Chapter 1469: Contact

Hearing this, the owner’s eyebrows raised slightly.

*Gulp—*

The large black dog let go of the glass, licked its lips in satisfaction, and barked at the owner, as if thanking him for the treat.

"Alright, the drink is finished, you should go." The owner said slowly.

"Recently, the human realms have been conscripting labor everywhere to expand infrastructure teams and rebuild the realms. Some places have even started forcibly conscripting people... Be careful when you move around. Don't walk openly on the roads; it’s dangerous."

"Got it, got it." The red-haired girl didn't care. She waved at the owner.

"If there’s any news from the Red King, let me know in time~"

"Okay."

As the figures of the girl and the dog disappeared outside the door, the old bar fell into silence once again.

In the dim light, the owner slowly withdrew his gaze, a profound look appearing in his eyes...

He raised his fingertips and gently tore at his cheek.

A layer of skin silently dissipated into the air.

"That girl is quite sincere." A girl in a black dress walked out silently from the dark corner of the bar.

The theatrical robe with black patterns on a red background fluttered in the darkness. Chen Ling gently pinched a transparent wine glass, and the next second, the glass turned into a thin playing card...

[Ten of Hearts].

"In our Twilight Society, such a personality is indeed rare." Chen Ling said lightly. "However, compared to the Ten of Hearts, the Ten of Spades is more interesting... It seems to have discovered me."

"It? It was actually able to discover you?"

"The intuition of a Calamity is always unimaginably sensitive." Chen Ling glanced at the wine glass that had been licked clean, his expression somewhat helpless.

"Or perhaps... the drink I mixed was too terrible, and it noticed."

Chen Ling pulled another [Ten of Spades] from somewhere, stacked it with the original [Ten of Hearts], and mixed them into the deck of cards in his other hand.

He walked straight to the bar’s storage room and opened the door. The real bar "owner"—the Twilight Society’s contact—was lying quietly on the table, having been knocked unconscious.

Chen Ling raised his fingertips slightly, and the [Heart Python] that had stolen the man’s memory crawled back onto the owner, bit his head, and returned the memory...

"Let’s go." Chen Ling said calmly.

"The number cards have all been contacted secretly. Are we going to contact the letter cards next?" Liu Qingyan followed behind.

"No need." Chen Ling shook his head. "J and Q are not ordinary people. If they discover us on the spot, it will have the opposite effect..."

"Then..."

"Perhaps we should change our approach."

Chen Ling walked to the bar counter and picked up the newspaper that the Ten of Hearts had left behind. He looked at the report about him slaying the Calamity of Thought, lost in thought.

"Interesting..."

……

"—Woof!"

On the streets of the Tian-Shu Realm, the red-haired girl was startled by the sudden bark of the dog beside her. She slapped the Ten of Spades and said irritably:

"What are you barking for for no reason!"

The large black dog panted with its tongue out, its mouth grinning as if it were laughing.

"Silly dog!"

"Woof!"

"Still barking!"

"Woof!!"

The red-haired girl couldn't be bothered to deal with it. Just as she was about to say something, she suddenly seemed to sense something and pulled the Ten of Spades into the alleyway beside them.

A few seconds later, several figures hurried past.

"How is it?"

"It’s been verified. Among the survivors in these two blocks, there are indeed no young adults left... The three rounds of conscription in the Ling-Xu Realm have already taken away most of those who can work."

"I don't understand. The Ling-Xu Realm isn't fighting a war at all, and it doesn't need reconstruction. Why does he need so many people?"

"Don't know... seems like they are building something."

"But our own reconstruction teams don't have enough people! He took away our young adults, so who will rebuild our homes? This is too much!"

"At the current speed, reconstructing the Tian-Shu Realm will probably take twenty years..."

"Oh, stop talking. Let’s go back and report truthfully to Lord Red Dust."

"Fine..."

After these people left, the Ten of Hearts carefully poked her head out from the corner of the wall.

She blinked, a look of confusion appearing in her eyes.

……

"There’s no one left?"

Su Zhiwei looked at the staff member reporting to her in surprise.

"Yes..." the staff member said bitterly. "We organized our own reconstruction engineering team and conducted one round of conscription, and then the Ling-Xu Realm conducted two more rounds... Now there are only women, the elderly, and children left in the city. It’s impossible for us to organize another reconstruction team."

Su Zhiwei frowned, lost in thought.

"Lord Red Dust, even if our Tian-Shu Realm has a large population, it can't withstand such plundering by the Ling-Xu Realm, right? Those survivors were all saved by Mr. Han at the cost of his life. This..."

The conscription over the past few days had filled the government staff with bitterness, but before he could start complaining, Su Zhiwei waved her hand:

"I will discuss this matter with Lord Ling-Xu... How is the plague situation?"

Mentioning the word "plague," the staff member’s expression turned grave:

"It’s very bad... The Paper Kite Rescue Society has carefully investigated the source of this plague, but they can't find it at all... It’s not a disease spread by Calamities, nor is it spread by humans. We suspect that the appearance of these diseases might be related to... related to the Red Star."

"Can it be controlled?"

"...It’s difficult. There isn't just one type of virus currently circulating in the realm. According to incomplete statistics, there are already twelve... Even some in the Medical God Path of the Paper Kite Rescue Society have fallen ill."

"Even they can't cure it?"

"Not all Medical God Path practitioners are good at dealing with viruses. Only a small portion of them have the ability to cure viruses... And this small portion needs a lot of time to study so many complex and diverse viruses."

"...I understand."

Su Zhiwei waved for the staff member to go back first. It wasn't until he left that her expression turned heavy.

She immediately walked out of this temporarily built office and headed toward the ruins of the Tongtian Tower not far away. Although the surface part of the Tongtian Tower was completely destroyed, the Tian-Shu base underneath didn't suffer much damage.

She walked through corridor after corridor, finally arriving at a small room.

This was the radio room of the Tian-Shu base. For a long time, the Tian-Shu Realm had relied on the radio waves here to transmit messages to other realms.

At this moment, the staff members inside saw Su Zhiwei coming and stood up one after another:

"Lord Red Dust, any instructions?"

Su Zhiwei spoke without hesitation:

"Connect me to Lord Ling-Xu."