When the alarm rang for the third time, Chen Mo sat up abruptly; the date "2025.8.12" on his phone screen pierced his eyes painfully.

It was not an illusion. He really had returned to three years ago, that summer when he lost all his savings in the cryptocurrency market and missed the opportunity to turn his fortunes around.

His fingertips brushed through Binance's Qian'an, and AIAJ's latest quote was glaringly visible: 0.000...000506 (29 zeros after the decimal point). His heart raced; he remembered this number—this was the bottom price after it fell through the floor, and also the last calm before the storm.

"Pixiu Coin?" The thought flashed through his mind that Binance mistakenly identified AIAJ as Pixiu Coin, causing many in his previous life to miss out on this potential stock. Chen Mo took a deep breath, opened the trading app, and transferred all his remaining savings of fifty thousand to buy AIAJ at full price.

The days that followed felt like being roasted on a furnace. AIAJ bottomed out for a full two months, during which countless people mocked it as a "zero coin", and the forums were filled with insults. Chen Mo turned off all social media, only checking the K-line chart before bed each night—those zeros after the decimal point looked like bombs waiting to explode.

The turning point happened at the end of October. First, a prominent figure in cryptocurrency casually mentioned the similarity between AIAJ and MOCO's trends, and then the community began circulating a complete replay of the Binance incident. One Monday morning, Chen Mo was jolted awake by a notification on his phone; the price curve of AIAJ was like a lit fuse, shooting upward at an almost vertical angle.

He did not sell immediately. The missed opportunities for sudden wealth in his memory crystallized into certainty at this moment; he watched the price break through the 0.0{29} range step by step, then 0.0{28}, 0.0{27}, watching the asset numbers on the exchange page grow at a rate of seconds. When the price reached the 0.0{25} range, he sold in batches, and the balance on the screen finally settled at a number that made him gasp—his initial investment of fifty thousand had turned into nearly six hundred million.

On the afternoon of the day he cleared his position, Chen Mo walked to the window. The city skyline was outlined in gold by the setting sun, starkly different from the night he once worried about rent. Discussions about AIAJ were still brewing on his phone; some were cheering, some regretting, but none of that mattered to him anymore.

Rebirth gave him a chance, and this time, he held on tightly. The numbers in his account meant freedom, not indulgence in extravagance, but the confidence to say no to a life he disliked, and the time to fulfill those dreams drowned by the pressures of survival.

Chen Mo turned off the market software and seriously planned what to do on the first day of "life freedom". The wind outside carried the scent of autumn, and the air was filled with a brand new smell.