Chapter 1572: Meeting Jinghong Lou Again

After drinking the blood in the cup and confirming that not a drop remained, Cangyun Jun stood up shakily.

At this moment, he no longer had the madness and hysteria from just before. He just looked at Chu Changqing on the bed with those exhausted eyes, silent for a long time...

"If the one who was awake right now was you..."

"Could everything have been different?"

Unfortunately, in this world, there are no "ifs."

Cang Yun-jun carefully washed the cup and put it away, untied the tubing from Chu Changqing’s arm, and pulled his sleeve back down to cover the scars. Soon, everything returned to normal, as if nothing had just happened.

He took a deep breath, walked slowly to the door, and looked back at Chu Changqing on the bed one last time...

A complex look flashed deep in his eyes:

"Perhaps it is time for all of this to end..."

"Goodnight, Old Chu."

He turned and left.

……

"In just over a month, has the situation in the human realms really become this dire?"

After hearing the intelligence regarding the three major realms, Chen Ling’s brow furrowed deeper.

"Yes," Liu Qingyan nodded. "By comparison, the situation in the Tian-shu Realm is relatively better; there hasn't been a massive accumulation of public resentment. However, with technology regressing, the production capacity for all kinds of daily necessities has dropped sharply. Coupled with the plague beginning to spread on a large scale in Tian-shu, I'm afraid it won't be able to hold out much longer."

"When the Red Star returns, chaos is inevitable," the Gray King, standing to the side, said slowly.

"I have a premonition... the time for us to reverse the era and restart the world is not far off."

Chen Ling fell silent.

For some reason, the words Wu-ji Jun had used to question him while he was in the Eternal Realm surfaced in his mind again:

"Who is to judge failure? Who is to define success? You? What is your basis... Chen Ling, by what right do you... become the one who finally tolls the death knell for humanity?"

Chen Ling, and indeed the entire Twilight Society, had been preparing for the world restart for a long time, but as that day truly drew closer, Chen Ling felt a sense of nervousness instead.

This time, will humanity actually succeed?

How does one judge success or failure?

If the world is to be restarted, must we wait until all humans are dead, until not a shred of hope remains... or before that?

With internal strife in the realms and hearts filled with panic, who knows how many people are currently struggling in agony—hunger, cold, plague, and that Red Star that might return at any moment. If the death knell is tolled before everything reaches its end, allowing everything to flow backward, could some unnecessary chaos and suffering be avoided?

Chen Ling shook his head, casting these messy thoughts to the back of his mind... Regardless, things have reached this point; as the Red King of the Twilight Society, he absolutely cannot have the slightest hesitation or wavering. He can only take it one step at a time.

Besides, the fragments of the Emperor God Path and the Witch God Path needed to restart the world have not yet been obtained.

"Have you found the whereabouts of Ying Fu?"

"No," Liu Qingyan sighed. "This past month, my master and I have turned almost every place upside down, but we still haven't found a trace of him... It’s as if he evaporated into thin air."

"Not even in the Tian-shu Realm?"

"No."

Chen Ling’s expression was grave.

He had assumed that after Red Dust Lord Su Zhiwei took Wang Jian into custody, Ying Fu would have made a move to rescue him. He never expected that a whole month would pass without a single sound from him... What exactly is this guy doing?

"Oh, by the way, Lord Red King, there is one more thing."

"What is it?"

"We received an invitation."

"An invitation?"

"Yes, we received it a few days ago. It seems someone left it at the entrance of our contact point." Liu Qingyan paused for a moment. "At first, our liaison thought it was delivered to the wrong place, but after seeing the contents... they felt you needed to see it yourself."

Chen Ling was curious. What kind of invitation would make a liaison feel it needed to be delivered to him personally?

And how did an invitation meant for him end up at the door of a contact point?

"Let me see it."

Liu Qingyan took a folded piece of hard cardstock from her robes, the kind of paper material specifically used for wedding banquets or major occasions. Just as Chen Ling reached out to take it, the invitation passed right through his palm and fluttered to the ground.

Chen Ling was stunned, only then remembering that he was currently just a projection of his consciousness; his true body was still in the Gray Realm.

"Unfold it and show me," Chen Ling said helplessly.

Liu Qingyan picked up the invitation and slowly unfolded it in front of Chen Ling...

The moment the invitation was spread open,

three of the most conspicuous characters caught Chen Ling’s eyes.

——【Jinghong Pavilion】.

Chen Ling’s pupils contracted slightly.

"...Jinghong Pavilion??" Chen Ling said in disbelief. "How is this possible??"

Jinghong Pavilion was the place Chen Ling had prepared for himself as a foothold when he was in the Red Dust Realm... It was originally just to facilitate contact with the Twilight Society, but later it gradually became a real opera house.

And as the war between the Red Dust Realm and the Wu-ji Realm arrived, this opera house eventually vanished in the flames of war.

But now, how could an invitation from Jinghong Pavilion appear?

"Yes... that's why we felt you needed to see it yourself." Liu Qingyan was also from the Red Dust Realm, so she naturally knew something about Chen Ling’s Jinghong Pavilion. "However, this Jinghong Pavilion shouldn't be the one you remember."

Chen Ling moved his gaze away from the three characters "Jinghong Pavilion" and continued to look down.

This was an invitation for a "Mr. Lin" to attend a performance. It wasn't long and didn't contain much substantial content, only marking a location... No. 13, Guyu Street, Cang-yun Realm.

Cang-yun Realm?

The Jinghong Pavilion founded by Chen Ling was naturally in the Red Dust Realm, but the Red Dust Realm should have been swallowed by the Sea of Taboos by now, becoming a dead city... So, someone must have opened an identical opera house in the Cang-yun Realm?

The moment this thought appeared, a name jumped into Chen Ling’s mind.

Kong Baosheng.

Kong Baosheng was the grandson of the original owner of Jinghong Pavilion and an employee hired by Chen Ling after he took over. When Chen Ling left the Red Dust Realm, Kong Baosheng had said he would continue to run the pavilion... If there was anyone in Chen Ling’s memory who was most likely to send him this invitation, it could only be him.

Moreover, when Chen Ling ran Jinghong Pavilion, the alias he used was indeed "Lin Yan."

But how would Kong Baosheng know about his Twilight Society contact point?

Question after question surged in Chen Ling’s heart. His gaze continued downward, and at the end of the invitation, the time for "Mr. Lin" to come and watch the performance was attached...

Seeing this line, Chen Ling’s eyelids suddenly twitched.

"...Three days ago?"