1 Chapter 1 --- Dark place part 1

As Xua Yan looked around the dark room, trying to understand what was happening, he realized that he was not in his own room. He didn't recognize the space he was in, and he couldn't remember how he had gotten there. He was lying on the floor, and he couldn't see any sign of a light source. The darkness was overwhelming, and it felt like a heavy weight pressing down on him.

In a state of panic, Xua Yan got up and started searching for an exit. He moved in a systematic manner, starting from one corner and working his way around the perimeter of the room. He felt his way around the walls, searching for any signs of a door or a window, any indication of a way out. But he found nothing. The walls seemed to extend endlessly in all directions, and no matter how far he walked, he always ended up back at the center of the room near his bed.

Xua Yan couldn't understand how this was possible, and he felt a growing sense of unease. He thought maybe he was in a dream, but it felt too real to be just a dream. He started running and jumping around, calling for help, hoping someone would hear him and come to his aid. But his calls echoed endlessly in the darkness, with no response. He felt like he was shouting into an abyss, and no one was listening.

As time passed, Xua Yan grew tired from running and shouting. He sat back down on the bed and tried to catch his breath. He felt defeated and helpless. He didn't know how long he had been in the room, but it felt like an eternity. He felt like he was stuck in that room forever. He fell into a deep contemplation, thinking about his current predicament. He tried to understand what was happening to him, but he found no answers. He felt like he was losing his mind. The darkness felt suffocating, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something was deeply wrong. As he tried to calm his racing thoughts, memories from his past began to surface.

Xua Yan was a 22 year old youth who had experienced a difficult childhood. When he was only 2 years old, his parents passed away in a tragic car accident. He had been taken in by some close relatives, but they had quickly grown tired of caring for himAand as a result, Xua Yan was sent to an orphanage. However, the conditions at the orphanage were poor, and the rules were excessively strict. Xua Yan had stayed there for four long years, enduring hunger, cold, and a lack of love and attention. But he had never given up hope. When he turned nine, he made the decision to escape and live on his own. He had spent months planning and preparing, and one cold, dark night, he had finally fled the orphanage.

After escaping from the orphanage, Life on the streets had been hard, but Xua Yan had been determined to survive. He had begged for food, scavenged for scraps, and stolen when he had to. But even with all his efforts, he had often gone hungry and had come close to starving to death. One day, as he was stealing food from a shop, he had been caught by the owner and was almost beaten to death. Just as he was about to lose consciousness, he had been saved by a kind-hearted middle-aged woman. She took him under her wing and brought him to her own shop.

The woman, who had lost her husband to military service and her only son to cancer, saw Xua Yan as a reflection of her own lost son and started treating him as such. They began living together, and the woman provided Xua Yan with the deep care and love he had been missing in his childhood. Despite the woman's love and support, Xua Yan's past experiences had left deep psychological scars. He continued to struggle with Kleptomania (an impulse control disorder characterized by the recurrent failure to resist the urge to steal items that were not needed for personal use or for their monetary value.) As a result, Xua Yan would often find himself sneaking out at night, driven by an overwhelming need to steal items from local shops. These thefts were not motivated by a desire for material possessions or financial gain, but rather by a deep-seated emotional need to fill a void in his life.

The middle-aged woman, who had taken Xua Yan in as her own, recognized that he was struggling with a serious mental health issue and sought professional help for him. With therapy and guidance, Xua Yan was able to better understand and manage his disorder. He learned coping mechanisms and techniques to manage his urges. With consistent therapy, love, and support, Xua Yan was able to significantly reduce the frequency and intensity of his thefts. He slowly began to heal from the trauma of his past and find a sense of normalcy in his life with his new mother figure.

As he grew older and more self-aware, Xua Yan came to understand that his Kleptomania was a symptom of the deep pain and trauma he had experienced in his childhood. He was able to acknowledge that his actions were a cry for help and not a sign of moral weakness. With the love and care of the woman who took him in and the therapeutic support, Xua Yan was able to overcome the challenges of his past.

After some time of living together, Xua Yan and the middle-aged woman, whom he had come to call "Mother Wu," formed a strong bond as a mother and son. They were happy together, with Xua Yan finding a sense of family and belonging that he had never known before. They shared a deep love and affection for one another, and Xua Yan came to think of Mother Wu as the mother he had lost as a child.

However, their time together was not able to last very long. After they lived together for 5 years, when Xua Yan was 15 years old, Mother Wu passed away in tragic circumstances. A wealthy businessman, with the help of corrupt politicians, had set his sights on Mother Wu's house, hoping to buy it at a fraction of its true value. But Mother Wu, filled with memories of her deceased son and husband, refused to sell.

The businessman, thwarted In his attempts to acquire the property, resorted to more extreme measures. He and the politicians he had bought off began to violently break down Mother Wu's house, destroying it in front of her eyes. Seeing her precious home being destroyed in such a way, Mother Wu's heart couldn't take it and she suffered a heart attack and passed away.

The loss of Mother Wu was devastating for Xua Yan, who had finally found a sense of security and belonging in her home and her love. He had thought that after facing so many struggles in his childhood, he finally had found a place where he could call home, where he could be loved and cared for without any condition. But now, he was faced with the harsh reality of being alone once again.

After the death of Mother Wu, Xua Yan again became lonely and his mind became unstable. Fuelled by his deep sense of injustice and anger at the corrupt politicians and unethical businessmen who had been responsible for Mother Wu's death, Xua Yan's hatred towards them grew. His desire for revenge was all-consuming, as he was unable to find a healthy way to process the loss of his mother.

Five months after Mother Wu's death, Xua Yan's path of revenge led him to rob a corrupt businessman. Unfortunately, he was caught by the businessman's security guards and was brutally beaten. He was left on the brink of death, as the last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the sight of the guards falling one by one.

When Xua Yan woke up, he found himself lying on a soft bed in a small room. The room was unfamiliar to him, but as he got out of the bed and walked into the main hall, he saw an old man sitting in meditation on one of the chairs. The old man was deep in a meditative state, but as soon as Xua Yan entered the room, the old man opened his eyes. The old man looked at Xua Yan with a penetrating gaze, and without hesitation, the first thing he said to him was, "Do you want to take revenge for your mother's death?"

Xua Yan was caught off guard by the sudden question, but as he remembered the injustice and anger he felt for the death of Mother Wu, he didn't hesitate to answer. "Yes," he said, his voice filled with determination, "I want to take revenge." The old man, who Xua Yan realized was the martial arts expert who saved him last time, offered to train him and help him take revenge on those who had wronged him.

After hearing Xua Yan's desire for revenge, the old man slowly stood up from his seat and told Xua Yan to follow him. He led Xua Yan out of the main hall and showed him to a room where he would be staying. The old man then took Xua Yan to the backyard of the house and told him that this was where he would be practicing his martial arts and the art of assassination. He gave Xua Yan a book about the meridians in the human body and instructed him to study it carefully.