Public Enemy of the Elite: A Rebirth Story

Rebirth: Public Enemy of the Elite is a modern romance novel by Xia Tingyin, part of her "Da Xiaojie Industry Fiction" series on Jinjiang Literature City, focusing on the real economy. Approximately 1.12 million Chinese characters long and spanning 273 chapters, it was serialized on Jinjiang starting in September 2015 and completed in 2020. The story unfolds from the perspective of Gu Xi, a foreign-educated female entrepreneur who built a beverage factory from scratch. Because she refused to compromise over a demolition order, she was branded a "nail house" and died under suspicious circumstances. When she opens her eyes again, her soul has entered the body of Gu Xi—a young woman living in poverty, dependent on a younger boyfriend, and constantly cadging money from her sister. Rebirth grants no extra emotional intelligence or cunning; all she can rely on are the insight, judgment, and execution she honed over years in the business world. Using her new identity, she sets her life in order and investigates the truth behind her murder while re-entering the arena where industry and capital collide. On the night she honors the memory of her former self, she rescues Cheng Qi—a young prodigy known as "Lord Qi" who wields immense influence in the art market—from being buried alive. The two meet and fall in love, and are thus drawn into a tangled web of identity secrets, ties to the past, and the entanglements of two lives. Told in the manner of industry fiction, the novel portrays the clash between hands-on business management and capital operations, and uses its rebirth premise to explore how women can stand on their own through sheer ability and how they can maintain equality in love.