Volume One: Chief of Public Security

Prologue: Huzi, My Brother

"Pebbles pierce the clouds and fall into the ravine,

Arriving at my pillow without wind;

Ten years a guest, a dream of yellow millet,

One night the sound of water calls me back."

Eric Carter slowly opened his eyes. The intense pain of every bone shattering from being hit by a car seemed to be slowly fading away.

"Where am I? Have I arrived at the underworld?"

Before his eyes, everything was so blurry—red, green, gray—patches of color blending together like an abstract painting, twisted and strange.

Is hell like this?

Eric Carter closed his eyes again in disappointment. So, death isn't that frightening after all.

When he was alive, Eric Carter often thought that he probably wouldn't make it to heaven. A scum who was disloyal, unfilial, unkind, and unrighteous—surely the eighteenth level of hell was his true destination?

But he was unwilling, so very unwilling.

He remembered the last word his father shouted at him before dying: "Get out!" As his father’s life was about to end, he used all his remaining strength, exhausted his last bit of energy, just to tell him to get out?! To tell his only son to get as far away as possible!

At that moment, he, who had always been indifferent to everything, did he feel a bit of heartache? Maybe, he didn’t even know himself.

His mother, that strong-willed woman, hadn’t spoken to him for many, many years. She used to favor him the most; no matter what he did wrong, she would forgive and tolerate him. When did she stop caring about him? Ah, he really couldn’t remember. The bastard that he was, he had never cared about her, had he?

Scott Dawson, his most loyal friend, swallowed over a hundred sleeping pills because of him. Did that gradually cooling body ever regret following him?

And that beautiful figure he never wanted to think of again.

He was disloyal to family, unfilial to parents, unkind to friends—was such a scum worth following?

Maybe, he should have died long ago.

But why was he so unwilling? Why did he have resentment?

Was it because he remembered that he, too, once had a warm spring?

That was a long, long time ago, wasn’t it?

Yes, a very long time ago. That was after he had survived the life-and-death trials of the southern border battlefield and had just transferred to civilian life. Back then, he had not yet walked in darkness.

Was it 1983, or 1984? He could hardly remember.

If he wanted to trace his life, he would have to start from his birth, wouldn’t he?

Perhaps everyone, on the road to the afterlife, would recall their life, no matter what kind of person they were.

He was the third generation of the once most illustrious family of the Republic, the The Carter Family. His childhood was full of misfortune. At that time, both his parents were in difficult situations, and he was taken away by a nanny right after birth.

He was closest to his nanny; in his heart, his foster mother was his real mother. Unfortunately, when he was eight, his foster mother, after years of wandering, died of illness in the coastal county town of Guangning. He was then adopted by another family surnamed Lu in Guangning, and his household registration was transferred there. But his new adoptive parents treated him poorly, making him work in the fields from a young age. It wasn’t until he ran away from home at sixteen that his biological parents finally found him and sent him to the army.

He enlisted at seventeen, participated in the Sino-Vietnamese war in the southern border, and was honorably wounded before transferring to civilian life. In the Nanshan campaign, his company suffered heavy casualties; he joined the Party on the front lines and was promoted on the spot. After returning to Guangning, the county committee, following central government policy, took care of him for his second-class personal merit, appointing him as the second-ranked deputy political commissar of the county public security bureau.

Ah, now he remembered—when he transferred to civilian life, it was 1983, and he was 21.

But the next year, 1984, he was ostracized everywhere, resigned in anger, and went into business. Thus began his dark career in the business world. As a businessman, he was successful, even earning the legendary title of "magician of the marketplace." But to succeed, he used any means necessary, truly living up to the saying: every coin is stained with blood.

Then, as the The Carter Family was ruthlessly purged from the Republic’s political scene, he, growing ever more distant from the The Carter Family, was implicated as well, imprisoned twice, and his company confiscated.

What if?

Why even think about it? There are no "what ifs" in this world.

Eric Carter sighed softly, then felt a hand gently patting his shoulder. Was it the underworld’s messenger coming to take him?

"Commissar, wake up, how did you fall asleep?"

The voice by his ear sounded familiar. Maybe there are auditory hallucinations in hell?