Chapter 1 — The Price of a Life
The room was silent. Only the faint, ragged breathing of an old man remained.
Liu Guan Yi lay on his bed. Silken sheets, golden pillars, medicinal vials lining the walls. All treasures that had once symbolized a lifetime of ambition now seemed meaningless. None of it could stop death.
A century of life, a century of victories, a century of careful calculation—and here he was, staring at the inevitable. He had built empire , outlived rivals, buried friends. Yet, at the end, he realized that time—the one commodity he had never been able to buy—was slipping away.
His fingers twitched. A bitter laugh escaped him, cracking into a cough. Blood flecked his lips.
Memories surfaced unbidden, unrelenting. His mother's voice, worn by years, echoed in his mind:
> " You must persevere and pursue your goal…"
He tried to remember what his goal had been. Not money. Not fame. Not power.
> "I only wanted to live."
And he had failed.
Darkness claimed him. The century of accumulated knowledge, strategy, and foresight seemed useless. All those plans, all those contingencies—gone.
---
Then, a scream shattered the silence.
"Young master is alive!"
Pain shot through his chest. His vision blurred. His mind struggled to understand. His chest heaved violently. His eyes flew open. Clear. Young. Burning with confusion and alarm.
He didn't recognize his own reflection. The face staring back was not the frail, aged man he had been. It was a boy. Fifteen years old. Black hair. Cold, sharp eyes. A thin, princely frame draped in a robe that did not feel familiar.
He froze. Heart pounding. A dozen questions hit him at once.
This isn't Earth. This isn't my body. What… happened?
Liu Guan Yi staggered, reaching out instinctively, touching his face, his chest, as though confirmation would solve the impossibility before him. His heart raced. The life that should have been slipping away had returned, but not as he knew it. It pulsed through a vessel that was not his own.
The room was unfamiliar.
Only silence. Sunlight filtered weakly through tall windows, casting long shadows across the polished floor. Every detail screamed precision, order, but also strangeness.
He sank to the floor, mind spinning. Every logical pattern, every calculation, every plan he had spent decades mastering seemed to vanish under the weight of this new reality. He had no starting point. No rules. No map.
And yet, even in confusion, Liu Guan Yi's mind refused to yield. Survival had always been priceless. Life was a ledger, and every step carried cost. And now, his journey had to begin again—from zero.
---
Time passed. Minutes, or perhaps hours. He didn't know. His body moved automatically at first, testing boundaries, pushing muscles that were unfamiliar. Every movement was a reminder: this vessel, this body, was no longer the one he had known.
He rose to his feet, uncertain but deliberate. His reflection in the mirror demanded attention. The boy's eyes were like ice, assessing, measuring, but also—confused. Emotion seeped into his mind: panic, disbelief, frustration. He could not ignore it.
"Where am I…?" he whispered, voice trembling, barely audible. No answer. Only silence.
He explored the room. No personal effects. No papers, no ledgers, no trophies. Nothing tethered him to the life he had known. Even the floor under his feet was unfamiliar, polished but not luxurious in the way his old home had been.
His mind spun through possibilities. Poison? Illusion? Dream? Death? Rebirth? Every theory was weighed, discarded, reweighed. He needed evidence. He needed certainty.
He turned from the window, pacing slowly. He analyzed everything: the position of furniture, the sunlight, the shape of the room, the temperature. Every small observation became data. Every anomaly sparked a question.
This was likely ancient times castle.
I survived. Somehow. But why?
He sat again, kneeling, and let his thoughts settle. He could not yet act. He could not yet plan. He needed to understand. And understanding required time—and patience—a currency he thought he had spent entirely on Earth.
His mind wandered, recalling centuries of strategy. He had always been meticulous, ruthless, calculating. And yet, all those methods, all those principles, were irrelevant here.
Even the simplest assumption could not be trusted. What rules governed this world? What was possible? What was not?
He closed his eyes and tried to slow his breathing, organizing his thoughts.
I am alive. That is undeniable. The rest… is unknown.
His eyes snapped open. The reflection in the mirror was still there, the boy's sharp gaze meeting his. And in that gaze, he saw not just confusion, but recognition. Recognition of the stakes. Recognition of opportunity.
This body. This world. This second chance…
A slow, deliberate realization settled over him. The world was not gentle. It would not wait. He had no allies here. No guarantees. Every choice carried cost.Somehow, by chance—or design—he was here.
For the first time in decades, Liu Guan Yi understood one truth: he had survived from death .
But this time, survival would not be about wealth, power, or influence. It would be about adaptation, observation, and ruthless decision-making.
He would not act recklessly. He would not be kind. He would not hope.
Only calculation. Only strategy. Only the cold logic that had kept him alive longer than any man had the right to be.
This life, he lived for only himself.
And as he stood in that silent, unfamiliar room, Liu Guan Yi—once the richest man on Earth, once the oldest strategist, now a boy again—finally allowed himself a faint, imperceptible smile.
The journey, beginning of everything.