Debt of the Soul

On a stormy night, Lin Chen, a youth from the slums, found himself at a dead end while trying to save his coughing, blood-spitting mother; a debt collector’s steel pipe shattered what little dignity he had left. In his moment of despair, a purple wooden door—the "Memory Pawnshop"—materialized at the far end of a gloomy alley. The proprietor offered a contract: exchange all memories of familial love for boundless wealth and his mother's life. Lin Chen signed the pact. As a white light was drawn from his brow, he rose to become a business legend—crushing rivals at galas, forcing opponents to their knees in corporate warfare, and swallowing up half the city. Yet, when his mother tearfully called out to him from her sickbed, he felt only annoyance; when his first love tearfully recounted their past, he simply handed her a check. He had saved his mother’s life, but in doing so, he had forever lost the capacity to love.