"Crash!"
Something unknown struck the window. The paper pane was instantly punctured, and the wind, carrying the fishy stench of rain, seemed to seize upon that fleeting flaw and blow the window paper apart. Rain lashed in from outside.
This was an external omen!
The moment Xie Zhenqing realized this, a booming peal of thunder suddenly seemed to close the distance sharply and explode beside his ears.
"Boom!"
In an instant, his mind shook and his blood surged. With a puff, Xie Zhenqing spat out another mouthful of blood. His face, already pale, turned utterly bloodless in a heartbeat.
Yet Xie Zhenqing had no time to care about coughing blood. He hurried to the door, yanked it open, and stepped outside.
A fierce wind immediately howled past, whipping his robes into the air.
Standing beneath the eaves, he looked up at the sky. The already dark heavens were thick with lightning. Flashes glimmered through cracks in the clouds, while muffled thunder rolled from time to time, oppressive and terrifying.
The gathered storm clouds were especially heavy, hanging extremely low.
Though they were still far from the ground, they easily gave people the illusion that they were pressing directly overhead.
That oppressive weight deepened the terror brought by the thunder.
Perhaps humanity held an instinctive awe toward lightning?
Xie Zhenqing could even hear children crying out in the distance, as if they had been awakened by the rumbling thunder.
The thunder continued to reverberate outside for a long while.
Xie Zhenqing stared at the thunderclouds overhead and realized that the vast dark clouds were not gathered around the entire street. They were essentially hanging over Prince Qi's Residence.
As though enlightenment had been poured straight into his head, Xie Zhenqing abruptly came to his senses. "Not good!"
This was a sign