At Forty-Five, the System Sends Me to Kindergarten

At forty-five, Li Jianguo had left school before graduating middle school and gone straight to work in a factory. He had spent most of his life doing hard labor. His wife had left him, his parents were gone, and he had ended up completely alone. On his birthday, he made a wish: “If I could start over, I’d make sure to get a proper education.” The next morning, when he opened his eyes, a little voice spoke in his mind: “Little buddy, sit up straight! Your System is here!”

The System said he was only five years old. His tasks were to sing nursery rhymes in public, wet his pants, have his boss soothe him to sleep, and hand out lollipops to his coworkers. The factory decided he’d lost his mind and sent him into early retirement. But Li Jianguo knew the System wasn’t tormenting him. It had come to repay a debt: the forty years of schooling he’d missed.

So he slung on his schoolbag and walked into Yucai Experimental School, becoming the oldest new student in the entire school. He set out at forty-five and took the college entrance exam at fifty-one. It’s never too late to begin, and it’s never too late to make up for what you owe yourself.