Chapter 0: Prologue
2020 After Death (AD), Li Yan was casually sitting on his sofa watching the news while munching on some popcorn. He had nothing to do recently as the current situation of his world could be described in one-word pandemonium. The world was gripped in chaos. A new era had come, an era of nuclear weapons and chemical warfare; But certain things still remained the same: Tyrants and dictators waging war on land, on-air, and water all in the name of freedom and peace.
Peace is an illusion and freedom a prison. This was something Li Yan has known throughout his life. He was born in the streets of shanghai, his mother a prostitute, and his father a business typhoon as described by his mother, but such claims could hardly be verified and were rarely true; As to why would a typhoon muddle in such dirty waters.
Li Yan grew up with views of tall skyscrapers which stood above clouds, the lights of the city which never dimmed. As a child he was mature beyond his age; as he grew old, he came to realize that the strong prey on the weak. The strong demand and the weak obey. The Money, the system, all are means of imprisonment disguised as freedom.
At age of 9, his mother passed away. Before she died, she said to Li Yan “All my life I have lived in the shadows of others begging to survive, each day was as hard as the other with no respite in sight. I don’t care how you live your life but when death comes you shall die with no regret”.
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After his mother's death, he wandered from one street to other struggling to survive. When he asked for food he got beaten, when he asked to sleep he got thrown. Hardly did the world know that what they were beating was iron, all those suffering was molding him into a sharp sword. To survive he joined a street gang and started doing all types of illegal activities, but he never killed an innocent or preyed on the weak.
At age of 18, he had already become one of the leaders of the underworld. He had enough food to spare or money to burn, Power and wealth he had it all at such a young age. But something was always off, even with all that power and wealth he was never satisfied, the dying words of his mother always haunted his head.
At age of 20, he left behind his life as a criminal mastermind and started roaming the world. He began to amass knowledge from all fields of life be they Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, or History.
At age of 60, he was a world-renowned professor of philosophy at the University of London. But even with all his knowledge and experience, he was not certain that he would have no regrets in death. Life is long perhaps too long to live free and unfettered.
2020 AD the world has changed, few remains of what was then. The city, the system, the weapons, everything’s different. But what remains the same are the people and their greed. Avarice has blinded them; they destroy their own land and pollute their own air. Division is in our nature, we divide, we conquer and we die. Nothing really changes. Ever!
As Li Yan was watching the dynamics of the war on the news he suddenly saw a bright flash of light connecting heaven and earth. He knew that end has come, as his consciousness started to blur he could not remember what he really lived for. And thus a legend of an era had passed away.