I have to get lucky right away.

Chapter 2 When life is short enough, shortening it is the same as extending it?
The alarm clock made a shrill noise at three o'clock in the morning. After having the best sleep since he traveled through time, Feng Xue, who had stayed in bed all day, finally got up from the bed. He turned on the over-the-shoulder view again, and after confirming that the number above his head had indeed turned into four digits, he finally felt relieved.

On the surface, this world is similar to the modern Japanese light novel world that was very common in the online novels of the previous life. The level of technology is similar to that before the time travel, but there are only four continents, and the name has also become the Four Continents. If you have to say it, it feels like the world view of Journey to the West after experiencing the Dharma Ending Age.

For example, the city where Feng Xue is now is Yingzhou Island in Dongsheng Shenzhou. Together with Penglai and Fanghu Islands, it is called the "Three Immortal Islands". Legally, it belongs to the constitutional monarchy of the Tang Dynasty, which occupies three-quarters of Nanshanbuzhou and one-third of Dongsheng Shenzhou.

Although according to the information on the Internet, this world is a modern technological world, and there is no trace of supernatural power except for some myths and legends that are similar to those of the previous life, but in the more than half a month since Feng Xue traveled through time, he relied on his golden finger to realize the horror hidden under the peaceful appearance of this world.

At the beginning of his time travel, in order to confirm the authenticity of the golden finger and to prolong his life, the first place he chose to go was the hospital. This also gave him a certain understanding of his golden finger.

His golden finger is actually divided into two parts:

There is nothing much to say about the first part, it is about seeing the lifespan. Although this "seeing" is assumed to be the [person] who is focused on by his sight, as long as he concentrates and has the thought of "wanting to see the lifespan", then as long as it is in his field of vision, whether it is flowers, trees, snakes, insects, rats or ants, he can clearly see the lifespan, even the bacteria under the microscope.

This kind of observation can not only be triggered by instant observations such as telescopes and mirrors, but video recordings and even photos can also meet the triggering conditions. This was what he discovered when he saw the life expectancy number through a mosaic photo of a patient on the wall of the hospital medical record.

It is worth mentioning that the lifespan seen through observing photos, videos and other media is not the time point recorded by the carrier, but the time point when the observation occurs.

Under normal circumstances, the life expectancy he saw was not absolute. At least in the hospital, he had seen those numbers plummet due to worsening conditions, and he had also seen them slowly increase after surgery.

As for why I say under normal circumstances, we have to mention the second part of his golden finger——

That is the over-the-shoulder perspective that was discovered shortly after crossing.

The starting point of this perspective cannot exceed a two-meter radius. Apart from being able to use it to see other players' cards when playing mahjong, it doesn't seem to have any special functions. However, through experiments, Feng Xue discovered that this field of view itself is just a by-product, and its real core ability is the "lock".

From an over-the-shoulder perspective, apart from being able to see the back of one's head, it is actually no different from what one sees with the naked eye. However, when Feng Xue has the idea of ​​"viewing lifespan", a golden [lock] icon will appear in front of the lifespan number seen through this field of view. Through thought, Feng Xue can close or open this icon. When the icon is in the "locked" state, the lifespan of the locked person will not increase or decrease due to any external influence.

For example, Feng Xue once locked the lifespan of an ant that had only three days to live. After that, no matter whether he burned it with a lighter, poured boiling water on it, or simply squeezed it hard, it would not die, nor would its lifespan be reduced. However, the normal passage of time would still reduce the number.

By the way, if the ant is thrown directly into the fire, it will be unharmed, but if you use a heat source such as incense sticks to burn off a leg or even half of the body, it is possible.

In other words, after locking the lifespan, the lifespan will not be affected by injuries, but non-fatal injuries can still occur. Only when the injury is definitely fatal will it be exempted.

After testing, Feng Xue found that he could only lock the lifespan of one target at a time, and this locking behavior must be observed by the entity from an [over-the-shoulder perspective]. It cannot be done through photos, videos or even telescopes like observing lifespan.

In the absence of obstructions, Feng Xue's operating limit is about 500 meters, but in fact, considering various situations, he can generally only ensure precise operation within a range of 60 meters.

Although this ability seems to have high playability and potential, it has no positive impact on Feng Xue's own life span. After a full physical examination and confirmation that he is in good health and has no problems that affect his life span, Feng Xue can only focus his attention on the life span of others.

His idea was very simple. No matter whether it was cultivation or superpowers, as long as there was a supernatural power that affected lifespan, the other party would not be able to resist using it. As long as he found those individuals whose lifespans changed unnaturally or were far longer than those of normal people, he might be able to find some clues about increasing lifespan.

This also made him notice some terrifying details when he thought about them carefully - for example, one could occasionally see scattered banknotes and coins on the street outside the hospital. When someone picked them up, his lifespan would be shortened by one or two days.

For example, for those who live broadcast their birthdays in short videos, the life expectancy of some anchors will even drop by a hundred days.

It would be fine if these were certain to happen, but the real trouble is that there seems to be a probability of this kind of lifespan shortening.

Even if they pick up money, some people hand it over to the police or put it in a donation box, which will also shorten their lifespan. Some people just spend it without any change, which highlights the lack of any pattern.

What horrified Feng Xue was that he suddenly realized the root cause of his lifespan problem—

It was an email he found in the trash can of his predecessor's mailbox during his licking diagram investigation. The content was a classic curse letter that said if the person who saw it didn't forward it to x people, they would only live for xx days.

At the time, he just thought it was spam, but after discovering that many things in this world can really shorten one's lifespan, Feng Xue realized that this thing might be the culprit that caused him to only have two months to live.

However, since there are extraordinary factors in this world that can shorten one's lifespan, there is naturally the possibility of increasing one's lifespan. Based on this idea, Feng Xue began to burn incense and pray in various temples and Taoist temples that are said to be "effective", all he wanted was to add a little more lifespan.

However, he visited many temples and Taoist temples, and most of his previous savings were gone, but the number above his head was still steadily decreasing. After giving up this time-wasting behavior, Feng Xue began to surf the Internet intensively to find those with abnormal lifespans.

Then, he saw the professional mahjong player who "was the first in history to perform a pure Nine Lotus Lantern in a public competition."

3286. If this number had been before the time travel, Feng Xue wouldn't have noticed anything unusual. However, in the few days since the time travel, while constantly using the golden finger and calculating lifespans, Feng Xue had developed an extremely high sensitivity to numbers, especially the conversion between years and days. He could tell at a glance that this number was very close to 9×365 (3285). Adding the keyword "Nine Lotus Treasure Lantern," Feng Xue immediately recalled a legend about shortened lifespans.

In the past, there were often jokes about "fighting longevity cards" on the Internet, and there were also sayings such as "playing cards for life" and "drawing cards for life". Although most of them were memes from mobile games and board games, the most widely circulated one was the "death card" from mahjong.

Cards with extremely low probability of being achieved, such as the Eighteen Arhats of the Four Joys and the Pure Nine Lotus Treasure Lantern, are often called death cards. As for the Nine Lotus Treasure Lantern, because of the number "nine" itself, it naturally derives a saying -

[If you use an ordinary Nine Lotus Treasure Lamp, you will shorten your lifespan by nine years. If you use a pure Nine Lotus Treasure Lamp, you will only have nine years left to live.]

The moment this information emerged in his mind, Feng Xue did not think of shortening his lifespan, but rather a thought that came to him when he was chatting with someone before he traveled through time.

If the life span of a person who has a life span of less than nine years is only nine years after the combination, will the person's life span be increased after the combination?

There were even jokes that a game of dark mahjong for the elderly was played every nine years. But as he thought about it carefully, compared to other high-risk, low-probability longevity projects he had discovered, playing mahjong seemed to be more reliable?
Although he couldn't be sure that it could really increase his lifespan, he had already found a plan that would mean his death if it failed. In addition, the over-the-shoulder perspective that allowed him to see the cards of four sides gave him a strong advantage in playing mahjong. With the idea of ​​"it doesn't hurt to give it a try before the final leap, at least I can earn some money", he walked into a mahjong parlor.

This fight lasted for more than ten days.

(End of this chapter)