44 minSeason 1 • Episode 24
LatestIn the year 2019, eminent physicist Ye You Ning travels back to his hometown in China from abroad after many years to take care of his ailing grandfather. However, after a thunderstorm, he finds himself transported back to his school days as a student in the year 2006. He discovers that the secret of his time travel lies in the mobile phone of Xia Wen Xi, his optimistic and sunny deskmate. As he attempts to go back to his original timeline by communicating with Xia Wen Xi through the phone and manipulating events in the past, he gets to relive his life in various situations, goes through regrets, and gets to know the gravity of the choices he had made and the true worth of the people he met, including Xia Wen Xi and his old classmates whom he had failed to cherish.
Acting
Patrick Shih nails the thousand-yard stare of a man out of time
Writing
Time travel rules that actually make emotional sense, not just plot sense
Production
2006 China aesthetic so accurate you'll smell the chalk dust
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 2006 setting captures China's pre-smartphone adolescence, when Nokia was king and QQ ruled teenage hearts.
The show quietly critiques China's 'gaokao' pressure cooker by showing what Ye You Ning sacrificed for academic success.
CN
