Chapter 40—Lei Feng wakes up

A chill ran down Lei Cheng’s spine as he looked up at the sky—and it was not from the evening air.

"Bizarre Qi," he murmured solemnly.

It pressed in from every direction—gray, dense, purposeful. He understood now, in a way he had not fully grasped before, what the white flames had actually been doing. They were not a decoration. They were not just a display. The white flames burning in Azure Cloud City’s sky had been a purification barrier—a constant active filter that cleansed Bizarre Qi from the atmosphere above the city and prevented it from seeping inward. While the flames burned, the people of Azure Cloud City could live their daily lives without contamination. And if Bizarre Creatures appeared, they would have been suppressed—even if it was an illusion, bizarre qi didn’t dare enter the city. That was its power.

The Ninth Elder fox had maintained that illusion.

Now he no longer existed.

---

Outside the city walls, in the forest line, the gray fog that had been pressing against the edges of Azure Cloud City’s perimeter was now moving freely inward. The trees at the forest edge rose like a dark canopy against the sky—and within that canopy, in the trunks too large for men to wrap their arms around, shadows and different shapes of Bizarre moved.

The shadows were like humans but composed entirely of pitch-black energy. They had no proper mouths—where mouths should have been, black energy curled into long, licking tongues of darkness. Their eyes burned red—a deep, dark red that had no warmth in it at all. No other facial features distinguished one from another beyond their body shape. Every Bizarre Creature in the surrounding area turned its gaze toward Azure Cloud City simultaneously. It was as though they had all been waiting for this exact moment.

Then they lunged.

In the Lei household garden, the servants and maids who had been standing near Lei Cheng watching the sky had already begun to panic. A few were trembling so badly they could barely stand. One had made a sound that was difficult to describe politely.

Lei Cheng raised his voice over the noise.

"Don’t panic. The city officials will handle this." He scanned the frightened faces around him, projecting a calm demeanor. "The government will send notice and deploy forces soon. Return to your rooms and stay inside."

They calmed under his steady presence—after all, if real trouble had come, the rich would have run first. Since he was standing still and composed, they took some comfort in that.

Hua Mingyue stood beside him, unmoved, fanning herself as though the darkening sky were a mildly interesting weather event.

"Chef, have the cooks prepare dinner. You—guard the entrance." Lei Cheng’s loud, steady voice cut through enough of the panic to produce movement. The servants and maids scattered back to their posts with the focused urgency of people who had been given clear instructions and were grateful for something specific to do. The courtyard emptied. The silence they left behind felt unnaturally heavy.

Lei Cheng walked back to his room, sat on the edge of his bed, and pressed his fingers against his forehead.

"I really cannot have a single moment of peace."

Hua Mingyue settled back into the corner chair and picked up her book. She was just a few pages away from before.

"Can you tell me about—" Lei Cheng opened his mouth to finally ask about cultivation—

Thud! The door was flung open.

Lei Feng walked in.

His eyes swept the room in one sharp motion—taking in the space, the condition of his son, and then landing on Hua Mingyue with a brief, unreadable pause. He turned back to Lei Cheng. His voice was low. Controlled. Completely unlike his usual manner of addressing his son.

"What happened? How did we survive? And I heard everyone in the house saying that you’ve become a powerhouse—that you gained some kind of extraordinary power."

Lei Cheng’s pulse spiked.

He had seen his father scold, shout, throw things, chase him around the courtyard with a stick—but he had never heard this particular tone. It was the tone of a father who feared the answer. The absolute stillness of a man asking a question he had decided to fully understand. It was somehow worse than anger.

He swallowed and made a rapid decision.

"I have a talent for Bizarre Cultivation," he said. "She is my master."

He aimed this explanation at Hua Mingyue like a man handing someone else a lit firework.

Hua Mingyue set her book down with the patience of someone who had anticipated this moment, pulled her hand fan from her storage ring, and nodded pleasantly.

"Yes, Uncle Feng," she said. "I am his master." She paused and added playfully, "And also his wife."

Lei Feng stared at her.

"What?" His voice sharpened. "You are his wife? How? Since when?"

He scanned the room once, located the porcelain water jar on the side table, and took it in his hand—and he was moving toward Lei Cheng before anyone had fully processed the transition.

"You brat! When did you marry? Why didn’t you tell me?!"

Lei Cheng closed his eyes involuntarily. He could not bring himself to defend against his own father—he simply braced.

"Stop." Hua Mingyue’s voice rose cleanly. "Uncle. He did not marry in this life."

Lei Feng halted. The jar held mid-swing.

"In this life?"

"An Eternal Bond," Lei Cheng said, finally getting the words in.

Crack!

The porcelain jar slipped from Lei Feng’s fingers and hit the floor, breaking cleanly in two. Lei Feng stepped back. The certainty he’d been holding onto vanished in an instant. He looked at his son with eyes that had gone very wide and very still.

"Are you... Are you truly my son?"

"I am absolutely your son," Lei Cheng said, genuinely baffled. "Why are you asking that?"

"Eternal Bond—is it special?" he continued.

Lei Feng relaxed in the next moment. "You are fine." He sighed, patting his chest.

"Wait?" Lei Cheng raised his voice. "Now I’m free of explanation?"

"An Eternal Bond marriage contract is not something ordinary people can form," Hua Mingyue explained, her fan working in gentle arcs, her tone soft and unhurried. "Only great powerhouses can create such a contract. Your father thought, for a moment, that you might have been taken over by someone else."

Lei Feng nodded quietly. "I almost thought I had lost my only child."

"Wait—isn’t there another possibility?" Lei Cheng pointed at himself. "I could be a powerhouse."

Lei Feng smiled softly. "Indeed, reincarnation is also a possibility. But you do not look like a powerhouse from any angle." He raised one finger at his son. "How could you be a reincarnator if you cannot learn a stance in a single day?"

The sentence landed in Lei Cheng’s chest like a sharp spear.

His mouth fell open. "Dad. How can you say that about your own son? I am genuinely talented—"

Lei Feng stared at him.

Lei Cheng stopped. He thought about the months of effort trying to master a basic stance, failing consistently, and being called a dandy by the entire city. He thought about how thoroughly that failure had been embedded in everyone’s perception of him—including, apparently, his father’s.

It had fully settled.

He cleared his throat and changed direction. "Wait—Father. How did you know about the Eternal Bond Marriage Contract? How do you know it’s rare?"

Lei Feng’s expression shifted. Something moved behind his eyes that had not been there a moment before. The color of the memory was visible even from across the room.

"Because of your mother," he replied.

His voice had gone quiet in a way that was completely different from the controlled quietness of earlier. This was the quietness of something carried for a long time.

Lei Cheng stood up slowly. "Wait?"

He exclaimed, "Don’t tell me—I’m a chosen one. My mother left me behind with a worthless, poor father to raise her son alone so he could experience hardship and develop strength." He did not care about his father’s darkening expression. "I read in stories that the majority of protagonists have useless fathers and powerful mothers—"

The silence that followed was absolute.

Lei Feng turned. Walked to the side table. Picked up the other porcelain jar, poured the water out, and dashed at his son.

"You brat. How dare you call your father useless?"

Lei Cheng was already moving. "I’m sorry, Father! I’m sorry—!"

He ran. Lei Feng ran after him, jar in hand.

The servants and maids lining the corridor pressed themselves flat against the walls as the young master of the Lei household sprinted past them with every sign of genuine fear, followed immediately by his father moving at his absolute limit speed.

Hua Mingyue followed both of them from a comfortable distance, a playful smile on her lips. She was getting quite a show. The warmth of an ordinary family was strangely fascinating to her. ’Each day will be very lively now that I’ve found Cheng.’

Lei Cheng grinned as he ran, turned a corner, changed direction, pushed through a door, and slammed it shut behind him.

He stopped.

The room was immaculate. Not merely clean—genuinely maintained, every surface attended to with care. Paintings on the walls. Small trinkets were arranged on shelves with precision. Furniture considerably more luxurious than what Lei Cheng had in his own room, lacquered and carved with a quality he had not noticed elsewhere in the household.

He looked at the painting directly across from him, on the rosewood pillar.

It was rendered with a skill that made him blink. ’It’s almost like a photograph from my past life.’ The viewer could feel the temperament of the people in it as though they stood nearby. A young, beautiful woman with black hair and a quiet smile stood beside a handsome young man, their hands joined lightly, a waterfall cascading behind them. She wore an orange robe, her temperament soft and warm. The man was clad in a purple robe, his bearing like that of a scholar.

’Dad, you sure were handsome,’ Lei Cheng commented to himself.

He scrutinized the woman. She was beautiful—not in the striking, unreachable way Hua Mingyue was, but in the way of someone who made people feel at ease simply by being near them. Lei Cheng felt something warm settle in his chest just looking at her.

"Mom," he muttered.

He had only one actual memory of her—a warm hug, brief and complete, from when he was four or five years old. He could not remember how she looked from that memory. He could not remember how she had died. He had been too young, and Lei Feng had taken such thorough care of him afterward that the absence had been filled without ever being discussed.

He stood looking at the painting for a moment longer. His past life’s mother and current life’s mother overlapped. He shook his head.

The door opened. Thud!

Lei Feng walked in and stopped. He looked at the painting too. His eyes reddened at the edges. He reached up and pressed the back of his hand against them briefly.

"Dear," he said, very quietly.

Then he looked at Lei Cheng. His expression recalibrated back to accusation. "You ran to your mother’s room because you knew I wouldn’t hit you in here."

Lei Cheng stuck out his tongue.

"You used to do the same thing when you were small," Lei Feng muttered. He looked at the painting again. His voice had lost its edge entirely.

After Lei Cheng had turned ten, it had stopped working—Lei Feng would pull him out of the room anyway and deal with the matter there. But now Lei Cheng was older and bigger, and his father had lost the strength to drag him anywhere.

The room was quiet for a moment, which contained many things.

"How powerful was my mother?" Lei Cheng asked, his voice carrying genuine curiosity.

Lei Feng opened his mouth—

Bang! Bang!

The sound of something breaking—hard, forceful, the crack of objects and walls being destroyed rather than dropped—echoed from somewhere deeper in the Lei household compound.

Lei Cheng turned from the painting and moved immediately.