Chapter One: Awakening

As autumn deepened, the maple leaves were at their reddest, and the air was thick with the season’s chill. In Ninghai City, Jiangnan Province, at the First People's Hospital, Zhao Guoyang reclined against the headboard, gazing out at a large tree whose leaves had nearly all fallen. His face was filled with bewilderment and disbelief.

The events of the previous day replayed in his mind with startling clarity, and he simply could not reconcile his past with his current reality. Zhao Guoyang, once a recipient of special government stipends and hailed as the youngest academician-level senior engineer—a leading figure in the country’s heavy industry—had collapsed unexpectedly while working late at the institute the night before.

When Zhao Guoyang awoke, he discovered himself in a scene straight out of a novel: he had been reborn. Reborn into the 1990s, inhabiting the body of a young man also named Zhao Guoyang.

From memory, the details about this body were as follows: Zhao Guoyang, twenty-one, a native of Ninghai under Guangling City in Jiangnan Province, and a student of the School of Mechanical Engineering at Jinling University of Technology. With his grades, he could have secured a place in graduate school, but the heavy burdens at home—aged parents and siblings still in school—prompted him to forgo further study. Instead, he chose to start working early, even requesting a posting in his hometown, Ninghai.

Thanks to the care of Dean Mao Tiansheng, Zhao Guoyang bypassed the internship and was directly assigned as a technician at Hongda Machinery Factory in Ninghai. Yesterday afternoon, by the riverside near the factory’s residential compound, several children accidentally fell into the water while playing. Zhao Guoyang, on his way home from work, happened upon the scene.

Naturally, he could not stand by and do nothing. He dove in at once, pulling all three children to safety, but in the process, suffered a cramp and sank beneath the water himself. Fortunately, others arrived soon after and pulled him out, unconscious and oxygen-deprived, and rushed him to the city’s best hospital.

The doctors warned he might lapse into a vegetative state, yet, astonishingly, he regained consciousness overnight—a miracle, they said. But no one realized that the Zhao Guoyang now awake in that hospital bed had, in a sense, been utterly transformed, his soul replaced by one from another world.

“This is just too absurd!” At first, Zhao Guoyang thought he was dreaming. Once he understood his situation, he couldn’t help but curse under his breath, feeling as though fate had played a monumental trick on him.

Yet, amid his shock, he also felt a quiet satisfaction: while this new Zhao Guoyang’s technical expertise did not match his former self’s, his physical strength was much greater.

The mirror revealed a tall, sturdy young man with jet-black short hair, bold eyebrows, bright eyes, a high nose, and fair skin—the sort who made a favorable impression at first sight, the quintessential masculine type admired in this era.

One thing Zhao Guoyang found difficult to understand, however, was why the original Zhao Guoyang, a graduate of a prestigious “211” university, had been posted as a technician to an obscure county-level machinery factory. It defied all logic.

In the nineties, university graduates were exceedingly rare, nothing like the hordes two decades later. Moreover, graduates at this time received state job assignments—they didn’t have to scramble at job fairs.

Especially those from top-tier schools like Jinling University of Technology—such graduates were the elite, destined for provincial offices or major state enterprises at the very least, rarely sent to a minor place like Hongda Machinery Factory. Had the previous Zhao Guoyang offended someone powerful, resulting in this fate? That was the only plausible explanation Zhao Guoyang could think of.

Yet, as it turned out, Zhao Guoyang’s assumption was entirely off the mark. It wasn’t because the body’s former owner had offended anyone. Quite the opposite—he had benefited from the secret intervention of a benefactor. Skipping the internship and being directly appointed as a full-fledged technician with a cadre’s salary was, in fact, a stroke of luck.

It was true that university graduates of this era were exceptional, but that didn’t mean they could waltz into any government office or state enterprise they pleased. As the country’s development accelerated and the economy boomed, even students studying overseas were turning their eyes homeward, intensifying competition for jobs. For graduates of ordinary universities, landing a position at a decent state-run factory was already quite an achievement.

As for someone like Zhao Guoyang, who started as a technician without so much as an internship, such cases were vanishingly rare. These truths, however, he would have to discover for himself.

As the two streams of memory slowly fused, Zhao Guoyang’s thoughts grew clearer. Faced with his current predicament, he felt a sigh of resignation, but also anticipation. From now on, he would walk a brand new path under the name Zhao Guoyang.

News of his miraculous recovery brought the doctors running for a full examination. Finding him free of any lasting complications, they marveled at his luck.

After lunch, feeling only slightly weak, Zhao Guoyang ventured outside for a stroll. The air was fresher and the sky bluer than he remembered from two decades later—a vast, unmarred expanse that lifted his spirits. He sat on a bench, eyes half-closed, basking in the sunlight.

“Guoyang, Factory Director Mu has come to see you,” came a voice from behind.

Lost in thought, eyes narrowed against the sunlight, Zhao Guoyang didn’t notice anyone calling his name.

“Zhao Guoyang! Zhao Guoyang!” the voice called again, louder this time.

The call snapped Zhao Guoyang from his reverie. Turning blankly, he saw a sturdy young man with a square face approaching, followed by two others—a middle-aged man in a gray suit with a rugged, sun-darkened face, and a slim young man with neatly combed hair, glasses, and two bags of fruit and supplements.

The broad-shouldered young man was Xu Dongfeng, Zhao Guoyang’s colleague at Hongda Machinery Factory. They shared a dorm room and, over the past two months, Xu was the only true friend Zhao Guoyang had made at the factory.

The middle-aged man with the square face was Mu Aijun, the factory director; the bespectacled youth was his driver, Li Xiaoqiang.

“Ah, Director, what brings you here? Sorry, I was lost in thought,” Zhao Guoyang said, quickly rising and shaking the director’s hand with genuine apology, surprised to see the factory’s top leader visiting him in person.

In his previous life, Zhao Guoyang had been a senior engineer, well-versed in the ways of the world. Navigating social interactions was second nature, unlike the awkward, stiff demeanor of his predecessor. Thus, seeing the director, his reaction was a mix of surprise and excitement.

“Little Zhao, well done! Thank you for saving my mischievous niece,” Mu Aijun said, pleased with Zhao Guoyang’s response, clapping him heartily on the shoulder. Mu Aijun was an officer-turned-cadre from the north, with impeccable Mandarin.

“Niece?” Zhao Guoyang was bewildered; he had fallen unconscious after the rescue and knew nothing of what followed.

Mu Aijun’s niece was Gu Tingting, his sister Mu Aiqin’s only daughter—one of the children who had fallen in the river. Mu Aijun’s own daughter had gone to study in England after university, so he doted on his lively niece as if she were his own.

Upon hearing his niece had nearly drowned, Mu Aijun was shaken to the core. Had anything happened to her, he could not have faced his sister and brother-in-law. Thus, Zhao Guoyang not only saved Gu Tingting but also preserved Mu Aijun’s standing in his family. For this act of courage, Mu Aijun felt nothing but gratitude.

“Director, you flatter me. I only did what anyone should,” Zhao Guoyang replied modestly, recalling what he knew about Mu Aijun:

Two years prior, Mu Aijun had transferred to Hongda Machinery Factory as director. Though unremarkable to outsiders, the factory was one of the few municipal enterprises in Ninghai with departmental-level status—a leading state-owned enterprise in Guangling, employing thousands, with top-tier pay and benefits.

By convention, when military officers transferred to civilian posts, they were demoted; Mu had been a division-level commander, now placed at a director’s rank—a high position for this locality. His military decisiveness, clear sense of justice, and fair leadership had earned him great respect. Even the city mayor treated him with deference, for in reality, the mayor’s rank was technically lower than Mu’s vice-bureau-level position.

The previous Zhao Guoyang had greatly admired and respected Mu Aijun. Now, the new Zhao Guoyang thought that while Director Mu might be a fine soldier, whether he could manage a business remained to be seen.

Mu Aijun chatted for a while and, before leaving, earnestly instructed Zhao Guoyang to fully recover before returning to work. Zhao Guoyang nodded gratefully, repeatedly expressing his thanks.

Ignoring the director’s polite protests, Zhao Guoyang insisted on seeing him to the hospital entrance and watched him drive away in a dark green jeep. The factory director nodded in approval, though a trace of worry soon clouded his face.

Returning to his ward, Zhao Guoyang washed the fruit and shared it with Xu Dongfeng, casually probing him for information about the factory. Though he retained vague memories of Hongda Machinery Factory, the details were unclear, so he decided to learn more about its operations and the staff from Xu.