## Chapter 1: Death
Li Tianchen had never known hardship.
Born into one of the wealthiest families in the city, every desire had been catered to before he even knew what it was.
The Tianchen Group, an empire spanning finance, real estate, and international trade, was his family's lifeblood—and to Li Tianchen, it was merely the backdrop of his indulgent existence.
He had grown up believing that money and status could shield him from the consequences of his own arrogance. Nightclubs, high-end bars, and exotic resorts were his playgrounds.
He was a figure of envy and ridicule, depending on who told the story. Beautiful women flocked to him, friends used him for his wealth, and rivals either bowed or avoided him.
Life was a series of pleasures, each more decadent than the last, and Li Tianchen took it all for granted. Until that fateful night. It started innocuously enough. A bar on the bustling streets of the city, dimly lit, filled with the hum of conversation and the pulse of bass-heavy music.
China
Hangzhou.
Hangzhou InternationalBar.
Li Tianchen had been with his usual entourage, laughing and tossing back drinks like water. He didn't notice the young man seated alone at the far end of the bar, quiet and observant, yet exuding an air that made Li Tianchen bristle for no reason he could immediately articulate.
He approached the stranger with the arrogance only wealth could buy. "Do you know who I am?" he asked, a smirk playing on his lips.
The man's calm gaze met his own, and a chill ran down his spine.
"I don't," the stranger replied, voice even and unflinching.
There was no fear, no hesitation. Just a quiet, piercing presence. Li Tianchen laughed, a sharp, condescending sound. "You should. But perhaps you're too insignificant to understand."
Drunk on arrogance, Li Tianchen raised his hand and slapped the stranger lightly across the cheek, his expression one of utter disdain— with a expression of looking down on the world. That was the moment he made a mistake—a simple, careless comment, intended as a joke, yet charged with his usual air of entitlement.
He did not anticipate the consequences. The young man did not react. He simply stood, nodded slightly, and left. It was a trivial incident in a bar, but in that quiet nod lay the beginning of Li Tianchen's undoing.
At first, it seemed nothing had changed. Li Tianchen continued his life of excess, unaware of the storm brewing beyond the gleam of neon lights and champagne bubbles. But the world has a way of correcting arrogance, often brutally.
It began with the small things. Contracts Li Tianchen's family had relied on for decades were suddenly delayed, mysteriously canceled, or inexplicably handed to competitors. Partners who had once sworn loyalty began disappearing from deals without explanation. Even the banks, pillars of stability for the Tianchen empire, froze accounts without notice.
One by one, the foundations of his family's fortune crumbled. He laughed at first, calling it coincidence. Perhaps the economy was shifting. Perhaps it was just bad timing. But then the losses became impossible to ignore.
Entire divisions of the company were sold off, not in negotiation, but in forced liquidation. Employees were laid off overnight. Offices that once gleamed with opulence fell silent. And through it all, Li Tianchen watched, powerless, as his family—once untouchable—began to unravel. He confronted his father, expecting guidance, strategy, and a path forward.
But his father, once a towering figure of authority, had aged decades in weeks, his once-commanding voice now weak and uncertain. "Son… perhaps… we underestimated someone," his father whispered, eyes clouded with despair.
But there was no time for solutions. There was only a sense of impending doom. The first attack came at home.
A group of masked men stormed the Tianchen residence under the cover of night. Li Tianchen, drunk on his usual arrogance, initially thought it was a robbery. He had faced thugs before. This time, there was no negotiation, no chance for bravado. His mother screamed, running in front of him as blades flashed in the dim light. She fell protecting him, her blood staining the marble floors. Li Tianchen tried to fight, but he was no warrior.
He had never needed to be. Each swing of his hand, each desperate move, was met with brutal precision and overwhelming force. His body ached, his lungs burned, and he realized with bitter clarity that wealth could not save him.
It could not save anyone. By the time the night ended, his family lay in ruins. His father, his siblings, all gone. His mother's sacrifice a grim testament to the consequences of his ignorance. He survived—barely—but only because the attackers had other priorities.
Left alive, he was nothing more than a broken shell, haunted by the screams and the sight of his mother's lifeless eyes. For days he wandered the streets, unrecognizable to the world.
Friends turned away, fearful or opportunistic. Former allies ignored his pleas for help. Li Tianchen, once the golden heir of an empire, was now a man stripped of status, wealth, and dignity.
Images surface unbidden.
His mother's final scream.
The cold indifference in the eyes of the masked men.
The stranger in the bar, calm and detached, as if already aware of how the future would unfold.
That nod.
Only now did Li Tianchen understand. That man had not been ordinary. He had not needed to threaten or warn. Power so absolute did not require theatrics. A single decision, a single glance, and an entire family had been erased as effortlessly as brushing dust from one's sleeve.
If he had known then…No. Regret was meaningless.
He ate what he could, slept where he could, and every night the image of his mother's final moments replayed endlessly in his mind.
It was in those dark, lonely nights that a transformation began—not physical, but in spirit. Hatred, cold and sharp, crystallized in his chest.
It was an emotion so pure, so intense, that it became a new kind of strength. Every humiliating moment, every pang of regret, every pang of grief, fueled it. And with it came a vow.
"If there is a next life," he whispered to the empty night, teeth clenched and voice trembling with fury, "I will return. I will repay every wrong. I will tear this world apart until the sky itself bows to my vengeance."
Death, when it came, was neither kind nor quick. Li Tianchen did not scream. He did not cry. He only clung to the memory of his vow, letting it consume him entirely.
The world faded, and yet, in that final moment, a strange clarity emerged—a whisper of possibility, a chance for rebirth.
The universe, vast and indifferent, seemed to pause. Somewhere beyond the veil of life and death, fate noted his determination. The scales of destiny, once tipped by arrogance, now waited for a force forged in suffering.
Li Tianchen's story, it seemed, was far from over. And though the night was endless, the fire in his heart promised one thing: revenge, inevitable and absolute.
One day, in a world that would tremble at his return, Li Tianchen would rise again—not as a naive heir, but as a force capable of rewriting destiny itself.