Zhou Chen was a gluttonous slacker who shirked work and cut corners, a notorious local rascal in the factory district. His family was dirt-poor, his parents were constantly worried, his little sister was gaunt and pale, and the neighbors looked down on them.

Faced with abject poverty and the mess the original owner left behind, Zhou Chen doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But when he sees his kind, timid parents and malnourished little sister, he resolves to turn his family’s fate around for good!

Armed with a keen understanding of the times and more than forty years of knowledge from the future, he starts planning, one penny at a time.

He heads into the mountains to gather wild greens and improve their meals, exploits price differences to buy and resell eggs, makes novel snacks to sell on the streets, and secretly travels south to trade sunglasses for radios...

Making clever use of his golden finger, he gradually leverages his way to wealth at the dawn of this golden age.

Along the way, he must not only fight hunger and poverty, but also contend with the many restrictions of the planned economy, the doubts and prejudice of those around him, and the various troubles left behind by the original owner.

Watch as Zhou Chen turns over a new leaf, going from a lazy man everyone despises to the pillar of his family, the envy of the neighborhood, and a pioneer of reform and opening up. He leads his family to a life of meat at every meal, comfortable food and clothing, and the respect of others, before ultimately building a business legend of his own.