The perennial question: “If everything that we own today is to be left behind, what truly belongs to us?”

There is a Shakespearean tragedy unfolding in the modern world. Whereas humans have become incomparably wealthy, with nearly double the life spans compared to their ancestors a mere few centuries ago, the quotient of happiness, instead of increasing proportionally, is decreasing. Even with fuller stomachs and automated lives, the poverty of wealth is on display.

We live in a world where success is measured in material terms: net worth, market value, asset portfolios, etc. Success is photographed, filtered, admired, and spread across the virtual world, but the glitter blinds the observers to what is happening underneath that shining exterior. The basic equation combining happiness with wealth is fundamentally wrong.

The universal fact that has remained unchanged since the inception of life is that death follows every birth. No matter the billions owned or the portfolios on Wall Street, everything remains behind once the final gasp leaves the body. And as soon as one dies, titles change, ownership transforms, and, in certain cases, the wealth left behind becomes the cancer that decimates the inheritors.

Qin Shi Huang first ruled as King of Qin from 247 BCE–221 BCE and then as the first Emperor of a unified China from 221 BCE–210 BCE. He built one of the biggest empires of that era and sought immortality through alchemy. He filled his court........

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