Chapter 1730: Seeing Qingyan Again

Two figures, one black and one red, stood in silence in the Gray Realm.

Chen Ling looked at Liu Qingyan in front of him, a complex look flashing in his eyes... For him, the last time he saw Liu Qingyan felt like yesterday, but for Liu Qingyan, they hadn’t seen each other for over three hundred years.

At this moment, Liu Qingyan was no longer the slightly green girl; her figure was taller, and her features more mature. Her gaze revealed a calmness and depth polished by time. In a daze, she even had a bit of the shadow of the previous Gray King.

Over three hundred years, she seemed to have changed a lot, but the only things that remained unchanged were that star-gauze-like black dress and the reflection of Chen Ling in her eyes.

Chen Ling knew that from the moment he stepped out of the Red Dust Prison, Liu Qingyan had arrived.

But she didn’t appear immediately. Instead, she followed silently behind, hiding herself in the void, watching the opera-robed back that had reappeared after more than three hundred years, tears streaming down her face...

She had wanted to wait until she calmed down, at least until she stopped crying, before appearing in front of Chen Ling... After not seeing him for over three hundred years, she didn’t want to be teary-eyed when they finally met.

She was now the Gray King of the Twilight Society; she couldn’t be so childish anymore.

But who would have thought... Chen Ling would call her name anyway.

“Liu Qingyan...”

Chen Ling looked at the tear-stained woman in the black dress and spoke softly, “You’ve worked hard... all these years.”

Chen Ling could imagine that from the restart of the world until now, Liu Qingyan, like the other eight monarchs, had been waiting for him.

With him gone, the burden of the entire Twilight Society fell on Liu Qingyan alone. It was hard to imagine how this girl, with her shallow seniority and strength, had walked through three hundred years of time alone while he was away...

And when he returned after more than three hundred years, the first person to appear before him was still Liu Qingyan.

Liu Qingyan’s eyes reddened, and she shook her head without hesitation:

“It wasn’t hard...”

“This is all what I should have done.”

Chen Ling helped her up from the ground. The latter looked up and met Chen Ling’s gaze once more. A flash of hesitation crossed her eyes... but after a long pause, she asked tentatively:

“Lord Red King... will you... leave again?”

Chen Ling was stunned for a moment.

“No.” He answered firmly. “These three hundred years were an accident... Since I have returned, I will not leave again.”

Liu Qingyan let out a sigh of relief.

“Has everything gone smoothly all these years?”

“...It’s been okay.” Liu Qingyan calmed her emotions and spoke methodically.

“At this point in time, most of the original Twilight Society members haven’t grown up yet, so formal recruitment hasn’t begun... However, for these three hundred years, I have been planting eyes and setting up hidden intelligence strongholds in major prisons. Currently, there are about three hundred peripheral members. In terms of intelligence penetration alone, we have far surpassed the Chengtian Domain’s control over the major prisons.”

“However, there is still some gap compared to the intelligence network of the Twilight Society in the Fifth World...”

Liu Qingyan pursed her lips and lowered her head in guilt:

“After Ying Fu took control of the major domains, he began to vigorously promote the ‘Household Registration’ system. Everyone in every prison in every domain needs to do regular identity records, and he strictly controls the domain trains. Everyone taking the train must be checked in detail... so expanding the intelligence network is very difficult.”

“If I hadn’t spread the intelligence network and set up secret agents in the major bases more than three hundred years ago, ahead of him, I’m afraid we wouldn’t even have one-tenth of our current scale...”

“In short, the intelligence network we have now is the limit of what I could achieve after accumulating for so many years.”

Chen Ling looked at Liu Qingyan with some surprise.

Chen Ling had long anticipated Ying Fu’s methods; after all, he was that legendary emperor through the ages, and this was his specialty... But he didn’t expect Liu Qingyan to be able to spread such a massive intelligence network right under Ying Fu’s nose.

Even if the current intelligence network wasn’t as good as the one in the Fifth World, one had to remember that this was a hell-difficulty start.

To be able to achieve this step, Liu Qingyan was already quite remarkable.

“According to Ying Fu’s approach, aren’t those Twilight Society members who haven’t grown up yet already under the supervision of the Chengtian Domain?” Chen Ling’s brows were locked in a frown. “If so, it will probably be quite difficult to recruit them into the Twilight Society in the future...”

“Lord Red King, don’t worry, I’ve already made preparations in advance.” Liu Qingyan answered with a smile.

“Except for a few members, a few years ago I used the intelligence network to locate the family locations of other members in advance. Since before they were born, there has been an intelligence team of at least five people serving them in secret...”

“The information registered in the Chengtian Domain for every one of them since birth has been secretly tampered with by us. As long as we want, we can make them disappear from the Chengtian Domain’s vision at any time.”

Liu Qingyan’s proactive layout made Chen Ling look at her with new eyes. Knowing how many members the Twilight Society had, it was definitely not an easy task to trace their origins and find their locations before they were born...

Not to mention that she also had to ensure that she could deceive the Chengtian Domain at all times. Liu Qingyan’s layout could be said to have laid the foundation for the future development of the Twilight Society.

“Except for a few members... what does that mean?”

Liu Qingyan was silent for a moment before answering truthfully, “The development trajectory of the world this time is different from the previous world. Some members might not even be born in this world.”

Chen Ling was stunned, then nodded slightly.

Changes in the world line would inevitably trigger a series of chain reactions. Some people from the previous world wouldn’t be born here, and there would be many people in this world who didn’t exist in the previous one.

“By the way, since you set up an intelligence network in the major bases in advance... how much do you know about the nuclear strike on the Red Dust Base back then?” Chen Ling seemed to remember something.

Liu Qingyan’s expression turned serious immediately.

“I do know about that.”

“And in the Fifth World, I actually investigated what happened back then with my master. We once thought that it was the Wuji Monarch, Lou Yu, who caused the nuclear strike on the Red Dust Base, but after my investigation this time, I found that the facts were not so...”

“The one who attacked the Red Dust Base was a sorcery organization that had existed since before the Great Catastrophe. They came from overseas. When the Gray Realm intersected and disasters attacked Earth, they mixed into our bases along with the overseas refugees...”

“They call themselves the 【Alchemy Society】.”