In Lu Hongdou's limited childhood memories, the most vivid scene was an escape.
Yellow sand filled the sky, the blazing sun burned like fire, and the road ahead was uncertain.
Her hometown, a small frontier city in Donghua Prefecture, had been destroyed in an Aberrant Beast attack when she was five.
She did not remember much about the disaster itself. She only remembered being awakened by her parents one night, after which the family of three set out to flee. Even more unfortunately, she became separated from them during their escape and lost her way alone in the Wasteland.
A five-year-old child wandering alone through the Wasteland was practically no different from a dead child. It was only a matter of dying sooner or later. Yet Lu Hongdou was fortunate in this regard, because she encountered an old man who happened to be passing through the Wasteland.
Only later did Lu Hongdou learn that the old man was no ordinary person. He had mastered a very unique art, which he called martial arts.
Because he practiced martial arts, the old man could cross the Wasteland alone. Because he practiced martial arts, he could avoid its dangers. Whenever he spoke of martial arts, a shining light would always appear in his aged face.
The old man took Lu Hongdou in and brought her to another city. However, they did not settle in the city center, but on a mountain outside the city.
For the following years, Lu Hongdou called the old man "Master" and studied martial arts under him in the mountains.
Training in martial arts was grueling, far more grueling than ordinary hardship.
Perhaps her childhood flight across the Wasteland had made her strong, or perhaps leaving her parents so early had made her mature. Lu Hongdou persevered and diligently