Super Rich: Starting the game by going back ten years to buy Bitcoin

When the blood oxygen level jumped to 92%, the older doctor took a deep breath, looked away from the panel, and rubbed his sore neck.

He has been watching for fourteen hours.

The fifteenth hour.

The lighting in the ward remained unchanged, with the incandescent bulbs shining steadily, making it impossible to distinguish between day and night. The blue and white light strips on the bulkhead pulsed rhythmically, their frequency as steady as a metronome.

The numbers on the panel are no longer as lifeless as they were a dozen hours ago.

Heart rate 72. Blood pressure 116/75. Blood oxygen 98%.

The older doctor, Lao Zhou, was the director of the ICU at a military hospital for thirty-one years. He had seen it all. But right now, the hand holding the notebook was trembling like someone with Parkinson's disease.

It's not that he doesn't believe it—the data is there, and every number is reverting to its normal value.

He couldn't believe it.

A month ago, the joint consultation of seven academicians concluded in black and white with the words "irreversible multiple organ failure." Now, fifteen hours later, these numbers tell him—it's reversible.

The young doctor next to me, Xiao Chen, had been secretly recording data changes on his phone for more than three hours, his fingers trembling the whole time.

Li Yichen sat in the chair, his head tilted to one side, half asleep. The thin blanket draped over his shoulders had slipped down to his elbows, revealing a splattered T-shirt underneath. He was curled up in the chair, his breathing shallow.

My watch vibrated.

It wasn't a physical vibration—it was a direct stimulation of his auditory nerve via a brain-computer interface.

Ling'er's voice rang out close to my eardrums, as light as a breath of air.

"Brother, Commander Xiao's brainwaves are showing signs of awakening. The alpha wave band is becoming active."

Li Yichen's eyelids twitched.

"Expected to be fully awake in three to five minutes."

He opened his eyes. He didn't get up, didn't move, didn't even change his posture. He just slumped in the chair, his gaze fixed on the data panel on the bulkhead.

72, 116/75, 98%.

Stable.

He did not tell anyone about this.

Just wait and see. He intends to let everyone witness this.

Two minutes later.

Inside the cabin, a withered hand moved.

His five fingers flexed and straightened slightly, like a hibernating animal testing the outside temperature. Then came his eyelids—very slowly, twitching two or three times before finally opening a crack with difficulty.

It took Xiao Jingshan's pupils several seconds to focus.

A curved, transparent canopy came into view. A flowing band of blue-white light swept across the area at a steady pace from left to right, like a galaxy slowly drifting across the night sky. All around were unfamiliar, silver-white pieces of equipment.

There were no white walls in the ward. There was no pungent smell of disinfectant. There were no beeping electrocardiogram monitors.

The old general blinked twice.

It must be a dream. It's definitely a dream.

He tried to move his mouth. His throat was as dry as rolled-up sandpaper, and he couldn't squeeze out a single syllable. But the muscles in his throat were indeed contracting, and the back of his tongue was indeed touching the roof of his mouth—the sensation was real.

Not a dream.

Outside the ward, in front of the glass window, an elderly woman with gray hair and a woman in military uniform in her forties hadn't moved an inch in the past fifteen hours.

They moved two chairs to the window, and the small table in the middle was piled with crumpled tissues and half-finished iced tea.

Xiao Jingshan's daughter, Xiao Ying, leaned against the window frame, her eyes half-closed, having stayed up all night. Her eyes unconsciously swept across the cabin—the next second, her back straightened.

Inside the cabin.

Those eyes opened.

Her mind went blank for a full second. The world seemed to have been paused.

Then all the sounds rushed back at the same instant.

"mom!"

She jerked her head, her fingers digging into her mother's arm so hard that her knuckles turned white.

"Dad's awake! Mom, look—Dad's awake!"

My voice cracked. The last note floated to the ceiling and then fell back down, completely broken and out of tune.

The old lady sprang up from the chair and rushed to the glass. She slammed her hands on the glass with her fingers spread wide, her fingernails scraping against the glass surface.

"Old Xiao! Old Xiao, can you hear me?!"

Tears welled up instantly, not just flowing, but bursting forth like a dam breaking. They streamed down my entire face, staining the glass.

The mother and daughter hugged each other, their shoulders heaving as they cried, their bodies trembling. The sound was blocked by the glass and the bulkhead, unable to reach the inside. But that sound—everyone in the corridor heard it.

Cheng Zhiyuan was the first to act.

The chair bounced away with a bang, and he rushed to the window in three quick steps. He braced his hands on the wall above the glass frame, stretched his neck forward, and stared intently at the pale but—clearly, spirited face inside the cabin.

His lips trembled several times.

"Snapped!"

He slapped the wall, causing the lid of the fire extinguisher box next to him to bounce.

He said nothing. But the things that welled up in his eyes and were swallowed back down spoke louder than any words.

Liu Guoliang stood at the back of the crowd, his hands tightly tucked into his pockets. The shape of his hands inside revealed that all ten fingers were clenched into fists.

His expression was complex: relief, a sense of accomplishment, lingering fear, but mostly excitement.

In the ward.

Li Yichen finally stood up from his chair. His knee cracked, and he was a beat slower than usual as he stood up straight—his lumbar spine, which hadn't been properly used for almost a month, was protesting.

He raised one hand.

"Quiet first."

The sound wasn't loud, but it had enough penetrating power.

All eyes outside the door turned to him. The crying, sobbing, and heavy breathing—all stopped as if a switch had been turned on.

"Commander Xiao's treatment is not over yet."

He speaks slowly, and each word is pronounced clearly.

"Fifteen hours have passed now, and there are still nine hours left before we can open the cabin. If we are interrupted halfway through—all our efforts will be in vain."

The corridor was completely silent.

Xiao Ying wiped away her tears, nodded vigorously twice, and pressed her lips tightly into a line. The old lady next to her was still trembling, but she didn't say a word.

Li Yichen turned around and walked to the front of the medical ward.

Through the quartz glass of the hatch, his gaze met Xiao Jingshan's.

The old general's gaze shifted from confusion to questioning. His lips moved twice—he wanted to speak, but through the bulkhead, nothing could be heard outside.

Li Yichen pressed his hand against a groove about the size of a thumbnail on the side of the cabin wall.

"Click."

The communication channel was connected. His voice filled the cabin through the built-in speaker.

"Commander Xiao, this is Li Yichen."

Inside the cabin, Xiao Jingshan's pupils focused. His gaze fell on the face looking at him through the glass—a stubble-covered mess, frighteningly dark circles under his eyes, and a noticeably thinner appearance. He was a completely different person from the energetic young man he had seen in the office a few months ago.

"You..." Xiao Jingshan's voice sounded like it was squeezed out from under a dried-up riverbed, so hoarse that it was almost unrecognizable.

Li Yichen didn't let him strain his voice too much.

"You collapsed in your office a little over a month ago. Multiple organ failure. The best specialists in the country came for a consultation—"

He paused for a moment, then softened his words.

"The situation is not good."

Xiao Jingshan's expression remained unchanged. This kind of news wouldn't cause much of a stir for someone who had spent forty-two years navigating through gunfire.

"The thing you're lying on right now is a nanomedical capsule." Li Yichen tapped the capsule wall with his chin.

"There are billions of repair robots inside, smaller than blood cells. They go into your blood vessels and repair whatever is damaged. Liver, kidneys, lungs—including damage from old shrapnel, they handle it all."

Xiao Jingshan's Adam's apple bobbed.

"It's halfway done now. The results are great. But it will take another nine hours to complete, so please don't move around too much during this time."

The cabin was quiet for a few seconds.

Xiao Jingshan turned his gaze away from the equipment and back to Li Yichen's face.

That young face was etched with exhaustion—not the kind from pulling an all-nighter or two, but the kind that leaves you completely drained, inside and out. His cheekbones were more prominent than I remembered, stubble covered the lower half of his face, and his eye sockets were sunken.

The old general, who was in his sixties or seventies, lay in the cabin, staring at the twenty-five-year-old man outside for a long time.

His throat moved twice.

"……Thanks."

Two words. Hoarse, extremely soft. But every syllable squeezed out of the throat carried a weight never before felt in decades of military service.

Li Yichen smiled.

It wasn't a polite smile; it was the kind of genuine smile that came from someone who had been holding back for a month and was finally able to relax, tinged with weariness.

"Commander Xiao, you should just get some rest. When you open your eyes again, I guarantee you'll feel like you've been given a new body."

He tilted his head slightly, his tone as relaxed as if he were chatting with someone in the cafeteria.

"You'll have to treat me to a meal then. A nice restaurant, don't try to fool me with the military mess hall."

A very soft sound came from inside the cabin.

It's a laugh.

It was so faint it was almost invisible—the corners of her mouth had moved up less than a millimeter. But it was definitely a smile.

Then the old general closed his eyes. His breathing became steady and long again, like a river that had finally found its way out.

Li Yichen withdrew his hand, and the communication was disconnected.

He turned and walked towards the door.

The moment the door was pushed open—

Xiao Ying waited outside the door. Her eyes were swollen like walnuts, and her nose was bright red.

She didn't say anything.

He bent over. At a ninety-degree angle. He bowed deeply and for a long time.

His voice was hoarse—it had been hoarse for fifteen hours, and now he couldn't squeeze out a single complete syllable. But the angle and duration of his bow spoke louder than any words.

Li Yichen nodded.

He lifted his leg and walked deeper into the corridor.

My legs felt like lead. My shoulders slumped, and each step required a little more effort than the last. My body, which hadn't had a proper night's sleep for almost thirty days, finally gave in the moment the tension was released.

He walked to the window at the end of the corridor, slid down the wall, and plopped down on the terrazzo floor.

It's cold.

Good.

He tilted his head back and the back of his head hit the wall with a dull thud.

Ling'er's voice was close to my eardrum, as light as breathing.

"Brother, there are still nine hours left. Do you want to rest a little longer?"

"Um."

"Then you go to sleep. I'll keep an eye on things."

"Um……"

The drawn-out sound no longer resembled a conscious response.

Footsteps approached from a distance and stopped in front of them.

He recognized the sound of leather shoes on terrazzo – it was Liu Guoliang.

A military overcoat with a faint tobacco scent fell onto his shoulders. The thick woolen fabric pressed down, carrying his body warmth.

Li Yichen didn't open his eyes.

Liu Guoliang stood there for two seconds. He didn't say anything.

Turned around and left.