Ren Zhaoyang was born with nothing.
No family name. No guiding hand. No warmth waiting to greet him in the world.
Only the icy floor of a government-run orphanage, the indifferent ceiling of a crowded institution, and a random number scrawled on the top of a manila folder that no one ever looked at twice.
He was the type of child who should have been forgotten.
And perhaps he would have been—if not for his mind.
By the age of six, Zhaoyang had already memorized every single book in the orphanage's limited collection. Manuals, textbooks, newspapers from years ago, even labels on cleaning products. His brain remembered everything. His mind processed faster than those around him. He didn't understand loneliness, because he was too busy watching, listening, learning. He had no time to mourn what he never had.
But genius, as he learned far too early, meant nothing when you were poor. When you had no name. When the man running the orphanage couldn't be bothered to mention you to potential sponsors, and the world at large didn't even know you existed.
There was no scholarship. No patron. No miraculous benefactor.
And yet, he refused to stay in the dark.
Others his age enjoyed the luxury of tutors, family networks, and safety nets. He clawed his way through discarded books, applied for jobs that paid in "experience," and endured internships where he was treated like invisible furniture. And yet, he remembered every instruction, mastered every system, and completed every task with a kind of terrifying precision.
He was not charismatic. He was not from a prestigious bloodline. But he was useful.
And in a world run by numbers, Ren Zhaoyang made himself irreplaceable.
By the age of twenty-five, he had become a high-ranking figure in one of the most ruthless corporate empires on Earth. His name, once nonexistent, now rang with quiet dread through boardrooms and backdoor deals. He didn't inspire loyalty, but he commanded respect. Not because of charm, but because of the simple fact that he got results.
He had lived by a code entirely of his own making—one forged through poverty, sharpened through betrayal, and tempered in the fires of relentless ambition. He did not lie for pleasure, but he would deceive to win. He did not kill out of anger, but he would not hesitate to remove obstacles. He never helped without benefit, and never risked himself for anyone else. The world had never given him anything for free, and he saw no reason to return what he had never received.
There was a time when he had friends, but time and reality stripped them away. In the pursuit of power, warmth became a liability, and friendship a fading luxury. He had shared laughter once. But that was another life.
As for love… he understood it. Intellectually.
He had experienced intimacy. He had felt desire. But he viewed love the way one might observe a wildfire from afar — brilliant, captivating, but dangerous and utterly consuming. It was not hatred he felt toward it, but a calm, distant refusal. He didn't need it. He didn't want it.
Love was chaos. And chaos got in the way of control.
And in the end, it was control he valued above all else.
But control, as he would come to understand in his final moments, was an illusion.
That night, as his sleek black car glided silently through the city streets, rain sliding down the windows like cold fingers, he sat alone in the back seat, eyes closed, mind still calculating. His security detail was tight—two guards in the car ahead, one trailing on a motorcycle. Standard protocol. Efficient. Safe.
But not safe enough.
The explosion came without warning.
One moment, the road was clear. The next, the lead car vanished in a bloom of fire and metal. In the same heartbeat, sharp caltrops burst across the asphalt, ripping through his tires. His vehicle veered violently, swerved, and slammed into the divider. Everything went sideways.
Then came the silence. Then the shadows.
Six figures emerged, dressed in black, their movements fluid and practiced. Professionals.
His guards barely had time to raise their weapons. In seconds, they were down—throats slit, necks broken, bodies discarded without hesitation.
One of the masked men yanked the door open and lunged in.
The blade pierced Zhaoyang's chest with surgical precision—clean, deep, fatal.
He didn't scream. But he wasn't calm.
As pain exploded through his chest and blood filled his lungs, his eyes flew open—not in panic, but in raw, bitter disbelief.
No… Not like this.
He hadn't climbed this far, bled this much, just to end here.
He had foreseen betrayal. Calculated danger. He had prepared for war, sabotage, slander. But not this—this silent erasure, this helpless collapse.
There must be a way out.
His mind reached, grasped, clawed for any lifeline—some bargain, some plan, some forgotten backdoor in this system he had mastered.
But there was nothing. Just cold steel. Steady rain. And the hollow stillness of a job done perfectly.
He didn't fear death. He had accepted it as a possibility long ago.
But he did not accept this death.
He wasn't ready.
He would have begged—not out of weakness, but out of the sheer unwillingness to let it all end here. He wanted more. He wasn't done. He still had truths to uncover, a world to outwit, a fate to carve open with his own hands.
But no plea came.
No god listened.
Only silence answered.
And in that silence, Ren Zhaoyang died—clutching not hope, not sorrow, but refusal.