The butterfly effect (Butterfly Effect) is a concept in topology, defined as the phenomenon where an extremely small disturbance in initial conditions can cause significant changes in a system. The most common explanation is: "A butterfly in the Amazon rainforest of South America occasionally flaps its wings, which can cause a tornado in Texas, USA, two weeks later."
This is just a figurative way of speaking. In fact, countless butterflies in the Amazon rainforest are constantly flapping their wings, so people in Texas wouldn't have to do anything else but stay in the basement all the time.
Since Zhong Shi crossed over to 1984, he had been deeply pondering the issue of the time tunnel. However, with his years of professional knowledge, he couldn't explain this supernatural phenomenon at all.
The only relatively reasonable explanation was that due to lightning causing magnetic field disturbances, a wormhole suddenly collapsed under a powerful energy impact, coincidentally sucking Zhong Shi's soul into it, transporting him to 1984 in the past.
When Zhong Shi opened his eyes, he found himself in 1980s China, in a house made of yellow mud, with a dim kerosene lamp lit inside. The air was filled with a musty smell, and the only electrical appliance—a radio—was emitting a familiar voice: "China National Radio..."
"Where am I?" Zhong Shi was greatly alarmed. Just as he was about to lift his head to take a closer look, a tearing pain suddenly shot through his head, making his whole body go limp. His body, which had just risen a little, fell heavily back onto the bedding.
A nauseating dizziness filled his entire body. Zhong Shi used all his strength to shake his head, barely driving away the discomfort. He then felt extremely hot and wanted to move the heavy quilt off his body, but he had no strength at all. "Is anyone there? I want water." He shouted this in English.
Either his attempt to get up or the English words he shouted startled a small yellow dog in the yard. The dog perked up its head, heard the commotion inside, and barked twice to the woman who was drying corn at the door, then happily wagged its tail and rushed into the house.
"Huh? You're awake?" The woman, busy with farm work, heard the dog's barking and quickly put down her tools. She wiped her hands on her clothes and hurried into the kitchen in two steps.
The small yellow dog ran to the bed and started to whine, but as soon as it met Zhong Shi's gaze, it stopped playing and squatted there dumbly. A few seconds later, it began to bark wildly, barking and retreating towards the door.
"Stupid dog, what are you barking for? You don't even recognize Little Shi? If you keep barking, I'll starve you for two days!" The woman, coming out of the kitchen, shouted angrily. She held a thin white porcelain bowl in her left hand and a paper package in her right, rushing into the bedroom.
The small yellow dog definitely understood the woman's scolding, stopped barking instinctively, and lay on the ground, whining to express its unease. When Zhong Shi on the bed looked at it, the dog immediately avoided his gaze and turned its head away.
"It's good that you're awake, thank goodness. Quickly take this 'Analgin' and have a good sleep. Sweat it out, and you'll be better!" The woman entered the dim room, placed the bowl on the bedside table, and checked Zhong Shi's forehead temperature, visibly relieved.
After saying this, she opened the paper package, took out a pill the size of an adult's fingernail, and held it to Zhong Shi's mouth, indicating for him to swallow it.
She spoke in a very strange dialect, but Zhong Shi could still understand it was Chinese. Since the woman entered the room, he had wisely closed his mouth and said nothing, carefully observing her every move. When the pill was brought to his mouth, he obediently opened his mouth and swallowed it.
As soon as the pill entered his mouth, a bitter and nauseating taste spread from his tongue, making Zhong Shi frown. "Bear with it, just swallow it!" The middle-aged woman helped Zhong Shi sit up and handed him the white porcelain bowl. "Quick, drink some sugar water!" The woman looked at Zhong Shi with concern, a look he was very familiar with, often seen in his mother's eyes. But this woman, who was unrelated to him, why did she show such concern?
Suppressing his questions, Zhong Shi drank a large mouthful of water, swallowing the pill.
Seeing Zhong Shi take the medicine, the middle-aged woman sighed with relief, laid him back on the bed, and tucked the disheveled quilt around him. She then said softly:
"Have a good sleep, and you'll be better by tomorrow!"
After saying this, she wrapped up the remaining medicine, carefully placed it in her bosom, and picked up the white porcelain bowl, tiptoeing out of the room, not forgetting to call the small yellow dog, which was still whining on the ground.
With a creak, the wooden door was closed from the outside, and the dim room fell back into silence.
"Where am I? Who is that woman? What did I just take?" These questions kept swirling in Zhong Shi's mind, but before he could figure them out, the medicine took effect, and he fell into a deep sleep.
...
It had been two months since Zhong Shi came to this world, and he had a preliminary understanding of his situation. He had reincarnated into the body of a boy with the same name. It was 1984, and he was in a small village in northern Jiangzhong Province, China. Two months ago, the eight-year-old Zhong Shi suddenly developed a high fever one night, delirious and incoherent. His family was extremely worried, but the village clinic was closed, so they had to wait until dawn to take the nearly lifeless Zhong Shi to the clinic. The doctor, after a brief examination, casually prescribed some fever-reducing medicine and sent the family home.
The doctor knew that the boy had been brought in too late, and with such a high fever for so long, his brain was likely damaged. He might wake up as a vegetable. The doctor didn't dare to tell the family this, so he dismissed them with a few cursory instructions.
In this era, with such medical conditions, even the county hospital, dozens of miles away, wouldn't dare to perform a cesarean section. Tragedies like Zhong Shi's were common in rural areas across the country.
By a stroke of luck, Zhong Shi's soul had attached to this unfortunate boy's body. The previous Zhong Shi, who had been running a high fever, had already lost consciousness. Zhong Shi no longer found it strange that he could enter the boy's mind, having already experienced time travel. Being reborn as a human again was nothing compared to that!
The Zhong family was an ordinary household. Zhong Shi's father worked in the village, building houses and firing bricks, while his mother managed the farm and raised chickens and ducks. Many people in the village had the surname Zhong, so the village was called Zhongzhuang.
The previous Zhong Shi was often dazed and not very bright, so even at the age of seven or eight, his parents hadn't sent him to school.
The most famous family in Zhongzhuang was Zhong Shi's uncle's family, as they had a college student who attended Yanjing University, giving the family a high status in the village.
The only college student in the village was Zhong Yi. When Zhong Yi returned to the village for the summer break, he heard that his cousin Zhong Shi had fallen seriously ill and had become somewhat dazed, not recognizing many people. He liked this little cousin and often visited the Zhong Shi family, hoping to awaken his memory.
To his surprise, after spending time with him, Zhong Yi discovered that this little cousin was a genius, answering his specially designed questions fluently and even solving math problems that only middle school students could handle. Not only that, but he would occasionally speak a few sentences in English, which even Zhong Yi, a top student at Yanjing University, found hard to understand.
Zhong Shi explained that after the high fever, many strange fragments appeared in his mind, and he didn't know why. Zhong Yi asked him in detail but found nothing, concluding that his little cousin had suddenly become enlightened, self-taught!
This explanation was naturally not convincing, but in the countryside, where beliefs in ghosts and gods were common, attributing unexplained phenomena to supernatural causes was quite reasonable. Zhong Yi comforted himself, thinking that his little cousin had survived a near-death experience and suddenly become intelligent, surely due to divine protection.
In the 1980s, college students were not as firmly materialistic as today's students. Moreover, Zhong Yi, coming from a rural background, firmly believed in ghosts and gods.
Zhong Shi fully accepted Zhong Yi's explanation. Since his reincarnation, he had never encountered someone who noticed his abnormality, so he was naturally uneasy. But to his delight, this enthusiastic cousin had provided him with a perfect excuse.
Before his reincarnation, Zhong Shi was a staunch materialist. Although the universe held many unsolved mysteries, and most of his mentors and classmates at Caltech were Christians who firmly believed in God, he had been educated in China for so long that his mind was firmly materialistic, making it hard for him to accept Christian doctrines. But now, if asked whether there was a god, Zhong Shi would not deny it outright.
After understanding his situation, Zhong Shi was troubled by a common issue for those who had been reborn: whether to use his knowledge of the next thirty years to gain an advantage and benefit himself.
His previous life, though comfortable, was just one of many, working for companies and the rich, earning commissions. Now that heaven had given him a chance to choose again, he didn't want to work for others for the rest of his life.
However, he was now a variable in the historical process, like the butterfly that could cause a tornado in Texas. If this variable was too large, it could cause historical uncertainty, and his advantage in predicting the future would be lost.
After much consideration, Zhong Shi decided to stay behind the scenes and push his cousin Zhong Yi to the forefront, working together to build a hidden wealth empire! After making this decision, Zhong Shi began to intentionally or unintentionally impart knowledge about international financial markets and future famous figures to his cousin.
Zhong Yi was still in the dark, completely unaware of all this.