A Perfect Life

A Perfect Life is an urban-life web novel by Dao Yigeng, serialized on Qidian from June 17, 2015, and completed in April 2018, totaling about 4.61 million Chinese characters. The protagonist, Li Qian, is an actor who falls from a wire rig while filming and travels to a parallel time-space—another world in 1995. This world's history diverges from reality: after the Ming dynasty came the Dashun dynasty, and its social system has its own peculiarities. Returning to his high-school years, Li Qian uses the experience and cultural works of his previous life to enter the entertainment industry, starting with songwriting: he first wins his family's support with excellent grades, then writes songs for singers and works as a music producer, bringing the classic songs of another world into this relatively backward industry and quickly establishing himself in the music scene. He later moves into TV dramas and films, taking part in production and investment, and gradually founds his own entertainment company, becoming a key figure shaping the course of this world's entertainment industry. Beyond his career, the novel devotes a great deal of space to Li Qian's interactions and romances with the women around him; the cast is large and each character has her own personality, forming another important thread of the book. The pacing is slow, with attention to life's details and human relations, and it is regarded as one of the more accomplished works in the urban-entertainment and "transcribed classics" rebirth genres.