Ethan Brooks had seen thunderstorms before, but never in his life had he witnessed lightning as dense as what was before his eyes—it was practically like the end of the world. The lightning in the sky didn’t flash in single bolts, but crashed down in sheets all at once.

The sound of rolling thunder was also different from usual.

In the Jiangnan region, thunder used to come as a loud bang followed by a series of rumbling echoes. But now, the thunder sounded like firecrackers packed with extra gunpowder—boom, crackle, boom—noisy and chaotic, with even the echoes drowned out.

If this was someone being struck by lightning for their sins, just how great must those sins be to provoke such a barrage of thunderbolts?

What’s more, what really caught Ethan Brooks’s attention was that the pitch-black thunderclouds didn’t spread out, but stayed shrunken at the edge of the horizon, unleashing their fury without any sign of expanding.

The thunder rolled on for about ten breaths, rumbling endlessly.

It gave people the sense that an even fiercer storm was about to hit.

“What bad luck!” Ethan Brooks sighed, thinking to himself, “Maybe I should just hang around and read a bit more?”

Usually, even if it was a thunderstorm, it would come and go quickly. But if it lasted a bit longer, maybe he could finish another book?

With that thought, he turned back toward the bookstore, planning to linger a while longer.

It was as if the heavens were playing a joke on Ethan.

Just as he turned and stepped back into the bookstore, the thunderous roar in his ears abruptly stopped!

The dark clouds and raging thunder snakes at the horizon vanished at the same time! It was as if a giant hand was painting the sky, and, dissatisfied with the work, simply wiped away the clouds and thunder snakes.

The sky returned to a cloudless blue, bathed in sunlight! It was as if the explosive thunder and the sky full of lightning had been nothing but an illusion.

Someone in the rental bookstore muttered, “What just happened?”

“Could someone really have been struck by lightning for their sins?”

“Superstition! Lightning is just a natural phenomenon…”

At that moment, a little brat next to Ethan looked up, holding a children’s comic in his left hand, raising his right palm high toward the sky, and shouted in a bold tone, “Ah, I want this sky to never block my eyes again, I want this earth to never bury my heart again! I want these clouds to vanish without a trace!”

The corner of Ethan Brooks’s mouth twitched. He was sure that when this little brat grew up and remembered today, he’d be so embarrassed he’d want to roll on the floor. And this kind of black history would haunt him for life. Just when he thought he’d finally forgotten it, it might pop up from some corner of his mind, making him want to scream, “Go to hell, how embarrassing!” or something like that. He’d wish he could travel back in time and give his younger, foolish self a good beating.

Because he knew the feeling all too well.

For some reason, seeing this funny little brat suddenly made Ethan Brooks think of those fantasy-obsessed friends in the Nine Provinces Number One Group.

‘H City, crossing the third-grade postnatal lightning tribulation.’

The group chat record flashed through his mind.

He estimated the position of the horizon again. That thunderstorm just now seemed to be… right where H City was?

Even with Ethan Brooks’s strong nerves, his heart skipped a beat.

No way… could it be real?

The weather forecast said it would be sunny, but suddenly there was this bizarre thunderstorm.

“Hahaha, how could that be! There’s no way something like a heavenly tribulation exists in this world. It must be a coincidence, right?!” Ethan Brooks thought to himself.

But once the thought arose, he couldn’t shake it: could there really be such a coincidence in the world? That thunder snake was so strange, it really didn’t look like a natural phenomenon.

The words H City and tribulation kept echoing in his mind.

Ethan Brooks shook his head hard, trying to throw out the possibility.

Eighteen years of worldview told him to believe in science and reject superstition. Those thunderclouds were just a bizarre natural phenomenon, not some kind of tribulation!

Chapter 6: The Bronze Trigram Immortal Master

“I must have been infected by the people in that group. Even though the chat records are fun to read, I really should quit the group after a while. Otherwise, if I stay too long, I’ll end up being assimilated—after I let Cousin take a look at that prescription and confirm those supplements won’t poison anyone, I’ll quit the group.” Ethan Brooks thought to himself.

Actually, they were just a bunch of random group members… and he himself had been randomly added. Ethan Brooks could have just ignored them completely.

But he always felt that if he knew the ‘elixir’ they were taking was poisonous, he had to at least try to warn them. Whether they listened or not was up to them, but at least he’d have a clear conscience.

Yes, a clear conscience.

Whether they listened was the group members’ business, but whether he warned them was his.

…

Back at the dorm, Ethan Brooks logged into the chat app and sent his Cousin Emily Parker a copy of the list of medicinal ingredients.

“Emily, hypothetical question: if all the above ingredients were put into a pot and boiled into a medicinal paste, would eating it be fatal? Please help me check when you have time.”

He hit enter and sent the message. Ethan Brooks leaned back in his chair, letting his mind go blank.