Chapter 1

Gaoqi's life was unremarkable.

In 1994, at the age of eighteen, he graduated from high school.

He didn't get into college and joined the workforce, entering a state-owned factory on the outskirts of Tangcheng City—the Tangcheng Tool and Gauge Factory, commonly known as Tangcheng Gauge Factory, where he worked as a tool machine repairman.

From then on, he spent his entire life in that dilapidated, half-dead state-owned enterprise.

The only truly memorable and beautiful days of his life were the ones he spent with his wife.

His wife was a flower in the branch factory, beautiful, quiet, and sensitive.

He and his wife never officially dated.

He was a repairman, and his wife was an external cylindrical grinder in the grinding section.

In the summer of the year 2000, one afternoon, just before the end of the shift, his wife's external cylindrical grinder's intermittent feed mechanism broke, and he went to repair it.

At that time, everyone had already left for the day, and the workshop was empty and quiet.

After fixing the feed mechanism, he was bent over, head down, installing other parts at the machine.

"Will you marry me?"

His wife suddenly said from behind him, her voice low and calm.

He was startled, straightened up, turned around, and saw her, still holding a wrench, his face smeared with oil and confusion.

The oil on his face was from wiping his sweaty cheeks with his greasy hands.

He stared at his wife with wide, shocked eyes.

His wife was wearing a blue work uniform and a blue work cap, with her long hair tucked inside the cap.

Such ordinary work attire could not conceal her beauty, and the oversized work uniform could not hide her slender and graceful figure.

Without wearing her usual large safety goggles, her fair face and large, expressive eyes stood out even more.

"Will you marry me? I will marry you."

While he was still in a daze, unsure of what to do, his wife spoke to him again.

So, they got married quickly.

Despite his wife's parents' disapproval and their low wages, which would make their future life difficult, they still got married.

Unable to afford a house, they rented one.

Life was poor, but they were very happy.

They didn't dare to have children and saved money to buy a house.

Later, when they had a house and life gradually improved, they planned to have a child.

Tangcheng is a mountain city, and their house was on a hill.

One day, he rode a bicycle with his wife on the back seat to a hospital at the foot of the hill for a check-up.

As they approached the bottom of the hill, the bicycle's brake cable snapped.

The bicycle, like a wild horse, sped towards a crossroads.

The intersection was bustling with traffic, and the crosswalk light had just turned green, with a line of vehicles rushing forward.

He shouted loudly, telling his wife to jump off the bicycle, while he and the bicycle rushed towards the back of a truck.

The sound of screeching brakes echoed as the bicycle slid under the truck, and he flew into the truck's bed, unharmed.

His wife jumped off the bicycle and hit her head on the curb.

He would never forget the large pool of bright red blood.

That blood soaked a large area of the road and also soaked his future life.

He regretted not checking the bicycle's brake cable earlier.

A few days ago, when he was at work, the brake cable had been malfunctioning, and he should have checked it.

He regretted telling his wife to jump off the bicycle.

He thought that if she jumped off, she would at most suffer a minor injury and could have saved her life.

If she hadn't jumped, she might have ended up in the truck's bed like him.

But there was no "if"...

After that, Gaoqi's life consisted of only two things: going to work and drinking at home.

In the hottest summer of 2019, Gaoqi was found dead in his bed by a neighbor, having died from liver cirrhosis and ascites.

The day before, someone had seen him come home from work.

The next morning, a neighbor passing by his window saw the curtains open and him lying in bed in an abnormal position.

When they knocked on the door and got no response, they broke in and found his body already stiff, with a smile on his face.

That smile was happy, as if he had dreamed of his wife again.

When Gaoqi opened his eyes again, he was in the single dormitory of the factory.

A sixteen-square-meter rectangular room, with a door at one end and a wooden window opposite it.

Below the window was a three-drawer table.

On either side of the table were two single beds.

Gaoqi was lying on one of the beds, covered with a military-green quilt, motionless.

He had been conscious for the entire morning but had not moved an inch.

In his memory, the single dormitory had been demolished, probably around 2010, and converted into residential apartments.

He had returned to his younger self.

Was it a dream?

But it felt so real.

At noon, Zhang Bin, his roommate, came back.

"Gaoqi, why haven't you gotten up yet? Are you sick?" Zhang Bin asked, walking to his bed.

"No, just a bit sleepy," he replied lazily, then asked, "What's the date today?"

"The fourth," Zhang Bin said casually, then asked, "It's noon, aren't you getting up to eat? I can bring you something from the cafeteria."

"What month is it?" he suddenly asked.

"April, today is Qingming."

"What year is it?"

Zhang Bin, who was at the door, turned back.

"Gaoqi, what's wrong with you?" he asked, looking at him with concern.

"Nothing, just testing you," he managed to force a smile.

"Damn! What kind of question is that to test someone with?"

"See, you couldn't answer, could you?"

"2000, the millennium! I don't have time for your nonsense!"

"Hey, do you want to eat lunch? Should I bring you something back?"

Gaoqi reached under his bed to find his wallet.

If he had really come back, his wallet should be there.

Sure enough, the wallet was in the exact spot he remembered!

"Bring me two steamed buns and two yuan worth of dishes."

He tried to control his excitement, but his voice still trembled.

Zhang Bin didn't wait for him to take out money, grabbed his lunch box from the table, and left.

They had lived in the single dormitory together for five years, and their relationship was always good, so they didn't care about a few cents.

Gaoqi held the slightly worn brown wallet in front of his eyes and stared at it for a long time.

This was the wallet he used to have, and he had really come back!

In 2000, he hadn't married his wife yet, and she was still alive!

Without his wife, he had long lost the will to live, drinking to numb himself.

His liver had been hurting for a long time, and it hurt even more when he didn't drink.

He didn't care.

The sooner he died, the sooner he could see his wife again.

He died at the age of forty-four, on the day of Qingming.

He couldn't help but laugh bitterly.

Every year on Qingming, he would go to his wife's grave, drink until he was drunk, laugh, cry, and eventually fall into a deep sleep.

He quickly got out of bed and dressed.

He couldn't wait for Zhang Bin to bring back lunch; he had to go to the factory to find his wife!

Just as he was about to leave, he stopped.

His wife was also resting at noon in the single dormitory.

However, her single dormitory was in a different area.

Tangcheng Gauge Factory was large, with thousands of workers, and the dormitories were spread across several areas.

Then he thought of a more critical issue.

He and his wife had never officially dated.

If he went to find her now, she might dislike him, and they might never get married.

He had to recreate every detail of their past exactly, without any mistakes.

Otherwise, his wife might not say those crucial words, "Will you marry me?"

He used all his willpower to suppress his urge to see his wife immediately, sat on the bed, and waited for Zhang Bin to bring back lunch, trembling all over.

Zhang Bin joined the factory a year after him, coming from the countryside to take over his father's job.

This was the last batch of workers to take over jobs at Tangcheng Gauge Factory.

After that, the factory never recruited new workers.

With the existing workers struggling to make ends meet, why would they recruit new ones?

The massive layoffs that followed forced more than half of the workers to leave and find other jobs.

In the end, Tangcheng Gauge Factory had fewer than five hundred workers on the job, facing the prospect of being acquired by private capital.

Zhang Bin returned, holding two lunch boxes and a plastic bag with five steamed buns.

Zhang Bin had a big appetite.

When he first came, five steamed buns weren't enough. Now, he could only eat three, a significant reduction.

Similarly, the strong, bull-like muscles he had developed from working in the countryside had turned to fat, and his skin, once tough and dark, had become much lighter.

The two-yuan dish was stir-fried green peppers and meat, which smelled delicious.

However, Gaoqi's heart was filled with mixed emotions, and he couldn't eat a single bite.

To avoid arousing Zhang Bin's suspicion, he forced himself to eat half a steamed bun and a few bites of the dish, pretending to be full.

His excuse was that he had slept all morning and had no appetite.

Then, he went to work, walking there.

At the bottom of the dormitory building, his bicycle was parked, but he didn't have the courage to even look at it.

After his wife's death, he never rode a bicycle again.

Even though he had come back, he didn't plan to ride a bicycle for the rest of his life.

It seemed that the word "bicycle" was linked to his wife's life.

Without it, his wife would always be by his side.

Finally, he saw the factory and entered the workshop.

The Soviet-style pointed-roof building had a long corridor at the entrance. On the left was the grinding workshop, and on the right was the repair group's workshop.

Further inside were the milling and turning sections, where the machines roared and the sound of metal cutting was deafening.

His wife was in the grinding workshop on the left!

At this moment, Gaoqi's hands and feet were cold, and his legs were weak. He almost had to lean against the wall to make his way to the door of the grinding workshop.

The two rows of grinding machines were quietly arranged on both sides of the workshop, with a safety passage in the middle, just as it had been before.

However, there was no one in the workshop.