The world ended at 3:12 p.m. on a Tuesday.
Jiang Hao remembered it with perfect, excruciating clarity.
He had just finished his 47th order of the day, the cheap plastic delivery bag still warm against his thigh, when the truck came out of nowhere. A plain white refrigerated truck, no markings, no plates he could read. It jumped the red light at forty kilometers an hour and clipped the back wheel of his electric scooter. The impact flung him forward like a rag doll. His helmet cracked against the asphalt. His phone shattered. The last thing he saw before everything went black was the driver's face through the windshield: calm, almost bored, eyes locked on him as if confirming the job was done.
Then nothing.
Death was supposed to be peaceful. Or terrifying. Or at least final.
Instead, he woke up choking on the sour smell of instant noodles and cigarette smoke.
His eyes snapped open. He was lying on a hard, lumpy mattress that sagged in the middle like a broken spine. The ceiling above him was the same cracked, yellowed plaster he'd stared at every night for the past two years. A single bare bulb dangled from a frayed wire. The room was exactly 12 square meters of pure misery: peeling wallpaper, a tiny window that never quite closed, a folding table buried under empty beer cans and overdue bills.
He knew this place. This was his rental in the old Tangshan New Village, third floor, the one with the bathroom that smelled like mold no matter how much bleach he poured.
But that was impossible.
He died. He remembered dying.
Jiang Hao bolted upright so fast his head spun. Pain flared behind his eyes, real, physical pain, not the cold void he'd expected. His heart hammered against his ribs like it was trying to punch its way out. He looked down at his hands. Same calluses from gripping scooter handlebars twelve hours a day. Same cheap digital watch that had stopped working months ago. Same faded blue delivery uniform, crumpled and smelling of sweat and fryer oil.
The calendar on the wall read: October 14, 2024.
Exactly one year before the truck.
His breath came in short, ragged bursts. He stumbled off the bed, bare feet slapping against the cold tile floor, and lunged for the cracked mirror hanging beside the door.
The face staring back was younger. No scars yet from the crash. No hollow, dead look in the eyes. Just the same tired, hollow-cheeked 23-year-old who'd been grinding himself into dust for minimum wage and tips.
"This isn't real," he whispered. His voice cracked. "This can't be real."
A sharp chime cut through the air, like glass tapping crystal.
Directly in his field of vision, a translucent blue panel unfolded, hovering in mid-air the way only sci-fi movies dared to show. Elegant white text scrolled across it, calm and indifferent.
[Fate-Editing System Binding… 37%… 62%… 89%… 100%]
[Host Confirmed: Jiang Hao]
[Welcome Back, User. You have died once. This is your second cycle.]
Jiang Hao staggered back until his shoulders hit the wall. The panel followed his gaze, floating silently wherever he looked, impossible to blink away.
"What the hell are you?" His voice came out hoarse.
The system didn't answer with words. Another panel bloomed open, larger this time, filled with scrolling lines of code-like text, numbers, and symbols he didn't recognize. Then it simplified, folding into something he could actually read.
[You have been granted administrative access to localized fate parameters.]
[Warning: Large-scale edits will trigger observation by higher-order entities.]
[Current Fate Points: 0]
[Would you like to begin the tutorial? Y/N]
His trembling finger hovered in empty air. There was no mouse, no keyboard, no screen to touch, yet when he thought the word YES, the panel flashed green.
[Initializing interface…]
The room around him darkened, as though someone had pulled a filter over reality. Thin glowing lines traced across every surface: the walls, the floor, the pile of unwashed clothes in the corner. Data tags popped up like augmented reality labels.
[Rental Room – Monthly Rent: 1,200 RMB (Overdue 11 days)]
[Instant Noodle Cup – Expiration: 3 months ago]
[Broken Electric Kettle – Repair Cost Estimate: 87 RMB]
Then the lines converged on him.
A full-body hologram of himself materialized in the center of the room, rotating slowly. It looked exactly like him, down to the faint acne scar on his left cheek, except it was made of light and data. Panels orbited it like satellites.
[Name: Jiang Hao]
[Age: 23]
[Occupation: Food Delivery Rider (Meituan)]
[Net Worth: 312 RMB]
[Health: 67/100 (Chronic Fatigue, Mild Malnutrition)]
[Career Potential: 3/100]
[Social Standing: 1/100]
[Luck: –12 (Extremely Unlucky)]
[Hidden Status: Marked for Elimination – Countdown: 365 days, 4 hours, 11 minutes]
The last line pulsed blood-red.
Jiang Hao's knees buckled. He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, staring at the countdown.
Marked for elimination.
The truck hadn't been an accident.
Someone, or something, had arranged his death a full year in advance.
His hands shook so badly he had to clutch them between his knees. Memories of the past year flooded back: the endless shifts, the abusive boss, the creeping debt, the growing certainty that the world was rigged against him. He'd thought it was just bad luck.
It wasn't luck.
It was code.
And now he had the editor.
Another chime. The tutorial voice finally spoke, genderless, calm, almost gentle.
"User, your first death was the activation condition. The system remained dormant until the moment your fate line was forcibly severed. You have been rolled back exactly 365 days. All physical evidence of your death has been erased from this timeline. However, the entities responsible for your termination retain memory fragments. They will notice anomalies."
Jiang Hao laughed. It came out cracked and hysterical. "So what, I'm in a game now? I just… level up and everything's fine?"
"Negative. This is not a game. This is administrative access to a subsystem of reality. Every edit you make leaves a trace. Traces attract auditors."
"Auditors?"
"Individuals or organizations capable of perceiving fate deviations. Some are human. Some are not. Current threat level: Low. Recommendation: Increase personal parameters before attempting large edits."
He dragged a hand through his hair. It came away wet with sweat. "Show me what I can do."
The interface shifted again. Three glowing icons appeared, floating like app shortcuts.
[1. Scan Fate]
[2. Edit Fate]
[3. Download Skills]
He focused on the first one. The icon expanded.
[Scan Fate – Reveals hidden parameters of any target within visual range. Cost: 1 Fate Point per detailed scan. Basic scans free for 24 hours after system binding.]
He didn't have any Fate Points yet, but it said basic scans were free for now.
Jiang Hao pushed himself to his feet, legs still trembling, and walked to the window. Outside, the narrow alley was the same as always: laundry hanging like colorful flags, aunties gossiping over mahjong, the smell of stinky tofu drifting up from the street vendor below.
He looked at the nearest person, an old woman selling roasted sweet potatoes from a rusty cart.
A faint panel flickered into existence above her head.
[Name: Zhao Guiying]
[Age: 68]
[Luck: 7]
[Health: 41/100 (Early-stage lung cancer, undiagnosed)]
[Hidden Thought: "If I sell ten more today, I can buy medicine for my grandson."]
Jiang Hao's stomach lurched. He could see her cancer. He could see her desperation. The numbers were cold, merciless.
He tore his gaze away and looked at a passing teenager on an electric scooter.
[Name: Li Junjie]
[Luck: 23]
[Hidden Thought: "Gotta hurry or that bastard will steal my route again."]
Then he looked farther, past the alley, to the main road where a black Audi idled at the curb. Tinted windows. The driver was smoking, one arm hanging out.
The panel that appeared made ice crawl down Jiang Hao's spine.
[Name: Unknown (Encrypted)]
[Affiliation: Observer Cadre – Rank 3]
[Current Task: Monitor anomaly fluctuations in Tangshan New Village area]
[Threat Level: Medium]
[Note: Subject has minor fate-viewing ability. Cannot see system interface.]
They were already watching.
Not him specifically, not yet, but the area. Waiting for ripples.
Jiang Hao jerked back from the window, heart racing again. The curtain fell closed.
"Okay," he whispered to the empty room. "Okay. Think. First things first, how do I get Fate Points?"
The system answered instantly.
[Fate Points are earned by creating meaningful deviations from predicted fate lines. Saving a life: 50–500 points. Preventing a disaster: variable. Humiliating an enemy of fate: 10–100. Acquiring wealth against probability: variable.]
He laughed again, bitter this time. "So I have to play hero to survive. Great."
The countdown in his peripheral vision ticked down another minute.
364 days, 23 hours, 58 minutes.
Less than a year to figure out who wanted him dead, and why, and how to stop them, this time with root access to reality itself.
Jiang Hao took a deep, shaky breath and wiped his palms on his uniform pants.
Outside, the city kept moving, oblivious. Delivery scooters zipped past. Someone shouted about discounted chicken wings. Life went on exactly the same as it had the first time.
Except now he could see the strings.
And he had scissors.
He looked at the mirror again. His reflection stared back, eyes wide, pupils blown with terror and something else.
Something sharp and cold and waking up.
"Fine," he said to the system, to the room, to whatever gods or programmers were listening. "Let's break some fates."
The first thing he did was open his broken phone, yes, the same cracked Meizu that had died with him the first time, and scroll to the Meituan rider app.
Today's schedule was already there.
Forty-eight orders. Same as the day he died.
He stared at the list for a long time.
Then he opened the system again.
[Basic Scan – Self: Free]
His own panel unfolded once more, larger this time, showing a web of glowing lines connecting different life events like a spiderweb of cause and effect.
One thick red thread led straight from today to the words "Death by vehicular impact – 3:12 p.m. – 365 days from now."
Smaller threads branched off: "Brakes fail – 9:42 a.m." "Argument with boss – 11:07 a.m." "Landlord confrontation – 6:20 p.m." "Fatal route assignment – 2:55 p.m."
Every tiny misfortune was a domino set to fall.
Jiang Hao smiled for the first time since waking up.
It wasn't a nice smile.
"First," he said softly, "we're going to survive today."
He cracked his knuckles, rolled his shoulders, and stepped toward the door.
Behind him, unseen, the black Audi's driver crushed his cigarette out in the ashtray and spoke into a throat mic.
"Sector 7 quiet. No spikes yet. Continuing passive observation."
In the tiny rental room, the Fate-Editing System pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
The game had begun.
And this time, Jiang Hao was no longer the NPC.