I am Ling Luoyi, and my age, well, I've lived too long to remember. It might be hard to believe, but I wasn't originally from this world. I've been here for so long that I'm almost forgetting I was once a person from the 23rd century.
In the 23rd century, I lived with my mother. Our days were peaceful and warm, fulfilling and content. Like any ordinary child, I looked forward to the future, a future with my mother.
But on that day, everything changed. On my eighth birthday, a car ran a red light, and I lost my mother forever. Before I could even process it, I was sent to an orphanage. I hadn't been there for more than a few days before someone adopted me.
I was in a daze, oblivious to everything around me. It wasn't until a woman, around the same age as my mother, collapsed in front of me, her blood splashing onto my face, that I finally snapped out of it.
When I took in my surroundings, I realized I was in a rainforest. Across from me stood a group of tall men in black suits, their expressions cold and playful. I was standing with a group of children my age, and I was in the front row.
I didn't know why I was here. The man who was clearly the leader announced that this was an uninhabited island. The only way to leave alive was to reach the pier on the opposite side within five days. They would take us away, but only one person could leave.
I didn't understand what he meant, but they didn't give us time to ask before leaving in a helicopter.
As soon as they were gone, I felt someone push me. I fell heavily to the ground, my elbows and knees scraping open. The piercing pain surged into my brain, and I couldn't help but cry. But my mother would never comfort me again.
I don't know how long I cried. When I came to again, it was already dark, and I was all alone. I was panicked, hungry, and thirsty. I decided to look for some fruit. I had gone camping with my mother before, and she had taught me which fruits were edible. I remembered it all.
While picking fruit, I accidentally fell from a tree, tumbling down a slope and hitting a wooden crate. Inside the crate were food, water, and a mobile phone. On the phone, there was a person I didn't recognize.
Just as I was about to put the phone aside, I heard him say, "Number 1683, why are you still here? Don't you want to live?"
Live?! I thought.
I told him the truth. He said that if I wanted to live, I had to kill all the other children, and if I didn't kill them, they would kill me.
At the bottom of the crate was a dagger that could cut through iron. After eating the food, I picked up the dagger and started walking towards the pier. Along the way, I encountered other children, but I didn't attack them. I just wanted to live, and they wanted to live too.
I even made a friend here, someone my age.
I thought we would remain friends, but that night, he tried to kill me and acted on it. He had also found a dagger, and it plunged into my left arm. It wasn't that he spared me; it was that I woke up in time and dodged a fatal blow.
I couldn't believe it, but he didn't care if I believed him. After pulling out the dagger, he lunged at my heart again. In that critical moment, I remembered my mother's words: she wanted me to live!
So, after dodging his attack, I naturally drew my own dagger and plunged it into his heart. Just like that, I killed the first person in my life. He was a friend I had known for only a day, and the first person who had promised to protect me.
That night, I didn't dare to sleep. The hidden phone rang again with the man's voice. He told me I couldn't trust anyone, and that if I trusted others, I would die.
I didn't understand, but after this incident, I dared not trust anyone again. However, I never killed a second person. I walked alone on secluded paths, hiding whenever I encountered someone. Because of this, by the evening of the fifth day, I safely reached the pier. Five other people arrived with me: three boys and two girls.
There were six of us left alive. The men in suits wouldn't let us on the yacht. No one attempted to resist. The three boys efficiently took down the two girls closest to them. By the time I reacted, the three boys were looking at me with ill intent. A voice in my mind told me to kill them, that killing them would let me live.
I don't remember what happened next. The next thing I knew, I was lying in a cramped room. A woman in a white coat was standing by the door. Seeing me wake up, she said, "Congratulations on surviving. But how long you live depends on your abilities."
With that, the woman pulled me up and dragged me into a group of children. A fierce man was teaching them how to kill. The woman told me to learn, and if I didn't learn, I wouldn't survive.
To survive, I learned. I learned not only how to kill but also how to execute missions. I studied for six years until I began carrying out assignments.
I remember my first mission: to assassinate a politician. The first mission didn't go smoothly; he discovered me. I knew I would die if the mission failed, so when he saw me, I shot and killed him.
When I returned, I washed my hands frantically, unable to believe I had actually killed someone. I suffered from insomnia for days. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw the crying face of his daughter.
Later, I got used to such things and stopped caring. I continued to carry out various missions, whether it was wiping out a family or killing a single person, I completed them all successfully. I no longer felt guilty, but I no longer dared to think of my mother.
On my eighteenth birthday, with no family or friends, I bought myself a birthday gift: a beautiful bracelet. I didn't know then that this bracelet would save my life twice in the future.
Within the organization, I made new friends. We went through life and death together, but in the end, they abandoned me, leaving me to face a deadly situation alone. It's not that I was unwilling to die for a friend, but I couldn't be forced into it.
I almost died that time. But when I saw that they showed no remorse towards me, I finally understood that the only person you can ever trust in this world is yourself. So, I closed off my heart and stopped caring about anyone else. Perhaps there were people who genuinely wanted to befriend me afterward, but I dared not trust them again.
My life continued as before. With my hands stained with blood, my personality became increasingly reclusive. I disliked myself more and more, and I increasingly didn't want to live. I started thinking about how I should die.
I planned to die after completing a very important mission, to die spectacularly, not to disgrace my titles as the King of Assassins and the God of Death. By the way, I don't know when or who first gave me these titles. If the codename wasn't mine and no one else used it, I wouldn't have thought it referred to me.
Getting back to the point, I hadn't chosen a mission yet when the plane returning to the organization had an accident. Coincidentally, I was on the plane when it crashed. There was no way to avoid it, and I hadn't informed anyone in the organization about my return, so no one would come to rescue me. I don't know if there were any survivors in the end, but I certainly wouldn't be one of them.