Lu Chen looked at his reflection in the mirror with a strange expression.
Honestly, other than his skin looking a bit fairer, there was no discernible difference from before. He opened his mouth to check his teeth; two slender, sharp fangs had indeed grown in, but they were hardly conspicuous. To a dentist, they would just look like a minor deformity. A Faceless Ghost Mask would be more than enough to cover up this mutation.
Gathering his composure, he stepped out of the bathroom stall. He didn't know if his senses had sharpened along with his transformation into a vampire, but he could clearly smell every peculiar odor and trace of cigarette smoke in the restroom.
"Ten minutes ago, someone was hiding in stall number three smoking..."
"The person who used this stall last night must have had an upset stomach..."
"Wait, why am I analyzing this?"
He shook his head, shaking off the information that kept popping up automatically in his mind. Still, he had to admit that with his improved senses, he didn't even need his glasses anymore. His six-diopter nearsightedness had healed itself, and his formerly sub-healthy body felt incredible. The only downside was that while sunlight wouldn't turn him into ash, it was still quite uncomfortable—much like feeling the heat of a radiator in the middle of a sweltering summer day.
Back at his desk, he was just about to slack off when he heard Qiao Weizhao sigh behind him.
"Sigh, the lottery ticket I bought yesterday only won a third prize—three thousand bucks. How boring."
It sounded like a humblebrag no matter how you sliced it. Sure enough, his surrounding colleagues immediately swarmed over.
"That's amazing! I’ve never won a lottery ticket in my life."
"I’d be happy just to win back what I spent on my previous tickets."
"The most I've ever won was two hundred..."
"Hmm?"
Lu Chen suddenly remembered that he had also bought a lottery ticket during his flashback. He swallowed hard and secretly reached into his pocket. Sure enough, a crumpled ticket was sitting there quietly. He pulled it out, and the numbers were exactly as he remembered.
"For real!"
His face lit up with joy, but he quickly forced himself to look calm and opened the lottery website to check yesterday’s winning numbers. As the results appeared, he checked the first few digits, his joy growing, but the moment he saw the last number, he froze. He rubbed his eyes as if he couldn't believe it, checking again and again.
"05, 11, 18, 20, 26, 28, 16..."
"It changed... it actually changed?"
"Why did it change?!"
His pupils contracted. He slammed both hands onto his desk, staring at the screen in disbelief. A difference of a single number meant a difference of tens of times in prize money!
Qiao Weizhao, hearing the commotion, walked over. Thinking Lu Chen was just upset, he patted his shoulder with feigned humility.
"Lu Chen, don't be so bummed about not winning. Just study it more like I do, and maybe you'll eventually—eventually..."
He saw the ticket in Lu Chen's hand and suddenly froze. He swallowed his words mid-sentence, compared them to the numbers on the screen, and finally let out a loud gasp. "Holy crap, that's a second prize!"
"Who?! Someone got the second prize?"
"Let me see! Let me soak up some of that good luck!"
"Is it little Lu? You’re so lucky! Send me five bucks on WeChat to celebrate!"
A second prize of one hundred thousand yuan! For an ordinary person, that was a huge sum—equivalent to a whole year's salary!
The others rushed over, surrounding him and clamoring for a share of his luck, with some even demanding he buy bubble tea for the whole office. Only Lu Chen, in the middle of the crowd, wore a somewhat strained smile. He had copied the numbers for the first prize! How could they have changed? It made no sense. The only explanation was...
"Looks like lottery tickets aren't reliable anymore."
He sighed helplessly. Fortunately, he had new pursuits now; money wasn't as important to him as it once was. For instance, now that he had a personal storage space, he could make a fortune just by performing magic tricks—and no one would ever be able to spot the trick.
After the initial shock, Qiao Weizhao saw all the female colleagues focused on Lu Chen and couldn't help but feel jealous and resentful. He stepped forward, acting like a seasoned senior, and patted Lu Chen on the shoulder.
"Ahem, Lu Chen, this bit of luck doesn't mean you're set for life. You need to learn from me—keep your feet on the ground and work hard if you want to earn more money..."
Lu Chen could probably guess how Qiao Weizhao got his third prize. It was because the numbers had changed due to his own actions that Qiao had won in the first place. Otherwise, the guy would have been gloating to the high heavens, making sure the entire building knew about his win. Lu Chen couldn't be bothered to respond, as he had remembered something else.
If the lottery ticket thing had come true, what about the career woman Zhou Manyin? He asked casually, "By the way, what was the police investigation about this morning?"
"The police?" his colleagues asked, looking puzzled. "Weren't they here to investigate the high-altitude littering incident from last night?"
"Yeah, I heard someone threw a vase down yesterday and it almost hit that powerful woman downstairs, Zhou Manyin!"
"Exactly, I heard that too. This morning I saw Zhou Manyin standing right in front of the elevator, staring at everyone who passed by. I wonder if she was looking for the culprit..."
Lu Chen stopped listening. He felt an intense excitement, so great that his feet were trembling slightly.
"The past really was changed..."
"I really did go back to the past!"
The fate of both the lottery and Zhou Manyin had been altered. He had truly traveled back, and it wasn't just a simulation! He looked at the countdown in his mind. It was starting again.
[Flashback Countdown: 17 hours 35 minutes...]
[Destination: Three days ago, Duration: 1 hour]
The time had indeed extended, and the return time was getting longer, too.
"Three days ago... what can I do three days ago?"
He no longer intended to do pointless things for money. Not only would he fail to earn much, but he would also get a low rating from the System—hardly worth the effort. Those magical items and attribute points were things that money could never buy. According to the System's requirements, he needed to do something "special."
Using the promise of buying bubble tea as an excuse to send his colleagues away, he opened his notebook again and began to scribble.
"The flashback only lasts one hour, so I can't go too far. It has to be within the city."
And the tasks had to meet the System's criteria.
[Lacks imagination, lacks tension, lacks performative quality, lacks drama...]
He highlighted these words in his notebook, savoring them and trying to understand their deeper meaning. He swore he had never been this serious even when tackling reading comprehension questions on the college entrance exam.
"Imagination... tension... performative quality..."
"And it was too conventional?"
"Does that mean I shouldn't think from the perspective of an ordinary person? Instead, I should think like... a Transcendental Creature?"