The piercing alarm clock at 3 AM screeched, and Feng Xue, who had slept the best since his Transmigration and then spent an entire day lounging in bed, finally got up.
He re-enabled his over-the-shoulder view, and only after confirming that the number above his head had indeed turned into a four-digit figure did he finally feel a little relieved.
On the surface, this world was similar to the modern Japanese light novel settings common in his previous life's web novels; its technological level was similar to before his Transmigration, but there were only four continents, now called the Four Great Continents.
If he had to describe it, it felt like the Journey to the West worldview after experiencing an Age of Dharma Decline.
For example, the city Feng Xue was currently in was located on Yingzhou Island in the Eastern Continent of Divine Lands, and together with Penglai and Fanghu Islands, it was collectively known as the 'Three Immortal Islands.'
Legally, it belonged to the constitutional monarchy of the Great Tang, which occupied three-quarters of the Southern Continent of Jambudvipa and one-third of the Eastern Continent of Divine Lands.
Although online information suggested this world was a modern technological one, with no traces of supernatural powers besides some mythical legends that were similar yet different from his previous life, Feng Xue, relying on his Golden Finger, had come to realize the hidden horrors beneath this world's peaceful exterior during the half-month since his Transmigration.
At the beginning of his Transmigration, to confirm the authenticity of his Golden Finger and to extend his own lifespan, the first place he chose to go was a hospital.
This also gave him some understanding of his Golden Finger.
His Golden Finger was actually divided into two parts—
The first part was straightforward: it allowed him to see lifespans.
Although this 'seeing' by default focused on the 'person' his gaze was fixed upon, if he concentrated and generated the thought 'I want to see lifespan,' then as long as it was within his field of vision, whether it was plants, trees, snakes, insects, rats, or ants, he could clearly see their lifespans; even bacteria under a microscope were no exception.
This observation could be triggered not only through real-time observation tools like telescopes and mirrors but also through video recordings and even photographs—he discovered this when he saw a lifespan number on a patient's blurred photo on a hospital's medical record wall.
It's worth noting that the lifespan seen through mediums like photos and recordings was not for the time point recorded by the medium but for the time point when the observation occurred.
Under normal circumstances, the lifespan he saw was not absolute; at least in the hospital, he had seen those numbers plummet due to worsening conditions and also seen them slowly increase after surgery.
As for why he said 'normal circumstances,' that brings us to the second part of his Golden Finger—
Which was the over-the-shoulder view discovered not long after his Transmigration.
The starting point of this view could not exceed a two-meter radius from himself, and besides being useful for seeing other players' hands when playing mahjong, it didn't seem to have any special functions.
However, through experimentation, Feng Xue discovered that this view itself was merely incidental; its true core ability was the 'lock.'
Under the over-the-shoulder view, besides being able to see his own back of the head, it was actually no different from his naked eye.
But when Feng Xue generated the thought 'view lifespan,' a golden 'lock' icon would appear before the lifespan number seen through this view.
Through his will, Feng Xue could toggle this icon between 'closed' and 'open.'
When the icon was in the 'locked' state, the locked target's lifespan would not increase or decrease due to any external influence.
For example, Feng Xue once locked the lifespan of an ant that only had three days to live.
After that, no matter if he burned it with a lighter, poured boiling water on it, or directly squeezed it hard, it would not die, nor would its lifespan decrease; however, the normal passage of time would still cause the number to decrease.
Incidentally, if it was thrown directly into a fire, the ant would be unharmed, but if only one leg or even half of its body was burned off with a heat source like an incense stick, that was achievable.
In other words, after locking the lifespan, the lifespan would not be affected by injuries or illnesses, but non-fatal injuries could still occur; only in cases where the damage was certainly fatal would it be exempted.
After testing, Feng Xue could only lock the lifespan of one target at a time, and this locking action had to be on the actual body observed through the over-the-shoulder view, unlike lifespan observation, which could be done through photos, videos, or even telescopes.
Under unobstructed conditions, Feng Xue's operational limit was around five hundred meters, but in practice, considering various situations, he could generally only ensure precise operation within a sixty-meter range.
Although this ability seemed to have high playability and potential, it had no positive impact on Feng Xue's own lifespan issue.
After a full physical examination confirmed his body was very healthy and had no problems affecting his lifespan, Feng Xue could only focus his attention on the lifespans of others.
His idea was simple: whether it was cultivation or superpowers, if there existed supernatural powers that affected lifespan, then the other party would not be able to resist using them.
As long as he found individuals whose lifespans changed unnaturally or were far greater than normal people's, he might be able to find some clues about increasing lifespan.
And this also led him to notice some terrifying details that made him think deeply—
For example, on the streets outside the hospital, he occasionally saw scattered banknotes and coins; after some people picked them up, their lifespan would decrease by one to two days.
For example, in short videos where people celebrated birthdays live, the lifespan above some streamers' heads would even drop by a hundred days.
If these were guaranteed to happen, it would be one thing, but the real trouble was that this kind of lifespan reduction seemed to be probabilistic.
Similarly, when picking up money, some people would still lose Karma even if they turned it over to the police or put it into a Karma box, while others spent it casually without any change whatsoever, highlighting a complete lack of pattern.
What made Feng Xue's hair stand on end was that he suddenly realized the root cause of his own lifespan problem—
It was an email he found in the trash bin of his predecessor's mailbox during his meticulous investigation, the content of which was a classic curse letter: if the person who saw it didn't forward the letter to X people, they would only live for XX more days.
At the time, he just thought it was spam, but after discovering that many things in this world truly reduced lifespan, Feng Xue realized that this thing might be the culprit that left him with only two months to live.
However, since this world had supernatural factors that reduced lifespan, there was naturally also the possibility of increasing it.
With this thought, Feng Xue began to burn incense and pray for blessings at various temples and Daoist temples that claimed to be 'effective,' seeking nothing more than an extension of his lifespan.
But he visited many temples and Daoist temples, and his predecessor's savings were more than halved, yet the number above his head was still steadily decreasing.
After abandoning this time-wasting behavior, Feng Xue began to intensely search online for individuals with abnormal lifespans.
Then, he saw the professional mahjong player who had achieved a 'Pure Nine Gates for the first time in a public game.'
3286.
If this number were before his Transmigration, Feng Xue wouldn't have seen anything unusual, but in the few short days after his Transmigration, through continuously using his Golden Finger and calculating lifespans, Feng Xue developed an extremely high sensitivity to numbers, especially in converting between years and days.
He almost instantly recognized that this number was very close to 9 × 365, which is 3285.
Coupled with the keyword 'Pure Nine Gates,' it immediately triggered a legend about lifespan reduction in Feng Xue's mind—
In his previous life's internet, there was often the jest of 'lifespan mahjong,' and even more so, phrases like 'playing mahjong with lifespan' or 'drawing cards with lifespan.'
Although most of these were memes from mobile games and board games, the most widely spread one still came from mahjong's 'fatal hand.'
Hands with extremely low probabilities of being achieved, such as the Grand Four Winds or Eighteen Arhats, and Pure Nine Gates, were often dubbed 'fatal hands.'
And for Pure Nine Gates, because of the number 'nine' itself, a saying naturally emerged—
【'If you achieve a common Pure Nine Gates, you will lose nine years of lifespan, and if you achieve a Pure Nine Gates, you will only have nine years left to live.'】
And the moment this information appeared in his mind, what Feng Xue thought of was not lifespan reduction, but a wild idea he had when chatting with someone before his Transmigration—
If achieving a Pure Nine Gates only left nine years, then for someone whose lifespan was already less than nine years, wouldn't it actually add to their lifespan?
Later, it even spawned jokes like high-stakes dark mahjong games held every nine years, but as he thought about it carefully, compared to other high-risk, low-probability lifespan-increasing projects he had discovered, playing mahjong seemed more reliable?
Although he couldn't be sure it would truly increase lifespan, he had already found a plan where it was either success or death.
Coupled with the advantage of his over-the-shoulder view allowing him to see all four players' hands, he had a strong advantage in mahjong.
With the thought of 'it's worth a try before that final leap, and at worst, I can earn some funds,' he walked into a mahjong parlor.
He played for over ten days straight.