The Wind of 2008 Blew Past Lin Qing

Thirty-two-year-old Chen Mo returned to the summer of 2008 after an accident.

That year, the city was still called Xiaoyang. The river breeze was hot and humid, cicadas shrilled incessantly, the video shops along the street were still open, and old-fashioned phones still glowed with faint blue-white screens. That year, he still lived in the little city that, though far from prosperous, held his entire youth. He attended Xiaoyang No. 1 High School, had decent but unremarkable grades, came from an ordinary family, and had a future that was nowhere near as clear as he would later imagine.

That was also the year Lin Qing was still by his side.

She was his childhood friend, the girl who had grown up with him, and the quietest yet brightest presence in his youth. There were no earth-shattering misunderstandings between them, no melodramatic betrayal or separation. There was only the genuine companionship of a small-town boy and girl: walking side by side after school, talking softly in the summer night breeze, and holding on to a sincere love that the passing years never easily shook.

Given another chance, Chen Mo didn’t want to rush through life and end up full of regrets.

He wanted to seize the opportunities still hidden in the cracks of a changing era, and use his decade-plus advantage in foresight and memory to rise, step by step, from the little city of Xiaoyang. He also wanted to make up for the chances he had missed at the starting point of his renewed fate, protect the people he wanted to keep, and live that unassuming yet precious youth all over again, this time with care.

This is a story about returning to the past.

About growing up, striving, a small town, and the tide of an era.

And about a young man finally understanding that some winds blow in from 2008 and, many years later, still pass through his memories to reach the person he most wants to cherish.