Shen Li stood at the edge of the forest, axe in hand, his breath fogging in the morning chill. Towering trees loomed like ancient sentinels, their roots gnarled and coiled—much like the lives of the men forced to cut them down.
He had been here for three months.
There were no sects. No gods. No miracles.Only men with broken backs, calloused hands, and barely enough coins to survive the week.
Shen Li no longer questioned how he'd ended up in this world. The dazed look in his eyes, the way he stared too long at the stars—no one cared. What mattered was whether he could carry his weight.
He became a woodcutter because he had no other choice.
The work was brutal. The pay, miserable. The food, worse.At night, he lay shoulder to shoulder with other laborers beneath a leaky straw roof and prayed the wind wouldn't rip it away.
"Sigh... even slaves probably live better than us," he muttered one night, watching men argue over the last ladle of rice. "At least they're fed. At least they have shelter."
A mosquito landed on his cheek. He slapped it. Blood smeared across his face.
"I hate this place."
And then—he froze.
A faint, golden "+" symbol blinked in the corner of his left eye.
He had seen it before.
A translucent panel. A system interface. It appeared the day he arrived.His so-called golden finger.
But he had never touched it.
Not because he thought it was fake.Because he couldn't afford to.
Lifespan: 58 years.He was already sixteen.Too little to gamble with.
"Each year spent might be the one that kills me."
But now—with his back aching, his stomach empty, the stench of sweat and rot in the air—something cracked.
No light. No hope.Just endless trees and heavier burdens.
He exhaled.
"To hell with it."
He focused on the golden plus.
The system opened.
[Simulation Interface ]
Name: Shen Li
Race: Human
Lifespan: 16 / 58
To simulate, enter how many years of lifespan you wish to sacrifice.[Awaiting Input…]
Shen Li stared.
"Fifty-eight?" he whispered. "That's it?"
His finger hovered. Hesitated.
"…Two years," he said softly. "Let's see what happens."
[2 years of lifespan entered][Simulation Beginning…]
[Age 16][You became a woodcutter in Qinghe County to survive.]
[Despite backbreaking effort, you gained neither strength nor savings.][Malnourished and overworked, your health began to decline.]
[In March, you overheard that a fellow woodcutter found a corpse tangled in the branches of a pine tree.][The man stripped it clean—belongings of a low-tier merchant.]
[In April, that same man used the silver to buy a house near the county's edge.]
[In November, wildfire tore through the southern forest.][The logging site was abandoned.][The governor failed to contain it.][You lost your only source of income.]
[Age 17][You are now jobless and starving.][You turn to begging.]
[Malnutrition forces you to eat weeds and leaves.][Your health crumbles.][Your vision blurs. Your limbs weaken.]
[One freezing night, driven by hunger, you decide to steal.]
[You break into a bakery with a rock. Inside, you find stale bread.][You devour it like a starving beast.]
[A sharp blow cracks across your skull.][The baker's son—no older than twelve—has struck you with a wooden stick.]
[You lose consciousness.]
[The next morning, you awaken bound and bruised.][The baker — a fat bald man — reports you to the local patrol.]
[At your trial, you have no silver to compensate for damages.][The magistrate declares your punishment:][Your left hand shall be severed.]
[The enforcer delivers six strikes to amputate your left hand.][You pass out from the pain.]
[You are dumped into the street, crudely bandaged to keep you alive.]
[You return to begging — now with one arm.][Pity increases your daily coins… but not enough.]
[The wound becomes infected.]
[You die one week later. Alone. In agony.]
[Death Event: Soul Detached][You have died.][Your soul drifts from your body.][Due to lack of spiritual strength, you retain no memories or self-awareness.]
[As morning light rises, your spirit dissolves.]
[Simulation Ended]
[Choose Your Reward:][Body and cultivation at age 17 (crippled, no future growth)][Knowledge & survival instincts (begging, theft, caution)][A stale loaf of bread]
Shen Li stared at the glowing panel, mouth agape.
"What the…?" he muttered.
Line after line of grim text blinked in his vision—filthy streets, starvation, infection, amputation.He had known it would be bad. But this… this was miserable.
Even he was stunned into silence.
"No side gigs? No part-time jobs? Just… stealing bread?" he whispered, almost offended on his own behalf. "If you're gonna be a thief, at least rob something valuable."
He squinted at the verdict again.
[Your left hand shall be severed.]
"For one stale loaf? What kind of ridiculous punishment is that?"
He shook his head, trying to suppress the chill crawling up his spine.
After a long breath to steady his mood, he glanced back at the panel—still glowing.
"…Why is this even still showing after death?" he grumbled. "Aren't I supposed to be dead in that timeline?"
But the system didn't care for questions.
The reward options remained.
With a scowl, Shen Li finally muttered,"Fine. I'll take the damn [Knowledge & survival instincts]. Better than a rotten body or a crusty loaf of bread."
The moment he made his choice—
A flood of memories surged into him.
Pain. Hunger. Cold stone streets. The shame of begging. The sharp instincts of a stray dog.He remembered everything—how he had survived, how he had fallen so far, how his body had weakened, and how to read danger in a stranger's eyes.
The bitterness. The desperation. The tricks of the street.All of it became his.
Not as a dream. Not as words.
But as experience—real and raw.
Shen Li gasped, staggering back a step, hand pressed to his temple.
His eyes, once dazed and soft, were now sharp and cautious.
The next morning, Shen Li woke with a jolt.
The simulation still burned fresh in his mind—every ache, every hunger pang, every miserable breath of that future life. He wasn't going to let it happen.
Not again.
He dressed quickly, grabbed his axe, and slipped away from the logging site before anyone could notice.
Heading east, deeper into the forest.
"There has to be something... it should be around here," he muttered, weaving through dense underbrush. "The pine tree... the corpse. If I can find that merchant first..."
Hour after hour passed.
He scoured the eastern woods, scanning the branches above, checking every gnarled pine for any trace of a body—or signs of recent disturbance.
But there was nothing.
No torn cloth. No broken branches. No silver.
Just wind, bark, and silence.
Frustrated, Shen Li clenched his jaw and looked up one last time at the endless green above.
"Tch."
The forest had swallowed its secrets.
Empty-handed, he turned back and retraced his steps, returning to the chopping grounds just before noon.
The other laborers barely noticed he was gone. To them, he was just another pair of hands with an axe.
And so, Shen Li raised his blade again, sweat trailing down his brow, the weight of failure gnawing at him.
But his eyes—his eyes no longer held that lost, drifting look.
He had seen what lay at the bottom.
And he would never go there again.
By noon, Shen Li dragged himself to the woodcutters' lodge and handed over three copper coins—his only meal for the day.
In this world, even food had to be bought.No employer fed you. No one cared if you starved.
As a woodcutter, Shen Li earned four copper coins daily.Three went to the lodge's watery mash.That left one coin for everything else in life.
The mash wasn't filling—barely enough to silence the growling in his belly. But if he didn't eat, he'd collapse. Starving meant death.
As he sat alone, spooning the bland porridge into his mouth, Shen Li glanced around the lodge.
Most woodcutters sat in tight groups, eating, laughing, and gossiping like they'd known each other for years.
Only a few like Shen Li—quiet, isolated—sat alone.
He had only arrived in this world a month ago.There wasn't enough time to build trust, let alone friendships.
Still, their voices drifted over the noise, easy to catch if one listened.
"There've been six bandit raids this month alone.""More caravans hit… Food prices are climbing.""These bandit groups are growing fast," said a bald man. "If someone doesn't deal with them, we'll all be surrounded soon."
Shen Li barely reacted.
Bandits? Price hikes?
He didn't care.
Right now, all of his focus was on one thing:Finding the merchant's corpse.
He finished his meal in silence and stood without a word. While others took their rest, he vanished back into the eastern woods.
This time, Shen Li sharpened his senses.
The simulation had taught him things—subtle awareness, survival instincts, how to scan his surroundings like a predator.
He crept through tall grass and over gnarled roots, eyes locked on the forest floor.
Then—movement.
A rustle in the weeds.He froze. Waited.
A flash of green.
A small snake, not yet fully grown, slithered through the brush. Its scales shimmered in the light, and though Shen Li couldn't tell if it was venomous or not, he knew one thing:
It was alive.
And that meant...
He raised his axe, breath held.
When the snake reared its head, he threw.
Thwack!
The axe struck with brutal precision. The snake's skull split.Its body twitched and coiled, muscles spasming in death.
From a distance, Shen Li watched it writhe. Then he saw it.
A faint, glowing symbol.
[+3]
His eyes widened.
He opened the system instantly.
[Simulation Interface]
Name: Shen Li
Race: Human
Lifespan: 16 / 59**
To simulate, enter how many years of lifespan you wish to sacrifice.[Awaiting Input…]
Shen Li grinned.
"Just as I thought…"
He had been swatting flies for weeks—mosquitoes, bugs—but never saw the counter move.
But this time… three years.
Enough to recover the two he had lost, with one year to spare.
His lifespan had just gone from 56 to 59.
"…Doesn't this make me immortal?" he murmured, almost laughing.
His eyes gleamed.
All the ancient stories, the legends of emperors and sages who sought immortality and failed—reduced to dust.
And here he was, a woodcutter, gaining years with every kill.
But then his grin faded.
"…What good is immortality if I can't even survive two years?"
He looked down at the snake's lifeless body.
"…Still, tonight I won't go hungry."
He picked it up, warm and limp in his hands.
"At least, Soya, I'll sleep with a full stomach."
Exhausted from endless searching, Shen Li leaned back against a tree, eyes flicking open to the system screen still glowing faintly in his vision.
He'd gained three years of lifespan from killing that snake… and he was tired. His body ached. His thoughts were scattered. But a single idea echoed in his mind:
"If I know what's coming… maybe I won't have to crawl through mud to find it."
With a slow breath, Shen Li focused on the interface again—and this time, he tapped it.
[1 year of lifespan entered][Simulation Beginning…]
[Age 16][You hunted a snake. That night, you cooked a feast in the forest—your first real meal in weeks.]
[Six days later, you finally found the merchant's corpse. Judging by the tattered rags and skeletal remains, he had died running from something. His clothes were shredded, barely clinging to bone.]
[You searched the body.][Inside the shredded garments, you discovered:—24 silver coins—59 copper coins—1 token etched with a horse sigil.]
[You buried the corpse quietly beneath wild earth.]
[The next day, fearing theft, you purchased a small house on the outskirts of Qinghe County for 20 silver.]
[For the first time, you had a roof of your own—a safe place. A base to fall back to.]
[You looked for better work, but no one accepted you. You continued as a woodcutter.]
[You approached the local blacksmith, hoping to learn his trade. He kicked you out.]
[The same happened at the carpenter's, the tailor's, and even the tanner's.]
[In this world, craftsmanship is passed from father to son, uncle to nephew. No one teaches strangers for free.To learn, you'd need to pay—more than you had.]
[In August, you returned home to find your door broken.][Thieves had come while you worked. Your rice jars were gone. You rushed to your hidden stash.][Your savings—4 silver—were missing.]
[You sank into depression.]
[In November, wildfire swept through the forest again.][You later learned it was the bandits' doing—a tactic to slow county patrols.]
[Your woodcutting job was lost. Again.]
[You tried to make and sell wine—but without enough capital, you couldn't register a business.]
[The year passed.]
[Simulation Ended]
[Choose Your Reward:]▢ [Body and cultivation at age 17]▢ [Knowledge & survival instincts (general common knowledge, caution)]▢ [A hammer used to repair your home]
Back in the real world, Shen Li sat silently.
A soft breeze rustled the leaves above as he processed everything.
"…So I really do find the corpse. And that token… horse-shaped…"
His eyes narrowed.
The house idea worked—but not forever. The thieves. The fire. The limits of coin in a world where bloodlines and power dictated everything.
He let out a bitter laugh.
"Even with silver in my pocket and a roof over my head… it still wasn't enough."
He reached toward the system reward.
"Forget strength or tools," he muttered. "I need knowledge."
He selected:[Knowledge & survival instincts (general common knowledge, caution)]
The moment he chose, it hit him again—A flood of memories, awareness, instincts burned into his mind.He saw how people in the market moved, how craftsmen reacted to lowball offers, how thieves cased homes.How the town operated beneath the surface.