Ano de 1979: Comendo carne com esposa e filhos

“Our youngest is just an incorrigible fool! The neighborhood committee arranged a job for him, but he refuses to go, spending his days lounging around the house, eating and sleeping, sleeping and eating.”

“Dongzi’s already a grown man and still doesn’t know how to behave. It’s so hard to get a job these days!”

“Exactly! Other families are fighting tooth and nail for work, but Dongzi has a job and won’t do it. I worry for you, honestly, what are you going to do?”

Li Xiangdong lay on the heated brick bed, half awake, listening to the chattering voices in the courtyard. He slowly opened his eyes in a daze.

He looked around. The furniture in the room, though all seemed new, was from an old era. The wave of familiarity hit him so hard he felt dizzy. Wasn’t this his home from decades ago?

The scolding voice just now was unmistakable—it was his mother!

Could one really be reborn just by falling asleep?

As memories flooded his mind, he felt no panic, only anticipation.

He grabbed the large underpants at his bedside, put them on, and stepped off the kang, his size 43 feet slipping into old cloth shoes on the floor. He hurried to the calendar hanging on the wall.

July 10th, 1979.

Then he walked over to the mirror with revolutionary motifs. Staring at his own youthful reflection, he saw the trendy short haircut, bright eyes, handsome face, and his tall frame of 180 centimeters. Anyone would praise him as a fine young man.

He could still hear his mother in the courtyard, chatting enthusiastically with the neighbors.