The wind carried the scent of damp earth and distant pine, whispering through the skeletal remains of an abandoned shrine. Once a place of worship, now a forgotten relic, its weathered stones bore the scars of time, much like the man who stood before them.
Heu Ma.
No longer the scholar who once spoke of virtue. No longer the fool who placed faith in empty promises.
He gazed at his trembling hands—no longer those of a powerless victim, but of a man who had seized fate by its throat. The Merchant System pulsed within him, its presence an unseen force, coiling through his veins like an unseen dragon stirring in its slumber.
Before him, a translucent screen shimmered into existence, its words etched in golden light.
「First Transaction: The Price of Survival」
Offer: One past, one name, one mortal weakness.
Reward: One path forward.
A cruel trade, yet a fair one.
Heu Ma exhaled, his breath curling in the cold night air. The name he had carried, the life he had clung to—such things had already been stripped from him. What was left to lose?
"I accept."
A single heartbeat passed. Then another.
And then, agony.
Fire erupted within him, searing away the remnants of his past, cauterizing the wounds left by betrayal. His body convulsed, every fiber of his being unmade and reforged in unseen hands.
When the pain faded, he stood taller. His limbs, once weak, now bore the quiet strength of tempered steel. His vision sharpened, and the world unfolded before him in cruel, meticulous detail—the glint of moonlight on a hidden blade, the measured breath of something watching in the shadows.
A test.
Heu Ma turned his gaze toward the darkened treeline.
"You should come out," he said, voice steady as a blade unsheathed. "If it's my life you want, know that I do not trade cheaply."
A rustle of leaves. The scent of steel.
And then, the first piece in his grand game stepped forward.