Reborn: The Carefree Life of Sha Zhu

In his previous life, He Yuzhu, known as Silly Zhu, lived a miserable, spineless life. Yi Zhonghai guilt-tripped him into doing whatever he wanted, Qin Huairu bled him dry, and Jia Zhangshi berated him for half his life. In the end, everyone turned against him, and he froze and starved to death beneath a bridge in the year 2000.

He opens his eyes and returns to 1954. At seventeen, Silly Zhu is a fool no longer.

He binds himself to the [Proficiency System]. Cooking, medicine, martial arts, foreign languages: practice is all it takes to master them. His cooking impresses a Sichuan cuisine grandmaster so much that he makes an exception and takes him on as a student. The people he saves become his unseen allies. The greenhouses he builds provide fresh vegetables for the steel mill through the winter.

Facing the hypocritical First Master, the innocent-seeming Qin Huairu, and the shrewish Jia Zhangshi, he refuses to keep swallowing his anger:

Jia Zhangshi tries to take over his bicycle? He turns the accusation around and brands her a capitalist.

Yi Zhonghai holds a meeting to pressure him into giving up his home? He reports him to the residents’ committee in advance and makes sure they’re humiliated in front of everyone.

Bang Geng gets caught stealing vegetables? He exposes the Jia family’s dirty secrets in front of the whole courtyard.

He has only one goal: stay away from the courtyard animals, protect his younger sister He Yushui, and live a good, ordinary life.

He marries Lou Xiaoe, makes peace with Xu Damao, takes Ma Hua as his apprentice, and saves a senior leader from danger. From a small cook in the pear garden to head of the steel mill canteen, from founder of Huiweiju to head of a restaurant group, he spends forty years building a life he never dared dream of in his previous one.

This time, he won’t be Silly Zhu.

This time, he’ll live life on his own terms.