Chapter 2: Rewriting Destiny

The cicadas were shrilling as if a cauldron had boiled over, their chorus exploding atop the parasol trees at Duoshui County No. 4 Middle School. The countdown board’s crimson numbers glowed like burning coals; each page torn off felt scalding, making everyone’s heart race with anxiety. The entire ninth grade was strung as taut as a drawn bow.

The corridor outside the classroom was thick with the pungent scent of freshly printed test papers. Teachers, arms full of exercise books, had sweated through their white shirts until they clung to their backs.

Deep into the night, a few lamps still glimmered in the staff office. Teacher Yang, glasses perched on her nose, was hunched so close to the composition books that her nose nearly brushed the pages.

Her red pen scrawled across “One Day.” A single misused dash, and she painstakingly copied out Rule 12 from the “Punctuation Handbook” beside it; beneath each misspelled word, she seemed determined to jot down the evolution of its form through eight generations of ancestors.

That relentless attention to detail stirred something warm in Li Yifei’s heart. In his previous life, before the high school entrance exam, the old lady had marked his papers just as rigorously—so much so that the notebook, red as if soaked in blood, was still lying in his family’s camphor wood chest back home.

Compared with the chaos around him, Li Yifei was as calm as an old dog. His textbooks were spread on the desk, and he spun his pencil deftly between his fingers.

Thanks to his second life, his mind now worked like an overstuffed flash drive—not only did he have all the junior high material memorized, even the complicated formulas from sophomore year math, physics, and chemistry were packed tight inside his head.

He opened his battered copy of “Five Years of Exam Questions, Three Years of Practice,” and his pen flew across the page. The daunting final questions that left classmates scratching their heads looked to him like “old friends”—their answers already engraved in his memory.

At five in the morning, Li Yifei crept silently across the creaky floorboards, careful not to make a sound. He changed into a faded tracksuit.

The flagstone path beside the school was still slick with dew. He ran into the mist, the soles of his shoes striking the stones in rhythmic claps, perfectly matching the chatter of his English listening practice in his headphones.

Crossing a small stone bridge, he nodded to the elderly folks out for their morning exercise. They couldn’t have guessed that this boy was running with a vengeance against the sickly thirty-year-old version of himself from his previous life. This time around, he was determined to forge a strong, healthy body.

During the morning exercises, the school’s loudspeaker blared. Li Yifei hid in the far corner of the sports field, an edge-worn vocabulary book open on his knees. Sunlight filtered through the camphor leaves, dancing across his face.

He had vivid associations for each word: seeing “rejuvenate,” he remembered the shock of discovering it was 2005 again, his heart nearly leaping from his throat; “prosperity” brought forth the image of his mother beaming as she moved into their new home.

While others fooled around, he’d already finished the spelling for his third unit’s words. He pulled out a palm-sized notebook, jotting down a fresh web novel idea. This habit was the same as when he’d doodled ideas in meetings during his previous life working an office job.

On the day of the entrance exam, the camphor trees at the school gate were nearly stripped bare by the crowd of parents. Li Yifei stood outside the security line, watching the mothers huddled under umbrellas—so many they looked like mushroom clouds—while the fathers nervously checked their children’s pencil cases, as tense as bomb disposal technicians.

His mother had stood just the same in his last life, her floral shirt damp with sweat, craning her neck for a glimpse inside.

He unfolded the Chinese exam paper—the familiar scent of ink wafted up. The reading comprehension: Zong Pu’s “The Wisteria Waterfall.” The essay prompt—well! “An Unforgettable Day”!

The tip of his fountain pen hovered above the paper for a long while. Memories surged: after failing the college entrance exam in his past life, he’d labored on construction sites, hauling sacks of cement until his palms were raw; caught in downpours with nowhere to hide, shivering to the bone… all those miseries came rushing back.

“Screw it! I’ll write about this!” he grumbled inwardly, and the pen raced across the page: “That morning when I turned the page, I touched the sun of 2005 and realized that the second chance Heaven gave me would only taste as good as I could cook it! Burn it, and it’s just another plate of slop…”

The bell for the end of the test shrieked. Li Yifei snapped his paper shut. While others trembled through last-minute checks, he gazed absently out the window.

This so-called golden finger of rebirth had its pitfalls. Bitcoin? Not even a rumor yet! Lottery? What numbers? Stock market? His pockets were emptier than his face—what could he invest in?

His fingers idly traced the scratches on the desk. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a notebook peeking from his backpack—the opening chapters of “Shrouding the Heavens” copied out in neat script.

“Looks like I’d better keep my grip tight on this web novel rice bowl for now…” he mused. Yet fragments of memory about the 2006 bull market began to stir in his mind, like little fish darting about.

On results day, the sun was fierce enough to roast a person. Li Yifei sat at his desk, the tip of his fountain pen poised above manuscript paper for “Shrouding the Heavens.” Two identical copies lay on the table—one to be mailed off, the other locked in his treasured tin box: copyright backup to guard against thieves! He was mulling this over when the home phone rang.

“Hello? Who’s this?” His father answered.

A voice on the other end burst with laughter: “Brother Li? This is Old Wang from the admissions office of the county’s top high school! Congratulations! Yifei took first place in the whole city! Perfect scores in math, physics, and chemistry! Our school has granted him a full scholarship—ten thousand yuan stipend—and an elite team of teachers to mentor him! So…”

Crash! His mother’s ceramic mug shattered on the floor, shards flying. His father clutched the receiver, knuckles white, lips trembling: “He… he really passed? First place?”

Li Yifei set down his pen, gazing at the blazing sunset outside the window.

The gears of fate, this time, had been kicked into motion by his own hand! Being the top scorer in the entrance exam was only the beginning—he would build his first fortune from web novels, use his fragmented memories of the stock market to roll his wealth like a snowball, climb higher than he’d ever dreamed, and do things he never dared imagine in his previous life!

Night fell. Li Yifei switched on his desk lamp, spread a fresh sheet of manuscript paper, and let his pen fall softly:

“Nine dragons dragged a massive coffin, tearing a gash in the starry sky. Ye Fan opened his eyes in the middle of a barren forbidden land…”