I then heard He Shang shouting loudly, "Buddy, come over here quickly, something big has happened!"

I had no choice but to run over, thinking to myself, "What mischief is Mrs. Zhao up to now?" But when I arrived, I was taken aback. It wasn't Mrs. Zhao who was in trouble, but Mr. Zhao.

I saw Mr. Zhao lying on the ground, convulsing and frothing at the mouth, his face purple. The family doctor was frantically trying to treat him, but it wasn't working.

The guests around them asked the doctor what was going on. The doctor, with a head full of sweat, said it was Mr. Zhao's chronic illness that had not flared up for a long time, but he didn't know why it had happened today.

I had sharp eyes and noticed black lines wrapped around Mr. Zhao's life palace. After a moment's thought, I pushed the doctor away and used my qi to strike his vertebrae. Mr. Zhao had insufficient yang energy, and this would dispel the malevolent qi from his life palace and barely keep him alive.

The doctor, pushed away by me, saw me poking around Mr. Zhao and got angry, scolding me for being a charlatan who deceived people with feng shui and dared to trifle with human lives. But before he could finish his sentence, Mr. Zhao turned his head and spat out a lot of phlegm. He coughed once and woke up.

The doctor's eyes widened in disbelief, and the guests around them were also stunned. He Shang was the first to applaud, and the other guests, as if waking from a dream, also followed suit. "Master Li is truly a national treasure. Not only is he a master, but he's also a miraculous doctor!"

"Yes, his knowledge spans both yin and yang. He's a rare talent!"

Mr. Zhao's eyes were initially unfocused, but when he heard the guests' words, they widened. "Did I...did I have a seizure?"

He Shang recounted what had happened just now and proudly stared at Mr. Zhao, thanking me. Unexpectedly, Mr. Zhao's face filled with horror, and he shouted, "Impossible! I couldn't have had a seizure!"

This confused the guests. Everyone gets sick at some point. Was there a need to be so surprised?

While Mr. Zhao was touching his own phlegm and trembling, I looked over at Mrs. Zhao.

On the surface, Mrs. Zhao was taking care of Mr. Zhao, but a sneaky smile appeared on her red lips.

At this moment, Han Dongliang also arrived. Seeing that I had once again stolen the show, he squeezed his way over and offered to examine Mr. Zhao's lifespan. However, when he took a closer look, his eyes widened in disbelief. "This can't be..."

Mr. Zhao, who had navigated the business world for so many years, was a shrewd individual. He could see that Han Dongliang's reaction was unusual and immediately grabbed him, asking if there was something wrong with his lifespan.

Han Dongliang was at least a Xuan-level expert. How could he not see such a simple thing? But these words carried great weight and were difficult to say out loud - after all, it was Mr. Zhao's birthday, and he didn't want to bring bad luck.

I didn't hesitate and directly told Mr. Zhao, "Your lifespan has come to an end."

These words caused a commotion among the guests.

Mr. Zhao seemed to fear the worst and grabbed me, shouting, "Impossible...impossible! I still have at least a year left!"

No one can predict their own lifespan, but Mr. Zhao's certainty made the guests even more surprised. Some even suspected that Mr. Zhao might be a little delirious due to his illness.

I replied, "Your lifespan didn't end today - if I'm not mistaken, you should have died seven years ago."

Everyone was stunned.

He Shang couldn't bear to listen anymore and whispered, "Buddy, don't say things like that here. This is a special occasion..."

I looked at Mr. Zhao and said, "I'm not speaking nonsense. Mr. Zhao knows the truth in his heart."

From the beginning, Mr. Zhao's life palace was unusually long, but since I hadn't come to examine his lifespan, I hadn't paid much attention to it.

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Now, there was a truncation in his life palace, as if his lifespan had been extended by some glue-like substance. But now, that "glue" had come undone, revealing its original length - 63 years. However, today was his 70th birthday, indicating that he should have died seven years ago.

This was called stealing lifespan.

Mr. Zhao's face quickly turned ashen. "How...how do you know?"

I replied, "What you have done will not remain hidden. You must have known from the start that there would be consequences. This day was bound to come."

Cheng Xinghe suddenly realized, "So that's what stealing lifespan is! How could someone's lifespan be stolen?"

He Shang asked, "What do you mean by stealing lifespan? How is it possible to steal someone's lifespan?"

There is only one way to extend lifespan - to take the lifespan of others and add it onto oneself. However, the cost is great. Taking sixty years of someone else's life would only add one year onto one's own.

He initially felt puzzled. "Where does he steal it from..."

Then, it suddenly clicked. "Damn it! He's been losing a wife every year for the past seven or eight years! Could it be..."

That was right. He was using the lives of those brides to add a year onto his own.

The current Mrs. Zhao was his eighth bride, which was why he had confidently claimed that he had one more year to live.

Everyone present was stunned. "Could such a thing really exist? It's too fantastical, isn't it?"

"But this is the only way to explain why those brides all had such short lives!"

"Even if he wants to live longer, this method is too cruel. Those brides are too pitiful..."

"Nonsense!" Mr. Zhao seemed to have reached his limit. He shouted, "What's so pitiful about them? Their lives were bought by me with a great sum of money! Bought!"

Everyone knew that there was no such thing as a free lunch. It was an eternal truth.

I asked Mr. Zhao, "But did those girls know that the money they received was to buy their lives?"

Mr. Zhao fell silent, but he seemed to recall something and suddenly turned to grab Mrs. Zhao, slapping her across the face. "Worthless woman... was it you, was it you..."

Mrs. Zhao's exquisite beauty was now marred by a red handprint, and she wept tearfully. "I... what did I do wrong?"

On the side, He Qizheng's eyes turned red as if he wanted to tear Mr. Zhao apart, but he was restrained by the fact that he was being paid by the man and was in the public eye.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Zhao's plight had aroused the protective instincts of many, and several young male guests rushed forward to shield her. "How could you lay your hands on so many innocent women? Are you even human?"

"An old man who refuses to die is truly a thief."

Mr. Zhao wanted to continue his assault, but he realized that what was more important than that was to reattach the lifespan thread. He grabbed me and clung to me like I was his last hope. "Master, since you can see through this technique, can you also perform it? Now that this technique has been broken by that worthless woman, how can I continue to live?"

I said, "Then tell me what those so-called 'meat dates' are all about."

Mr. Zhao, fearing that he might die at any moment, discarded all other concerns and spilled the beans.

It turned out that seven years ago, Mr. Zhao had felt his health deteriorating and knew that his end was near. A famous fortune-teller had once predicted that he would not live beyond the age of seventy, so he had decided to spend his remaining time traveling to scenic spots and enjoying the last of his life.

Mr. Zhao had been a benevolent man who had done much charity work and supported many hopeful projects. His only regret was that his lifespan was too short.

During his travels in Xichuan, he encountered a landslide and saw a man trapped beneath a pile of rocks, looking like Sun Wukong. The man's eyes lit up when he saw Mr. Zhao and begged him for help.

However, the situation was dangerous, and assisting him might have put Mr. Zhao in harm's way. His attendants advised him to prioritize his own safety.

The man exclaimed, "If you don't save me, you will die this year. But if you save me, I can grant you a lifespan as long as Peng Zu's!"

Peng Zu had lived for eight hundred years, and Mr. Zhao, who had always been obsessed with immortality, decided to take the risk and rescue the man.

The man then taught him the secret recipe, instructing him to find several young women with longevous features, take their blood, and combine it with certain herbs to create a pellet, which he would then store inside the woman. By consuming it regularly and burning a yellow paper with the woman's birth details written on it beforehand, he could transfer the woman's lifespan onto himself.

One woman could provide him with one extra year of life.

Mr. Zhao, desperate to live longer, agreed to the plan without hesitation, even if it meant sacrificing human lives.

The man warned him that there was one crucial detail to remember: the women must be virgins and must not have any contact with men, not even once, as it would render the recipe ineffective and cause a backlash.

Mr. Zhao had always adhered to this rule, ensuring that his wives were virgins before marriage and keeping them locked up at home under the guard of bodyguards to prevent any untoward incidents.

After the deaths of his seven wives, he had gained seven years of life. Now, with Mrs. Zhao passing the test and marrying into the family, he had been furious when he heard that Zhang Liang had designs on her, not because of the prospect of a green hat, but because he feared it would affect his lifespan.

The current situation, where the recipe had failed, could only mean that he had been too trusting of Mrs. Zhao's silver tongue and had overlooked something crucial.

As he finished his story, Mr. Zhao gripped me tightly and begged, "Let me live a few more years, even if it's just one. I'll pay you whatever you ask for!"

At that moment, Cheng Xinghe leaned in and whispered in my ear, "I suggest you think carefully about this. Right now, those seven beautiful women are all here, floating around the old man like seven fairy maidens."

Lifespan cannot be falsified, and even those who desire immortality will eventually die.