A joint operation with the God of Death

Chapter 1: Azura

Our town, Arth, is a quiet and small place. But not for a long long time ago, where darkness and chaos had wrecked our beloved land.

Our town at that time, was a vibrant hub for businesses and factories. One of our proud brand names was “Azura”, a famous perfume brand. It had only 2 sub categories, “Azura for girls” , the perfume made for young girls, and “Azura for Mothers”, targeting older women and mothers. “Azura” was mostly owned and operated by our local government, with few other private shareholders.

Azura was viral everywhere, and especially in our own town. The town’s regulation at the time required all perfume manufacturers to write up all of the ingredients that weighed above 0.1% of their product, on their labels. So did Azura. Many other local competitors studied Azura’s ingredients, and tried to reproduce them. But one after another, they failed. With the exact same ingredients mentioned on the label, no one had ever produced the same good smelling perfume as Azura. The smells other competitors ended up getting was quite close and similar to Azura, but still something seemed to be missing, something seemed to be critical.

“Maybe it is because of their production process, they may have much better machines and equipment, to produce much better results with the same ingredients.”After endless failed attempts of imitation, local perfume competitors muttered, “Or, there must be some secret ingredients they used, that were not put on the label.”

Many people held the latter conjecture, such as Cyan Van.

Cyan was a research firm owner. The firm he owned was called “Applied Holographics”. It was a small company that researched a variety of frontier technologies. Cyan was interested in what made a good perfume, so he studied Azura’s ingredients. He used many techniques, such as distillation, and percolation, to separate out each ingredient. After endless attempts, Cyan found a tiny amount of unknown bluish powder that was not mentioned on the label. And this unknown ingredient is found in both “Azura for girls”, and “Azura for mothers”.

“Could this be the secret ingredient that Azura has kept from the public?” Cyan wondered.

But the amount of the bluish powder he ended up collecting was too little to study with. So he decided to store the powder in a bottle, and would like to repeat the same separation process over and over, until he would get enough samples to put into study.

“Working late?” Said Neon Van, Cyan’s beloved wife, walked towards him as Cyan was still collecting samples of blue powders in the lab room of his own home.

“Cannot sleep early anyway.” Said Cyan, “I’m just gonna work until my eyes drop dead.”

“Wana me to read you some bedtime stories to help you sleep early?”, said Neon.

“You mean the one like the scary wolf eating a girl with a red hat? NO! It’s horrible.”, said Cyan.

“What are you working on?” said Neon, “Still trying to figure out Azura’s secret ingredient?”

“Yes.” said Cyan, “Except this time, I have finally got enough samples to study with.”

“Really?” said Neon, “How do you want to study it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe smell it first?” said Cyan.

Cyan then put the powders on a tray, and then put the tray on top of an alcohol burner.

Slowly, smokes were coming out, and reached into the noses of Cyan and Neon. They felt on drug, and sexually aroused. They soon lost control over their conscious mind, and started to hug each other into bed.

“OK, this powder must be some sort of drug.” Cyan woke up in the next morning, “I just have to figure out what that is, and how to control its addiction.”

“Oh, baby, you were so great last night.” Neon woke up next to Cyan and kissed him, “I am sure you will figure all this out. You are the best.”

Obviously, Cyan cannot afford to taste every single type of drug in town, otherwise he would be in deep addiction. So instead, Cyan paid drug users to do his research. He measured the brainwaves, and neuro activities in specific regions of their brains when they were on their own drug, and compared the results with his own, when he was intentionally smelling the blue.

After countless analysis, he finally found a close match, and his name was Kall, a mountain climber, climbing high mountains to collect rare ores, herbs and plants that were not available at common places, for selling them at high prices. He also carefully asked the symptoms that Kall had when he was on his drug, and the symptoms are a match to his own.

“What drug do you do, Kall?” Cyan asked.

“I don’t know the name.” Kall said.

“What? If you do not know the name, how did you buy them?”

“I did not buy them, I collected them on my own.”

Kall then reached into his pocket, and grabbed out a bluish flower.

“See? It is from the pollen of this flower.” said Kall, “It is only grown on the high mountains nearby. And they sit at the very top of the mountains.”

“I saw these flowers in the greenhouses of Azura, when I was visiting their facilities to do their research.” said Cyan, “They must be simulating the same cold and thin air conditions in those green houses, for those flowers to grow. You do not know the name of this flower?”

“I do not.” said Kall, “I know drugs, because I do them. And I know the names for other drugs. But the name for this one is not listed anywhere. I just call this thing, the blues.”

“You can’t find this thing on the open market?”

“No, otherwise I could have just bought a lot of them.” said Kall, “The flower is very rare, even on the mountain tops.”

“OK, I see, thanks.”

After talking to Kall, Cyan decided to purchase a new land, and built a bunch of greenhouses onto them. He then went on his own, climbing the mountain tops, gathered a few of those blue flowers, and planted them inside his greenhouse.

Cyan then researched a variety of counter addiction herbs and medicine, and used them as ingredients along with the blues, to forge a new type of perfume.

Because of the counter addiction ingredients used, allowing Cyan to use a higher proportion of the blues than Azura had, into his new perfume, without causing any addictions. The result was a new perfume that smelled much nicer than Azura, and the smell lasted for even longer.

“Hmm, what name should I give for my new perfume product.” Cyan wondered, “It feels like a touch of a soul. Soul, soul,... sol, solar, sun. Yes! The sun is like a soul, hot and shining with warmth, love, and compassion. And the touch of the soul will be…? A touch from the sun? Hmm. The sun does burst out plasma materials into space, and from telescopic observations, it sometimes does look like a tentacle or arm. What is this layer of plasma on the sun called? Corona! Yes, I shall call my new product Corona!”

Cyan then quickly branded his new product, put it into production, and began to sell them onto the market. And it became an instant hit, then went uncontrollably viral, and soon surpassed the sales of Azura.

Chapter 2: Ming

About the same time, inside the briefing room of Military Intelligence Agency (MIA) of Arth:

“It seems that the sales of Corona have surpassed Azura, which is mostly owned by us.” one officer said, “We are losing a great source of revenue to fund our special operations.”

“That is not the greatest threat.” another officer said, “There is a reason that Azura was popular, and its ingredient was kept a secret, because of a dangerously addictive drug MG-38. This drug has great medical applications, it can heal mentally ill patients. But if it is misused, it can cause heavy addictions as well. It seems that civilians have already discovered this drug, and begin to sell it in one way or another, commercially. That is the threat, that civilians are playing with exotic things openly, and those things are too dangerous to be released to the public.”

“That is true.” another officer spoke, “Drugs are not the only crazy things going viral these days. Civilians are also playing with exotic holographic technologies, nuclear technologies, and artificial intelligence etc. Those technologies, along with the drugs like MG-38, can potentially cause catastrophes when used improperly, and we have our own research indicating that the public has not matured enough yet, to handle those kinds of technologies safely.”

“So what do we do?”

“Slow them down, of course.”

“How do you do that? Do you have a plan?”

“Plan? No, not yet.”

“I have a plan.” Beatrice May, a female intelligence officer stood up, “Please hear me out.”

Beatrice then briefed the room for hours, covering every single detail of her plan.

“Well your plan seemed very ambitious.” said a high officer, “But it could work. So I guess I will pass this assignment onto you? What do you think?”

“Sure, I will take it.” Beatrice spoke, “I won’t fail you.”

After the briefing, Beatrice wasted no time. She directly walked into a nearby secretive portal, and through it she entered another dimension of reality: the realm of death.

“I demand to speak with Ming, the God of death.” said Beatrice, standing next to a big window on a high rise building.

“Sure, Madam, just wait, he will be right here.”

“Ah, ha, it is you again, Miss May, am I right?” Ming spoke, as he walked closer to Beatrice.

“Yes, you are right, I am Beatrice May.” said Beatrice, “Last time I saw you was about decades ago, but that is in our time on Arth. Decades on Arth is like a couple of days here in your time, right?”

“Yes, you looked about the same since the last time I saw you.” Ming stops by the window, “Enjoy the view? Have you missed anything that is outside of this window?”

“Of course, that bridge, on the river,” said Beatrice, “The Nai-he Bridge.”

“Oh yes, the Nai-he Bridge.” Ming spoke, “The bridge that any soul must cross when they are about to enter their life on Arth, or when their bodies die on Arth and their souls will depart from here. It is also a bridge of trade and commerce. Many merchandises, and goods go through here as well.”

“I want this bridge to be destroyed.” said Beatrice.

“What?” Ming shouted out, “Then nobody can cross this bridge anymore, meaning there can be no more deaths on Arth, because their souls can no longer go through the Nai-he Bridge and leave this place.”

“And that is exactly what I want.” said Beatrice, “If you want anybody out of Arth, you have to do it now. You will have a couple of days in your time, which is equivalent to about a decade or more on Arth, to pull anyone out of Arth before the bridge is to be destroyed. And then when the bridge is destroyed, there will be a period of time where no one can die anymore. Of course, when the bridge is fixed here, everything will be back to normal again.”

“You are tempering with death, lady.” said Ming, “You know, there are rules in this universe. There has to be a fixed amount of death being distributed on Arth. If people don’t die, then something else has to.”

“Yes, that is exactly what I want.” Said Beatrice, “People’s businesses will die, their hope will die. Their fast progression and revolutions will die. Death will then have to manifest into their works instead of their lives.”

“Oh, I think I might have seen something like this before.” said Ming, “Have the humans been moving too fast again?”

“Yes.” said Beatrice, “And I need your cooperation this time as well, just like how this had happened many times before. Everything has been planned out, you will soon receive briefings from one of our guys about the plan.”

“Fine, you do whatever you have to do.” said Ming, “You will have my support.”

Beatrice then wasted no time and quickly headed back to Arth through the portal. Because after all, a couple of hours in the realm of death could be a year here on Arth.

Ming also, wasted no time, began to pull out men that he did not want to be trapped on Arth, before the Nai-he Bridge would be taken down.

And that meant massive deaths began to roll up in our town, as Ming was pulling men out of Arth.

At the beginning, there were terrorist attacks and mass shottings, where each crime would took hundres of lives.

Then there were war on those terrorists, costed anther thousands of lives.

After that, there were plane disappearances or crashes, that killed hundreds of men and women during each accident. Average people did not know why, except they felt confused.

Later on, the old people began to die in masses. People thought they just got old, and it should be their time to go.

Then, people in their 50s began to get horribly sick, they got cancers and other horrible diseases that tortured them to death.

As time went on people got confused and tired of all these kinds of craps. They gradually “adapted”.

And all the sudden, there was something called “Corona” virus, being rolled out, threatening the public health.

Since the name “Corona” was also the name that Cyan used to brand his perfume, his perfume after a period of popularity, finally went down massively in sales, as people began to think this brand could be a curse for carrying the same name as the deadly virus.

Chapter 3: Corona

While all these shit storms had been going on, Beatrice began to disguise herself as an average civilian, to run for a campaign to be the next governor of town Arth, so she could keep rolling out her agenda over Arth.

“Nobody dies on my watch!”

That was the promise she made during her campaign.

She promised to improve our healthcare system, safety in travel, and anti-terrorism.

With her MIA bodies backing her up, with unlimited campaign funding, and their expertise in intelligence, they were able to find out the dirty pasts of their competitors, and use those against them.

With all the advantages on her side, she finally won the campaign and became the new governor of Town Arth.

About the same time as Beatrice won the election campaign in Arth, at the Nai-he Bridge of the realm of death:

The bridge had been temporarily sealed, and out of service to the local public.

A long line of unmanned military cargo sent by MIA, carrying super heavy explosives, slowly drives through the Bridge.

As the trucks slowly moved onto the bridge, a team of unknown aerial drones, carrying explosives inside, hovered above the nearby sky.

Out of the sudden, one of the drones dove down from the sky, and directly crashed into one of the pillars of the bridge.

“A terrorist attack!” nearby civilians panicked, and start running away from the neighborhoods of the bridge.

Soon after, the remaining drones dove down, one by one, striking the remaining pillars.

Not only that, some of the drones crashed directly into the cargo. This caused a huge chain reaction of explosion. The explosion was so loud that it shook the ground, causing an earthquake around its neighborhood. As people were running around, some of the civilians fell onto the ground as the earth was shaking, they then quickly stood up, and fell down again, again, and again.

Minutes later, the bridge was finally unable to carry the weights and the damage. It gave up, splitted into pieces, and crashed down into the river.

It had became official that the realm of death was under an unknown terrorism attack. Ming and other local governing officials quickly ran a campaign on anti-terrorism as their next primary duty to protect their civilians. Of course they would also use this as a diversion to draw the public’s attention away from the fall and the rebuilding process of the Nai-he Bridge.

About the same time, after the fell of the Nai-he Bridge, in the town of Arth:

The corona virus had gone viral. But all of a sudden, people were no longer dying from the disease. The “deadly virus” was no longer killing, it became just another type of cold. But the tight restrictions continued and kept getting worse. Many businesses, especially restaurants, were losing customers and trade, and they began to shut down, one by one. As people started losing their money and hope, death had now manifested into the businesses and works of people, instead of their lives.

Interestingly enough, people also observed a sharp decline of birth rates. Young people were no longer interested in having babies. People thought it was just that each generation was getting worse than its predecessors, that the newest generation did not even want to bear the responsibility to raise a family. And people also had thought that the dropping economy due to the pandemic lockdown may also have something to do with it. It deprived the prosperity of people, therefore making them financially less confident to raise a family with kids.

Cyan and his family certainly felt the living death everywhere, as the trade went down, so did the revenue that came out of his firm’s research. As more lockdowns continued, Cyan began to work more from home.

“Who’s there? Just come in.” said Cyan, as he listened to someone was knocking on his room’s door in his home.

“Oh it is you, Governor May.” A lady then walked into the room as Cyan permitted, and she received a warm welcome from Cyan, “Welcome to our home, sorry I am a little busy right now, and do not know that you are here in our house.”

“No worry, I am just being a good friend to your wife.” said Beatrice May, “I am just dropping by and saying hello. I see General Lorentz and his good friend Jason is with you. ”

“Yes, my bro Jason is injured and infected.” said Lorentz, “You know, with the economy this bad, people even begin to fight for food and water. We fought against armed forces of nearby towns for resources. And some of my men, including Jason, were injured. Jason has a really bad infection, and we have heard some blue powders in Cyan’s lab could clean this wound up nicely. And it seems to be working. ”

“Glad to hear that General.” said Beatrice, “That blue powder Lorentz was talking about, isn’t it the drug you used in your perfume called Corona?”

“Yeah. But that perfume is no longer selling because it is cursed by a virus of the same name.” said Cyan, “But I still find it to have a wide range of medical applications, such as healing.”

“Alright.” said Beatrice, “Since your perfume and many brands was hit by this economy, what have you been working on now?”

“With too much death in our air,” said Cyan, “I am thinking about how to transmute the energy of death into a creative energy so I can be productive while soaking up all the darkness around. ”

“And?” said Beatrice.

“I am working with a few partners,” said Cyan, “Researching on using meditation and meditative processes to stay creative while in a negative and dark environment. Since this death in our air can manifest into actual death too, I hope meditations would probably reduce some death rates as well, by converting them into creative energy, and manifest them into works.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Beatrice, “Making money?”

“Ah, No.” Cyan laughed slightly, “But successful enough to keep my spirit up and stay creative, while during all these dark hours.”

“If you are interested in money,” said Beatrice, “I know some firms around here would do some contracts, with people like you, on developing security technologies on alarms, doors and windows, etc. ”

“Ah ha, so people around here are stealing right now.” Cyan laughed again, “Well, with all the businesses and monies gone, what do I expect? I should have seen this opportunity earlier, seriously. I wish we could have had this conversation many years ago. I would be rich now, right?”

“It is still not too late for now.” said Beatrice.

“Alright, I will be taking notes from you after I am done with Jason.” said Cyan.

“Of course, I will wait.” said Beatrice.

“So, Beatrice,” said Lorentz, “How about that bridge, is it fixed now?”

“What!? Bridge?” Beatrice suddenly got caught off guard, and pretended that she did not know what Lorentz was saying.

“The Nai-he Bridge of course.” said Lorentz.

“Come on, you are not supposed to discuss Military level secrets out in the public, right?” said Beatrice.

“Oh, it is already everywhere in the rumors of this town.” said Lorentz, “People are already beginning to talk about the fall of Nai-he in the realm of death. Just tell me alright?”

“Well the repair is about to complete.” said Beatrice, “And it shall be re-opened soon.”

“That means the deaths in our air will be manifested into the natural deaths of our people.” said Lorentz, “and the businesses and economies will be soon back on track, right?”

“Well since there has been too long of no death,” said Beatrice, “It will take quite a long time for the dying energies to be cleared out. Unless…”

“Unless there will be a great war, that would kill many many people.” said Lorentz, “So the deaths in our air can be completely manifested and released, right?”

“Right.” said Beatrice.

“OK, I am gonna run for the next governor of this town after your current term.” said Lorentz, “Beatrice, I do not know as much as you do, because you have a higher intelligence clearance level after all. Like I do not know how all of these got started in the first place, but I finally have an idea on how to save our town people from a dying economy.”

“Through war and sacrifice?” said Beatrice.

“Yes.” said Lorentz.

“Common, don’t be stupid.” said Beatrice.

“Then let our town people decide, shall we?” said Lorentz.

Chapter 4: Lorentz

Years after, where Beatrice was at the end of her seventh term as the governor of Arth, with advanced technologies that the death realm had, the repair of the Nai-he Bridge had just been finished, and the bridge had then been reopened. At the same time on Arth, Lorentz rolled out his plan, and ran to be the next governor of Arth.

“We must fight, for our future!”

That was the campaign slogan of Lorentz.

He promised a large-scale war with the neighboring towns and states, to protect our waters and farm lands. He also stated that a war would stimulate consumption on all levels and areas, therefore would better our industries and economies.

Many people had lived lives worse than death in those days. And many of them would like to join the military for war, just because they could get three meals per day.

So Lorentz’s campaign was sold, the people of Arth had bought it. And Lorentz soon became our next governor in town.

A large-scale war then started soon after Lorentz stepped into the office. And a large number of casualties were reported on the news.

As the war went on, consumption began to drive the economy. Factories began to hire more people because they could not finish their order. Average civilians in town then got jobs and income, and the economy began to rise.

As people began to live a good life, Lorentz felt it had been enough for all these fighting. He then struck a peace deal with the nearby towns and states. A peace deal not only to stop wars, but also to promote peaceful trades with neighboring towns and states.

Arth then enters an age of prosperity, where many people called those times, the golden age.

People then built a memorial park for their heroes that had lost their lives during the great war. Inside the park, there was a mailbox, allowing people to write letters to their beloved town heroes, and put them into the mailbox. The park frequently held memorial gatherings, where during those gatherings, some featured letters will be selected and read in front of people. One of the letters read the following:

“

To Austin, one of the heroes I know:

The very first time I saw you was at a local fish market when I was a kid. Your clothes were badly worn, and your belly fat is in between your eyes and your toes. From the first glimpse, I would have never thought that one day, you could be a town hero for everyone to look up to.

Later on, you became my neighbor and a good friend of my parents.You would like to drop by our house every afternoon for a small chat, until the day you joined the army, fought the war and never came back. To this day, every afternoon, I still feel someone is missing, someone who feels like they should be a part of my family.

When I was little, I had ambitions to go through some good education, so I can be somebody, somebody better than average people in town like uncle Austin. Then today, as I have already finished my doctoral degree and teaching in a college, I thought I have fulfilled my ambition. But whenever I cross this park these days, I feel small, and all I want to say is, right now, I want to be you, uncle Austin, you are the hero.

Thank you, for sacrificing your life to protect our people, lands and waters. You gave up your life so we can live a better one of our own. We are not only blessed with life, we are blessed with a better life. With the war, our economic demands and consumption were up again, and everyone then got their jobs, so they could feed their families. So again, thank you, for your sacrifice wasn’t just giving us a life, but a very good one.

Our little town Arth, has been widely known as a town of innovation and perfumes. Right now, Arth is also a town of heroes. We are so proud of being your neighbors. Now whenever we meet people from elsewhere, we wear pride. And we would tell them that we come from a land of warriors and soldiers. You have earned these titles for us by giving up your lives to fight for freedom and protect our home, thank you.

”

As for Beatrice, years after walking out of office, got a lot of free time to do whatever she would like. Cyan had made a lot of money thanks to her advice on developing security systems. In return, Cyan in recent years, partnered with many other firms, developed an advanced health-measuring smartwatch. A smartwatch that measures heart rate, blood pressure, and even tracks the healthiness of the food users eat as they order their food from this smartwatch. The smartwatch also works like a phone, allowing old people to call for help in an emergency with voice commands alone. And Cyan paid Beatrice a huge amount of money asking her to speak and represent for this product. He even got Beatrice’s permission to use her campaign slogan on this thing:

“Nobody dies on my watch!”

On a new year, January 1st, Cyan held a product launch for his new smartwatch at a public square in Town Arth, and Beatrice was there to promote this watch.

She spoke for about an hour straight. After her speech, she interacted with her audiences. One of her fans asked her a question: “What would you recommend average people in Arth to do, so this town could be more kind and inclusive?”

“Alright. Let’s see. How about fake your smile?” said Beatrice.

The crowd suddenly laughed out aloud.

“That’s it! See? You are good at it! ”

The crowd then laughed even harder.

“Alright, alright. Let’s be serious then.” Beatrice silenced a little bit, then picked up her microphone, and said:

“

To me, being kind and inclusive is all about giving people appropriate rights, while setting strict boundaries with them.

From my experience, it is relatively easier to include people that are no better than you. You may feel bored, or even argue that the person is dragging your feet. But with appropriate smiles, communication, hard work, proper distancing, and a little bit of sacrifice, you can achieve decent teamwork results in most situations.

However, what is hard, really hard, is to be kind and inclusive to a person that is superior to you. Especially that person who is currently beneath your feet, and you already felt a huge potential from this person, that he will run you over sometime during the future.

If you want to be inclusive to this type of people, then you must:

Number one, work hard. A lot harder than you now, so you won’t let this type of person beat you down. You should never give up your current place and just throw it to another person. You must stand your ground, with hard work.

Number two, you must play games. That means you must be really careful about what rights you should give to that person for including him, and what boundaries you must set against him.

Number three, be as nice and fair as you can. And try your best not to turn up against the person you try to include. Learn from him, as much as you can, instead of being jealous and start an open conflict with him.

So you’ve got it, Arth. There is something all of you can do to be kind and inclusive to other people, that is: hard work, so you can stand your ground. Set rights and boundaries, so you can play fair. And last but not least, play as nice as you can, and learn from someone that is both your best friend, and your worst enemy.

”

People applauded, and in hope of following Beatrice’s new advice, their town will be more harmonic and prosperous in the upcoming year.