thunder

As the saying goes:

Having finished reading the Ode to Mountains and Rivers, I bid farewell to the vast and boundless world. New faces add to the old, when will the wind and rain cease their chaos? In youth, I knew no enmity, only the old snow to grace the new tower.

......

War.

The war raged on endlessly.

Burning in Jiang Yuan's heart and mind, he stood there, lost and motionless, clutching a sword tightly in his hand, which was stained with blood.

The rising sun shone on his face, but it burned his wounds painfully.

"Waaah—"

A child's cry pulled him back from the brink of collapse. As if the air around him had begun to flow again, Jiang instinctively walked toward the direction from which the sound came, staggering all the way.

There, a man who had been dead for a long time, whose left side was completely gone, was still tightly protecting the child in his arms.

Jiang Yuan couldn't hold back her tears.

"I can't take good care of her..." His cries mingled with the baby's voice, one weeping for his future, the other for his past, "...It's my fault, it's all my fault..."

However, no one in this land responded to him anymore.

Of the five men who fought, only one survived.

He didn't know how to leave his best friends, nor did he want to.

"I've found them!" A voice came from afar, like a death knell. Jiang Yuan didn't want to pay attention, but then came a series of extremely chaotic footsteps, stopping not far from the battlefield.

The leading man looked at the scene without showing any emotion: "You've formed a faction without permission, what else is there to say?"

"Heh." Jiang Yuan sneered, his hatred for the person in front of him reaching its peak at this moment. "You surnamed Bai, aren't you afraid of retribution?"

Jiang Yuan forced himself to stand up, no longer looking up at the person in front of him: "You clearly know what's in that box, but you can't solve it yourself, so you push it onto us. You're really something, Bai Yu."

Bai Yu's expression remained unchanged, as if everything was within his expectations. He coldly said, "Hall Master Jiang is out of his mind."

"You killed all these people! It's all your fault!" Jiang Yuan suddenly became extremely agitated. He rushed forward and grabbed Bai Yu by the collar. No one present dared to stop him. "Listen to me, the only person here who deserves to die is you!"

As soon as he finished speaking, two teenagers stepped out from behind Bai Yu and pulled him away.

Looking at the scene before him, Jiang Yuan hated his own stupidity. Bai Yu slowly brushed the dust off his collar. Jiang Yuan was very familiar with that look in his eyes; it was the look of a victor mocking a loser.

So he raised his sword high and plunged it into the ground, then bent down and picked up the baby: "From now on, I have nothing to do with your Heavenly Dao Alliance. You understand that."

Without giving the other person any further chance to speak, he turned and left.

Jiang Yuan stumbled along, carrying the baby, when Bai Yu's cold voice came from behind: "Let him go."

As the footsteps faded into the distance, his tense nerves finally relaxed slightly. The baby in his arms had stopped crying at some point and was looking at him with innocent, wide eyes.

It started raining.

At first, Jiang Yuan thought it was just a light rain, but he didn't expect there to be a thunderstorm, and he was stranded on his way back. Every now and then, he would turn his head to look at the child; she always looked at him quietly with those eyes.

Even Jiang Yuan felt uncomfortable hearing the terrifying thunder, but the child seemed completely unafraid.

"I didn't expect you to be unafraid of thunder."

The girl suddenly laughed in response to Jiang Yuan's words.

"Lei... Ying Lei, how about we name you Ying Lei?"

The given name is ready, but the surname is still missing.

Jiang Yuan thought for a long time about what surname to choose.

Yes.

Jiang Yuan looked tenderly at the child:

"Ji Yinglei".