At ten o'clock at night, the stench, smoke, and sweat in the mahjong parlor were nauseating, and the cacophony rising from each mahjong table, mixed with greed, fear, and hope, created a tense and exhausting atmosphere.
In such an environment, Feng Xue stood out from the others; he assessed the situation, advanced and retreated with moderation, and compared to those gamblers whose eyes were red from losing, his pile of chips had already formed a small mountain.
He had deep dark circles under his eyes, and the numerous problems caused by long-term staying up late made him look extremely tired.
This kind of physical state usually appeared on those gambling addicts who indulged in gambling day and night, but in Feng Xue's tired eyes, there was not the slightest trace of greed; no, in those eyes, there was not even a hint of focus, he was like a mahjong machine without joy or sorrow, constantly repeating the cycle of drawing and discarding tiles.
Suddenly, this mechanical young man abruptly straightened his back, and at the same time, the opponent who had just finished drawing a tile had an extremely dark expression.
He looked at the red five of bamboos in his hand, then raised his head to glance at Feng Xue's discard pile, which almost clearly indicated he was going for a pure suit of bamboos, and cold sweat uncontrollably trickled down his forehead.
However, having declared a riichi, he had to discard whatever he drew, even if he knew there was a high probability that this tile would lead to a ron, he still had to grit his teeth and slap it onto the table.
"Mangan, mangan, mangan, mangan…"
Praying incessantly that the young man opposite would go out on a smaller hand, he didn't even dare to hope that the opponent's hand was a mixed suit, but as the red five of bamboos touched the table, it was as if a grand bell resounded at that moment.
A relieved smile appeared on Feng Xue's seemingly mechanical face; the neatly arranged tiles in front of him fell down one by one like dominoes, and with each tile touching the table, it was as if a monstrous wave crashed against a cliff.
"Gomen nasai, Ron, Pure Nine Gates, double yakuman."
"What?" The opponent's eyes seemed to spew blood as he sprang up, but Feng Xue merely unhurriedly packed the chips beside him into his backpack, his suppressed emotions no longer concealable.
Looking at the incredibly beautiful hand, the opposing gambler thought of the amount he had lost on that one tile, and a rush of blood went to his head, causing him to blurt out:
"Kid! You dare to go out on a Pure Nine Gates? Be careful, you might only have nine years left to live!"
As soon as the words fell, the originally noisy mahjong parlor instantly fell silent, and gazes converged, with many gamblers even disregarding their own games, just to witness this Pure Nine Gates, a sight rarely seen in years.
However, accompanied by a soft cough, everyone made way, and then the owner of the mahjong parlor slowly walked over; he looked directly at the gambler who had spoken without thinking, his tone calm but filled with pressure:
"Everyone is here to play, there's a limit to what can be said and what cannot be said…"
The gambler, who had been momentarily hot-headed, instantly felt a chill run down his spine and quickly said:
"Yes, I'm sorry, Mr. Chen, I was just for a moment…"
"It's alright, Uncle Chen, I don't believe in that anyway." Feng Xue placed the bag full of chips on the mahjong table and smiled at the dignified owner:
"The usual, thirty percent for everyone's late-night snack, and the rest, just count it and transfer it to my card!"
With that, he let out a big yawn and, amidst the complex gazes of a group of customers, walked out of the mahjong parlor, smelling of smoke.
Did he really not believe it?
He believed it too much!
Looking at the number above his head that had jumped from 43 to 3287, Feng Xue nodded with satisfaction—
"My goal was this all along!"
The young man, feeling refreshed, returned to his home and collapsed onto his bed, and the beginning of all this had to be traced back to half a month ago…
…
"Damn! How did I Transmigrate just by closing and opening my eyes?"
Feng Xue stood in the bathroom with a bewildered expression, looking at his familiar yet strange reflection in the mirror, his still somewhat youthful face filled with disbelief.
But more than the several-years-younger self in the mirror, he was more concerned about the golden number above his head in the mirror—
60.
"What is this? A Golden Finger? Does it mean I can live for sixty more years? Or is my Rank sixty? It can't be the number of *that*, can it?" As an insider (referring to a web novel writer), Feng Xue had a fairly high acceptance of things like Transmigration and Golden Fingers, but just as he was pondering, the number above his head suddenly flashed, and then… it turned into 59.
"Oh-oh, I'm done for!"
Feng Xue took out his phone and glanced at the 00:00 time; his heart, which had been burning with excitement due to the Transmigration and Golden Finger, instantly turned ice cold. At this moment, his only hope was that this 59 really meant days, and not hours or even minutes.
Perhaps it was due to excessive mental stress, or simply having just woken up (Transmigration), he felt as if there was something on his eyeglass lens, slightly blurry.
However, before he could reach out to rub his eyes, the moment his attention focused, a brand new field of vision suddenly unfolded.
It was a perspective similar to an over-the-shoulder view, with a visual range and breadth similar to the naked eye, but the position was adjustable; specifically, any point within a two-meter radius, with the midpoint of the line connecting his two eyes as the sphere's center, could serve as the starting point of the field of vision, but the line of sight had to be directly facing the center of the line connecting his two eyes.
In this over-the-shoulder view, he could still see the number above his head, but in front of the number, there was also an icon similar to a "lock."
"Can this thing lock my lifespan?" A glimmer of hope arose in Feng Xue's heart, and he immediately locked it, but then he realized he had been a bit impulsive; however, as his thoughts turned, the lock also opened.
"Oh, it can be locked and unlocked at any time?"
Feng Xue was somewhat surprised by this but didn't dwell on it too much; since Transmigration and lifespan had already become established facts, rather than dwelling on the past, it was better to think more about how to break the situation.
After briefly adapting to the "over-the-shoulder view," Feng Xue locked his lifespan and then began a meticulous reconnaissance, much like a completionist scouring a map.
Although he hadn't inherited the memories of his predecessor, thanks to the internet era and the popularization of biometric passwords, he could log into his predecessor's online banking account via fingerprint and obtain various information about his predecessor through browser's "remember password." And after finding his ID card, even changing passwords at the bank was no longer a troublesome matter.
In the time that followed, after discovering that the 【Lock】 function of the over-the-shoulder view could not stop the loss of lifespan, he began to search for methods to extend his life in this world, which superficially resembled a Japanese light novel worldview.
Initially, he went to hospitals, then to Daoist temples and Buddhist monasteries. While finding many backup solutions, his conversion of time between 'days' and 'years' reached an almost instinctive level, and he gradually became familiar with that somewhat abstract Golden Finger.
However, truly reliable solutions were indeed few.
Until, on the fourth day of his Transmigration, he saw a slightly abnormal number—3286—above the head of a professional mahjong player on the news, who was hailed as having "for the first time in history, gone out on a Pure Nine Gates in an official match."