Chapter 1: When Death Becomes a New Beginning

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The dull echo of a heartbeat was the first thing I heard in the void—an odd sensation, considering the last thing I remembered was that mine had stopped.

Three bullets. One mission gone wrong. My handler betrayed me.

I was supposed to be dead.

But then… softness beneath me. A warm breeze that smelled of old wood and crushed herbs. The faint scent of sandalwood. Faint sunlight through woven curtains brushed my face.

This didn’t feel like hell. And if it was heaven, someone had drastically undersold the decor.

I groaned. My throat was dry, my limbs like iron bars soaked in water.

A gasp—soft, sharp—cut through the haze.

“Young Master?!”

I cracked my eyes open. Just barely. The world was a blur of blue and gold. A woman in her forties sat beside me, her eyes wide, wet, and disbelieving. Dark hair done up in elegant loops, thin jade ornaments in her bun. Her robes shimmered like running water.

She looked like she’d stepped out of an old dynasty drama.

“You’re… awake.” Her voice trembled. “Truly awake.”

I tried to respond. Only a croak emerged. She immediately brought a cup to my lips with practiced care, lifting my head.

The water was slightly sweet, laced with something herbal. It burned on the way down and yet… it was the most comforting thing I’d tasted in a long time.

“Easy now,” she said softly, “don’t strain yourself. Your body is still catching up.”

My mind was not.

Where the hell am I? Who is this?

Then something strange happened—memories that weren’t mine began to rise, like static through an old television set. A child’s laughter. This woman reading bedtime stories. Almond cakes shared in secret.

Aunt Mei…?

But I wasn’t a child. I was Chen Wei—thirty years old, double agent for the Bureau, trained to lie, trained to kill, and definitely trained not to hallucinate maternal aunties from fantasy dramas.

So why do I remember being seven years old in this very room?

“Easy, Young Master,” Aunt Mei—yes, that was her name—whispered. “You’ve been asleep for a long time.”

“How… long?” My voice was cracked, like old paper.

She hesitated. Her hands tightened on the wooden tray.

“Ten years.”

I stared at her.

Ten… years?

The room blurred again. But this time, it wasn’t from weakness—it was from the flood of contradictory memories crashing into one another. My last memory was lying in a pool of my own blood in a Shanghai warehouse. And now I was seventeen years old, lying in bed in a carved-wood chamber atop a mountain.

And yet… everything felt right. Familiar. Like I belonged here, somehow.

What the hell is going on?

Before I could ask anything else, voices echoed from beyond the curtained doorway.

“—awake? Truly?”

“I saw him with my own eyes!”

“Quickly! We must inform the Elders!”

Aunt Mei sighed softly. “Word travels fast, even in a place as secluded as this.”

Secluded? That’s an understatement. I haven’t seen a power outlet yet.

A moment later, three figures entered in a hurry—two in their twenties and an older man with greying temples and elaborately embroidered robes. They stopped short at the sight of me sitting up.

Then, to my immense confusion, the older man dropped to one knee. The other two followed.

“Patriarch,” he said, reverently. “Welcome back to the waking world.”

I blinked.

Did he just call me—

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

He lifted his head. “Patriarch Shen. You’ve returned.”

I stared. I had no idea how to respond to that.

“My name is—” I caught myself. My instincts, sharper than ever, slammed into place.

Don’t say it. Play along. You’re in unknown territory.

“I mean… I don’t quite understand. Patriarch?”

They exchanged glances. The tension in the room went up a notch. Even Aunt Mei’s smile wavered slightly.

“Yes,” the older man said slowly. “You… are the Patriarch of the Shen Clan.”

I said nothing for a long moment.

The two kneeling youths—both vaguely familiar from half-formed childhood memories—were watching me like I might either ascend to heaven or explode.

“I’m… seventeen,” I said at last. “How does a teenager end up as Patriarch?”

The man—Elder Zhang, my brain supplied—opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked to Aunt Mei for help. She gave a tiny shake of her head.

“It’s a… complicated matter,” he said carefully. “Perhaps best left for another time.”

Which means it’s bad. Really bad.

Still, I didn’t push. Years of spy training had taught me this: when everyone’s too nervous to tell you something, let them talk themselves into it. Patience was a weapon too.

I shifted back into the cushions. “Very well. Then perhaps you could start with names.”

The older man looked relieved. “Elder Zhang, head of the Administrative Council. These are Shen Bo and Shen Mei—your cousins from the second branch.”

Branch families. Councils. A formal hierarchy. This place isn’t a simple household—it’s an organization.

“How many people in the Shen Clan?” I asked.

“Roughly eight hundred, Patriarch,” Elder Zhang replied. “Including branch families and retainers.”

I nodded slowly. “And they all live here?”

“Mostly. The Shen Clan has been secluded in the Ironspine Mountains for generations.”

Ironspine Mountains. Sounds like a martial arts movie backdrop. I bet the tourism brochures are dramatic.

Shen Bo spoke up hesitantly. “Patriarch… if I may… the clan has waited a long time for your return. Your presence brings great relief.”

“Why?” I asked.

Another long silence. Elder Zhang smiled thinly. “We’ve… weathered many storms in your absence. But that, too, is for another day.”

I didn’t like how often they used that phrase.

But I nodded again. Let them think I was recovering. Let them think I was confused. Let them underestimate me.

I wasn’t just seventeen-year-old Shen Liang.

I was Chen Wei.

After they left, Aunt Mei stayed behind, quietly tidying the room.

“Aunt Mei,” I said, “how did I… survive? Ten years is a long time.”

She paused, then set the tray down gently.

“Some things,” she said, “are better understood slowly. But you’re safe now. You’re home.”

Safe. In a mountain full of strangers calling me Patriarch.

She laid a folded robe beside me. Pale grey, with a mountain-shaped crest stitched into the collar.

I looked out the window. The mountains stretched far beyond what my eyes could follow—tall, jagged, shrouded in clouds that shimmered like glass.

This wasn’t Earth. That much was clear.

I had died.

And now… I was someone else.

Or maybe I was still me—just in a new body. A new world. A new game.

And from the look of it, the stakes were even higher than before.

[End of Chapter 1]