Back to 1998

Back to 1998 is an urban-life web novel by Mu Zixin, serialized on Qidian since 2020, about 2.46 million Chinese characters in total, and now complete. The story opens with the protagonist Xu Tongdao waking up to find himself back in 1998, at seventeen, during the hardest period for his family: his father, mired in gambling debts, has disappeared together with his late brother's widow, leaving behind a pile of debt; his honest, introverted mother struggles alone to feed three children; he has just finished the high school entrance exam, his younger brother is in the second year of middle school, and his younger sister is in the first. The family's first hurdle is simply putting food on the table. With memories of his previous life and an adult's mind, Xu Tongdao relies on no supernatural cheat; he starts from the most practical matters: recovering household goods that were carted away, getting back grain that was seized, dealing with village bullies, jumping into the river to save a childhood friend—first securing the family's bottom line for survival. Then he starts with a barbecue stall, slowly accumulates capital, opens a small shop, moves into restaurants, invests in small factories, seizes era opportunities such as internet cafes, and gradually grows the business. Much of the book is devoted to how everyday oil, salt, bargaining, and business calculation change a family's fate, shaping a pragmatic eldest son who is no saint. Family ties are the book's foundation: putting his siblings through school, sharing his mother's burden, and rebuilding a broken home are given equal weight with profit-driven business battles. After completion, the work circulated widely on piracy and proofread-text sites, with readers' praise centering on its down-to-earth, vividly lived-in detail; some readers also find the romance weak and the later business scope somewhat thin.