The bitter wind poured through the gaps in the earthen walls. His dying sister in his arms and forty years of regret from the memory of her disappearance surged through him at once. This time, he would never let her vanish again.
While others struggled to survive amid mass starvation, he pulled one life-saving eel after another from the frozen reed marshes and found soybeans in a scrap yard's junk that could take root and sprout. Iron Bull's honest strength, Loach's quick wit, Abacus's meticulousness, Dahe's fierce spirit: one orphan after another, abandoned by the times, gathered around him. Not out of pity, but because he made them a promise: Stick with me, and every one of you will become somebody.
He traded dried fish for cornmeal, opened up a market in the county town by growing bean sprouts, and used the rich black soil in his space to grow the first leafy greens of spring. Zhou Demao at the grain station was selling grain off the books, and he watched coolly from the sidelines. A contract from the procurement department lay before him, but he didn't sign. Inside an eight-year-old's body lived the soul of a forty-year-old man. He knew when to advance, when to retreat, and when to strike with precision and leave no trace.
This isn't a reborn power fantasy where the golden finger runs wild. It's a desperate fightback with everything on the line. Every penny is dug out of the soil, not by hand, but through the business instincts of his previous life, his precise understanding of human nature, and his deep grasp of the times.
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to return to the poorest era with forty years of life experience, this novel gives you a thoroughly satisfying answer. The protagonist won't be tortured or forced to swallow humiliation. Every step is in time with the era, and every twist is both reasonable and unexpected.
I dedicate this book to everyone who has ever asked themselves in the dead of night, “What if I could do it all over again?”
