The night sky was dotted with stars.

  Moonlight, like water, on the crisscrossing ridges of the fields.

  At the end of the ridges was a small village with hundreds of families nestled at the foot of the mountain.

  Most of the buildings in the village were earthen houses, interspersed with a few small Western-style houses with red bricks and blue tiles.

  "Isn't this my hometown?"

  "How am I here?"

  Mike stared blankly at everything.

  His first reaction was that he was in a dreamlike illusion.

  So he started holding his breath.

  Although Mike didn't know how to get out of the illusion, he thought this method of waking himself up from a dream might work.

  Time passed.

  Mike's face turned red, his veins bulged, but he couldn't return to Death Shack.

  "How could this happen!" Mike couldn't hold it any longer and gasped for breath.

  Then, Mike reached out a hand and pinched the flesh on his waist hard.

  "Ouch!"

  The intense pain made Mike gasp.

  But compared to the pain, Mike was even more shocked!

  Pain!

  He actually felt pain!

  Wasn't it said that you can't feel pain in a dream?

  So what was going on?

  "Could it be that I really returned to my hometown?" Mike said in disbelief.

  He often read online novels during his free time, so he was no stranger to concepts like time travel and rebirth. Faced with such a strange situation, he naturally thought of it.

  Suddenly, a light shone from a distance and fell on Mike.

  Mike shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted.

  He saw a middle-aged man wearing a miner's lamp slowly walking over.

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  "Kid? You're finally back!" The middle-aged man recognized Mike and his voice became strange.

  "Uncle Lee?" Mike was blinded by the glare and couldn't see who it was, but he used his familiar accent to find the corresponding person in his memory.

  "Stop talking nonsense, hurry home and see!" Uncle Lee came up and pushed Mike forward.

  Mike was confused and said, "Uncle Lee, what's wrong with my family?"

  "You don't know?" Uncle Lee paused, his expression becoming serious.

  Mike shook his head and said, "I really don't know!"

  Uncle Lee's voice suddenly rose a few degrees, and he said with disappointment, "I've always thought highly of you since you were a kid, praising you for being smart and promising to everyone I met. Is this how you're doing?"

  "Your childhood friends all said you've changed, that you don't recognize poor relatives anymore. I thought those kids were just jealous that you could go to college and were talking nonsense, but I didn't expect it to be true!"

  The more Uncle Lee spoke, the more excited he became. After every few words, he had to cough to catch his breath before continuing!

  Mike lowered his head, his eyes darting around, afraid to look Uncle Lee in the eye.

  He had grown up in poverty.

  After going to college, he saw the prosperous world outside!

  Everything in the outside world made Mike feel lost.

  He knew nothing about the celebrity cosmetics that girls talked about.

  He had never played the games and entertainment activities that the boys chatted about.

  He couldn't even complete the homework assigned by the teacher that required a computer!

  This feeling of being out of touch with the world made Mike close himself off and avoid contact with others, so as not to expose the fact that he was an idiot!

  At the same time, he began to hate his background.

  He attributed everything to the mountains that gave birth to him and raised him.

  Even though he hadn't been home for two years, Mike still easily found his way to his own door.

  With his home right in front of him, Mike was a little afraid to step inside.

  On one hand, it was the feeling of being near his hometown and feeling uneasy.

  On the other hand, he also felt ashamed and didn't know how to face his parents.

  "Bro, you're already like this, and you still haven't told Mike to come home?"

  A rude voice filled with gunpowder came from inside the house.

  Mike recognized it as his uncle's voice.

  Then, another slightly weak voice, barely audible, sounded.

  "Cough cough cough..."

  "Just a small injury... it's nothing, Mike... is in college!"

  Mike's face changed. How had his father, who he remembered as strong as an ox, become so weak that he could barely speak?

  He didn't care about anything else, and rushed into the house in a panic!

  Mike's sudden appearance startled everyone in the house!

  "Mike, you... how did you come back!"

  The man lying on the bed mustered some strength, picked up the quilt, and covered his thin body.

  "Dad, what happened to you?"

  Mike couldn't believe his eyes.

  Two years ago, when he left home, his father was as strong as an ox, able to eat and drink heartily.

  But now, the father in front of him was almost indistinguishable from a junkie, skinny and without a trace of blood on his face!

  These were clearly two completely different people!

  "How did he become like this? Don't you know?" The middle-aged man by the bed, Mike's uncle, said angrily.

  "What does it have to do with me?" Mike protested.

  He hadn't been home for two years and didn't care about family matters!

  "Cough cough..." His father coughed violently and said after a while, "It's... nothing to do with you, I was just careless..."

  "Bro, it's come to this, and you're still indulging this little beast!"

  "No, I have to say it today!"

  "You always want to be a good person, so let me be the bad guy!"

  "If I can't even educate my own nephew, I'll lose face when I go out in the future!"

  The uncle's voice exploded like thunder, as if he had eaten gunpowder.

  "What did I do?" Mike also got angry and shouted, "Uncle, you're my uncle, but you can't scold me for no reason!"