Chapter 677: Go

The child died.

He died in the wailing wind, died in the silent rain, died before Huang Suyu’s eyes.

The twenty-plus of them watched helplessly as the child struggled in agony, watched his blood drain away bit by bit, watched his wound fester and stink, yet they could do nothing...

The girl’s heart-wrenching cries echoed in Huang Suyu’s ears. Her chest heaved violently, her eyes filled with anger, unwillingness, and confusion.

Slowly, the girl cried until she was exhausted, leaning haggardly against a bodyguard, as if she had lost all her strength.

"...Miss." Uncle Quan walked up to the stiff Huang Suyu, opened his mouth,

"Miss, we should go."

Huang Suyu turned her head slowly to look behind her.

The convoy's headlights tore through the dim, rainy curtain. These humming mechanical beasts carried wealth enough to buy most things in the world... But in war, before lives that were about to pass away, they were no different from a car full of blank paper.

"Uncle Quan... is there really any meaning in us carrying all this money?" Huang Suyu asked hoarsely.

Uncle Quan understood what Huang Suyu meant and sighed deeply:

"Miss, money itself has no meaning, but after this disaster, we have to survive... This is the wealth we worked so hard to build. If it just vanishes in the war, it would be a great pity."

"Then what if... what if this disaster doesn't pass? What if there is no Red Dust Main City in the future?"

Uncle Quan stood frozen in place.

"But Miss, regardless of whether it has meaning or not, it's already here," Uncle Quan frowned. "Are you suggesting we burn it all right here?"

"...No."

Huang Suyu looked at the blood-soaked house, a flash of determination appearing in her eyes,

"Uncle Quan, you're right... Money itself has no meaning; it's just a currency for circulation... We can't use money to buy a child's life, but we can use money to stop more people from losing theirs."

"How do we stop it? We are just merchants. How can worldly wealth possibly resist those from the Wuji Realm?"

"Of course, by using the means we are best at... trade."

Uncle Quan looked at the young girl in confusion. He couldn't understand Huang Suyu’s line of thinking at all... Trade? Was she suggesting using money to bribe those from the Wuji Realm? How could that be possible? Since they had already started a Realm War, how could they retreat just for this money?

"I don't want to be a deserter anymore, Uncle Quan," Huang Suyu pointed to the neat row of vehicles,

"We grew up in the Red Dust Realm, we live here... I want to use this money to do something more meaningful, rather than carrying it around like a coward."

"Then, what about Willow Town?"

"...We're not going to Willow Town," Huang Suyu took a deep breath, a sharp light flashing in her eyes,

"We're going back to the Red Dust Main City!"

……

"Did we really... escape *Guernica*?"

The moment he heard this, Chen Ling stood frozen in place.

He fell silent.

He looked at the charred town before him and the scattered corpses, and everything he had felt within the painting surfaced in his mind... They had escaped the *Guernica* of the painting, but they hadn't escaped the *Guernica* of reality.

Real war was even more cruel than a painting.

Plum Blossom 8 was never a pampered person, nor was he a rookie who couldn't handle the sight of blood. He had seen too many storms since he was a boy; even when facing the hellish scenes of the Aurora Realm, he hadn't reacted so violently... But the situation in the Red Dust Realm was different.

On one hand, he had been tortured in *Guernica* for too long and already had psychological trauma; on the other hand, the Aurora City at the time was killed by extreme cold—formless and invisible—with the whole city freezing to death in silence. But what the Red Dust Realm was facing now was naked, man-made slaughter!

"This is a war," Chen Ling said slowly, "but it has nothing to do with us."

"...Nothing to do with us?"

Plum Blossom 8 raised his head, his pale face looking at Chen Ling, full of confusion,

"Chen Ling, you were in *Guernica* too... Now, do you really feel nothing at all?"

Chen Ling was silent for a long time. He even closed his eyes, feeling everything around him... But in the end, he opened his eyes and answered honestly and calmly:

"...Nothing."

"...Heh, then you really are heartless."

Plum Blossom 8 stumbled to his feet and walked straight toward the Red Dust Main City.

"Where are you going?" Chen Ling asked suddenly.

"I'm not you, Chen Ling... I've been in *Guernica* for too long. The shadow of war is already carved into my marrow. I can't be a 'spectator' who thinks this has nothing to do with me."

"You want to intervene in this war?"

"Before joining the Twilight Society, I was the Ninth Hall of this place."

"I know, but you should be clear that all of this is meaningless," Chen Ling said in a deep voice. "We will eventually reverse the era and restart the world. By then, whether it's the Red Dust in the flames of war or the Aurora in the ice and snow, everything will be reversed by time..."

"If we do nothing just because everything is meaningless, then what do we exist for at this very moment?! Everything we've experienced, everyone we've met—family, friends—you want to say their lives don't matter either, right?!"

Plum Blossom 8 stared into Chen Ling’s eyes, his voice ringing out clearly,

"I'm not a machine without feelings... Chen Ling. I can attend the Realm Funeral as a member of the Twilight Society... But before that, to watch this place turn into a hell on earth while I do nothing? I can't do it.

Perhaps my intervention won't change anything... but I don't want to experience that feeling of being powerless in the face of war a second time."

Plum Blossom 8 walked past Chen Ling’s shoulder, a breeze swirling lightly over the withered land.

The world fell into a deathly silence.

Chen Ling watched Plum Blossom 8 walk away in silence and didn't stop him...

Strictly speaking, Plum Blossom 8’s act of intervening in the Realm War and helping the Red Dust side was already a violation of the Twilight Society’s neutral stance, but he didn't believe that a Sixth Rank Plum Blossom 8 could change anything.

Since he wanted to fulfill his duty as the Ninth Hall, then let him go... What did it have to do with him?

Chen Ling and Plum Blossom 8 walked in opposite directions. He returned to the main force of the Twilight Society. At this moment, Bai Ye and the others were also looking this way with complex expressions, not knowing if they had seen the scene just now.

But in the crowd, the figure of Red Heart 9 was also gone.

The disappearance of Plum Blossom 8 and Red Heart 9 made the group look a bit thinner, but everyone seemed to have some kind of tacit understanding, and no one mentioned their disappearance.

"Red Heart... are we still going?" Jian Changsheng asked cautiously.

"Going, why wouldn't we?"

Chen Ling looked persistently toward a certain direction in the misty rain,

"We continue to Willow Town."