Scoring 749 on the Gaokao, the Town Mayor Directs Traffic at the Village Entrance

Reborn on the eve of the 2013 college entrance exam, Chu Feng opens his eyes and finds himself eighteen again. His mother is still sewing a pair of worn-out cloth shoes, his father is still hauling bricks at a construction site, and his older sister is still tutoring students in the county town to cover her living expenses. In his previous life, he only got into a second-tier university and let his whole family down. This time, he has twenty years of memories in his head: the college entrance exam questions, stock market trends, housing prices, and the rise of the internet, all crystal clear and not a word forgotten. On exam day, the average score for the final math problem is less than three points across the province, but he gets full marks. For the hardest physics question in the science exam, he only scored three points in his previous life, but this time he fills an entire page and a half with his solution. The results come out: Chinese, 149; math, 150; science, 300; English, 150. A total of 749 out of 750. First in the country, with the highest total score nationwide. That day, the admissions teams from Jingcheng University and Qinghua University crowd outside his home to compete for him. The mayor directs traffic at the village entrance in his honor, while a provincial TV reporter trudges through the mud with a camera. His mother crouches on the ground, covering her face as she cries. His father takes a cup of water into the kitchen and doesn’t notice it spilling all over the stove. From hauling bricks at a construction site to becoming the national top scorer, from a poor student to someone who changes his family’s fate: in this life, he’ll make up for every regret, one by one.