In 2026, chip engineer Chen Xiangdong collapsed at his workstation and never woke up.
When he opened his eyes again, he returned to 1984 - rural Anhui, where he failed the college entrance examination and his family was completely destitute.
But there is a broken super artificial intelligence "Hongmeng" in my mind, as well as the technological memory of the next twenty years.
In this life, he no longer goes to the brick factory to move bricks.
From making the first money from a modified radio, to making China's first electronic device that can display Chinese; from being rejected by department stores as a "three-no product", to going head-to-head with Lenovo, Microsoft, and Intel.
He found Kazakh military industry experts who were sent to the countryside and worked together to develop domestic chips.
He bucked the trend during the Internet bubble and built a Chinese operating system.
When the West was under total blockade, he stood beside Huawei, BYD and other national enterprises and said:
"Whatever they block, we create."
This is the story of a failed student who spent forty-two years changing the world.
It is also an epic story of a person, a company, and a country moving towards technological independence.
