Chapter One: Why Am I Playing Mahjong When I Owe Years to My Life?

Page 1 of 3

At ten o'clock at night, the air in the mahjong parlor was thick with the nauseating smells of smoke and sweat. The tables bristled with the clatter of tiles, a cacophony woven from greed, fear, and hope. The tense, restless atmosphere was enough to exhaust anyone's spirit.

In this oppressive ambiance, Feng Xue stood out starkly from the others. He measured every moment, advancing and retreating with calculated precision. Unlike the gamblers around him, their eyes bloodshot with desperate losses, his own stack of chips had grown into a veritable mountain.

Dark circles ringed his eyes, evidence of many sleepless nights, and his whole appearance was marked by a profound fatigue. Such a state was the typical hallmark of those hopelessly addicted to gambling, yet in Feng Xue's weary gaze, there was not a trace of greed—indeed, not even a flicker of focus. He resembled nothing so much as a mechanical mahjong automaton, endlessly repeating the cycle of drawing and discarding tiles, utterly expressionless.

Suddenly, this mechanical young man straightened his back abruptly. At that same moment, the player opposite him, who had just drawn a tile, blanched to a ghastly shade. The man stared at the red five of circles in his hand, then glanced at Feng Xue’s river, where it was all too clear he was assembling a pure suit of circles. Cold sweat slid uncontrollably down his temple.

Yet, having declared riichi, he was bound to discard whatever he drew, even knowing full well this tile was likely to deal into a massive hand. Gritting his teeth, he slapped it onto the table.

“Let it be a mangan, let it be a mangan…” He prayed that the young man across from him would win with some modest hand; he dared not even wish for a half-flush. But as the red five struck the table, it was as if a great bell tolled, its sound echoing thunderously in their ears.

A relieved smile finally appeared on Feng Xue’s mechanical face. His neat hand of tiles toppled one after another like dominoes, and with each clack against the table, it was as though waves battered a cliff.

“Thank you for your discard. Ron. Pure Nine Gates. Double Yakuman.”

“What?” The opponent’s eyes seemed ready to burst with blood as he sprang to his feet. Feng Xue, however, calmly packed his winnings into his bag, unable now to suppress the emotions he had kept in check.

Gazing at the exquisite hand, the vanquished gambler considered the amount he had just lost on that single tile. Blood rushed to his head, and in his agitation he blurted out, “Kid! You dare win with a Pure Nine Gates? Careful, you might only have nine years left to live!”

The words had barely left his mouth when the hubbub in the parlor instantly died away. All eyes turned toward them, and many abandoned their own games just to witness this rarity—a Pure Nine Gates, the kind of hand seen perhaps once in years.

But with a measured cough, the crowd parted to clear a path. The owner of the parlor approached, his gaze level on the indiscreet gambler, his tone mild but heavy with authority.

“We’re all here for fun. Mind your words. Know what can and cannot be said…”

Page 2 of 3

The gambler, still hot with adrenaline, suddenly felt a chill run through him and stammered, “S-sorry, Mr. Chen, I just—”

“Never mind, Uncle Chen. I don’t believe in that kind of thing anyway.” Feng Xue placed his bag of chips on the table and flashed a smile at the imposing proprietor. “The usual—thirty percent for snacks for everyone, and just tally up the rest and wire it to my card.”

He let out an enormous yawn, and under the complex stares of the other patrons, walked out of the mahjong parlor, carrying with him the scent of smoke.

Did he truly not believe? On the contrary, he believed a great deal.

Watching the golden number above his head leap from 43 to 3287, Feng Xue nodded with satisfaction. “This was my goal all along.”

In high spirits, the young man returned home and collapsed onto his bed. Yet all of this had begun half a month ago…

…

“Damn! How did I transmigrate just by closing my eyes and opening them again?”

Feng Xue stood in the bathroom, bewildered, staring at the familiar yet strangely youthful face in the mirror. Disbelief was writ large across his features.

But more than his suddenly younger reflection, what caught his attention most was the brilliant golden number above his head—60.

“What is this? A cheat code? Sixty years of life? Level sixty? Surely it can’t be… that kind of number?” As a professional—meaning an online fiction writer—Feng Xue was quite open to concepts like transmigration and cheat codes. But as he pondered, the number above his head blinked—and then changed to 59.

“Well, that’s it. I’m doomed.”

Page 3 of 3

He pulled out his phone and glanced at the time—midnight. The excitement brought on by transmigration and a cheat code cooled instantly. Now his only hope was that the 59 denoted days, not hours or even minutes.

Perhaps it was the stress, or simply the aftereffects of waking up (or transmigrating), but his vision seemed slightly blurred, as if something clung to his glasses. Before he could reach up to rub his eyes, his attention shifted—and in that instant, a whole new field of vision unfolded.

It was an over-the-shoulder perspective, with a field of view and range similar to the naked eye, but the position adjustable. Specifically, any point within a two-meter radius of the midpoint between his eyes could serve as the origin, so long as his gaze was fixed straight ahead.

From this over-the-shoulder perspective, he could still see the number above his head, except now, a padlock icon appeared beside it.

“Could this let me lock my lifespan?” Hope flickered in Feng Xue’s heart, and he immediately tried locking it. But just as quickly, he realized he was being rash. With a thought, the lock opened again.

“Oh, so I can lock and unlock it at will?”

He was surprised, but didn’t dwell on it. With transmigration and lifespan reduction now facts of life, dwelling on the past was pointless; better to think about how to break the impasse.

After a bit of practice with the over-the-shoulder view, Feng Xue locked his lifespan and began investigating his environment with the meticulousness of a completionist scouring a game map.

Though he hadn’t inherited his predecessor’s memories, thanks to the ubiquity of the internet and biometric passwords, he could access the previous owner’s online bank account via fingerprint login, and browser-saved passwords provided a wealth of information. With an ID card in hand, even updating bank credentials would be no trouble.

In the days that followed, after confirming that the lock function couldn’t stop his lifespan from ticking down, he set out to search for ways to extend his life in this seemingly light-novel-like world. He tried hospitals first, then temples and monasteries, and as he compiled a list of options, he became almost instinctively adept at calculating the conversion between days and years, even growing familiar with the abstract nature of his golden cheat code.

Yet truly reliable solutions remained elusive.

Until, on the fourth day after his transmigration, he saw on the news that a professional mahjong player—hailed as the first ever to win with a Pure Nine Gates hand in an official match—had, above his head, an unusually high number: 3286.