You're Awake. It's 2004 Now

[Transmigrating Through Childhood, Chinese Dreamcore]

Every child has dreamed of growing up to become a dazzling adult. The truth, however, is often cruel.

At twenty-seven, Meng Xia had grown into a terrible, mediocre adult.

On the day her company laid her off, Meng Xia received a call from her aunt back home: her mother had been diagnosed with lymphoma.

When it rains, it pours. On her way back to her hometown, she was also in a car accident.

She thought, Fine, then. Maybe dying would be for the best. To hell with this miserable life. She was done!

But when she woke up, the pinup calendar on the wall read "2004."

-

What kind of era was 2004? It was the year China's GDP per capita first surpassed one thousand dollars. The river of history changed course here, and the scenery on its banks began to look different from that year on.

Determined to live her life over again, Meng Xia vowed that this time she would seize the opportunities of the age and become China's richest person!

"Meng Xia, come ouuut and plaaay!"

Meng Xia snapped out of her grand ambitions and poked her head through the security bars. On a leisurely summer day, with the breeze stirring the green treetops, her friends were calling up to her from downstairs.

Meng Xia: ...

I'm twenty-seven. I don't have time to babysit you little brats, okay?

But then she took a closer look and spotted the boy who lived across the hall, her childhood sweetheart.

The boy who, in the age of explosive growth in the computer industry, would be admitted to THU's computer science department as the top student in the city, go to the United States after graduation, then return home and seize the moment to earn ten million a year.

Meng Xia: ...

Hmm. For a ten-million-a-year salary, she supposed she could make time for him.

-

Later:

Meng Xia: "What! You were reborn too?!"

Childhood sweetheart: "Yeah."

Meng Xia, devastated: "Why didn't you tell me sooner! You understand better than I do where the opportunities of the age are. Why didn't you start a business with me and make a fortune? Do you know how many billions I lost because of you?!"

Childhood sweetheart: "...I didn't think that far ahead."

Meng Xia: "...Then what exactly was the point of you being reborn?"

The childhood sweetheart gave her a meaningful look. "To be with the girl I've loved since childhood but missed my chance with, and make up for the regret of my first love."

Meng Xia clutched her philtrum in despair.

Honestly, with a mind that good, how could he be such a lovesick fool? Could we please stop letting people like this waste precious chances to be reborn?

[That year, there was no Wi-Fi or cell phone, but I had watermelon, ice cream, and an entire summer.]

*Both leads are reborn

*Quirky childhood-friends heroine x gentle, calculating childhood-friends hero

*Ensemble cast, everyday life, warm coming-of-age, family and neighborhood stories, a slow and steady pace, and lots and lots of nostalgic scenes. I'm practicing my writing, hehe, so please skip it if that's not your thing.

*Set in a small county in Hunan. Inspired by the author's childhood favorite, Happy Camp, and by her lovely Hunan friends, who are tough, patient, and tenacious.

*I can't write stories set in the 1970s or 1980s, so I'll write one set in the 2000s instead. This is for everyone born in the 1990s and 2000s, in memory of the millennial childhood that you and I can never go back to~

[The original premise was an unrequited-love story with a sad ending, but I really do prefer writing happy endings!]

Theme: Only by living can you have infinite possibilities