Chapter 4: Animals That Live Eight Hundred Years Must Be Suspicious!

After a brief surge of excitement, Feng Xue restrained his emotions and began inspecting the belongings he had brought with him across.

"All of it made it? Did I get a body transfer?" Feng Xue, confirming none of his prepared supplies were missing, couldn't help but feel relieved.

Though he had prepared thoroughly, he never truly believed he'd succeed—after all, every "crossing case" he'd found so far was either a vegetative patient or a charred corpse, clearly soul-transmigration types.

But considering Yingzhou Island resembled a Japanese light novel setting, where even soul-transmigration stories allowed protagonists to bring along sportswear, phones, and shopping bags, he'd still prepared.

And now it seemed his preparations hadn't been in vain.

"No signal on the phone, the radio tuner doesn't respond—but even as a database, it's not a loss." Feng Xue glanced at his phone, then pulled out a compass.

"The needle is steady, no erratic spinning—no unusually strong magnetic fields nearby, though I don't know if this world's north and south poles align with Earth's."

After completing all tests, Feng Xue took out a small drone no bigger than a palm and began operating it.

This drone wasn't high-end—just a two- or three-hundred-yuan online purchase, rated for a hundred-twenty-meter flight height, but managing to fly twenty or thirty meters without crashing was already luck; cruise control and image stabilization were terrible, only basic recording was decent, and its sole advantage was low power consumption—he'd bought six at once and stuffed them in his pack, counting as a reconnaissance skill.

It wasn't that this "Mahjong Saint," who swept through mahjong halls, couldn't afford high-end gear—Feng Xue simply doubted whether his few solar power banks could sustain the power needs of a premium drone.

One-touch takeoff: as the black drone rose with a buzzing hum, Feng Xue finally confirmed his current surroundings.

"No prominent man-made structures visible, the forest is fairly dense, distant hills roll in the distance… a wilderness mountain?"

Feng Xue frowned, maneuvering the drone in a circle around him but dared not fly far—only confirming the mountain's direction before switching the drone to follow mode.

The follow-mode drone circled above his head, streaming real-time footage to the remote screen; the once violently shaking lens gradually stabilized, and at this moment, Feng Xue, using this elevated perspective, activated his ability.

The thought—"I want to see the remaining lifespan of animals"—coalesced, and numbers began appearing on the screen.

His lifespan-seeing ability was flexible: as long as he could "see," he could activate it, and he could consciously identify targets—for instance, right now, he was observing the concept of "animals" to detect hidden dangers around him.

After all, there's a difference between "seeing" and "discovering."

While watching the numbers on the screen, Feng Xue pulled out his phone and used the "Species Encyclopedia Offline" app to photograph and identify surrounding leaves, occasionally snapping pictures of small animals marked with remaining lifespans.

"Yellow locust, autumn maple, camphor tree… all tree species that exist in reality; the animals are common types too—if they're not just coincidentally identical, this is likely a Parallel World similar to Earth, probably temperate or subtropical, though I don't know if this world has supernatural longevity-enhancing forces."

As Feng Xue thought of this, he glanced at the 【Lucky Strike】 above his head—his Golden Finger could lock only one item at a time, meaning if he locked 【Lucky Strike】, he couldn't lock lifespan; if this lock didn't mean "guaranteed activation," he'd be screwed.

"So I still need to find something else with a different tag to test." Feng Xue muttered inwardly, his gaze never leaving the drone screen.

After walking about ten minutes, Feng Xue inevitably began to pant—days of sleep deprivation and intense mahjong weren't undone by a single day's rest, let alone carrying over ten kilograms of gear; now that the initial excitement had faded, fatigue surged back.

"Seriously, if this is a 'reincarnation to another world' trope, why dump me in a remote mountain? Even if you don't send me straight to the divine realm to pick a dumb goddess as a 'travel companion,' at least drop me in a town! Don't light novel protagonists always get a helpful passerby to explain things? Am I the type who falls into a labyrinth or ancient ruin and gets picked up by an adventuring party?"

Gulping down some water, Feng Xue adjusted his breathing and once again controlled the drone to fly around—this mountain's forest was rich in timber, showing no obvious signs of logging, but from the drone's footage, he was clearly near the mountain's base.

So either this world was sparsely populated, or it didn't rely heavily on firewood as fuel.

"Hmm, or maybe the mountains surround me so tightly that I was transmigrated deep inside." Feng Xue muttered, then suddenly froze.

Perhaps due to constant focus since his crossing, Feng Xue's sensitivity to numbers had reached a high level—in the instant a long string of digits flashed across the drone's lens, he immediately reacted.

"Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands… damn! What the hell can live for hundreds of years? A turtle? But there's no river nearby!"

Feng Xue ordered the drone into hover mode, confirmed he was still in "view animal lifespan only" state, and felt a surge of excitement.

Based on his web novel writing knowledge before crossing, human lifespan was relatively long among animals—even creatures famed for longevity like turtles rarely lived beyond a few decades in nature; most confirmed long-lived Earth animals were aquatic, yet the lifespan reading from the drone pointed to a patch of grassland.

Even if this thing was newborn, a lifespan of several hundred years was absolutely not normal!

In that instant, Feng Xue felt a flicker of fear—but quickly suppressed it.

Switching to over-the-shoulder view, confirming the 【Lucky Strike】 lock was firmly in place, he gathered his resolve, controlled the drone to zoom in, slung his pack onto his back, and marched resolutely toward the eight-hundred-year lifespan.

Then…

"Bai She?" Feng Xue stared at the white shape coiled in the grass—so subtle he'd have missed it without close inspection—and frowned slightly.

Though Bai She symbolized longevity, in reality, snakes rarely live beyond fifty years, and a small snake like this, about a foot long, typically lived only two to five years.

So its longevity must be unnatural!

"Did it eat a heavenly herb? Or is it a demon that's cultivated for centuries?" Feng Xue crouched near the snake, watching the screen, unsure what to do next.

He'd found a creature with abnormal lifespan—but what now? Observe its behavior to locate a longevity herb?

Or try to capture it and eat it to see if it grants extended life?

As Feng Xue's mind buzzed with conflicting ideas, the snake suddenly lifted its head, flicked its tongue slightly, then dissolved into a flash of Bai Guang and vanished into the grass.

"What just happened?" Feng Xue immediately raised the drone, trying to track its lifespan—but quickly realized he didn't need to, because the drone screen, chasing the lifespan number, now showed his own face.

He turned, looked back—and two glossy black eyes met his gaze directly.

Regarding why ants are immune to fire while the protagonist crosses via luck…

Because this world has "car accident transmigration," though the probability is low; we've already mentioned cases of vegetative patients found in hospitals as soul-transmigrants.

Here, replace "transmigration" with other common phenomena to understand.

Like a lottery: big prize, no prize, small prize—no prize has highest probability, small prize medium, big prize lowest.

Surviving a collision by a hundred-ton truck at full speed is like winning the big prize; transmigration is the small prize; death is no prize.

After locking lifespan, "no prize" becomes impossible, so between big prize and small prize, the protagonist transmigrated.

Actually, the protagonist had prepared to try multiple times, but didn't expect to Succeed on First Try (the dice goddess rolled a 6, lol)—this is also why he played mahjong first.

With a sixty-day lifespan, if he survived the first try, he'd likely be taken in by police for reprimand and psychological counseling—this process would prevent another attempt for a while; but nine years are different—even if he Fail on First Try, he still has chances to try again. Can you understand now?

His Golden Finger can be understood as "locking probability"—turning random events into guaranteed ones. Locking lifespan ensures he lives to that exact number, but beyond that, he enters the highest-probability path.

Since ants in this world cannot transmigrate when burned by fire, they are simply immune to fire damage.





(End of Chapter)