Chapter 1 The Boy and the Lobster

The tall boy in a school uniform had been standing in front of the seafood tank for ten minutes.

If the shop hadn't been empty, the owner would have already lost his patience.

But was this kid really the type to buy a Boston lobster?

Don't let him suddenly say, "I'm a student, give it to me for free."

No way, not even if you were just born.

"It's dead."

"Dead, dead what?"

"Boss, a lobster is dead."

"Impossible, they're all fresh, it was just moving." Although he didn't believe it, the owner still went over after hearing that.

Then, he saw a pound-weight Boston lobster slowly floating to the surface. Seeing this, the owner quickly used a net to scoop up the lobster, but this thing was definitely moving just now, he was sure it was alive.

But now, it really seemed to be dead.

"Damn it, is the aerator broken? Damn it! What the hell happened? You're really a dog."

A Boston lobster costs 288 yuan, and usually they could sell it before closing time, but now that it was dead, it was like losing 288 yuan for nothing. Thinking of this, the owner couldn't help but curse.

"Boss, what do you usually do with dead seafood?"

"Of course, throw it away. We never sell dead shrimp here."

There were regulations in this seafood market. Dead prawns could be sold cheaply or frozen, but Boston lobsters and king crabs had to be disposed of if they died.

"Boss, I'm a student..."

"Hey, you, you, you—"

Interrupting the boy with a finger and a ferocious expression, the owner looked like he was about to say, "I sell seafood, and you say you're a student?!"

Then, the boy took out a ten-yuan note.

Looking at the money, looking at the shrimp, the owner sighed, "The packaging fee alone is more than ten yuan."

After saying that, he still took out a foam box and ice pack, and packed the pound-weight Boston lobster.

Whatever, this kid probably really wants to eat it, otherwise he wouldn't have been staring at the lobster in the tank.

Anyway, it's just going to be thrown away, might as well give it to him cheap.

But he's really lucky, this Boston lobster must have just died. If it's frozen quickly, there's no difference in taste from a live one. He got a 288-yuan lobster for ten yuan.

"Thank you."

The boy reached out, took the plastic bag, and then looked at the round-bellied, roughly thirty-five-year-old man with a stubble, pondered for a moment, and said, "You're a really good person, boss. I wish you a long life of eighty-seven years."

"Why eighty-seven..."

This kid really knows how to talk, making a blessing sound like a prediction.

"Because eighty-seven years old is considered long."

Carrying the refrigerated Boston lobster, Chen Yuan walked out of the seafood shop.

Then, he saw more and more red numbers.

A child holding a candied haws ran past him, the number hanging over his head was 21224, roughly fifty-eight years.

The kind-faced, silver-haired grandma behind him, telling him to slow down, had the number 2934, roughly eight years.

A loving couple walking towards him, arm in arm, the girl was 24321, the boy was 242.

As his eyes were about to meet the boy's, Chen Yuan lowered his head and walked past him.

He could see other people's death countdown.

The unit of measurement was days.

This ability appeared at six thirty on Monday morning. After getting up and going out, he unexpectedly found some red Arabic numerals floating above his eyes, as if engraved on the retina, quite clear.

At first, Chen Yuan thought he was seeing things, but after repeatedly rubbing his eyes to confirm, he realized it was real.

Like the cunning Trisolarans projecting something into his eyes, he couldn't get rid of it no matter what.

Not only people, but also some cats, dogs, reptiles, animals, including plants, as long as something had life, there would be a string of numbers hanging over its head.

After discovering that this number was inversely proportional to age, he vaguely guessed the meaning behind the numbers.

However, confirming this was due to a heart-stopping accident.

A teddy bear with 0.00001 hanging over its head was crushed to death by a truck wheel the next second, turning into a teddy bear meat pie.

One day has 86,400 seconds, 0.00001 days is 0.864 seconds.

The troublesome thing about this ability was that it didn't convert, it only showed the time in 'days'.

But fortunately, Chen Yuan was forced by his mother to learn mental arithmetic with an abacus when he was in elementary school. Although this thing was completely useless for learning, and had a very strong destructive effect on the construction of mathematical thinking logic, it was too convenient if he needed to convert days into years.

It can only be said that a shot fired casually in his youth hit a Boston lobster right between the eyebrows many years later.

Of course, this cool ability wasn't always useful.

Like now.

Standing at the Jinling Road intersection in Xia Hai City, the world in Chen Yuan's eyes seemed to be mentally polluted, extremely disgusting.

The high-rise buildings, like a forest of steel, were densely packed, seemingly dividing the busy workers and students of Xia Hai City at this busy intersection.

According to statistics, more than two thousand people pass through here every minute.

That is to say, as long as you wait for the traffic lights for more than a minute, more than two thousand people will have distorted numbers popping up over their heads, densely packed together. As the crowd moved, it was as spectacular as dancing blood-red worms.

Breathe, breathe.

Close your eyes and meditate for a while.

Chen Yuan wasn't very used to this ability, especially in public places.

But he felt that if this superpower stayed with him, he would be a little calmer than he was now.

Or to put it more accurately—numb.

He discovered this ability yesterday morning. When he confirmed that this was the death countdown, he tried to help some of those poor wretches who died young.

But imagine, if someone suddenly came up to you and said, "Friend, I think you need to get checked out, you don't look so good," eight out of ten people would think you had ulterior motives, either from a physical examination organization or trying to sell products.

The remaining two out of ten would say—"Are you sick?"

Although Chen Yuan hadn't met eight people who thought he was selling goods, he had already been rudely rebuffed by two people.

In fact, he should have figured it out long ago, if they had regular physical examinations, how could those people not discover they had a terminal illness?

Terminal illnesses definitely have reactions in the early and middle stages, but they can endure it and not see a doctor, so they would naturally think you, a stranger, were full of malice.

Forget it, put down the desire to help, respect other people's fate.

As long as it wasn't someone who was going to die in a few seconds, Chen Yuan would definitely not take action.

But so far, only that poor teddy bear had died in front of him. He hadn't seen anyone with a lifespan of less than 0.1 days yet.

The red light in front of him turned green.

Merge into the crowd, like drowning in a sea of red numbers.

After getting on the subway, Chen Yuan put on his Bluetooth headphones and closed his eyes to rest. In the past, he would have actively given up his seat to the elderly, weak, sick, and disabled, but now that life and death were indifferent to him, there was no need for that.

And what was very disheartening was that he had seen several times that gray-haired, muscular old men had longer lifespans than young people.

Modern workers mainly live tired, die fast, and have short but energetic lives.

After taking the subway for twelve stops from Jinling Road intersection subway station, half an hour later, he arrived at Sunshine Community Station, and Chen Yuan got off here.

This place belonged to the old city, but it was different from the shantytown renovation area. Although the urban construction was old, the roads were clean and tidy, the public facilities were complete, and the environment was very cost-effective for this price, but there was no nightlife.

Chen Yuan lived in 502 of an old building 300 meters away from the subway station.

He wasn't from Xia Hai City. He originally went to school in a nearby county called He Xiang. After the high school entrance exam, his mother asked for a lot of favors and found a cousin working in the education bureau of a district under Xia Hai and squeezed him into Xia Hai No. 11 Middle School, a provincial key school.

But because he got in through connections, he could only be a day student.

And the apartments near No. 11 Middle School cost at least 2000 yuan even for a single room, so he had to find a small single room in Sunshine Community for 700 yuan rent.

His parents were salaried workers in He Xiang and couldn't accompany him, so he successfully lived the life of a novel protagonist without a younger sister, a house, and with busy parents.

Fortunately, it didn't seem to be a Qidian novel, otherwise his parents would have to be killed off too.

It was now six thirty in the evening. He had to hurry home to cook, boil the Boston lobster, set the air conditioner to 26 degrees, have a small beer, and then watch an episode of Cang Yuan Tu.

Thinking of this, Chen Yuan quickened his pace up the stairs, and climbed to the fifth floor in less than half a minute.

Just as he took out his key to open the door, a high school girl who also seemed to be renting, living across the hall, was also inserting her key into the lock.

The two of them turned their heads to look at each other blankly.

And on the other person's head, Chen Yuan saw for the first time a number closest to that teddy bear meat pie.

【0.05】