When AI becomes a language partner: a moderated serial mediation model of AIGC-supported communicative task engagement and learning enjoyment.

What happens when the fantasy of restarting life becomes a routine media script through which young people interpret failure, uncertainty, and future possibility? In contemporary China, short-form video and micro-drama platforms have become a highly visible part of young adults' everyday media consumption. Among various genres, rebirth micro-dramas have gained particular popularity. These dramas usually follow a stable narrative formula: the protagonist dies or is betrayed, returns to a decisive earlier moment in life, retains memories from the previous timeline, uses this informational advantage to avoid mistakes, and achieves rapid revenge, wealth, social recognition, or romantic success. Episodes are short, emotionally intense, and structured around fast rewards (; ; ; ; ). For university students facing academic competition, employment pressure, social comparison, and uncertainty about future identity, such narratives may offer temporary relief from the slow and uncertain process of real-life development (; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ). Existing research on short-form video use has mainly focused on addiction, perceived stress, attention, academic procrastination, learning burnout, and social comparison (; ; ; ; ; ; ; ). Broader studies of digital media and youth mental health have also emphasized that media effects should not be reduced to screen time alone, but should be understood in relation to content, context, and individual vulnerability (; ; ). These perspectives are important, yet they leave insufficiently examined how specific digital narrative structures shape young adults' self-understanding. Rebirth micro-dramas are theoretically relevant because they do not merely provide entertainment; they offer a compressed success script in which uncertainty is removed, mistakes can be reversed, and success depends less on gradual effort than on privileged foreknowledge. Research on narrative transportation, entertainment persuasion, and identification suggests that fictional narratives may influence viewers' beliefs, emotions, and self-relevant interpretations when they become absorbed in story worlds or identify with media characters (; ; ). The school-to-work transition provides a particularly important context for examining this issue. Career construction theory views career development as a process through which individuals connect past experiences, present choices, and future aspirations into a meaningful life-career narrative (; ; ; ). From this perspective, career difficulties are not only problems of information, matching, or decision-making; they may also involve disruptions in the stories through which young adults understand effort, failure, time, and agency (, ; ; ; ). Psychological capital theory provides a complementary lens by emphasizing self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience as psychological resources that support persistence and adaptive coping (; ; ; ). However, these resources are embedded in cultural and digital environments. Repeated exposure to narratives in which success is immediate, certain, and dependent on a “restart” may influence how vulnerable viewers interpret ordinary setbacks and long-term effort.