Longevity Diary 1

That day, Zhang Zhi went up the mountain to tell his second brother the good news.

Unfortunately, his second brother had left behind a letter and had already wandered the world. The house stood empty.

Zhu Zhengwei naturally knew what had happened to Zhang Zhi.

Though surprised at first, he quickly understood the principle behind it.

His university classmates from the same generation had lived out their lives as NPCs in this world. After death, their souls dispersed and became cloud servers. Naturally, the high-energy "Qi" released during that collapse could be sensed.

"Second Brother has gone traveling. He will return someday."

Zhang Zhi looked at the sky, his heart filling with ever deeper awe and terror.

Only when certain people died would Qi leak out.

And nearly all of them shared one trait: they had been born during the same period as his second brother.

He recalled that mythic scene of birth, as though proclaiming, "Above heaven and below earth, I alone am supreme," and formed a suspicion.

It must have been because they had been touched by the Spiritual Qi of a Divine Being descending into the world. Only then had the babies born in that same generation gained such unique constitutions. They were extraordinarily special, tainted with Qi, and after death, it would disperse from them.

This was the first opportunity for people to sense Qi.

But if someone with evil intentions deliberately killed them to seize their Qi, it would surely bring about a monstrous calamity!

"Brother, just what kind of being are you? Even babies born in the same era as you can be like this?"

Zhang Zhi could not help saying, "What if people with malicious intentions kill them to consume their Qi?"

What Zhang Zhi had noticed, Zhu Zhengwei had noticed as well.

But he trusted his third brother. He was reliable and would not use this to commit evil by slaughtering those NPC miners everywhere.

And even if something truly went wrong, even if people really began killing others to consume Qi, his NPC classmates in the dream would continue mining for him after death, providing cloud computing power. It did not matter.

At fifty-four years old.

Zhang Zhi was indeed not one to follow old rules. That year, he began cultivating Qi Consumption.

As time passed, he waited bitterly for those fifty people to die. He attended their funerals one by one and absorbed the Qi that dispersed from them. In the end, he opened the gateway to the Qi Consumption Method and could sense the Qi of heaven and earth.

His Qi was now dozens of times more immense than Zhu Zhengwei's.

After all, he had absorbed the Qi of more than fifty people and instantly became a crypto circle big shot.

Of course, he was not selfish. After years of testing their character, he tentatively taught several favored disciples. Unfortunately, though intelligent and quick-witted, they lacked talent in this regard.

"Teacher has cultivated an immortal's method."

Zhang Zhi's disciples also knew that their teacher had not aged at all over the past decade. He had even grown younger, maintaining the appearance of a forty-year-old. Perhaps he had entered that mysterious gate.

Every year, their teacher went up the mountain to visit his brother. They had seen it with their own eyes.

They were even secretly envious and could not resist going into the mountains to pay their respects in private, only to discover that the extraordinary man had long since departed on his travels.

Inside the library.

All manner of English books stood neatly arranged there.

At that moment, a refined middle-aged man in his forties, dressed in a Zhongshan suit, held a book and read beneath the sunlight.

"In 1793, Konsp first published a description related to hemophilia."

"In 1823, Skovrain first discovered the true cause of hemophilia and named it Hereditary Coagulation Disorder."

"In 1939, American doctor Casblinhouse discovered that most hemophilia could be treated by supplementing a certain clotting factor in plasma—the present-day Factor VIII."

Zhang Zhi continued reading.

Hemophilia—superstitious parents believed it was a curse.

But in truth, it was a hereditary disease.

Over the years, Zhang Zhi had continuously researched this illness. He had also sent away those favored disciples; it was more appropriate for him to study these matters alone.

At the same time, he began researching the principles of the Qi Consumption Method and studying his own body.

From clothes his second brother had worn as a child, he discovered bloodstains. After examining them, he found a mysterious force flowing within, endlessly and without interruption.

And aside from his second brother, that unique group of humans whose Qi dispersed after death also possessed this mysterious force, though it was far, far weaker than what his second brother carried.

They all possessed "Qi."

"Qi is not breathing by nature. It is a Soul factor, Soul energy."

Yet as he read all the books he had collected over the years, Zhang Zhi finally felt confused. He discovered the contradictions of this world.

The level of civilization had previously advanced so quickly, with scientists constantly emerging. Yet from 1999 onward, from the moment his second brother was born, world civilization had begun to stagnate.

Why?

Why was this happening??

For the first time, he doubted the very existence of this world.

Over the years, he had discovered the abnormalities and devoted all his strength to founding schools and educating others, yet even that could not halt civilization's tide of regression.

He could clearly feel it:

The world was returning to an agrarian age.

At sixty years old.

Zhang Zhi saw that as his former favored students grew old, they gradually began looking at him with envy.

He understood that look well. It was exactly how he himself had once looked at his second brother with envy.

He sent all those students elsewhere to teach, gradually distancing himself from them as master and disciples.

At the same time, he felt lonely and came to understand some of his second brother's loneliness.

It was the feeling of being utterly out of place among others. Some things could only be explored alone.

At eighty years old.

For the past twenty years, he had continued researching, walking the path his second brother had once taken.

Almost every year, he went up the mountain to see whether his second brother had returned from his travels.

His eldest brother's daughter had also died of old age, leaving behind two boys, both of whom carried the disease.

That day, Zhang Zhi heard that Zheng Linshou, his most valued student, had died. Of the three children his second brother had praised back then, Zheng Linshou had been the most gifted in chemistry under his guidance.

He had been one of the rare students who did not look at him with jealousy and longing, but with sincere yearning. Yet Zhang Zhi had still kept his distance from him and the others.

Zhang Zhi fell silent for several seconds, then left the laboratory and went to his student's home.

He saw the remains of the withered old man, the wailing family members, and the letter he had left for him.

The letter was filled with longing and admiration for him, hoping to follow at his side once more.

The final line read,

"Teacher, all these years, I have kept dreaming. In my dreams, it feels as if there is a next life, a Previous Life. You once said that if there is another life, could I become your disciple again and meet you?"

Zhang Zhi fell completely silent, his eyes faintly moist.

He looked at the corpse and suddenly sensed something.

"There is Qi on him?"

At ninety years old.

The laboratory's test tubes and glass bottles were filled with reagents and all kinds of liquids.

Here gathered the dying embers of modern society.

This was Technology Civilization's final struggle.

Everything in Zhang Zhi's world revealed one message: human civilization was being destroyed.

Once a machine or piece of equipment here broke, it was gone forever. There was nowhere left that could produce another.

"No, the blood cultivation failed."

"Qi fused with blood cell factors... there should be a way to treat this hemophilia."

Through his research, Zhang Zhi discovered a method to treat hemophilia. He improved the Antihemophilic Globulin in plasma, storing Qi within this special blood and circulating it throughout the body.

"Qi is Soul energy. In the brain, it only strengthens Spiritual Power."

"But if this Soul energy circulates through the entire body with the blood, cycling through the eight extraordinary meridians... could it perhaps strengthen the body?"

Zhang Zhi was stunned, as though a mysterious great path had appeared before him.

This entirely new path.

His second brother had said that he was born knowing all things, that he was a Divine Being born to consume Qi. He had likely long since set foot upon this path, cultivating the spirit and nurturing the body. Only with both complete was it the true Qi Consumption Method.

He himself had merely just entered the gate.

"Is this Second Brother's cultivation method? That power... it truly makes one yearn for it." His gaze drifted into the distance. Even having gained only the faintest trace of that mysterious power, having barely begun to catch up to his second brother's footsteps, filled him with profound fear and trembling.

"A strong body, flesh and blood possessing terrifying power."

"Unfortunately, I have found the direction, but making it a reality remains a problem."

At one hundred years old.

Over the years, he had secretly absorbed the first and second batches of server miners, consuming the Qi of one hundred people.

Zhang Zhi felt that his research into spiritual methods had grown increasingly mature. His power swelled rapidly, and his Spiritual Power broke free from some kind of restraint. The whole world suddenly opened before him.

"What is this?"

He opened his hand, and a book before him began to float.

He sensed an invisible, intangible Spiritual Power tentacle spreading from his brain and grasping the book. "I am... manipulating Qi?"

"Hahahaha!"

He suddenly burst into laughter, picked up the book, and began writing furiously. "What Second Brother gave me was the Treatise on Qi Consumption and Enlightenment. He encompassed all living beings under heaven, while I merely encompass ordinary people and blaze a path for mankind."

After thinking for a moment, he wrote an opening.

Treatise on Qi Consumption for the Common People, First Volume.

At one hundred and ten years old.

Zhang Zhi noticed that the students throughout the academy looked at him more and more differently.

He was too old,

Yet he still remained sufficiently youthful.

Greed, plunder, terror, longing—countless gazes intertwined, plunging his heart into silence once more.

One old acquaintance after another had passed away. There seemed to be nothing left in this place worth clinging to, and he did not possess enough power to withstand that greed.

He understood clearly that he had only comprehended the First Volume, nurturing the spirit. He had not discovered the Divine Factor, had not made blood circulate Qi throughout the body. Ultimately, he was merely an ordinary man with some unusual abilities. Once someone got close, even a strong man could easily kill him.

A powerful feeling suddenly arose within him: it was time for him to leave.

At that moment, he vaguely understood why his brother had chosen to travel afar.

There was nothing left to cling to.

He chose to fake his death and left behind his researched First Volume as bait.

That day, wails shook the entire academy.

Zhang Zhi disguised himself as a hunchbacked old man who emptied chamber pots and left.

He abandoned all the immense wealth he had accumulated in life, abandoned countless students and endless glory.

He felt that if he remained in the laboratory researching, he would never discover the Second Volume. Only by practicing it himself, straining his muscles and bones, and traveling the world could he comprehend it.

"Wuwuwu!"

The world mourned the death of the elder, Elder Zhang. They praised him with words from his favorite Nietzsche, but to Zhang Zhi, it all sounded like a song sending him off:

[He who will someday shake the world must remain silent for a long time.]

[He who will someday ignite lightning must drift like a cloud for a long time.]

[My time has not yet come. Some people are born only after death.]

The clear, ringing voices pierced through the school and cut across the sky.

That year, he faked his death and escaped. He was already 112 years old.

As "he" left the campus, Zhang Zhi recalled the Man with the Tear Mole. If he found him again, perhaps the truth hidden beneath this world's mist would finally be fully revealed.

I too must embark on that long journey, wandering the world in search of the man called a Divine Being—my brother who raised me since childhood—and demand an answer.

After consuming the Qi of more than a hundred people, how much Lifespan do I have left?

He did not know.

But he would spend the rest of his life traversing mountains and rivers.

He vaguely sensed that a great undertaking awaited him. Like the legendary Phoenix, only after enduring hardship and being tempered by the flames of the mortal world could one rise from the ashes and uncover the truth behind this world's stagnation.

He looked toward the azure sky, as though he heard the God of Destiny whispering softly in his ear:

"Come, Zhang Zhi. I am waiting for you there!"