Chapter Two: When Life Is Short Enough, Does Losing Years Equal Gaining Years?

At three o’clock in the morning, the alarm clock emitted a piercing clamor. After having the best sleep since crossing over, Feng Xue, who had lingered in bed the entire day, finally dragged himself up. He once again activated his over-the-shoulder perspective and, upon confirming that the numbers above his head had indeed become four digits, felt somewhat reassured.

On the surface, this world resembled a modern Japanese light novel setting common in his previous life, with technology comparable to that before his crossing, but there were only four continents, renamed the Four Great Continents. If one had to describe it, it felt like the world of Journey to the West after entering a post-law era.

For example, the city Feng Xue currently resided in was on Yingzhou Island in the Eastern Sheng Divine Continent. Along with Penglai and Fanghu Islands, it was collectively known as the “Three Immortal Islands” and legally belonged to the constitutional monarchy of the Great Tang, which controlled three-quarters of the Southern Jambu Continent and one-quarter of the Eastern Sheng Divine Continent.

Although online information suggested this was a modern technological world with no traces of supernatural power apart from some vaguely familiar mythological legends, in the more than half a month since his arrival, Feng Xue had come to realize, through his unique talent, the terrifying truths concealed beneath this peaceful facade.

At the very beginning of his crossing, to verify the authenticity of his talent and to extend his lifespan, the first place he chose to visit was a hospital. This also gave him a certain understanding of his talent.

His talent actually consisted of two parts—

The first was straightforward: seeing lifespan. This “seeing” was by default focused on a person within his sight, but as long as he concentrated and had the thought “I want to see the lifespan,” he could clearly see the lifespan of anything within his vision—be it plants, animals, or even insects and rodents. Even bacteria under a microscope were no exception.

This observation could be triggered instantly through telescopes, mirrors, or similar tools, as well as through videos or photographs—something he discovered when he saw lifespan numbers on a pixelated patient photo on the hospital’s medical record wall.

Notably, the lifespan seen through photos or videos was not the time recorded when the medium was created, but the moment of observation.

Normally, the numbers he saw were not absolute. In the hospital, he witnessed numbers plummet drastically due to worsening illness and also saw them slowly increase after surgery.

As for why this was considered normal, one had to mention the second part of his talent—

That over-the-shoulder perspective he discovered shortly after crossing over.

The starting point of this perspective could not extend beyond two meters from his own radius. Aside from peeking at others’ tiles during mahjong, it seemed to have no special function. Yet through experimentation, Feng Xue found that the perspective itself was incidental; its true core ability was the “lock.”

From this viewpoint, besides seeing the back of his own head, it was no different from normal vision. However, when Feng Xue held the thought “view lifespan,” a golden lock icon would appear before the lifespan number. Through his will, he could toggle this icon to lock or unlock the lifespan. When locked, the lifespan of the subject would neither increase nor decrease due to any external influences.

For instance, Feng Xue once locked the lifespan of an ant that only had three days left to live. Afterwards, no matter if he burned it with a lighter, poured boiling water on it, or squeezed it forcefully, it neither died nor lost any lifespan, though normal passage of time still reduced the number.

To add, if the ant was directly thrown into a fire, it remained unharmed. But if a heat source like an incense stick burned off a leg or half its body, that was possible.

This meant that locking lifespan prevented damage or illness from affecting lifespan, but non-lethal injuries still occurred. Only when the damage was inevitably fatal would it be nullified.

Tests showed Feng Xue could lock the lifespan of only one target at a time, and the locking action required observing the real target through the over-the-shoulder view—it could not be done through photos, videos, or telescopes like regular lifespan viewing.

In an unobstructed environment, his operational limit was about 500 meters, but realistically, considering various factors, he could accurately operate within about 60 meters.

Although this ability seemed to hold great potential and fun, it did not positively affect Feng Xue’s own lifespan. After a full physical examination confirmed his body was very healthy with no lifespan-impacting issues, he focused his attention on others’ lifespans.

His reasoning was simple: whether cultivation or superpowers, any supernatural force that affected lifespan would inevitably be used. By finding individuals whose lifespan changed unnaturally or who had far more than normal lifespans, he might uncover clues to extending life.

This led him to notice some chilling details—

For example, occasionally seeing scattered paper money and coins on the streets outside the hospital; when some people picked them up, their lifespan decreased by one or two days.

Or watching short videos of live birthday celebrations where some streamers’ lifespans dropped by over a hundred days instantly.

If these were guaranteed occurrences, it would be one thing. The real trouble was that this lifespan reduction seemed probabilistic.

Picking up money sometimes reduced lifespan whether handed to police or thrown into donation boxes, while sometimes spending it casually caused no change—entirely unpredictable.

What horrified Feng Xue most was the sudden realization of the root of his own lifespan problem—

It was in his “licking the scene” investigation of his predecessor’s email trash folder where he found an email containing a classic curse: if the reader did not forward the message to a certain number of people, they could only live a certain number of days.

At the time, he thought it was spam. But after discovering many things in this world truly reduced lifespan, Feng Xue realized this might be the culprit behind his remaining two months of life.

However, since the world had supernatural factors that shortened life, naturally there might be ways to extend it. With this in mind, Feng Xue began burning incense and praying at various temples and Taoist shrines, seeking to add some spare years.

Yet despite visiting many temples and spending more than half of his predecessor’s savings, the numbers above his head continued to decline steadily. Abandoning this futile effort, Feng Xue turned to intensive internet research to find individuals with abnormal lifespans.

Then, he saw the professional mahjong player who, for the first time in recorded history, achieved a pure Nine Gates hand in a public competition.

The number 3286—if seen before crossing over, Feng Xue wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual, but after days of using his talent to calculate lifespan, he had developed a keen sensitivity to numbers, especially when converting years to days. This number was strikingly close to 9 times 365, which is 3285. Coupled with the keyword “Nine Gates,” a legend about lifespan loss instantly triggered in Feng Xue’s mind—

In his previous life’s online world, jokes about “fighting lifespan with tiles” were common, with phrases like “playing lifespan cards” or “drawing lifespan cards.” Mostly gaming memes, but the most widely spread was the “death tile” from mahjong.

Rare hands like Big Four Winds, Eighteen Arhats, and the pure Nine Gates were often called “death tiles.” Because the number nine was involved, a saying naturally emerged:

“Winning with a normal Nine Gates hand costs nine years of life; winning with a pure Nine Gates leaves only nine years to live.”

Yet at that moment, Feng Xue didn’t think about lifespan loss; instead, he recalled a thought he had before crossing—if winning pure Nine Gates leaves only nine years, then for someone whose life was less than nine years, would it actually extend their life?

Later, this gave rise to jokes about a “Dark Mahjong for the Elderly” held every nine years. After pondering, compared to other high-risk, low-probability life-extending methods he found, playing mahjong seemed more reliable.

While uncertain if it truly extended life, he had found a plan with nothing to lose. Plus, his over-the-shoulder perspective allowed him to see all four players’ tiles, giving him a strong advantage in mahjong. Thinking “why not try before the final leap—at worst, I can earn some money,” he entered a mahjong parlor.

And he played for over ten days straight.