Leveling Up To A Godzillionaire

Chapter 1

The cold wasn’t even the worst part yet. It was the smell of the 1982 Chateau Lafite soaking into Leo’s scalp, stinging his eyes.

The expensive, fermented blood was dripping off the tip of his nose. He kept his gaze fixed on a single vein in the white marble floor, a grey streak that looked like a lightning bolt.

Above him, he could hear Zhang Ming’s rhythmic, wet splashing as he emptied the bottle. It was a precise, condescending pour, the kind of thing a person did when they had too much money and zero soul.

The wine felt heavy, thick, and utterly humiliating, twisting every ounce of control and dignity he held.

“You look like a drowned rat, Leo,” Ming said, his voice light and airy. “Actually, that is an insult to rats. They have survival instincts. You just have a scholarship and a pathetic need to belong.”

Leo didn’t look up. He knew the expression on Ming’s face without needing to see it. It was that look of inherited superiority, the kind that came from never having to check a bank balance in your entire life.

Leo’s knees ached against the cold stone. He wanted to swing. He wanted to stand up and bury his fist into Ming’s perfect, porcelain teeth, to swipe out the pride that lingered on his face.

But he knew the rules. In this house, he was a guest, a charity case, a ghost that they allowed to haunt the hallways as long as he kept the floors clean.

He swallowed the bitter taste of grape and pride, saying nothing.

Zhang Wei entered the room then, his footsteps heavy and authoritative. The patriarch didn’t even look at the mess on the floor.

He looked through Leo, the way a man looks at a piece of furniture he’s decided to toss in the bin.

With disgust.

“Enough,” Wei said, though there was no heat in his voice. “This experiment is over. I thought bringing you here from the slums of Beijing would provide Ming with a bit of healthy competition. A reason to sharpen his claws. But you are stagnant, Lin Feng. You are a charity project that has failed to yield a return on investment.”

Leo finally looked up, the wine blurring his vision.

“I’ve maintained a 4.0 at Yale, sir. I’ve handled the estate’s logistics for three years.”

Wei gave a dismissive wave of his hand.

“You’ve occupied space. Security, remove the suit. It’s Zhang property. He doesn’t leave this house wearing anything relating to my name.”

The humiliation shifted from psychological to physical. Two guards, men Leo had shared coffee with in the breakroom just a week ago, stepped forward.

They didn’t apologize. They didn't even look him in the eye. They stripped the branded blazer off his shoulders and unbuttoned the crisp white shirt he’d ironed just that morning.

Within minutes, Leo was standing in the center of the foyer in nothing but a thin undershirt and his jeans.

“Get him out,” Wei commanded, turning his back. “It’s a bit chilly out there. Try not to freeze too loudly. It would disturb the neighbors.”

The heavy oak doors of the Zhang estate didn’t just close; they slammed with a finality that echoed in Leo’s marrow. The New England blizzard hit him like a physical blow.

The air wasn't just cold; it was sharp, a billion tiny ice needles seeking out every inch of his exposed skin. The temperature had plummeted to record lows, a freak polar vortex that had turned Greenwich into a white graveyard.

“Walk,” Leo told himself, his breath hitching in his chest. “Just walk to the main road. Someone will see you.”

He pushed himself closer, weathering through the heavy wind that hauled him back, his gaze pinned at what lay afar.

The driveway was a quarter-mile long, a winding ribbon of private asphalt already buried under six inches of powder. He couldn't see the gate through the whiteout.

He felt the heat leaving his body in great, visible plumes of steam. Every step was a battle. His toes went numb first, then his fingers, his lips chapped and lungs squeezed.

It was a strange sensation, the transition from stinging pain to a dull, heavy nothingness. He tried to focus on his rage, using the sheer force of his hatred for the Zhangs to fuel his desperate escape.

★

He stumbled, his body shivering uncontrollably as the wine-soaked clothes began to freeze solid against his skin. The cold was a living thing, draining his will with every gust of wind.

The Zhangs are going to pay for this, he thought, the anger providing a fleeting flicker of warmth. I’ll come back. I’ll take everything. I’ll buy that house and burn it down with them inside.

He was so caught up in the fantasy of revenge that he didn't see the shifted drainage cover. The metal had contracted in the deep freeze, popping slightly out of its housing.

Leo’s sneaker skidded on a patch of black ice, and his foot slid right into the gap. The fall was swift, punching out the air in his lungs.

The sound was sickening. A sharp, dry snap, like a frozen branch breaking under the weight of snow.

Leo screamed, but the wind swallowed the sound instantly. He collapsed into the drift, his right leg twisted at an angle that made his stomach flip.

The pain was white-hot, a jagged lightening bolt that shot up his spine and exploded in his brain. He rolled onto his back, gasping, his lungs burning from the sheer intake of sub-zero air.

He managed to pull his pant leg up, and even in the dim, grey light of the storm, he could see the damage. His ankle was already ballooning, turning a horrific, bruised shade of purple-red. It looked like a grapefruit had been shoved under his skin.

“Help,” he croaked. “Please.”

He fumbled in his pocket, his fingers feeling like wooden pegs. He managed to claw his phone out, but as he pulled it into the air, the plastic casing was so brittle from the cold that it simply shattered in his hand, his thumb stiffened.

The screen spider-webbed into a thousand pieces. He pressed the power button frantically. The Apple logo flickered for a second, a dying ghost, before the red battery icon appeared and the screen went black for good.

His hope crumbled to the ground like a block of ice in a heater. He was helpless, awaiting the warm embrace of death.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he whispered, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in his patched throat. “This is it? Killed by a bottle of wine and a hole in the ground?”

He tried to crawl, dragging his dead weight of a leg behind him, but the effort was too much. The cold was moving past his limbs now, settling deep into his chest.

His heart felt like it was slowing down, the beats becoming sluggish and heavy. The snow began to pile up around him, forming a soft, white shroud.

The end was here, death had come, inching closer in a soundless motion.

It was almost peaceful, in a terrifying sort of way. The shivering had stopped, which he knew was the final stage. The brain’s last-ditch effort before it simply gave up.

He closed his eyes. He could see his mother’s face in Beijing. He could see the sneer on Ming’s face.

He could see the life he was supposed to have, the one he’d worked so hard for, dissolving into the white noise of the blizzard.

“I hate you,” he thought, directed at the world at large. “I hate all of you.”

Then, the world changed.

It wasn't a sound. It was a sensation of heat, so intense it felt like he had been dropped into a furnace. Behind his eyelids, a light began to glow.

It wasn't the white light people talked about in near-death experiences. It was a violent, pulsing, blood-red crimson.

Leo forced his eyes open. Hanging in the air, seemingly burned into the very fabric of the storm, was a translucent screen. It didn't flicker in the wind. It didn't get obscured by the snow. It was steady, sharp, and impossible.

“YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE HIDDEN REQUIREMENT: ABSOLUTE DESPAIR AT GROUND ZERO.”

Leo blinked, certain he was hallucinating as his brain began to shut down from hypoxia.

“YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED BASED ON YOUR UNYIELDING SPITE AND LOGISTICAL APTITUDE. YOU HAVE EARNED THE SPOT OF BECOMING THE NEXT GODZILLIONAIRE.”

Below the text, two buttons pulsed with a rhythmic light. One said “YES” in a font that looked like it was forged from liquid gold. The other was a small, grey “NO” that seemed to be shrinking by the second.

“AFFIRM YES TO LOCK IN. AFFIRM NO TO PASS UP THIS OPPORTUNITY. YOU HAVE 5 SECONDS TO DECIDE. 5.....4....3....2....”

Leo’s vision was blurring, the edges of the red screen bleeding into the darkness of his closing eyes. He didn't understand what he was looking at. He didn't care.

If it was a demon, he’d sign. If it was a hallucination, he’d embrace it. Anything was better than dying in the dirt of a man who thought wine was a weapon.

“Yes,” he whispered.

The word was barely a breath, a tiny puff of frost that vanished into the gale. But it was enough.

The red screen exploded. The light rushed into his eyes, his nose, and his mouth, filling him with a searing, electric heat that made his blood boil.

The pain in his ankle vanished, replaced by a hum of raw power. For a single heartbeat, he felt the entire world shiver in sync with his pulse—every bank account, every stock market ticker, every gold bar in every vault.

A final, metallic voice boomed directly into his mind, cutting through the white noise of the storm.

“The price of survival is eternal service. Do you understand the terms, Lin Feng?”