Wang Xiao, a 38-year-old associate professor, dreamed of returning to 1995 at the peak of his exhaustion and becoming his 12-year-old self in a poor mountain village in eastern Sichuan.
Faced with the reality that his family is poor, his parents are hardworking, and his younger brother is ignorant, he has vague memories of the future, but no golden finger. Saving his father and his family is a more urgent life-and-death battle than making money. He dug out the first copper plate from the cycle of an egg and a pig, and carried the heavy ideal that changed the fate of his family on his young shoulders.
These are thirty years of personal resonance with the times. He stepped on the last train of Shanhuo trade, found the cornerstone in the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, made careful bets in the stock market crisis, and stuck to industry in the Internet wave. From Shuanglong Town to the county seat, from Jiangyuan City to the wider world, he relied on his vision beyond the times and down-to-earth efforts to weave a business network connecting grassroots and temples.
These are thirty years of bonding between the soul and the country. He turned the opportunities of the times into the power to transform his hometown, allowing his fathers to straighten their spines, allowing his younger brothers to have choices, and allowing his partners to see hope. Behind the accumulation of wealth are eternal questions about responsibility, value and original intention.
When the wave of history rushes to the year 2025 he was once familiar with, Wang Xiao will finally understand: the greatest gift of rebirth is not to predict the future, but to have the opportunity to work with hundreds of millions of ordinary strugglers on this land to turn the glory in memory into reality.
This is a story about making up for regrets, protecting loved ones, and rejuvenating the country through industry. It is also a hymn dedicated to every ordinary soul who is unwilling to be mediocre and works silently in the great era.
