Chapter 1: Prologue Flourishing Glimpses Fade in a Season

Crack... Bang—

Flames crackled and circuits buzzed. His vision was blurry as he crawled out of the overturned car.

It was a riverside park at night. Across the water, the dense city lights flickered like fire, resembling a vast city floating on the surface. That prosperous scene contrasted sharply with the remote and lonely park where he stood. He remembered that he had overseen the park's development project more than ten years ago.

“It was a failed development…”

A gust of wind blew past, and he sighed, stumbling towards the shimmering water. Suddenly, a massive explosion erupted from the car behind him. Flames shot up, and a wave of heat swept over him from behind, threatening to engulf him. The sound of a helicopter filled the sky, followed by a bright beam of light that illuminated his vision. Someone was shouting from above, and vehicles, mostly police cars, had arrived from both sides of the park, their various lights creating a chaotic scene.

His head still swam. Blood trickled down his forehead, which he wiped away before tightening his trench coat. On both sides of the river, hovercraft and speedboats swarmed, preventing any attempt for him to escape by jumping into the water.

“Seriously… I’m not some assassin…”

The dense encirclement by land, sea, and air around him filled him with vexation. His vision was no longer clear, and he knew there was little chance of escape this time. As the cold wind blew, his mind drifted to trivial memories. This was the city where he had grown up. Back then, the city wasn't as developed; standing on this riverbank, he couldn't see the city's palatial splendor, but he felt a sense of warmth. This side of the river was all dirt slopes, a yellow dirt path he often rode his bicycle along with friends on the way from home to school.

“Someday, I’ll build a park here, make it beautiful, and fill the city with skyscrapers for all of us to live in…”

He had made this grand vow when he was young, after visiting the prosperous provincial capital. What a spirited age it was! Over the next two or three decades, he, like a primitive man who had just invented stone knives and axes, forged ahead with astonishing audacity, overcoming countless perilous obstacles that others could scarcely imagine. He built one of the world's largest financial empires, a feat that sometimes even he himself found dreamlike.

In the eyes of others, he was an unshakeable financial titan, and he believed it himself. Yet, returning to this familiar place at this moment, he gradually understood that this park, after all, was a failure.

Its original intention was to bring joy to everyone…

The failed development project could have been salvaged later with significant investment—a trivial sum for him now. Yet, why had he never done it? When he initially wanted to, he wasn't affluent. Now, he had deliberately avoided it because it wouldn't yield profit. Thinking about it now, many things he thought he remembered, he had actually forgotten, and many things he thought he had forgotten, he suddenly remembered again…

His friends from back then, his companions, the hope of making the world a better place, the wishes he had made, the path he had walked. He sat down on a stone bench by the riverbank. The lights were dazzling, and his mind was a tangle of emotions. He fumbled in his pockets, truly needing a cigarette at that moment, though he had quit a long time ago…

Someone handed him a cigarette.

The man, wearing a suit and gold-rimmed glasses, stood beside him. He didn't even need to look up to know who it was. He took the cigarette, and the man with gold-rimmed glasses pulled out a lighter, cupped his hand against the wind, and lit it for him.

“I’m remembering old times,” he said. “We used to ride our bikes to school from here, you, me, Qingyi, A-Kang, Ruoping… Qingyi passed away a couple of years ago, didn’t he? I couldn’t make it to his funeral…” He took a drag from his cigarette, and as he exhaled, the cold wind immediately dispersed the smoke. “How’s Ruoping doing?”

“She has two children now, doing quite well,” the man with glasses replied, sitting down.

“Ah… you told me that, I almost forgot…” He thought for a moment, then chuckled. “She was the prettiest among the girls. I remember I always had a crush on her but never dared to confess.”

The man beside him was silent for a moment, then also took out a lighter and lit a cigarette. “I knew you liked her. I confessed to her before you did, and she rejected me… She said she liked you.”

“You never told me that…”

“What else could happen? We were all striving for our futures later on. You forgot about her, and she couldn’t wait for you forever. Since you never confessed, she got married.”

“Yes, I missed out on a lot…”

“You always strived for perfection.”

“You know,” he said, pausing to gesture with his hand to indicate a height, “when you reach the peak, you realize there’s nothing there but a fleeting sense of accomplishment. You always feel… regret… The path I’m on now, perhaps it’s not what I truly longed for in the beginning…”

“Indeed,” the man with glasses said.

After a moment of silence, he looked at the short cigarette in his hand. “The deficit of over a hundred billion will be troublesome to deal with. I realized this months ago and already prepared a contingency plan; it’s on my computer… I just didn’t expect your reaction to be so drastic. A change in company leadership can indeed shift the deficit onto a few people, making things much easier. You should revise the plan and try not to involve too many people, after all, we’ve all worked hard together for so long.”

“...I,” the man beside him hesitated for a moment, as if wanting to explain something, but ultimately just said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing,” he replied. “We’ve come this far together, and I’ve always been in the lead. As brothers, it’s your turn to try… This trap was well set. The company is yours; it won't collapse. Just… in the future, take some money and properly develop this park. I always wanted to do it. I always thought I remembered, but when I thought about it, I felt no urgency and kept postponing it…”

“I’ve already told them that after this, you can still live well…”

“Cut the grass, but don’t remove the roots, and it will grow again with the spring breeze. Release a tiger back into the mountains…” He turned his head, his calm gaze holding a sternness. “What do you think you are?”

“As long as I’m alive, I’ll be a threat to you!” He paused, then tossed his cigarette butt to the ground and stomped it out. “It’s lonely at the top. Reaching this point in life is enough. Even if I were to start over, I’d want to do it free from attachments, with a clean slate. All those messy, dirty affairs, the infighting… If I could have another chance…”

He smiled and stood up. “If I could have another chance, I think I’d confess to her…”

The helicopter hovered in the sky, boats sped across the water, and vehicles surrounded the park. On the brightly lit riverbank, the standing man suddenly drew a gun, pointing it at the man with glasses beside him. Witnessing his action, the man with glasses simultaneously stood up, raised his hands, and waved them at the surrounding people: “Don’t shoot—”

A volley of gunshots erupted. Blood bloomed on his back. After a long moment, he turned around, gazed at the body lying in a pool of blood, and then numbly took off his glasses, wiped them a few times, put them back on, and picked up the gun from the corpse’s hand.

“I told them not to shoot… there were no bullets…”

He mumbled in the night wind.