Chapter 85: Murong Jia Jia's Doubts on Prolonging Life

"What are you saying? Dong Yumin should have died long ago, yet she's still alive because Chen Zheng is giving his life to her?" I asked Murong Jia Jia in disbelief.

Murong Jia Jia's tone was light and airy, but those few words struck my heart like a thousand‑ton boulder, leaving me dazed for a good while.

Exchanging lives, a dead person? Dong Yumin isn't weak because of some chronic illness, is she? And she said Chen Zheng is prolonging Dong Yumin's life—that's just too fantastical.

I stood there stunned, unable to react for a moment. Prolonging and exchanging lives have always been taboos in this line of work. Daoists incur the five flaws and three shortcomings besides having an evil heart. Prolonging someone's life is one of them; the reason is simple: what is borrowed must be repaid. To prolong one person's life you inevitably draw from another's, saving them while harming them. Or it involves resorting to heretical, forbidden arts that defy heaven. But no matter which, those who prolong others' lives never end well.

"It's true, did you notice their hands? There's a string of red lover's knots on their wrists." Seeing my disbelief, Murong Jia Jia whispered again.

After she said that, I vaguely recalled. Chen Zheng and Dong Yumin's wrists indeed each had a red cord. Although such an ornament doesn't match the identity of Chen Zheng, the underworld boss, it doesn't rule out that the couple is deeply in love and the knot is merely their love token.

"It's just a lover's knot, what's strange about that?" I scratched my head, unable to help feeling doubtful.

"It's not that simple a lover's knot; it's a dou knot," Murong Jia Jia explained slowly, then spoke solemnly, word by word: "It's a Big Dipper knot."

Murong Jia Jia told me that the two strings of lover's knots on Chen Zheng and Dong Yumin's wrists were not merely bracelets; they were a medium for exchanging lives. When I entered this house, she had already awakened from the jade pendant. She told me that although the house looks shabby, inside is a formation whose arrangement holds the profound mystery of the Big Dipper. The red lover's knot on Chen Zheng's wrist is the Big Dipper's ladle, and the one on Dong Yumin's wrist is the Big Dipper's handle.

This is a life‑prolonging method passed down among shamans since the late Han dynasty, called Seven‑Star Symbiotic Continuation. However, to save one person with this method, another must be willing to pay the price. Moreover, this way of prolonging life is quite useless. Both the party whose lifespan is drawn and the party prolonging life advance in increments of three.

In other words, the first time you lose three years of lifespan you can only gain the other one extra year of life; the second time you lose six more years to gain another year; the third time nine years; the fourth time twelve years; each prolongation merely lets the other linger for one more year.

From this we can see how great a price Chen Zheng paid to prolong Dong Yumin's life—from a middle‑aged overlord in his prime he has weakened into something like a feeble old man.

After hearing Murong Jia Jia's explanation, I remained stunned for a long time, because I knew what she said was not baseless but true; I had glimpsed similar secret arts in ancient texts, though not in detail, they matched what she said almost exactly.

Moreover, Chen Zheng gave me a strange feeling—though he is a young man of twenty‑seven or twenty‑eight, his face is covered in wrinkles and his hair is white as an old man's.

At first I thought this was related to Chen Zheng's experiences—that when a person loses a loved one or suffers a blow they cannot bear mentally or physically, grief springs from the heart and leads to premature white hair.

Now, after listening to Murong Jia Jia's explanation, I gradually understand that Chen Zheng's premature white hair has nothing to do with his experiences; it is because he is using a secret art to prolong Dong Yumin's life.

To be frank, after learning the truth I felt an extreme contradiction in my heart—I didn't know whether I should intervene. From one angle, exchanging lives is defying heaven, contrary to reason.

But from another angle, this is Chen Zheng willingly paying the price, and it concerns no one else.

"Hai Sheng, we should go, why are you still standing there?" Pangzi waved his heavy hands in front of my eyes and shoved me.

Having regained my senses, I quickly waved my hands to pretend nothing was wrong, then followed Pangzi into Fan Wuchang's Audi.

All the way I kept thinking about Dong Yumin and Chen Zheng; just as I was about to probe indirectly, Pangzi, seizing a idle moment, first asked Fan Wuchang: "Brother Wuchang, what's wrong with sister‑in‑law's health, what illness does she have? Also, I want to know how Brother Zheng and sister‑in‑law met, and how he… uh… got together with her… no, how he married her."

I beside them hurriedly pretended not to care, edging my ear closer, eyes on the scenery outside, while my mind paid attention to their conversation.

At first Fan Wuchang seemed unwilling to entertain Pangzi, but under Pangzi's relentless urging he finally began to recount the story of Dong Yumin and Chen Zheng.

Chen Zheng and Dong Yumin met eight years ago; at that time Chen Zheng was just over twenty, having been assigned by the Eastern Mausoleum to East Front Street, where he was overseeing a bar.

Dong Yumin's background has nothing to do with the underworld; on the contrary, she comes from a respectable family—her father and grandfather are university professors.

Once, Chen Zheng was pursued by enemies and hid in the orphanage's storage room; on the brink of death, he was rescued by Dong Yumin, who was then volunteering at the orphanage. That's how they met, but the encounter was fleeting—Chen Zheng felt only gratitude toward her, and they had little further contact.

The scene shifts to an unnamed alley where Chen Zheng and Dong Yumin met for the second time; a clichéd hero‑saves‑beauty story unfolded there, serving as the catalyst that made two people walking on utterly different life paths fall irrevocably in love. Afterwards Dong Yumin defied everyone in her family and resolutely married that rascal.

After marriage the two remained deeply in love. Although Chen Zheng later rose to power and became one of the two emperors of Aomen's underworld, this ganglord had a quirk: whether he went to a bar to sing or a restaurant to discuss business, he never had a woman by his side; even if a prostitute was offered, he turned her away.

This is a rule known by all major eateries, restaurants, KTVs and bars in Aomen: the Southern Heavenly King conducts affairs without ever bringing a woman, nor needing one nearby. The Southern Heavenly King fears neither heaven nor earth; he dares to torch the governor's vehicle and point his nose at General Cai Cha of the north, declaring: "Aomen is the territory of Dong Ling; if you want to sell noodles here, I say you must get out if I disagree."

Yet this fearless underworld lord is uniquely afraid of his wife's tears. Whenever she cries, Chen Zheng loses his composure; whenever she is upset, he immediately loses his usual calm and judgment.

Therefore, Chen Zheng may ignore anyone's cold stare toward him, but he cares deeply about his wife's opinion. He doesn't want her to worry or suspect that after his rise he's out carousing, so wherever he goes he never brings a woman with him.

There are always some uncles and big bosses who ask Chen Zheng like this:

They say, "Brother Zheng, look at any other big boss in Aomen who goes out without calling a prostitute—just like a wife‑controlled man, you wouldn't even dare think of keeping a concubine; that's not the style of the Southern Heavenly King."

At that time Chen Zheng only said, "I, Chen Zheng, in this life fear neither heaven nor earth; I can afford to lose anything. The only thing I cannot afford to lose is my promise to my wife."

In plain terms, interpreting Chen Zheng's words, it's easy to see that this ruthless, feared underworld boss of Aomen is actually a man of loyalty and righteousness; a man, whether in business or in life, fears no loss, can get up after a fall, dust himself off and press on—except when it comes to his promise to his wife, which he cannot afford to break and dare not break.

Naturally, such a match may not be earth‑shaking, but it could well be a tale worth telling for the ages. This underworld boss Chen Zheng, because his wife greatly restrained her nature, no longer strikes as harshly as in his youth, nor does he casually uproot rival gangs. And Dong Yumin, disregarding her family's opposition, poured all her youth into him. Though ruffians and gangsters are often looked down upon by the educated elite, Dong Yumin truly found her own happiness in that rascal.

Only, as the saying goes, accidents always creep silently into happy lives. Heaven, whether busy or idle, always throws a few twists, turning what should have been a comic play into a living Shakespearean tragedy.

Two years ago, during a profit‑split dispute at an Aomen underground casino, Chen Zheng stormed out after a disagreement. The other side then hired gunmen to assassinate him, but the title Southern Heavenly King is no empty honor—since they all crawled out of piles of corpses, they certainly have a couple of tricks. Without Chen Zheng lifting a finger, his men wiped out the hired assassins.

Yet the underworld, just as in movies, often leaves a gangster defenseless; the martial‑world principle of "no harm to wife and children" depends solely on one's strength.

If enemies can't touch you, they'll inevitably harm your family. Even though Chen Zheng was anxious about Dong Yumin's safety and had taken sufficient precautions, a sudden strike still caught him in the enemies' scheme.

Dong Yumin, on her way to visit the orphans at the orphanage, was ambushed by assassins and shot in the heart. Although doctors later rescued her, she was left with a latent ailment.

This is Fan Wuchang's explanation to us, yet I don't believe it. In my view, perhaps Dong Yumin should have died two years ago; she survives only because Chen Zheng is using his own life to sustain her breath. Consequently, Chen Zheng has at least given up nine years of lifespan, his vital energy drained, which is why he looks as withered as an old man.