Walking along the bumpy country path, I felt both excited and anxious. Time travel—this was something I had only ever seen in online novels in my previous life. It sounded wonderful: every time traveler used their knowledge ahead of the times to achieve great success. Those who traveled to ancient times either became famous generals or renowned ministers, and some even became founding emperors. Those who traveled to the modern era or recent past all ended up as super-rich tycoons, or powerful officials dominating the scene, living in glory. But I still couldn’t help feeling uneasy. How should I put it? Because in my previous life, I was a typical grassroots person, with ambitions higher than the sky but a fate as fragile as paper. My unsatisfactory life made me a fatalist. I believed that a person’s life was predestined by heaven. If heaven destined me to be an ordinary nobody, even if I traveled back thirty years to live again, the result would be the same. That was truly terrifying. To suffer through such a painful life once was already too much—how could I bear to go through it again?

Sigh, things have come to this, and being afraid is useless. Life still has to go on, day by day. I can’t just drown myself right after time traveling, can I?

The thought of drowning myself made me stop in my tracks and walk over to a pond to look at my reflection.

The clear water revealed a childish, delicate little face, which looked somewhat similar to my son when he was seven or eight in my previous life. Everyone said my son looked a lot like me when I was young. It seems there’s no doubt—I really have come back.

Chapter 2: So Depressed, So Depressed

I slowly walked to school. Liujia Mountain Primary School was indeed as dilapidated and broken as I remembered.

Hearing the crisp sound of students reading aloud, I suddenly realized that the first problem after time traveling had appeared—I absolutely couldn’t remember the names of my childhood friends. I didn’t even know the name of my first-grade teacher, and I had even forgotten what she looked like.

Luckily, I still remembered the general location of the classroom.

It was on the left side, but I couldn’t recall whether it was the first or second room.

Solving this problem wasn’t too hard; there were two ways. The first was to wait outside the school for a while and go in with a familiar classmate (I wouldn’t recognize them, but they would definitely recognize me). The second way was to peek into each classroom one by one; classmates who knew me would probably greet me.

At the same time, I remembered something else. I recalled that I had three older sisters, and the third sister was only two years older than me. In my previous life, she should have been attending the same primary school as me. By rights, she should be going to school with me, so why didn’t I see her? If my third sister went to school with me, at least I could ask her the teacher’s name and which classroom it was.

Could it be that after time traveling back, even the structure of my family had changed? God, am I going to become an only child? That would be terrible. Although I was frustrated in my previous life, my siblings and I were very close. I really don’t want to time travel only to lose all my family bonds.

“John Walker……” I couldn’t help but respond, and when I looked up, I saw a young woman with ear-length short hair smiling at me.

Although I couldn’t remember the name or appearance of my first-grade teacher from my previous life, I did remember she was a female teacher. Seeing this woman holding a textbook, she must be a teacher at the school.

“Hello, teacher!” I quickly greeted her respectfully.

The woman was momentarily surprised, then her face lit up with a smile. She nodded repeatedly, walked over, patted my head, and praised, “Children from staff families really are different. So young, yet so polite.” I couldn’t help but laugh to myself.

What’s the big deal? In my previous life, I lived to be forty, a law-abiding citizen of the twenty-first century—how could I not know basic manners?

When you’re happy, your mind works especially fast. I thought, I’m just a little kid who’s only been in first grade for a few days, yet this teacher called my name right away—she’s almost certainly the first-grade teacher.

“Come on, class is about to start. Go in with the teacher.” Sure enough, just as I expected, haha!

Walking into the classroom, I was stumped again—I didn’t know where to sit!

I hesitated for a moment, but luckily, a little girl solved the problem for me. She was originally sitting in a spot near the middle (back then, in rural primary schools, it wasn’t one desk per person, but two people sharing a long table and bench). When she saw me walk in, she naturally scooted over a bit, making room for me.

Heh, this must be my seat.

“Class, open your Chinese textbooks to page five. This lesson, we’re still learning new characters…”

I took out my Chinese textbook, its cover wrapped in newspaper, from my schoolbag, turned to page five, and saw characters like “日” (sun) and “土” (earth), with pinyin marked above. I couldn’t help but smile wryly.

Damn it, in my previous life, all I ever saw in online novels were the glories and benefits of time travel. No one ever told me that if you were unlucky enough to become a seven-year-old primary school student, you’d have to sit in class all day with your hands behind your back, obediently learning new characters, reciting “sun, moon, water, earth” and the like. How are you supposed to get through days like this?