“I… I don’t want any of this.” Gary finally found his words. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried weight—the kind of weight that only comes when the soul is cracking. “What if… just what if you allow humans be?” he said, almost to himself. “What if you allow the human nature to play out? We grow, we get sick, we… we break, yes. But we also heal. We forgive. We love. That’s the fucking point.” Grandmaster Wang didn’t flinch. He merely observed. “We were not made to be controlled like some army of flawless prototypes. We were made to fail sometimes. To learn. To be alive.” “Alive?” the Grandmaster echoed softly, as if the word itself amused him. Then his tone shifted. It became sharp, cold, and surgical. “You speak of life like you’ve tasted all of it, Gary. You think pain is poetry. You romanticize the struggle because you’ve never seen what true failure looks like. The kind that doesn’t teach, doesn’t give second chances. The kind that just… eats people.” He stepped forward. “

Oftentimes in life, we are faced with situations that force us to make choices. Good or bad. Wrong or right. Just or unfair. It’s easy. Choices like those are easy. They’re subjective, relative. You follow your gut, your conscience, or your God—whatever holds your compass. You’re a good man, you take the right. You’re a bad woman, you walk into the wrong for selfish reasons or otherwise. But what happens when you stand at the crossroads and the signposts are blank? There are no rights. No wrongs. No north. No south. Just fog. And silence. The kind of silence that wraps around your throat like a velvet rope—soft, but choking. You look down both paths and realize… either one will cost you something. Either one will leave you with blood on your hands. That was where Gary stood. Not as a billionaire. Not as a Wang. Not as a savior. But as a man. A grandson. And—somehow—the last hope of a woman whose name had become a whisper in his heart. Mei Lin. He hadn’t said it aloud yet. I

It was easy to believe. It all made sense why he felt a thing for the young man, the very first day he saw him at a restaurant. Gary had sworn to mind his business and not interfere with issues that did not concern him. But that day, seeing the young man being treated like trash, he knew he had to do something. He couldn’t bring himself to watch Miles get beat. Fast forward to today, he was hearing this? He needed to get to the root of this. But again, his grandmother was still there, in the aircraft. They needed to go home. Now, Miles was getting ready for his final attack. He curled his fist. “But I found out that you, your fucking grandfather and your whole sick empire have been lying to the world. You’re all monsters. Playing gods with people’s lives. And you—Galy—you just stood there. You let her die! You let my mother die!” Gary stood slowly, his jaw bruised, blood on his lip, his chest heaving from the blow. But his eyes remained calm. “Miles, listen to me…” “No! No, shu

The car tore through the night like a bullet searching for purpose. Its engine roared against the silence of Nirvana, but inside the cabin, it was deathly still. Miles sat crumpled in the seat, shivering violently. His eyes were wide but vacant, lips pale. The voltage had nearly fried his nervous system. “He’ll be okay, Master,” said Langston’s voice from the front. Calm. Mechanical. One of the many assistants Gary had on-call. Gary didn’t look at him. “Well, he better be,” Gary said quietly, “or it’ll be you on a hospital bed. Hooked to a goddamn drip.” Shen fell silent. Gary’s jaw tightened. His knuckles whitened around the steering wheel. His mind was a whirlwind. The silence wasn’t empty—it was heavy. Heavy with all the things he should have done. Should have said. Should have been. His grandfather had warned him. You can’t outrun your blood, son. And oh, how he tried. He ran from the island. From the name. From the empire. He thought this was it. Return home, live a hap