1 The Struggle

Cheng Yan had always felt like everything in his life was weathered and worn down. He had been working so hard and so diligently all his life, but what for? Why did he work so hard? And when he asked himself these questions he just couldn't find the answer. And yet he still worked so hard, he exhausted himself every day just to make ends meet.

Cheng Yan even recognised that leading up to this point of exhaustion in his life that his life had been pretty miserable and unfortunate.

He had had to power through adversity his whole life and even after his extensive efforts he got very little reward in return. When he had gone to university he had got a degree in architecture, he had worked extremely hard to get reasonably good grades that were above average. However, just after Cheng Yan had just got his new job after university, his mother had been taken to hospital with heart problems. This was completely unexpected for Cheng Yan, after living with his mother for so long he had never known she was feeling so unwell.

Cheng Yan's mother was a single parent, which was always a massive talking point throughout his childhood, he had no memories of his Father and didn't particularly want any. But throughout his life his Mother had always supported him and even in their difficult situation had never left him wanting.

But this was too soon, Cheng Yan had only just started his career and was at the bottom of this architectural corporate ladder. When he found out his only close family member would have to have an extremely expensive operation if she was to ever lead a fulfilling life in the future. His mother was not that old, she had been very young when she had given birth to Cheng Yan, which was also partially the reason for the situation they ended up in.

"I'm going to have to save up money for this operation so that my Mother can live her life happily" he thought to himself.

After hearing the news he initially had been in deep shock, but he was determined to make up for all those years that his Mother had looked after him and pay her back. There was no contact with any other family, his Mother had been ostracised for giving birth to a bastard, without a husband's support. She had been a disgrace to her family, so they no longer kept in contact.

But this was not what Cheng Yan felt as his Mother, to him was a strong woman who even through hard times had provided and looked after him, cherished him and raised him. He felt his Mother had done all she could to make his childhood as normal as possible even given the extenuating circumstances.

With this in mind, Cheng Yan worked tirelessly for months on end, and was rewarded with one of the fastest promotions within his company ever seen, now not only could he fully pay for the current medical bills for his Mother, whilst she was in hospital, he could also start saving for her expensive operation. People called him a 'work demon' because he would force the people around him to rise to his level of working. It was rumoured that people who worked on projects with him finished their work 10% faster. The other workers had no idea why Cheng Yan was so serious about his work, they thought that because he was relatively young he would actually be the one that would take this things the least seriously as he may be more childish, but it was actually the other way round and due to Cheng Yan giving no explanation, his co-workers just believed he had been this way all his life.

...

A few years later, after consistently working overtime every day, getting even another promotion to an even more senior position and finally saving enough money for the operation. In the office he had an unimaginable aura compared to all those years. His co-workers that had seen him work so seriously for so long with barely even a facial expression other than neutral saw a smile jump up on his face. This had never been seen before in his subordinates and they started muttering as he walked between the office cubicles to his main office as he was the head of this group of employees, he overlooked about 10 employees as they were assigned projects and had to complete them. They muttered "is he okay? Do you think he is ill?" and other such utterances, but Cheng Yan didn't even take notice.

This was the final day, he would get payed, his hard work would pay off, this will be the turn of a new leaf in my life, everything will be positive from here.

He allowed himself to smile to himself a bit more, before going serious again. He would work hard today, just like he had the past few years. He would work overtime tonight again, like he had all these years, because even though he had a set salary and didn't necessarily need to work overtime, it was a culture he had started before to help show how hard working he was and to rise up in this company.

As per usual everybody had left and he was alone in his office. Cheng Yan was giving some final checks over some blueprints and seeing as nobody else, was around was smiling like an idiot.

He sat back and relaxed for a second thinking to himself "I've never felt this happy before" and as he leaned back in his chair, his body shuddered.

Cheng Yan felt his heart beating weirdly in his chest.

He preemptively called out "help!" but his voice sounded weak. Besides nobody was in the office anyway, he was alone. He tried to make his body move, but it was as if all his strength had been drained, he was slumped in his chair and all he could feel was his irregular heartbeat thumping in his ears.

Thoughts raced through his mind

What if he had the same heart problem as his Mother and working so hard had made it worse. Cheng Yan hadn't even thought about whether it may be genetic and he should check himself as well.

He thought of all his regrets as they flew through his mind, how he had never sought for a girlfriend after he found out about his Mother's condition, how he was a virgin, how he hadn't seen his highschool friends in so long, as he had missed all their reunions due to his work, how he had never plucked up the courage to ask out his crush from highschool.

As these things rushed through his mind he desperately struggled to move, "my body feels asleep" he thought to himself as he had lost the ability to talk as he was in deep shock

And then his mind turned into a black abyss.