Chapter 1344: Reunion

In a daze, Jian Changsheng also slowly opened his eyes.

My head hurts...

Jian Changsheng felt like he had drunk fake liquor. Although he was awake, his brain was still a chaotic mess, and his whole body was faintly aching, as if he had been beaten up.

He struggled to sit up, looking around blankly:

"Where... is this?"

"It's Red Heart's palace."

Jian Changsheng turned his head and saw Jiang Xiaohua sitting cross-legged on the ground quietly, with no signs of poisoning at all.

"Red Heart... palace?? This guy has a palace now???" Jian Changsheng finally came to his senses, remembering what he had encountered before he fainted. He looked at Jiang Xiaohua with a strange expression,

"How come you're completely fine??"

"I don't know... those venomous insects bit me, and they ended up fainting themselves." Jiang Xiaohua replied innocently. "Red Heart's minions couldn't lift me, so I walked here myself."

Jian Changsheng: ...

Just as Jian Changsheng was about to ask something else, a painful and violent retching sound continued to come from nearby.

"Ugh..."

"Ugh——!!!!"

Sun Bumian was squatting on the ground, his face pale and hideous, as if he were trying to vomit his bile out.

"What's wrong with him?" Jian Changsheng asked in confusion.

"Oh, he got tongue-kissed by a toad."

“？？？”

Sun Bumian vomited for a full ten minutes before a hint of color finally returned to his face. Then he sat there blankly, his eyes hollow and desperate, as if he had lost his desire for life.

Jian Changsheng also took a while to recover, and after the feeling of weakness completely disappeared, he staggered to his feet.

As his head swayed, he vaguely remembered a pitch-black, eerie face... He didn't remember where he had seen that face, but in his blurred memory, it did exist... Was it Red Heart? No, that shouldn't be possible...

Could it be that he was poisoned and hallucinating?

"Where's Red Heart?" Jian Changsheng asked.

Jiang Xiaohua thought for a moment. "He said he wanted to prepare dinner for us, and that some venomous insects would come to pick us up in a while."

"Hmph, I suppose he still has a conscience." Jian Changsheng said unhappily. "We came all this way to see him, and we almost got poisoned to death by his minions... If he doesn't compensate us with a sumptuous feast, it really wouldn't be right."

Hearing the words "sumptuous feast," the weak Sun Bumian's ears twitched...

After vomiting so much just now, he had already thrown up everything he had eaten in the last two days and was in need of food. He forced himself to forget the disgusting toad appearance and walked straight toward Jian Changsheng and Jiang Xiaohua.

"Come to think of it, I noticed something wrong here just now..." Sun Bumian said in a low voice.

"What?"

"This palace is a place of great misfortune."

Sun Bumian pointed at the floor of the palace, his expression extremely serious.

Sun Bumian hadn't recovered from the poisoning for long and hadn't even actively initiated a divination of fortune or misfortune, but the aura of evil here was so thick that it didn't even need a divination to be known... Anything that could make him, an auspicious being, feel danger was no longer just ordinary "misfortune."

In fact, even if one weren't an auspicious being, any human standing here could feel the strangeness. The bone-chilling cold and the discomfort of goosebumps were all proof that this place was simply not suitable for human survival.

"Why did Red Heart pick a place like this for himself?" Jian Changsheng frowned.

"It seems we really need to take him away quickly. Living in this place of great misfortune for a long time will surely lead to trouble."

Just as the three were talking, a rhythmic knocking sounded on the door.

Knock, knock, knock—

The three looked at the door simultaneously. After exchanging glances, Jian Changsheng stepped forward first and opened the door.

The next moment, he was almost scared enough to draw his sword and strike!

At the doorway stood a centipede with dense, thin legs. It was standing there like a human, knocking on the door with its mouth. While it was polite, it also had an eerie quality that made one's scalp tingle...

"Damn it, what did Red Heart do to these centipedes? They can actually stand up and knock on doors now??" Jian Changsheng was startled and couldn't help but curse.

The centipede didn't seem to realize the psychological impact its standing and knocking had on the three. It just hissed softly and then lowered itself to crawl in a certain direction.

"Let's go, it should be taking us to Red Heart," Sun Bumian said, stepping forward.

The three followed the centipede through the palace. This palace was larger than they had imagined, and the corridors were intricate, with closed doors on both sides—conservatively estimated at over a hundred rooms.

The three were curious: why did this palace have so many "guest rooms," like a hotel?

Jian Changsheng wanted to open these rooms to take a look, but felt it wasn't appropriate, so he could only continue following the centipede... After turning several corners, a dim room that looked like a private banquet hall appeared before them.

A long table was set in the center of the dining room, like an elegant place where vampire dukes and other royalty would dine together in old movies. Brass candlesticks were placed on the long table, and several white candles were burning slowly. Combined with a row of torches on the surrounding walls, it was enough to illuminate most of the space.

The long table was covered with an expensive carved tablecloth, and four sets of clean, neat tableware were laid out on it—plates, cups, chopsticks, knives, and forks, everything was there...

And behind each seat, a small centipede was respectfully prostrate, waiting for orders like a servant.

At the end of the long table, a figure in bright red opera robes stood with his back to the three. The flickering candlelight on the table cast his shadow on the wall, swaying silently like black flames.

He seemed to sense their arrival and turned slowly...

A white smiling mask appeared before their eyes.

"Spades, Diamonds, Clubs... long time no see." Chen Ling's soft laughter came from under the mask.

Seeing the white mask, the three were slightly stunned, seemingly confused as to why Chen Ling had suddenly put on a mask.

But to them, whether Chen Ling wore a mask or not, he was still Chen Ling. Jian Changsheng didn't say a word, stepped forward quickly, wrapped his arm around Chen Ling's neck, and laughed and cursed:

"You Red Heart!! We came all this way to find you, and we almost got eaten by your bugs... Tell me, what are you going to do about this??"

"Exactly." Sun Bumian put one hand on his hip and began to complain quite unhappily,

"My life was almost lost because of you... and that toad you sent, I don't even want to talk about it... Ugh!!!"

Sun Bumian's mouth began to twitch halfway through his sentence, and he ran to the corner to continue retching.

Jiang Xiaohua just stood there, scratched his head, and said sincerely:

"Red Heart... we were very worried about you."