Chapter 1: Book of Merits
"The Three Gates of the Ten Merits and Virtues" in the Mahayana Treatise: "Meritorious means functional. It can break birth and death, attain Nirvana, and save sentient beings. This is called merit. This merit is the virtue of good deeds, so it is called merit."
The bustling morning in the community has passed. People who go to work, school, take a walk, walk their cats, dogs and children all go in their own directions. The air is still filled with the faint smell of oil smoke and gasoline, and the sound of car horns can be faintly heard on the road outside the community.
However, for the people in this community, things finally quieted down, as if even the pace of their breathing could finally slow down.
The sun gradually rose higher, and the lush green leaves drooped under the scorching midday sun. Even the insects, birds and animals seemed to have lost their spirit, chirping occasionally, and then hiding among the dense leaves and disappearing without a trace.
Rong Yuan, who is already a high school student, has no intention of going to school. His quilt is still piled randomly on the bed, his shorts are hanging on the back of a chair beside him, and his T-shirt is half on the chair and half on the ground. His schoolbag is thrown in the corner by the door, and several books and exercise books have slipped out of the opening. On the desk, his books are neatly arranged by category, and the pens, signing pens, pencils, rulers, erasers, and tapes in the pen holder are neatly arranged according to type and size, like soldiers waiting for inspection. On the bookshelf, from dictionaries to novels, from essay argument collections to various subject question books, from English listening to various game discs, from the small cactus he has raised for three years to the various ornaments he bought from roadside stalls, nothing is out of order and nothing is unfamiliar.
Rong Yuan sat cross-legged on the bed, one hand supporting his chin, his body motionless, his eyes sweeping across the room inch by inch, trying to find any inconsistency. This state began when he woke up early in the morning and continued until now when the sun was shining brightly.
The reason is that after waking up in the morning, Rong Yuan discovered three things.
First, he lost three days. It was still Friday before he lay down, and he was still planning what to do on the next two days of rest. He filled in the schedule in his mind one, two, three, and four steps before he fell asleep peacefully. When he opened his eyes, it was already Tuesday.
Second, he had a mild obsessive-compulsive disorder and cleanliness, and was used to putting everything in a fixed order and in a fixed place, so it would never look messy at any time. It would never be like now - clothes, pants, and schoolbags were thrown randomly aside, without the slightest order. And that T-shirt and shorts, if he remembered correctly - and the probability of remembering correctly was smaller than Mars hitting the Earth - were not the ones he wore to school on Friday.
——The reason is very simple. The school stipulates that students must wear the blue and white school uniform which has no special features during school hours.
Third, there was an ancient booklet inexplicably placed next to his pillow. It was the size of an A5 paper, with nine binding holes punched on the side and thin golden rings inside the holes. The paper was thin and strong, with a tight and smooth texture. It had a light blue cover with three black official script characters on it - "Book of Merits".
He was sure that he had never bought such a souvenir anywhere, or in other words, he had never seen such a booklet anywhere.
Moreover, the paper in this "Book of Merits" was pure white and delicate, and felt smooth and soft like water. No matter it was folded, soaked in water, or burned, it would not be damaged or deformed. Even a bottle of ink was poured on it, it would be absorbed completely in a moment without leaving any trace. Rong Yuan even cut his fingertips and put a few drops of blood on it, and it was also absorbed completely without any other reaction.
This is a book that cannot be written on and is almost completely blank.
I say almost because only the first page of this booklet has content: most of the page is taken up by a full-body photo of him, and he is wearing the same clothes that are now thrown on the chair. On the right side of the photo is a series of densely packed data. In addition to the common height, weight, shoulder width, chest circumference, and waist circumference, there are also things like head length, neck length, eyebrow distance, lip thickness, index finger length, etc., which are so detailed that it is outrageous. And not only that, when he taps his finger on this photo, the data and health status of each organ in the body will emerge, from the hair to the toes. Tap the head of the photo three times, and all the body data will disappear, replaced by four lines of words -
[Strength: 15.375]
[Agility: 7.013]
【Constitution: 5.953】
[Intelligence: 4.367]
Below the photo are a few short lines of text:
【Name: Rong Yuan】
【Gender: Male】
Age: 17
[Bloodline: —] (Behind the bloodline is a bright red scratch, Rong Yuan suspects that it is his own blood)
【Merit: -178500000】
Rong Yuan stared at the last string of numbers for a long time, then pointed at them one by one and counted them.
——He had never doubted his eyesight, nor his IQ, but he still counted it again.
Then he counted it a third time.
Counting three times was enough, and Rong Yuan could finally be sure that the line of data he saw was not an illusion.
Negative merit value of 178.5 million.
hehe.
Is the thing called "merit" calculated according to the exchange rate of Zimbabwe (a country that once issued 50 billion banknotes, but 50 billion could only buy two loaves of bread)?
In view of the various magical properties of the merit book and the fact that all objective data therein were accurate to three decimal places - although it was unclear whether there were any errors - Rong Yuan, although he had doubts about this [-178500000], still lowered his head and began to recall his short seventeen years of life.
He was an orphan who was abandoned by both his parents at birth. He grew up with an uncle who was over 60 years old and had no children. The old man was not very energetic and could not even take care of himself, let alone a baby. Therefore, although the family's economic conditions were not bad, Rongyuan's growth process was also bumpy. He cursed as soon as he could speak, and started fighting as soon as he could walk. Fortunately, he was good-looking and very smart. Since he started school in kindergarten, he had never been deprived of the top spot in academic performance by others. People are always particularly tolerant and fond of such good-looking and good-performing children. Therefore, he did not experience much hardship, but received a lot of sympathy and help from people around him.
Rong Yuan knew very well that he was not a good person. Apart from small things like extortion and fighting, he had also done many things to seek revenge. But he always felt that he was innocent and kind. After all, he was always "defensive and counterattacked". He had never killed anyone. He gave up his seat on the bus, helped the elderly who fainted on the road, helped lost children, picked up money on the road and gave it to the teacher. He obeyed all kinds of social rules that must be obeyed, and he had never run a red light... He always felt that he was a good person, a little better than most people in the world.
So -
Negative 178.5 million?
Oh, how is that possible?
It must be Zimbabwe’s exchange rate, right?
Just as Rong Yuan was thinking this, the merit book in his hand suddenly became hot, and he had a bad feeling in his heart. He quickly opened the merit book, and saw that the blank title page was actually burning with black flames. The jumping flames spread across the page like a raging black snake. After a moment, the flames went out and gathered into a few lines of text:
[Rule 1: If the merit of the contractor in the Merit Book is negative, the contractor will be killed. If the contractor's initial value is negative, the merit value can be exchanged for life or offset the negative merit value. The life exchange rate is 10 merits/day. If the merit for exchanging life cannot be paid within 24 hours and the contractor's merit value is still negative, the contractor will be killed. ]
[Rule 2: It is not allowed to inform any living thing of the existence of the Merit Book in any way. Those who violate this rule will terminate the contract. If the merit of the contractor is negative when the contract is terminated, the contractor will be wiped out.]
[Rule 3: If the contractor places any paper item on the Merit Book for 3000 seconds, the Merit Book will display the appearance and content of the item in any existence other than the contractor; if this step is not performed, the Merit Book will be displayed as a blank book. Only the contractor can see the true content of the Merit Book. ]
