In 2025, Zhou Weiguo, alone and nearing the end of his life, lies in a hospital bed and looks back on a turbulent, failed life.
He went from inheriting a job at a state-owned factory to being laid off, then straying into a pyramid scheme and losing his wife and family. Step by step, he led his life into the abyss.
Only when his life was nearly over did he realize that he had long since lost everything.
When he opens his eyes again, fate has given him another chance to start over. He's returned to 1979,
the day his father was hospitalized after a workplace injury, just before everything was about to change.
Faced with the “iron rice bowl” everyone envies, he is no longer content with a life of routine. Instead, he sets his sights on the college entrance exams, recently reinstated after years of suspension.
In this life, he will pick up his textbooks again and fight for the future that should be his;
In this life, he will mend the rifts in his family and change his loved ones' fates;
In this life, he will ride the tide of reform and opening up and become a pioneer of his era.
