On a pitch-black rainy night, torrential rain lashed the mountains and forests. Howling winds swept through the woods, raising a ceaseless roar. From time to time, thunder cracked across the sky, its booming echoes rolling endlessly through the mountains.
Silver serpents flashed across the darkened sky, accompanied by constant crackling sounds. Every so often, the blinding silver light illuminated the pitch-black forest as brightly as day.
Amid the perilous cliffs, an aged figure stood with his hands behind his back atop a sharp outcropping of rock. His weathered face was expressionless as he stared at the lightning and thunder overhead. Like an ageless pine, he stood firmly upon the cliff, carrying an air of calm defiance—as if no matter how violently the thunder raged, he would remain unmoved.
Yet, upon closer inspection, one would notice that whenever the old man's gaze drifted toward the cave not far away, its entrance buried beneath broken stones, his eagle-claw-like hand would unconsciously clench tight before slowly relaxing again moments later.
Standing amid the lightning, the old man did not utter a single word. He merely gazed silently at the sky, occasionally glancing toward the cave. Yet his gaze only lingered for an instant before quietly shifting away, as though he feared that one extra look might disturb the young man's cultivation within.
The black night slowly passed amid the crashing thunder. The forest, mercilessly ravaged by lightning throughout the night, revealed its battered, devastated state as darkness gradually faded and the first rays of dawn emerged from the eastern horizon.
A red sun slowly rose in the east, its faintly warm light spilling across the earth and bringing a trace of vitality and vigor to the forest that had endured a night of lightning's ravages.
Yet beneath that tranquil exterior, earth-shaking upheaval was