"Insufficient energy. Unknown transmission error."
Maybe dying wouldn't be so bad. Ma Yan was just an ordinary man: born in the nineties, he went to school, served in the military, got a job, opened a small shop, and married at thirty-five. An ordinary man with an ordinary life. But the world seemed to play a joke on him. Before he turned fifty, his wife died of an illness, leaving behind a teenage son, while Ma Yan himself really did live to be a hundred. As the old saying goes, the longer you live, the more you cherish life. At ninety-nine, by a stroke of luck, Ma Yan found an ancient book filled with pictures inside a rough stone. He followed its instructions and practiced every day, though at first nothing much happened. A year later, during his hundredth-birthday celebration, Ma Yan fell. He was old, after all, and the fall nearly killed him. The doctors said his body was failing and he didn't have long to live. But Ma Yan didn't want to die. And it has to be said, that ancient book was the real deal. Ma Yan felt a force within him, and it kept him going for three whole years. But what happened? No filial son can stand vigil forever. No matter how strong the force in Ma Yan was, it couldn't withstand seven days without being struck...
This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.
