A Night of Thunder, a Woman at Dawn

A quarter past midnight.

Without warning, terrifying tribulation lightning boomed again and again across the night sky above Jinling's imperial city.

The new year began after midnight. Who was breaking through their realm and undergoing tribulation at a time like this?

For a moment, cultivators throughout the imperial city were in an uproar, all asking which prince it was. Could it be an elder of one of the Four Great Sects? On a day like this, whoever it was had everyone on edge.

Everyone knew that ever since the Battle of Broken Dragon Mountain,

Spirit Transformation cultivators in the world had become as rare as phoenix feathers, and the young were pitiably few.

Aside from Duanmu Xi restoring Maertai and the others, Qiu Mingyu and Nalan Qiuqiu among them, to Spirit Transformation, and helping Wang Donglai break through,

there hadn't been a sound of tribulation lightning anywhere in the imperial city for years.

Last time, Maertai had stood before Duanmu Xi and entered Spirit Transformation without undergoing tribulation.

Hearing the rumbling from the sky that night, he was so startled that he asked Wang Donglai, "Who's that, scaring people in the middle of the night?"

Thinking about the things his younger sister had said, Wang Donglai suddenly jumped, too.

He sprang upright in bed, clutched his forehead, and exclaimed, "Furong said Second Brother might be back. Could this be his doing?"

"Wang Xian? Heavens!"

Maertai sat bolt upright as well and cried, "This is bad. Something big is about to happen in the imperial city."

"What's it to you? What's it to me?"

Wang Donglai sighed and murmured, "Go to sleep. Father's going to Nanshan Temple at dawn, and we still have to get ready for the New Year."

Maertai, however, laughed.

Taking Wang Donglai's hand, he said, "Your younger