After modern truck driver Li Sheng'en takes his own life, he opens his eyes to find himself in 1951, having become He Yuzhu, with his sobbing little sister He Yushui in his arms. The ancestral wooden pendant on his chest suddenly grows hot, awakening the “World of Mountains and Rivers,” a realm that can store grain and control time!
When Jia Zhangshi wants to sell his sister for food and Yi Zhonghai tries to morally blackmail him into giving up his home, he pulls out some knockout smoke from the realm and clears the courtyard of its troublemakers overnight. He grows grain in the realm and sells it for money at the pigeon market, becoming the first person in the courtyard to own the “three turns and one tune.”
From deputy head of the steel mill canteen to opening a restaurant chain and exporting organic cotton, the World of Mountains and Rivers no longer hides mere supplies. It holds the technology to develop aerospace materials that will help China reach the moon, and the confidence to preserve intangible cultural heritage and support Hong Kong's return.
Thirty years later, He Yuzhu sits beneath the old locust tree in the courtyard, watching the lunar module made from his own materials on TV. Smiling, he touches his chest: living a second life like this, guarding this courtyard, this realm, and this country was worth it.
