Brian Bolton's mind was a bit muddled; it seemed he had been reborn, fifteen years ago, in 2001, in Hefei City.

But somehow, things didn’t seem quite the same. Since when did the “Fei” in Hefei have the three water dots?

……

That was the year Beijing won the Olympic bid, and sodas at the little shop by Qianmen were free.

That was the year the national football team qualified for the World Cup, and the internet café owner gave everyone an extra hour of time.

That was the year “Legend of Mir” was all the rage, and if you hadn’t played it, you’d be embarrassed to say you knew how to use the internet.

That was the year Brian Bolton started senior year one.

……

That year, the people were still the same, but the stories had already changed.

Episode One: The Sun Shines Bright

Chapter 001: Live Well

History has a strange turning point; rewind once, and the world becomes both familiar and unfamiliar.

It was still the China busy hyping up the “Three Represents,” still Hefei, one of the four great science and education cities, still Kevin Bolton and Megan Bennett’s son, Brian Bolton.

Only, China was missing many things it should have had, and had gained many things it shouldn’t.

How much Hefei had changed was still unknown, but why did the character “Fei” now have the three water dots?

Brian Bolton found it unbelievable. The world had changed, and even he himself was no longer the clueless teenager about to enter high school.

On calendars, on TV, in newspapers, and from the mouths of those around him, it was all 2001, with August about to end, and he was about to start high school.

Everyone spoke with certainty, but only Brian Bolton himself knew that this year should actually be 2016.

They say a man stands on his own at thirty, and in this year of standing, fate had played a joke on him, rewinding the tape straight back to his first year of high school. It might have even rewound to the wrong tape, as everything he remembered was now blurred and unrecognizable.

Because next year was the CCP’s general election, his uncle and third uncle, who loved to discuss national affairs, would chat every evening in the front yard while cooling off, talking about personnel changes—President Jiang was stepping down, President Bai was taking over.

“The next General Secretary isn’t President Hu, but President Bai? How strange! It’s as if President Hu never existed, and who is this President Bai anyway?”

Brian Bolton felt he needed to figure out what was going on, and this thought even diluted the complicated feelings brought by his rebirth.

He rummaged through boxes, making a mess of the newspapers his grandfather had organized, and finally gained a not-so-clear but still reasonable understanding of his surroundings.

Fortunately, this was still Earth, and the trajectory of development hadn’t changed from Brian Bolton’s memory. The grand tides of history were unstoppable, but the details had become so twisted as to be unrecognizable.

The singers and celebrities in Brian Bolton’s memory—some had disappeared, some remained, but their works had all changed. The TV dramas and variety shows he remembered, except for CCTV’s “Zhengda Variety Show” and “Journey to the West,” had all changed a lot. Classic movies, music, and literary works—some had vanished, some still existed.

“Could QQ have disappeared too? Here’s my chance!” Brian Bolton was about to tremble with excitement, then casually flipped to the technology section of the “Hefei Evening News,” and saw a report: Tencent’s instant messaging software QQ, based in Shenzhen, had surpassed 2 million concurrent users, with registered users reaching 35 million.

His face darkened, and Brian Bolton consoled himself: “It’s fine, QQ is here, there’s still Taobao… but maybe not, Taobao’s parent company Alibaba was already founded… Weibo and WeChat could be worth a shot… but it’s a bit early, without smartphones, Weibo and WeChat aren’t realistic… Maybe I should try my luck in the stock market… but which year was the bull market?”

Feeling a bit dejected, after nearly ten years in the workforce, traveling all over, he had forgotten to pay attention to the stock market.

Flipping through newspapers, searching for information, pondering the future.

Brian Bolton suddenly felt very discouraged. He had achieved nothing in his previous life, and it seemed he still couldn’t improve in this one. He’d never played stocks, couldn’t remember lottery numbers, and even for next year’s World Cup, all he remembered was that the Chinese team conceded nine goals and slunk home. Who was the champion—Germany? Brazil? Or shameless South Korea?

Yeah, South Korea’s infamous black whistle—Brian Bolton remembered that clearly; they seemed to have made the semifinals.

“I clearly liked playing football, so why didn’t I pay attention to the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup!”

Brian Bolton wished he could slap himself, regretting not preparing for his rebirth by researching more online. But in the next moment, he realized that the era he’d been reborn into had its details twisted, and whether his memories could guarantee the right outcomes was unknown.

What if, next year, the Chinese team exploded and won the World Cup?

“If even President Hu can be erased, what’s so strange about the national football team winning the championship… Actually, it would be strange, since Chinese football is still pretty bad right now. Hmm, I wonder if they can even qualify. Last night’s Asian finals, China played Oman, 2-0, not bad.”

The changes in historical details left Brian Bolton a bit disheartened. Those ideas that could have made him rich all seemed useless now.