At this time, David Bennett couldn’t be called unattractive, but he wasn’t exactly good-looking either. His academic performance was slightly above average, and aside from a decent physique, there wasn’t much about him that caught girls’ attention. Then again, in a northern small town in 2001, how many high school girls even knew how to appreciate a boy’s physique?

He had no idea which period’s biological clock this body of David Bennett was using, but he felt extremely energetic. The first class in the evening was self-study; some students were desperately memorizing questions, while others had no intention of studying, whispering in groups of three or two.

He had already marked all the questions he could remember, but most of them were only for the “X” part of the 3+X liberal arts comprehensive.

For the three main subjects—math, English, and Chinese—there were very few notes. This wasn’t Shawn Harris’s fault; even if you’d taken the college entrance exam, no one could have marked everything, because these three subjects all required flexible application.

Chinese was manageable, after all, David Bennett had been dealing with words ever since he graduated from college and joined a newspaper.

English was just barely okay. Over the years of working night shifts, David Bennett had watched countless original English TV shows and movies during downtime, from “Friends” to “House,” “24,” “Prison Break,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “2 Broke Girls,” “The Walking Dead,” and so on. His vocabulary, listening skills, and English sense were at least as good as, if not better than, when he was in his senior year of high school. What he needed to brush up on now were just some common grammar traps found in exams.

The real challenge was math. David Bennett had abandoned this subject for a good 13 or 14 years, and had forgotten all the formulas completely. With only a little over 40 days left, even a genius would cough up blood trying to relearn all of math, let alone someone like David Bennett, who was a total math dunce. It was simply an impossible task.

Fully aware of his limited time and abilities, David Bennett quickly clarified his review strategy: focus on the big picture, prioritize liberal arts, and give up on math.

As a 33-year-old middle-aged man, as someone who had been working in society for nearly 10 years, David Bennett told himself not to be rigid, not to wait for death—fortune favors the bold, the timid starve. He had to find a way.

David Bennett’s gaze wandered around the classroom, and finally settled on Henry Jordan.

Chapter 0003: Exclusive Record Password

At 10:40 p.m., after returning home, David Bennett didn’t want to read any books or do any exercises. He left the light on, lay down, and soon fell asleep.

When his mother came in to bring him milk and saw that David Bennett was already asleep, she gently turned off the light for him.

At 3 a.m., moonlight streamed through the glass, slanting into the room with a mysterious chill.

David Bennett woke up.

He actually really hoped that when he woke up, he’d see his home in 2014, but what he saw was a poster of Charlie Yeung with long hair on the wall. In the white moonlight, David Bennett was genuinely startled.

As David Bennett thought about it, he realized he had forgotten a lot of important information.

For example, the winning numbers for the Double Color Ball on August 12, 2014 were 1, 7, 8, 11, 21, 31, 1. If it were any other set of numbers, David Bennett might not have remembered, but this set was just too distinctive and regular.

For example, he knew the complete route maps for subway lines 1 and 2 in Songjiang City, as well as the planning maps for lines 3, 4, and 5.

For example, he had seen detailed gold price trend charts from 2003 to 2013 while proofreading manuscripts.

For example, he knew that around 2003, housing prices in China began to rise. In 2006, the provincial capital Songjiang City, 160 kilometers from his hometown Chunshan City, saw its first price surge, and 2009 was the second peak.

For example, he knew that 2005 to 2007 was a bull market for stocks.

For example, he knew Liu Xiang would win a gold medal, Guo Degang would become famous, Li Na would make her name known, Mo Yan would win the Nobel Prize in Literature, what the Olympic torch in Yanjing would look like, the basic design of the China Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, the winners of several World Cups and European Championships, how many foreign players Evergrande would buy to dominate the Chinese Super League...

For example, he knew the composition of several Songjiang City Party Committees, their governance strategies; he knew the promotions, demotions, and parachuting of officials in Beijiang Province, where Songjiang City was located, over the next decade or so; he knew the national-level governing policies and general trends.

At this moment, David Bennett realized that his nine years in the media, seven years as a newspaper proofreader—especially the compulsory reading nature of that job—had given his reborn self a huge wealth of information.

Holding a set of Double Color Ball jackpot numbers, David Bennett was full of confidence. He began to wonder what his future life trajectory would become.

After jotting down some key information in his notebook, dawn was already breaking.

In 2001, there wasn’t a trace of smog in Chunshan City. The sky outside the window was pure blue, and early birds chirped as they flew around looking for food.

David Bennett could feel the robust vitality and surging energy in his body now—something he hadn’t felt in over a decade, after years of night shifts, extreme lack of exercise, and a sub-healthy body.

His father had just returned from the morning market with fresh fruit for him, and his mother was making breakfast in the kitchen. Watching his busy parents, thinking about how in a dozen years they would no longer be in their prime, plagued by illnesses, with his mother’s pension and their only savings all going to hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics, and his father constantly worrying about whether he’d be affected by delayed retirement, David Bennett felt a heavy weight on his shoulders.