The television screen flickered with the bright red banner of "BREAKING NEWS"
It was the only thing people were watching today. It was the only thing people were talking about on the streets, in the offices and all over the internet.
On the screen, a news anchor with a serious face was trying to keep her voice calm.
"We are receiving live updates on the shocking assassination of Senator Rose Thorn," the anchor said. "Police have confirmed that the suspect, a 24 year old man named Lenny, has surrendered without resistance. I repeat the shooter has surrendered"
The screen changed to show a shaky video recorded by a bystander on a phone.
In the video Senator Thorn, a man known for stealing pension funds from retired Workers and taking bribes from massive corporations was walking out of a fancy hotel.
He was surrounded by four bodyguards. These were men who looked like they could break a brick wall with their heads. They wore sunglasses and looked intimidating.
But none of that mattered.
In the video, a man in a cheap Black hoodie simply walked out of the crowd. He didn't scream. He didn't make a speech. He just raised a black pistol.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang
It sounded like a firecracker popping.
The Senator dropped to the ground instantly and died on the spot.
The bodyguards panicked and reached for their own weapons but it was too late.
The man named Lenny didn't run. He just dropped the gun, raised his hands in the air, and waited for the police to tackle him.
The video ended, and the news anchor returned to the screen.
"While the act was violent," the anchor continued looking down at a piece of paper, "social media has exploded with a very different reaction than expected. Instead of fear the hashtag #FreeLenny is currently trending number one globally"
The scene shifted to a wave of internet comments scrolling across the screen.
Lenny_Lover: He did what the justice system couldn't do. Thorn stole millions and was going to get away with it. Lenny is a hero.
ILOVELENNY: Why should Lenny go to jail? He took out the trash. Give this man a medal!
FreeLenny: One bullet. That is all it took. Finally the rich can't hide behind their money.
It was chaos. The police station where Lenny was being held was already surrounded by thousands of people holding signs.
They weren't protesting against the killer; they were cheering for him. They were chanting his name like he was a rock star.
____________________________________
In a messy apartment on the fifth floor of an old building. The room smelled like stale coffee and pizza.
Inside, the television was playing the same news. The blue light from the screen illuminated the faces of two young men sitting on a sofa.
Marx sat with his legs crossed holding a can of soda. He watched the footage of the crowd cheering for Lenny.
"It's crazy, isn't it?" Marx said with his shaking head.
His friend Karl was typing furiously on a laptop. He stopped typing and spun his chair around.
"What is?"
"Lenny," Max pointed at the TV with his soda can. "Look at that. The Senator had all the money in the world. He had connections. He had power. He had four bodyguards who were trained to kill. But none of it mattered."
Karl nodded slowly. "A 9mm bullet travels faster than a bodyguard's reaction time. Bullet is the great equalizer."
"Exactly," Marx said, taking a sip of his soda. "That's what everyone online is saying. They are saying that Lenny proved that no matter how powerful you think you are, you are just human. You bleed like everyone else. People are saying Lenny shouldn't be Free. They say he did the world a favor."
"Thorn was a monster," Karl agreed. "He cut funding for the city hospital last year to buy himself a third yacht. My aunt couldn't get her surgery because of the budget cuts. If anyone deserved to go it was him."
"Still," Marx mused, "it's scary how fragile life is. One second you are the king of the city and the next second you are just a dead body on the street because a guy named Lenny bought a gun."
Marx sighed and looked over at his friend. He noticed the dark circles under Karl's eyes. "Anyway, enough of this news. You've been typing on that keyboard for four hours straight. You look like a zombie."
Karl stretched his arms and said "I'm writing my novel I told you about a few days ago"
Mark's eyes lit up. He sat up. "Oh right! The novel. You still haven't told me what it's actually about. Every time I ask you just say 'it's fantasy' and change the subject."
Karl looked away, looking a bit embarrassed "It's... well, it's complicated. You wouldn't really get it"
"Just tell me," Marx said, leaning forward. "I watch movies. I read comics. Is it like Lord of the Rings? Harry Potter?"
"No, not really," Karl said.
"Come on, tell me," Marx pressed. "We have been best friends since high school. Why are you acting so secretive about a book? Is it a romance? Are you writing some freaky stuff?"
"Nooooo" Karl snapped, his face turning a little red "It's not a romance"
"Then what is it?"
Karl sighed deeply. He looked at Marx with a serious expression. "It's a Wuxia novel ... .Well, technically it's Xianxia but most people mix them up"
Marx stared at him blankly. "Wuxia? Shawn what?"
"Xianxia," Karl corrected. "It's a genre. It's about cultivation. Martial arts. Seeking immortality. Flying on swords. That kind of stuff."
Marx blinked. A slow smile started to spread across his face.
Karl saw the grin and groaned. "See? I knew you'd laugh. It's a niche genre, okay? It's mostly popular in Asia and on web novel sites. It's not mainstream like superheroes."
Marx stood up slowly.
He walked toward Karl with a strange, intense look in his eyes. He stopped right in front of Karl's chair.
"Karl," Marx said, his voice was incredibly serious.
"What?" Karl asked, leaning back, confused.
Marx narrowed his eyes. He clasped his hands behind his back and looked down at Karl with an air of arrogance.
"Junior, you dare?" Marc Said with a serious voice.
Karl froze. His eyes went wide.
Marx didn't stop. He pointed a finger at Karl, mimicking the pose of an angry ancient master. "You have eyes but failed to see Mount Tai! You dare hide this from this Senior? Kowtow three times and cripple your own cultivation and I might leave you with an intact corpse!"
There was a second of stunned silence.
Then, Karl burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he nearly fell out of his chair. "No way…You read them too?"
Marx dropped the act and laughed, grabbing another chair and pulling it close. "Are you kidding me? I've been reading that for the last three months and now I'm obsessed"
"I thought you only read thriller mysteries" Karl exclaimed, wiping a tear from his eye.
"I needed a break!" Marx admitted. "And then I fell down the rabbit hole. It's addictive. The face slapping, the tournaments, the arrogant Young Masters... it's trashy but it's so good."
"It is," Karl agreed enthusiastically. "That's what I'm writing. My main character is a transmigrator who starts as a servant and finds a heavenly technique in a garbage dump."
"Classic," Marx nodded approvingly. "You can't go wrong with the garbage dump trope."
The two friends spent the next twenty minutes talking about that. They spoke in a language that would sound insane to anyone else. They argued about which sect had the best techniques, whether alchemy was boring or cool, and why every beautiful woman in these novels was always described as 'Jade Beauty'
Eventually, the conversation drifted back to the TV. The news was still showing the crowd cheering for Lenny.
Marx looked at the screen and his smile faded a little. He looked thoughtful.
"You know," Marx said quietly, "talking about cultivation novels... it makes you look at this Lenny situation differently."
"How so?" Karl asked.
"Well, think about it," Marx said, gesturing to the corrupt politician's picture on the screen. "Senator Thorn. He was a bad guy. In our world, he used money and laws to oppress people. But in the end, he was just a mortal. A Single Bullet ended his life. He couldn't stop it."
"Right," Karl said.
"But imagine if this was a Murim world," Marx continued. "Imagine if this was the world inside your novel. Someone like Senator Thorn wouldn't just be a rich politician. He would be a Young Master or a sect elder."
Karl nodded, understanding where Marx was going. "Yeah. If he was a cultivator a bullet wouldn't even scratch him. His skin would be harder than steel. He could catch the bullet with two fingers."
"Exactly," Marx said. "In those worlds the strong are literally gods. If a 'Young Master' wants to kill a peasant he does it. The peasant can't get a gun. The peasant can't sue him. The peasant can't do anything. The gap between the strong and the weak is like heaven and earth."
"It's true," Karl admitted. "That's the core of the genre. Might is right. The strong rule, the weak obey. If you don't like it, you have to become strong yourself. But not everyone has the talent to become strong."
Marx leaned back on the sofa, looking at the ceiling. "So in a way, we are lucky."
"Lucky?"
"Yeah," Marx said. "Our world is Shitty. We have guys like Thorn stealing money. But at least we have limits. No one can fly. No one can destroy a city with a wave of their hand. We are all... biologically equals. People like Thorn die just like anyone else. That fear keeps them in check at least a little bit."
Karl spun a pen between his fingers, deep in thought. "That's a good way to look at it. The 'Great Equalizer' isn't just a gun. It's our biology. We are all fragile humans."
"Imagine how terrifying it would be," Marx whispered, "if one day, some people could cultivate. If the laws of physics and biology just stopped applying to the rich and powerful. If Thorn could have just laughed at Lenny and vaporized him with a fireball."
"That would be hell," Karl shuddered. "Absolute tyranny. There would be no '#FreeLenny' hashtags because Lenny would be dead before he even pulled the trigger."
There was a comfortable silence in the room.
Marx smirked, a mischievous glint in his eye. "You know... I have a theory."
"Ah…Shit," Karl rolled his eyes. "Here we go. What is it?"
"I think this world was a Murim world once," Marx said with a straight face.
Karl snorted. "You've been reading too much fan-fiction."
"No, listen to me," Marx insisted, waving his hands. "Think about all the old myths. Greek gods throwing lightning. Indian warriors shooting arrows that act like nuclear bombs. Chinese immortals flying on clouds. Every culture has stories about humans with god-like powers."
"Those are just myths, Marx. People didn't understand lightning…so they made up Zeus"
"Maybe," Marx said, leaning in closer. "Or maybe... the Qi dried up."
"The Qi dried up?" Karl repeated, amused.
"Yeah. What if the energy that allows cultivation just... vanished? Or worse." Marx lowered his voice to a theatrical whisper. "What if someone stole it?"
Karl raised an eyebrow. "Stole it? Like, put all the world's energy in a bag and leave?"
"Exactly" Marx said, pointing a finger. "Think about it. Why don't we have flying swordsmen today? Because Someone a long, long time ago was so greedy or so powerful that they sucked the world dry. They absorbed every drop of Qi and left us as these fragile, powerless mortals who have to invent guns and bombs to kill each other."
Marx paused for dramatic effect. "I know someone took away and absorbed all the Qi from this world... but I can't prove it yet."
Karl stared at him for a second. The idea was so ridiculous, so absurdly conspiratorial.
Then, both of them burst out laughing.
"Hahahaha" Karl clapped his hands. "Brooooo…you should write the novel, not me..That would be great novel"
"Hahaha! Right?" Marx wiped a tear from his eye.
"Maybe the guy who stole it is still alive," Karl joked, turning back to his laptop. "Maybe he's watching us right now and laughing at us that how weak we are."
"Yeah…right," Marx chuckled, picking up the remote to turn up the volume on the news. "If he is, I hope he's enjoying the show. A world without Qi is safer, anyway. Less flying swords and more internet."
They laughed again, the sound filling the small apartment.
They laughed because it was a funny joke. They laughed because the idea of a single person changing the fundamental laws of the world sounds impossible and absurd. They laughed because they were two ordinary friends in an ordinary world, safe in the knowledge that magic wasn't real.
They had no idea.
They had no idea that ten thousand years ago, in a world that looked very different, a boy standing over the ashes of his village had made a promise to do exactly that.
They had no idea that their joke was the absolute…terrifying truth.