Chapter 555: The Grand Finale of Record of Chasing the Wind!

In the days after Liu Zhilin and Huo Wan'er went offline one after another, the Hot Search was full of crying.

Viewers who had followed the show from the beginning, watched them accompany each other until now, had grown attached to these vivid characters and hoped the plot would give them a good ending, but in the end the story turned out to be disappointing.

The most painful part about this was that neither Liu Zhilin nor Huo Wan'er were bad people. They had, in fact, been following Song Chenye to uphold justice, rooting out villains and doing good deeds. Their natures were not bad; thanks to good family upbringing, they had formed a proper worldview.

The irony was that the grudges of the previous generation destined one of them to die and the other to live.

“Waa, why! Liu Zhilin is dead, Wan'er is dead too, I’m really falling apart right now!”

“Scam! This is blatant fraud! What about the promised he? I ask you, where is the promised he?”

“I’m done with your lies! Who said there would be a he? Come out! Make the screenwriter rewrite the script, reshoot everything!”

“He was the he that Yuan Sitong mentioned… If Huo Wan'er didn’t die tonight, I’d go find Yuan Sitong and settle this in person.”

“Song Chenye got his big revenge, isn’t that a he?”

“Is it possible that when Yuan Sitong said ‘he,’ she meant that Song Chenye would have a good ending? After all, none of you asked who ‘he’ referred to back then. The finale would surely be Song Chenye succeeding in his revenge, retiring from the jianghu, and completing his purpose for coming down the mountain! Isn’t that a he?”

“Huh? Damn, so we were all deceived! Waaa, that’s not the he I meant! I’m shattered!”

“And the most heartbreaking thing is: even though Song Chenye killed them, I can’t hate him at all. I even feel sorry for him. For revenge he lost brothers and confidants. In the end, the only one who can walk the path of vengeance alone is himself.”

“It’s really sad. From everyone’s perspective this is unsolvable. I was crying the day Liu Zhilin died, and I cried until today when Huo Wan'er died—my eyes are swollen from crying.”

“In Liu Zhilin’s perspective, he knew he couldn’t stop Song Chenye, so he chose to trade his life for another. When his sword broke he didn’t dodge, letting Song Chenye kill him. In Song Chenye’s view, he split with his brother but never intended to truly kill him; an accident happened, the brother didn’t dodge, so in the end Song Chenye still killed him…”

“Huo Wan'er’s part is brutal too! She wanted Song Chenye to stay so much that she deliberately drank from the same cup as him, but the medicine was switched. Song Chenye was ambushed, and she never revealed her feelings to him before she died. In Song Chenye’s perspective, Huo Wan'er betrayed him and colluded with others to kill him…”

“Stop, stop, I really want to send a knife to the screenwriter! My heart, liver, spleen, stomach, and kidneys all hurt!”

“One of Record of Chasing the Wind’s biggest charms is that even if the plot is somewhat cliché and many guessed the ending, everyone still stubbornly watched to the end and empathized with every character.”

“That’s true. Early on Song Chenye was decisive and single-minded in revenge. I treated it like a feel-good story, it felt glorious to see him cut through everyone. But when it ends with everyone dead, I’m not happy. I cry while watching—why is that!”

“So the name Record of Chasing the Wind means only Zhufeng is left, right?”

“!!! Holy crap, you found the clever point.”

At that moment, viewers looked at the drama’s title and had an epiphany.

What a Record of Chasing the Wind—only the protagonist’s name remained!

—Director, you wouldn’t really do this, right?

The viewers gave a death-smile emoji.

Director Deng wiped his brow when he saw this: “Audiences these days, don’t have such fiery tempers—maybe I should go out less these days.”

He feared being mobbed by obsessive fans if he appeared in public.

Meanwhile, Zhao Qinyuan and Yuan Sitong were happily harvesting a wave of heartbroken fans, and at the same time mercilessly tormenting their own fanbases. Their follower counts across platforms were skyrocketing.

As for the lead actor Xiao He, he naturally gained the most followers, but because he was filming on set, he wasn’t as active as Yuan Sitong and Zhao Qinyuan during promotion and didn’t appear as often.

But whenever Xiao He attended a promotional event or a live stream, his heat and traffic peaked the highest.

By early September, on the day Record of Chasing the Wind officially reached its grand finale, Xiao He’s popularity hit a recent high.

When Song Chenye finally revealed, publicly, the truth behind the Song family’s downfall and slaughtered all his enemies amidst multiple sieges before walking away, viewers could only describe it as cathartic.

At the very end, Song Chenye realized his recent fame had become a thorn in some people’s eyes, so he decided to temporarily withdraw from the jianghu and return to the mountain to continue his cultivation.

He wrapped his Carefree Cloud Sword again and set off for his hometown.

Remember when he descended the mountain under the alias Zhufeng, also wrapped with the Carefree Cloud Sword.

This sword had witnessed the Song family’s rise and fall and witnessed Song Chenye’s final revenge. In the end it disappeared into the same black shadow it had arrived in—low-key, restrained, silently accompanying its young master.

They were as low-key and silent as when they came.

“Chenye goes to chase the wind, Carefree Cloud shares this life.”

The blessing his parents had given Song Chenye so long ago was finally fulfilled at this moment.

From then on, the direction he headed toward was freedom—

…

Although the later episodes of Record of Chasing the Wind leaned noticeably heavier, and multiple important characters went offline one after another, Song Chenye’s personal charisma still retained most of the audience and carried everyone to the story’s final conclusion.

His journey was filled with blood and hardship; he endured emotional struggles and spiritual trials, but he remained himself—Song Chenye, last head of the Song family, wielder of the Carefree Cloud Sword, a chivalrous hero.

Record of Chasing the Wind itself is a very classic story framework: a protagonist burdened with a sea of hatred, brothers and confidants with differing stances, an investigation into the past, a path of chivalry, and finally even participating in the Martial Arts Alliance’s grand contest to compete with heroes from across the land… It’s authentic old-school wuxia flavor, new wine in old bottles, yet still endlessly enjoyable.

The jianghu’s grudges, affections, and hatreds—Song Chenye’s stance never wavered. He was just, kind, discerning of right and wrong, with a bodhisattva’s heart and thunderous methods. He’s a rare example of a pure orthodox protagonist, not a White Outside Black Inside.

Oh, of course, fans dubbed this “righteous to the point of turning wicked.”

After all, he was someone powerful enough that both the martial world’s righteous and underworld crowds respected him as “Great Hero,” and his strength spoke for itself.

But when fans accompanied Song Chenye to the end and watched him retire from the jianghu and return to the mountains, they were utterly heartbroken again.

Everything had actually ended. For Song Chenye, the story was relatively complete; his mission was over and a new life was about to begin. Yet the ending carried a faint melancholy that tightened people’s chests.