THE PERFECT VILLIAN

The universe calls him a monster. But monsters are made, not born. And 少年完美 Wánměi was made in the dark. Zambezi 7is not a planet. It is a grave with air. Fourteen hours a day, six days a week, children swing picks at crystal veins while overseers watch with whips in hand. The crystals glow purple. They light up the tunnels. They light up the faces of the dying. Wánměi is six years old when he learns that hope is a lie adults tell children so they keep working. He learns this from a girl named Makena. Makena has golden eyes. Real gold. Bright. Warm. Like the sun he has only seen in dreams. She is the first person to speak to him like he is human. The first to share her ration when his is stolen. The first to whisper “you’re going to live” like she believes it. She believes it so hard that he almost does too. Then the overseers come. They come for her golden blood. For her royal lineage. For the treasure hiding in her veins. They drag her away. She screams his name. He throws himself against iron bars until his shoulders break and his voice dies. Seven days of screaming. Seven days of listening. Seven days of knowing he cannot save her. On the seventh day, the screaming stops. Wánměi does not cry. He cannot remember how. But something else happens. The dead speak to him. Thirty-six thousand voices. Slaves who died in the mines. Slaves who were worked to death, beaten to death, drained to death. They whisper in his skull. They beg him to remember. They beg him to make their suffering mean something.And Makena.Makena is there too. She is not a whisper. She is a flame. Small. Flickering. But alive.Inside him.Always.Wánměi spends eight years becoming a ghost. He learns to move without sound. To fight without strength. To kill without being seen. He steals cultivation manuals from dead overseers. He trains in secret, in the dark, in the moments between shifts when the other slaves sleep. His body grows hard. His mind grows sharp. His soul grows heavy with the weight of thirty-six thousand dead. By the time he is fourteen, he is ready.He escapes.Not through the front gates. Not by fighting his way out. He escapes the way he has always survived by watching, waiting, and using what others overlook. He crawls through a waste vent. It is narrow. It is dark. It is filled with the filth of a thousand slaves. He crawls for three days. When he emerges, he is covered in shit and blood and the ashes of the dead. But he is free. Freedom is not what he expected. There is no fanfare. No celebration. No one waiting for him with open arms. There is only a wasteland. Dust. Bones. The distant glow of a sun that feels too bright and too cold at the same time. Wánměi walks. He walks for weeks. His feet bleed. His stomach caves in. His throat is so dry he cannot swallow. He stumbles into a town called Dustfall. The guards almost kill him. They take one look at his chains still on his wrists, still warm and reach for their swords. But a woman stops them. She is old. Grey hair. Grey eyes. Grey robes. She looks at Wánměi like she is looking through him, into him, past him.” Slave,” she says. Not a question. A statement.” Free,” he says. His voice cracks. He has not spoken aloud in months. She stares at him for a long moment. Then she nods.”Come.”The woman’s name is Elder Nia. She is not kind. She is not gentle. She does not coddle him or pat his head or tell him everything will be all right. She gives him a bowl of soup. A blanket. A corner of her hut.” That is all I owe you,” she says. “The rest you must earn.” He earns it. He works. He fights. He steals. He learns. He trains in the underground arenas where men bet on boys who bleed. He fights older opponents. Stronger opponents. Opponents who should kill him. He becomes a GodBut wins as the perfect villianas he gets betrayed and kill by the person he least expected.you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villian. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: THE PERFECT VILLIAN — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠