As I linger here, suspended in the vast expanse of eternity, I find myself drawn back to the moments that shaped everything. My story. Their story. All of it, converging at one pivotal beginning. You see, I would not exist—could not exist—were it not for them. My tale begins with their ambition, their choices, their folly.
So tell me—can I truly blame him, Lü Buwei? Should I? Could I? No. I cannot. Consider this: without him, what would have become of Yiren—my father… or was he? And Lady Zhao, my mother? Without that merchant's insatiable schemes, would their paths have ever crossed? Or would their fates have unraveled quietly, unnoticed, as threads discarded from the loom of history?
It's a thought, isn't it? Even now—after watching empires rise and fall, after millennia of witnessing ambition collide with folly—I find the question unresolved. Was it his hand alone that moved the pieces, or was it fate, weaving its inscrutable tapestry?
But does it matter? Ambition or destiny, it changes nothing. What matters is that he did it. Lü Buwei set the stage, placed the pieces, and played his part with precision. Yet I wonder: did he ever comprehend the weight of his actions? I doubt it. He was cunning, yes—clever, resourceful—but a visionary? Hardly. His eyes were fixed on the next rung of the ladder, his reach just long enough to claim the spoils he desired. And yet, in his ceaseless grasping, he shaped a world he could never have imagined.
Imagine it: the lowest of merchants, scrabbling in the dirt, now elevated to a name that cannot be uttered without invoking mine. Mine. People cannot speak of me without speaking of him. Oh, the irony would have delighted him, I'm sure. The dramas, the movies, the stories endlessly spun around his schemes—did he ever dream he'd be immortalized in such a way? Certainly not.
And yet, here I stand, offering my thanks to the man who planted the seed, who paved the road for my arrival. Thank you, Lü Buwei. Thank you—for your ambition, your greed, your restless hunger. Without you, I might never have come. And worse—without me, I might never have remained.
Now there's a thought to savor. The weight of a single man's ambition shaping the course of millennia. Was it chance? Was it fate? Or was it always you?
Ah, the question hangs, unanswered. But what is eternity without a little mystery to keep it interesting?