Chapter 1299: The Unsheathed Sword

“Achoo—!!”

Sun Bumian sneezed violently.

While rubbing his inexplicably itchy nose, he muttered suspiciously:

"I've sneezed several times in just this short while... Could something big have happened?"

"Crunch—crunch—crunch..."

"Before I left, the Fusion Faction had already found the train tracks leading to the South Sea Domain. By my calculations, they should have entered the South Sea Domain by now."

"Crunch—crunch—crunch..."

"Could there have been an accident on their end? Logically speaking, with Red Heart personally taking charge, there shouldn't be any problems..."

"Crunch—crunch—crunch..."

The violent crunching sounds repeatedly interrupted Sun Bumian's train of thought. Veins bulged on his forehead as he turned his head to curse at the two figures behind him, who were clutching candied haws and devouring them like starving ghosts:

"Eat, eat, eat!! All you know is how to eat!!! Didn't you guys despise my candied haws before? Now you can't stop eating them, right?!!"

Beneath a giant boulder, two vagrant-like figures were squatting.

One was wrapped in bandages from head to toe, looking as if he had rolled through mud hundreds of times; the originally white bandages were nearly black with filth, and his smooth, long white hair was matted into messy knots, making him look like a black mummy just fished out of a sewer.

The other was disheveled and unkempt, his clothes looking as if they had been torn by wild beasts countless times. Most of the fabric had fallen away, leaving him to use ropes made of dried grass—found who knows where—to stitch and patch them onto his body. Even so, large patches of skin were still exposed, covered in scars of varying depths.

At this moment, both of them were clutching over a dozen candied haws each, devouring them stick by stick like starving ghosts, as if they hadn't eaten in half a lifetime.

As Sun Bumian’s voice trailed off, Jiang Xiaohua silently looked up:

"Square... give me some more."

Sun Bumian: ...

He wasn't speaking because he was embarrassed to keep eating, but because he had finished them all.

Sun Bumian opened his mouth, wanting to retort, but seeing Jiang Xiaohua’s eager and pure gaze, he silently conjured another handful of candied haws and shoved them into the other’s arms.

"Don't you not need to eat? How are you this hungry?"

"Oh, he probably just has a bad taste in his mouth... He was soaking at the bottom of a swamp for three days, his mouth is bitter." Jian Changsheng, having finished twenty sticks of candied haws, finally rubbed his belly in satisfaction and let out a loud, full burp.

“？？？”

Sun Bumian looked at the blackened Jiang Xiaohua and silently took half a step back, appearing somewhat repulsed.

"He was soaking in a swamp for three days, but what about you? Didn't you go with him?"

"I didn't have time. I was being chased by an Eighth-Order Calamity in the Sighing Wilderness."

“……”

Sun Bumian scrutinized the two for a long time before finally asking, "What have you two been through over the past half year??"

"Nothing much." Jian Changsheng counted on his fingers and said calmly, "I went swimming with a turtle from the Forbidden Sea, fought a pumpkin in the Bitter Flesh Turbid Forest, dug for dirt with a scorpion from the Ghost Mockery Abyss, swore brotherhood with a yellow weasel from the Delusion Mountains... hmm, and then I went jogging with a lion in the Sighing Wilderness."

Sun Bumian’s eyes widened in shock.

"You... are you serious??"

Jiang Xiaohua ruthlessly exposed Jian Changsheng, "He's serious, but he never won. He was being hunted from start to finish."

Sun Bumian: ...

"I admit I underestimated you, Spade." Sun Bumian let out a long sigh.

"When you said you wanted to go to the Gray Realm to hone your skills, I thought you’d at most go find a couple of Calamities to fight and come back soon... I never expected you to push yourself to this point."

Just as Jian Changsheng was about to say something, Jiang Xiaohua cut in again:

"He wanted to go back on the fifth day, but he got lost while being chased and couldn't find the direction back to the Fusion Faction."

"Plum!! I’ve tolerated you for a long time!!" Jian Changsheng stood up with a start, cursing, "Would it kill you to say less!! I’ve suffered out there for half a year, what’s wrong with letting me show off a little!"

"So for the past half year, you didn't not want to return to the Fusion Faction... you were just lost?" Sun Bumian’s expression was strange. "No wonder you left distress signals on the tracks around the South Sea Domain... were you hoping we’d find them and come save you?"

Jian Changsheng’s mouth twitched, and he silently looked into the distance, as if admiring the scenery of the Gray Realm.

Sun Bumian asked again: "But how did you know we would come to the South Sea Domain?"

"We didn't, so we left them on the tracks of the South Sea, Tianshu, and Cangyun domains," Jiang Xiaohua replied earnestly.

"Oh~ I see~"

Jian Changsheng really didn't want to continue this topic. He stood up, brushed the dust off his body, and asked as if casually:

"I've been away for so long, I kind of miss everyone in the Fusion Faction... So, Square, which way is the Fusion Faction?"

Sun Bumian shook his head. "The Fusion Faction... is no longer in the Gray Realm."

At these words, Jian Changsheng and Jiang Xiaohua were both stunned.

"What?"

Sun Bumian told them everything that had happened during this time, including how he led the Fusion Faction members through the Gray Realm and arrived near the South Sea Domain... After listening, Jian Changsheng was thoughtful:

"You mean the Fusion Faction has been forced to relocate to the South Sea Domain?"

"Yes, by my calculations, they should have already entered."

"The South Sea Domain is fine too!" Jian Changsheng looked at him longingly. "There’s food, drink, and places to bathe; it’s practically a life of luxury."

Jiang Xiaohua nodded repeatedly beside him.

Sun Bumian found the longing for civilized society in these two "savages" both amusing and admirable...

Regardless, Jian Changsheng and Jiang Xiaohua had truly spent half a year honing themselves in the Gray Realm, having come into contact with almost every Calamity territory. Knowing that Jian Changsheng was someone cursed with bad luck, Sun Bumian absolutely did not believe that he had just casually fought a couple of Calamities and walked away unscathed.

And the fact that Jian Changsheng dared to provoke the next Calamity territory after suffering in one was a level of twisted psychological fortitude that couldn't be explained away by just being "lost."

Jiang Xiaohua might have seemed like he was tearing Jian Changsheng down, but wasn't that also their way of self-deprecatingly reflecting on their experiences over the past half year?

What they had experienced was definitely far more than he could imagine.

Most importantly, Sun Bumian could vaguely sense... Jian Changsheng’s eyes were different from before.

Sun Bumian had the most life experience and was the most sensitive to human nature. If the Jian Changsheng from before was an upstart with treasure-like killing intent but no idea how to use it, a college student just entering society with nothing but determination and hot blood... then now, that killing intent seemed to have seeped into his very bones.

He was like an unsheathed sword, radiating a sharpness in this desolate, dead world that even Sun Bumian felt threatened by.

"Why are you staring at me??" Jian Changsheng was truly famished, clasping his hands together and begging bitterly,

"Big brother, Brother Square, I’m begging you, okay? Take us to the South Sea Domain quickly... I want to eat something good!"

“……”

Sun Bumian waved his hand speechlessly. "Follow me."