Tang Xiao

Tang Xiao is an urban rebirth novel by the web author Luoxue Piaofeng, about 1.85 million characters long. It was serialized online and completed, with the common version running 571 chapters and closing with "An Unfinished Ending." The protagonist, Tang Xiao, is a 28-year-old orphan who has been unemployed twelve times and has been pushed to the bottom of society by life. Upon learning that the goddess of his heart—his first love and idol—has been murdered, he completely breaks down and chooses to end his life: the rope snaps, the poison fails, and he finally leaps from a thirty-story building—only to unexpectedly return to that afternoon twelve years earlier. When he wakes, he finds among the belongings left by the old man who raised him a notebook, with a Standard Oil Company share certificate from 1878 tucked inside its cover, and the gears of fate begin to turn. Carrying the memories of a failed life into a second chance, Tang Xiao relies on his foreknowledge of how the era will unfold, starting from the cracks in the capital markets and gradually accumulating wealth and connections, finding his own path amid the interstices of business, love, and family power. The novel's selling point is "a different road of rebirth"; its main thread revolves around financial investment, entrepreneurial management, and transnational maneuvering, and it also depicts the differences between Chinese and American cultures and business rules, as well as the protagonist's reflections on his own place and his country's situation beyond mere wealth. The author aims to write a growth story free of "idiot-plot" writing: opponents are not stupid, victories need buildup, and glory is only a moment.