Chapter 625: The Second Hall

After writing these four characters, Chen Ling hesitated for a moment, added a line of small text on the back, and tossed the stationery away.

The stationery in mid-air flickered gently, drifted out of the frame's range, transformed back into a blood-stained white dove, and flapped its wings toward the horizon without looking back!

Chen Ling’s figure moved rapidly within the frame as Yang Muquan traveled outside the Red Dust Main City. Within half a minute, they crossed half the city, passing directly from the ruin-filled Gray Realm intersection back into the normal main city area, all without any pedestrians noticing his existence.

Just then, a loud, humming roar suddenly came from the intersection area!

Boom—!!

Yang Muquan raised an eyebrow, landed lightly on a rooftop, and turned to look.

He saw that beneath the lead-gray clouds in the distance, semi-illusory shapes were being outlined out of thin air. Some were regular geometric bodies, while others were piles of shapeless color blocks. At first glance, it made one feel dizzy.

But once one's gaze touched those meaningless patterns in the sky, people could no longer look away. Their consciousness and perception were reorganized by the strange figures in mid-air. For a moment, half the pedestrians in Red Dust Main City stood frozen like statues, staring blankly up at the sky.

Chen Ling was the same.

In his field of vision, a pile of shapes—triangles, rectangles, hexagrams, and ellipses—hung upside down in the lead-gray sky, gradually evolving into a magnificent and bustling metropolis... It wasn't a city like Red Dust Main City, but a truly "prosperous" one. He saw the Oriental Pearl Tower flickering within it, the World Trade Center standing tall, vast neon skyscrapers connecting like mountains, and red taillights flowing like rivers, illuminating the entire sky as if it were daytime.

Compared to that inverted "city," the existence of Red Dust Main City was dim and lusterless, like ruins lost in the long river of civilization.

"How is this possible..." Chen Ling stared fixedly at the city, his eyes filled with disbelief.

He couldn't tear his gaze away from the city, and even his thoughts stalled. He felt his temples throbbing... He knew that a city from that era couldn't possibly appear here, yet it had appeared in this very form.

Boom—!

The next moment, Chen Ling saw the city gradually disintegrate into fragments, filling the surrounding Gray Realm intersection points like a folded silhouette, sealing the intersection points completely.

Only then did Chen Ling snap back to his senses. He shifted his gaze away from the silhouettes sealing the intersection, his back already soaked in cold sweat.

He blinked hard and looked at the silhouettes again, only to find that the bustling neon city was gone; there was only a pile of meaningless geometric shapes floating and moving within...

Following Chen Ling, the surrounding residents also reacted, looking at each other in bewilderment.

"Damn... did you guys see that clearly just now?!"

"I saw it clearly, there was a pile of countless silver coins in the sky! Stacked like a tower, so spectacular!"

"What silver coins? That was clearly wine! A luxurious and magnificent champagne tower, hanging upside down in the sky... I even opened my mouth for a long time, why didn't a single drop fall into it?"

"What's going on? Did we see different things? Why did I see purple sweet potato rolls? How did it know I wanted to eat purple sweet potato rolls?"

"Hmm... sounds like everyone saw something different... Brother, why is your face so red? What did you see just now?"

"I saw... uh... never mind, I didn't see anything."

“……”

The anomaly in the sky attracted the attention of a large crowd. Their chatter reached Chen Ling’s ears, and he couldn't help but frown.

【What... is this?】 he muttered to himself.

"What? Surprised?" Yang Muquan said leisurely. "The ability of the Second Hall is not something you can imagine... In his paintings, people will see what they desire in their hearts. Some crave money and will see mountains of gold and silver; some crave love and will see three thousand beauties... I'm curious, what kind of painting did you see?

Is it a mountain piled with corpses, or a sea of surging flesh and blood?"

In the eyes of the world, Heart of Hearts 6 was a symbol of disaster and bloodshed. What beautiful thing could such a heinous villain see, other than a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood?

Chen Ling fell silent.

The familiar neon city surfaced in his mind, and a faint sense of longing and bitterness welled up in his heart... In this world, perhaps he was the only one who could see that city.

What he saw was his unreachable "home."

Sensing Yang Muquan’s gaze, Chen Ling remained silent for a moment before the corners of his mouth curled into a smile:

【You're wrong, what I saw were 'peaches'... a pile of fresh, juicy, still-pulsing 'peaches'!】

Yang Muquan had witnessed Chen Ling "eating peaches" with his own eyes, so he naturally knew what this guy was talking about. His face turned incredibly ugly. He snorted coldly, stopped talking to Chen Ling, and turned to run toward the distance.

After that "painting" covering the sky appeared, all the Gray Realm intersection points in the ruins were sealed by the scroll. The passage connecting the "Sighing Wilderness" and Red Dust Main City was cut off, so there shouldn't be any new disasters breaking in for a short time...

But even so, the large number of disasters that had already broken into the main city were enough to keep the Floating Life Painting busy for a while.

"However, for this Second Hall to be able to seal so many intersection points single-handedly, what exactly is his background?" Chen Ling couldn't help but think to himself.

Yang Muquan leaped through Red Dust Main City and soon reached the edge of the city. He crossed the high wall and headed rapidly in a certain direction within the Red Dust Domain. Several brushstrokes swirled around him, as if completely hiding his figure. Except for Chen Ling, the surrounding pedestrians seemed unable to see him.

Seeing this, Chen Ling’s frown deepened.

The reason he surrendered and took the initiative to offer intelligence to the Floating Life Painting was, naturally, to save his own life while finding the location of the Red Dust Base faster... They had done a great deal of investigation before this, and he had even gone back to ask Su Zhiwei, but they hadn't made any breakthrough progress.

The location of the Red Dust Base had always been a mystery to him and the other Dusk Agency members... And now, seeing Yang Muquan actually cross the high wall of Red Dust Main City, the surprise in Chen Ling’s heart grew even stronger.

Could the Red Dust Base not be in Red Dust Main City?

This thought rose in Chen Ling’s mind, making him feel even more that his surrender was the right choice... If he had really followed his original plan to dig three feet deep in Red Dust Main City, he probably would never have found the Red Dust Base in his lifetime.

But when Yang Muquan changed direction, moved rapidly, and finally landed in a familiar area, the shock in Chen Ling’s heart was beyond words.

"This is..."

"Willow Town???"