I opened my eyes and realized I had accidentally fallen asleep on a bench again.
"Well, to be honest, I'm not too surprised I doze off like this, considering I've been barely scraping by—eating just one slice of bread a week for the past ten years. Honestly, it's incredible I'm still alive."
It's almost like I have some kind of superpower.
Ah, who am I kidding? I'm just a worthless, gloomy kid who's spent his life in the slums.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a deep inhale.
"That feels nice." It's starting to get late I should go home, luckily I slept near where I live I went into a dark alley after a few minutes of turns and what not. I've reached my house well if you can call it that. It's more of a run down piece of shack.
As soon as I touched the doorknob, I heard a noise. I looked behind me and saw a person in a large black cloak offering something—something I couldn't quite recognize—to a homeless man. I was about to ignore it, until I noticed a dragon symbol on the neck area. The moment I saw it, memories came flooding back.
Before the darkness came, his life was simple and full of light. He was just a boy, growing up in a quiet village with his mother, father, and sister—four hearts bound together by love and laughter. Days were spent chasing the wind through golden fields, nights gathered around the hearth listening to stories that made the world seem safe. But safety is fragile. One night, without warning,
a band of ruthless strangers descended upon their home. They sought something the boy had never heard of—a hidden path to the legendary "Will of the Tree," a power whispered about in old tales. His parents tried to protect the secret, even if they didn't fully understand it, and paid the ultimate price.
His sister's laughter was silenced, his father's strong hands stilled, his mother's gentle voice gone forever. When the night was over, the boy stood in the ashes of his life, unaware that the very secret they had died to protect now rested with him.
This is the beginning of jing yuan's story