In 2025, Hu Zhengyu, a graduate student in history, falls into a coma after a car accident and transmigrates into the body of Zhou Mingyuan, a Peking University student in 1919. His modern way of thinking collides with life in the Republic of China, leading to all kinds of amusing mishaps. Amid the May Fourth Movement, he meets 19-year-old Lin Wanqing, the legendary scientist whom people in his own time call “Great-Grandma.” Though they are the same age but from different generations, they come to know and love each other without realizing the truth, caught in a dilemma that is both ethical and historical.
As a witness, Hu Zhengyu takes part in the May Fourth Movement, the Northern Expedition, and the War of Resistance Against Japan. He protects their love across time, yet cannot change history. After dying on the battlefield in 1941, he returns to the present, where only three days have passed. Faced with the family record stating that “Wanqing never married,” he uncovers the truth about her secret marriage to his great-grandfather through archives and diaries.
Blending lighthearted comedy with serious history, the novel portrays a modern soul’s vivid adventures in the Republic of China while exploring the choices and sacrifices people make in turbulent times. It is a love across time in which one knows but cannot intervene, and two people love each other despite the taboo. It asks how memory can transcend blood ties and how choices define destiny.
