Chapter 3: How to Do It? Strike It Lucky!

"Solar power bank, stab-proof vest, wilderness survival kit, sleeping bag, tent, compressed biscuits, salt, small hand-crank generator, six small drones, anti-wolf spray, floral water, anti-inflammatory pills, two sets of spring clothing, two sets of winter clothing, one spare pair of thick-soled boots, a box of socks, an iron water bottle…"

After cross-checking the inventory once more, confirming everything was in order, Feng Xue tucked a waterproof pouch containing the first-aid kit, anti-inflammatory pills, and waterproof matches against his body, then finally slung the heavy pack onto his back and stepped out the door again.

"Accident insurance OK, medical assistance contract OK, yesterday’s payment has cleared, automatic payments are all set…"

As he walked, Feng Xue scrolled through various apps on his phone to verify everything, then began executing his planned course of action.

At three a.m. in winter, it was the darkest hour; even the city’s flickering lights had dimmed, yet walking alone down such a dim street, Feng Xue felt not the slightest fear.

He unlocked a shared bicycle and headed toward his meticulously researched target.

The highway at dawn was eerily silent; the sound of his bicycle beneath him was monotonous.

Feng Xue silently calculated the time, gazing at the distant horizon where a faint green light began to flicker, and a faint smile curled at his lips.

At the intersection, the green light flashed, then turned red; Feng Xue slowed and stopped.

Seconds ticked by; the red and green lights cycled several times, yet Feng Xue remained perfectly still by the roadside.

"Vrrr… vrrr…"

His phone vibrated softly; Feng Xue knew the moment had come. He muted the alarm, mounted the bicycle again, and began circling the intersection.

Before checking the number above his head, he confirmed the golden lock above it remained closed, then quickly adjusted his mindset.

Suddenly, the ground trembled slightly; a beam of light appeared from far down the road.

"Five, four, three, two…"

Seeing the red light now lit, Feng Xue spun his bike around and shot straight across the intersection.

The next instant, a massive hundred-ton semi-truck filled his vision; with a feedback that was hard to define as pain or not, the world around him began spinning wildly.

…

Darkness and dim yellow flickered alternately; Feng Xue felt dizzy, then suddenly his vision cleared—he lay sprawled on unfamiliar wasteland.

"Hahahaha! I did it!"

Feng Xue didn’t even check his surroundings before bursting into wild laughter, startling a chorus of harsh bird calls; only then did he realize this wasn’t the time to celebrate.

He clamped a hand over his mouth, stifling the nearly uncontrollable joy. Though the number above his head was still 3285 (had slept a day), he knew—his fate had changed from this moment on.

Wait, something feels off…

Feng Xue suddenly frowned, then noticed—in his over-the-shoulder view—beneath his locked lifespan, a new line of small text had appeared:

[Lucky Strike]

As his focus sharpened, a stream of information entered his mind:

[When subjected to a direct collision by a vehicle exceeding 100 tons, transit to another world.]

"Holy shit! I’m speechless!"

Seeing the same lock preceding [Lucky Strike], Feng Xue immediately realized this [over-the-shoulder view] was far more complex than he’d thought.

He tried locking [Lucky Strike]; the lock on his lifespan instantly popped open, just as it had when he previously locked someone else’s lifespan.

"So [Lucky Strike] can be locked too? But if locked, does it become guaranteed to trigger—or guaranteed not to? And earlier I assumed only one item could be locked at a time; now it seems maybe only one item total can be locked, no matter how many there are? Though honestly, it doesn’t matter much."

Feng Xue squinted, hesitating. After all, he’d only ever locked lifespan so far—and locking lifespan prevented external factors from altering it. The exact effect of this lock still needed more testing.

He disabled the over-the-shoulder view, squinted, and as he concentrated, tiny numbers appeared across his vision: the blades of grass, the ancient trees, even the birds hidden in the canopy—all revealed their lifespans.

But…

There was no [Lucky Strike].

"Come to think of it, the guy in the hospital I saw—crushed into a vegetative state by a full-insurance semi-truck, yet whose lifespan kept climbing—didn’t have this term above his head either? Or is it only visible to me? Or must I witness it directly?"

Yes, the reason Feng Xue had dared to risk crossing via a hundred-ton semi was because of two examples he’d found right after his initial transit:

One was the “lucky bastard” he’d seen in the ward—crushed into a vegetative state by a full-insurance semi-truck, the only human Feng Xue had ever encountered with a lifespan exceeding six digits.

By the time Feng Xue saw him a second time, the number above his head had tripled again.

If the existence of this man merely made Feng Xue suspect he’d been soul-transferred, then the corpse he later found while reviewing accident videos—half its body gone, yet still sporting a five-digit lifespan—fully confirmed the theory.

As for why he hadn’t immediately chosen [Lucky Strike] after realizing this—the reason was simple:

Transit was not guaranteed.

He’d reviewed tens of thousands of gruesome accident videos, yet fewer than five showed signs of transit. Such a low probability made it impossible for Feng Xue to gamble his life until the final moment.

Fortunately, the lifespan-locking feature of his golden finger had given him an idea—just like his ant experiment: as long as lifespan was locked, illness or injury wouldn’t affect its increase or decrease.

Non-fatal injuries would still occur, but in situations where death was inevitable, would the lock trigger an exemption?

To test this, Feng Xue specifically researched nearby large construction sites, tracked the routes of dump trucks and transport vehicles, and devised this plan.

And as for gambling…

Because Feng Xue wasn’t certain he’d succeed on the first try.

After all, the ants he’d thrown into fire crawled out unharmed; conversely, he might survive an inevitable death unscathed.

If that happened, aside from the possibility of failed transit, he’d almost certainly be treated as a suicide attempter and subjected to counseling—wasting days, maybe weeks. With only sixty days of lifespan, he couldn’t afford many attempts.

More importantly, even if he succeeded in transiting, his lifespan wouldn’t necessarily increase immediately. Finding a way to extend it within one or two months after transit might be no easier than doing so in this world, where supernatural forces were already confirmed.

"But I succeeded on the first try… Unless I’m just incredibly lucky… Could it be that in that world, surviving a hundred-ton semi collision unharmed is rarer than transiting?"

Lifespan can be simply understood as living until the designated time.

For example, an ant lives three days; if you remove its legs, it might still live past three days—but if you throw it into fire, it absolutely won’t. So the fire damage is immune. But an ant with legs removed can live three days, so removing legs is permissible, because losing legs isn’t a fatal cause.

As for claims that burning an ant is a gradual process from outside to inside—that’s clearly from someone who never used a magnifying glass to burn ants as a child. An ant’s body structure instantly chars into a ball upon heating; for an ant’s size, any “gradual” process is negligible.

The golden finger doesn’t judge whether you’re dead, but whether you will die. It locks the ant, so it can’t affect the fire—only the ant. Once the ant is thrown in, regardless of when it dies, under the premise that the fire can’t be extinguished, its death is certain—so this fatal cause is nullified.

A fatal cause is a whole. Don’t try to break it down. It’s like asking how a person died: the answer must be “laceration,” “exsanguination,” “asphyxiation,” etc.—not “because he lost the xccth blood,” “because the wound depth exceeded x cm,” or “because he didn’t inhale the xth breath.”

There’s no logic in splitting up a fatal cause, right?

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(End of Chapter)