Thunder and Rain

"Clang, clang."

The sound of the train wheels grinding against the tracks echoed in his ears.

Baili Qingfeng sat on the train with his eyes closed, resting.

The train ran twenty-four hours a day. He had bought a ticket for 2:30 a.m., and the journey to Miro City, over four hundred kilometers away, would take ten and a half hours.

At this time of night, the train had far too many stops along the way, seriously affecting its speed.

Baili Qingfeng remained in this half-squinting state, and before he knew it, dawn had arrived the next day.

At that moment, some sort of commotion seemed to come from the train.

Baili Qingfeng opened his eyes and found that many people aboard the train were peering outside.

Baili Qingfeng swept his gaze over the scene. By the faint morning light spreading across the horizon, he saw rows of troop carriers, armored vehicles, and tanks traveling along a highway running parallel to the tracks, forming a long dragon. Judging by the scale, there was definitely more than one regiment.

However, the troop carriers, armored vehicles, and tanks were not the main point. The main point was...

The smell of gunpowder.

Baili Qingfeng could smell gunpowder on those vehicles.

The army seemed to have just returned from the battlefield. With his sharp eyes, Baili Qingfeng could even make out wounded soldiers with bandages wrapped around them, stained red with blood.

One soldier after another sat silently in the vehicles, staring blankly and wordlessly at the people on the train. After a moment, as the railway and highway went from running parallel to separating, they gradually grew more distant until they vanished completely from sight.

"Are they fighting a war? Have the Aurora People attacked?"

"That can't be. We're in the south, while the Aurora Empire is in the north. Even if there's a war, it wouldn't be with the Aurora People."

"That's a pretty large force they've deployed. I saw several thousand soldiers just now—two or three regiments. If there really were a war, we should've heard about it by now."

"I heard a month ago that there'd been a massive ground collapse in Li Ke County, and there were suspicions that Cavemen had appeared... This place isn't far from Li Ke County. Could it be Cavemen?"

Many people on the train began discussing it. Even those who had originally been resting with their eyes closed were jolted awake.

Listening to them, Baili Qingfeng glanced at the convoy that had already disappeared from view and fell silent.

The Jiang Family members, Eddie and his father, and the Iron Sword Sect martial artists had acted without restraint. Now there was a large-scale troop movement.

Perhaps I need to change my understanding of the world... This world is far from as peaceful as I imagined.

The train arrived in Miro City at two in the afternoon, an hour late.

Unlike Xia City, where the sky was clear and cloudless for miles, Miro City was raining.

A thunderstorm.

It seemed to herald the occurrence of some event.

After getting off the train, Baili Qingfeng did not dare eat near the station.

Getting a plate of egg fried rice that cost a hundred yuan around here was hardly unlikely.

He took a bus to a place one kilometer from the Iron Sword Sect, ate lunch, and watched the rain continue to pour outside. He advanced five yuan from the two hundred thousand yuan extermination funds he had confiscated, bought an umbrella, and walked toward the Iron Sword Sect beneath it.

The Iron Sword Sect was not built in some desolate wilderness amid famous mountains and vast rivers. Like Jiang's Martial Hall, the Iron Sword Sect survived in Miro City by operating as a martial hall.

However, compared with Jiang's Martial Hall, the Iron Sword Sect occupied a much larger area. It had not only three small buildings, but also two training grounds the size of basketball courts, as well as various equipment for exercise and activities.

When Baili Qingfeng arrived at the Iron Sword Sect, he found that the atmosphere there was somewhat tense.

The main gate was half open, and two sturdy-looking men were standing beneath the eaves, keeping watch.

Just as Baili Qingfeng arrived, he saw a sedan stop at the Iron Sword Sect's entrance. Two vigorous men with the bearing of dragons and tigers got out, while someone inside came out to greet them with an umbrella. "Sixth Brother, Twelfth Brother, you're here. Everyone except Ninth Brother has arrived."

"What happened? Why did Young Sect Master Lu summon all of us here?"

"Didn't the Sect Leader take the sect's elite forces to Xia City yesterday? We lost contact with him starting this morning. A little after nine, Green Water Manor called. Something happened."

"Something happened? What happened!?"

"Let's go inside and talk!"

The group quickly entered the courtyard.

"One person still hasn't arrived."

Baili Qingfeng thought it over and decided to wait until everyone had arrived before making his move, lest any fish slip through the net.

But waiting around like this was incredibly boring.

"The rain's pretty heavy."

Baili Qingfeng raised his head and looked at the dark clouds overhead, as well as the flashes of electricity that occasionally gleamed within them.

Cultivating the Thunder Sovereign Visualization Method made him extremely sensitive to the electric potential of his surroundings.

"The current electric field is 3×10^3 N/C. If I just stand here without moving, I'll definitely arouse the Iron Sword Sect's suspicion. So, to avoid alerting them, I'd better find something to do and calculate the amount of charge in the thundercloud."

Baili Qingfeng picked up a small stone, went over to the wall, treated it as a blackboard, and began calculating.

Treating the cloud as an infinite plane, with negative charges present on the ground, the electric field strength was E=σ/ε0. σ was the amount of charge carried by the cloud per unit area, so...

σ=ε0E=(8.85×10^12^2^2/kg^3)(3000/m)≈2.7×10^8C^2

It was crystal clear.

Baili Qingfeng stayed at the Iron Sword Sect's entrance, and this naturally aroused the suspicions of the two men there.

One of them looked hostile and was about to shout and demand his identity.

However, when they saw the formulas on the wall, they instinctively felt that such an earnest, studious student could not possibly be an enemy of the Iron Sword Sect. Besides, it was raining outside...

In the end, the man merely glanced at him before retreating beneath the eaves again and ignoring him.

After finishing his calculation, Baili Qingfeng looked toward the entrance. They still weren't here, so...

He might as well calculate the electric field strength on the surfaces of these raindrops.

"Bzzzt!"

At that moment, another sedan stopped in front of the Iron Sword Sect. A middle-aged man got out with someone accompanying him.

"Ninth Brother is here. The other brothers are already inside waiting for you."

One of the guards at the entrance hurried over to hold up an umbrella for him.

The man addressed as Ninth Brother nodded and walked into the courtyard.

"They're finally all here."

Baili Qingfeng abandoned his thought of continuing his pointless calculations of the electric field strength and stepped forward, walking toward the Iron Sword Sect's entrance.

Although his movement caught the attention of the other man, that person paid him no heed. It was only when he saw Baili Qingfeng actually heading straight for the Iron Sword Sect that he shouted as Baili Qingfeng reached the gate, "What family are you from, kid? This isn't a place for you. Go somewhere else."

The man addressed as Ninth Brother heard the voice and turned to glance at Baili Qingfeng. With that one glance, he suddenly recalled the materials the Sect Leader had handed them at yesterday's meeting—the materials about the person they were supposed to deal with in Xia City...

"Baili Qingfeng!?"

Baili Qingfeng raised his head and glanced at the man called Ninth Brother. Then, ignoring his shout, he closed the gate that had just been pushed open.

He...

Ninth Brother and the two Iron Sword Sect members were all locked inside the martial hall.

"Quick! Get inside! Inform Sect Leader Lu and the other brothers! The enemy is here!"

The man addressed as Ninth Brother's expression changed drastically. He stared warily at Baili Qingfeng as he closed the gate, slowly retreating.

The Iron Sword Sect disciple who had berated Baili Qingfeng earlier showed a trace of fear in his eyes. He quickly ran off, retreating alongside Ninth Brother, and watched helplessly as Baili Qingfeng shut the gate, took the brass lock hanging on it, locked the gate, and then slipped the key into his trouser pocket.

"Baili Qingfeng, you've got some nerve! We hadn't even gone looking for you, yet you delivered yourself right to our doorstep? Today, you're not leaving alive! Brothers, go get the guns!"

A furious shout came from inside the Iron Sword Sect.

At once...

Baili Qingfeng had thought they would rush him in a fury, using their fists and swords to fight him to the death. He was visibly stunned for a moment. Then, the next instant...

He could no longer wait for the Iron Sword Sect members to assemble...

The umbrella fell.

"Clang!"

He drew his sword, its blade flashing from the sheath!

(I don't know why I couldn't write the formulas properly. I won't write them anymore.)