Chapter 817: Sunset

Chen Ling’s eyes narrowed slightly:

"Now, wherever Tu Tian, who has the 'Privilege', is, that place will become the center of the storm.

But no matter how they fight and struggle, they are destined to gain nothing... The final beneficiary can only be me."

Chen Ling opened his palm, and a crystal-clear bead lay in his hand, emitting a mesmerizing faint light.

Seeing this bead, Jian Changsheng’s eyes went straight!

"If we’re talking about being black-hearted, it’s still you!" Jian Changsheng reached out, "Can I borrow it to take a look?"

"No."

"So stingy?!"

"If I give it to you, I won't be able to get it back."

"Didn't you say you weren't interested in the [Tongtian Star Position]? You’re not interested, but I am! If you give it to me, you’re helping someone in need!" Jian Changsheng said righteously.

Chen Ling gave him a look of disdain, "I got this with my own ability. You want to take it without giving anything in return?"

"Then... then what do you want?"

Jian Changsheng searched himself all over. Aside from a few scattered coins, his pockets were cleaner than his face. He could only look at Chen Ling longingly, "I don't have money, but I have my life... How about I let you slash me a few times for fun?"

Chen Ling: ...

Chen Ling couldn't be bothered with him, rolled his eyes, and prepared to leave.

Just then, his peripheral vision seemed to catch something, and he suddenly stopped in his tracks... walking toward a pile of ruins.

He pushed aside the piled-up rubble and debris to reveal a beggar covered in blood, stabbed multiple times, deathly pale, with eyes closed, looking as if he had been dead for a long time.

"What’s wrong with this guy?" Jian Changsheng walked over and asked, puzzled.

"...Something’s not right."

Chen Ling’s eyes narrowed. With his meticulous vision, he could faintly see a blood vessel in this person still pulsing imperceptibly, and as the two approached, the pulsing clearly accelerated.

"Playing dead?"

Chen Ling was a bit surprised. It was the first time he had seen such a clever method of playing dead. Even Pu Xiazhan and the others hadn't noticed he was still alive. If not for Chen Ling’s [Secret Pupil], he probably would have been fooled too...

In that case, he had heard everything—Li Shengmen’s plan, and even the secret plotting between Chen Ling and Jian Changsheng!

With his ruse exposed, the beggar’s heart beat even faster.

He simply gave up the pretense. His tightly closed eyelids trembled slightly before opening. Blood flowed from his body again. He lay on the ground, looking at the two, and opened his mouth hoarsely:

"Well... good sirs, I actually didn't hear anything just now..."

A black gun barrel pressed against his forehead.

BANG—!!

Gunfire flashed instantly. Chen Ling pulled the trigger expressionlessly, shattering Heart 7’s head with a roar.

Clean, decisive, not giving him a chance to survive at all.

After the headshot, scarlet blood and skull fragments splattered everywhere. Heart 7, who had managed to play dead until now, was finally, truly dead.

"Cunning outsider." Jian Changsheng clicked his tongue, "Good thing we were smart, otherwise we would have been fooled by him!"

"?" What does that have to do with you?"

Chen Ling rolled his eyes and put away his gun.

Afterward, he took out the referee’s list from his pocket, scanned the names, and quickly locked onto the beggar’s face.

"Hmm... Folk expert, Tier 4, named Jin Fugui... Huh??"

"Jin Fugui? Isn't that the name of the guy who just left?" Jian Changsheng was puzzled.

"It seems that person’s name was fake... Yes, I checked, the real name of that person just now wasn't this."

"Impersonation! Too despic..." Jian Changsheng stopped halfway, as if realizing something, and smiled awkwardly, "Um... hehehehehe... too tragic."

Chen Ling couldn't be bothered with him, just silently rubbed his chin, deep in thought.

"This style, it feels somewhat familiar..."

"What’s familiar or not?" Jian Changsheng guiltily changed the subject again, "Let’s go quickly!"

Chen Ling nodded slightly. As he walked, he took out his walkie-talkie and said in the voice of a referee:

"The situation at the Dark Palace is over, you can send people to collect the bodies..."

“……”

"Tu Tian ended up with the [Privilege], and three others survived; they have all left now."

“……”

"I didn't expect the casualties to be so heavy... Perhaps it was because of their infighting?"

“……”

The two walked one after the other into the passage and disappeared without a trace... Only Heart 7 stared at the direction they left, his eyes wide open in death, as if he had viciously memorized their faces.

……

Some time later.

A figure like a ghost drifted out from behind a silent wall, landing on the ground as if weightless.

His lowered eyelids gazed in the direction Chen Ling and his companion had left. His pale cheeks lacked a trace of blood, like a corpse crawled out of a grave. Only the cinnabar red mark between his brows was eerie and mysterious.

"A Play God Path masquerading as a referee... truly spectacular."

A calm voice resonated from within his body, as if from the underworld, but his lips never moved during the process.

His gaze swept over the corpse-strewn Dark Palace. A hand as white as jade slowly lifted, forming a seal at his chest, and a mysterious force began to spread frantically into the surroundings!

"But regardless, thank you for your gift."

An invisible ripple swept across the entire Dark Palace. The man’s lowered eyelids finally lifted slowly. His two pupils, one black and one white, seemed to invert yin and yang. Reflected in these eyes, white shadows like souls began to crawl up from every corpse!

In the six palaces of Qiaohuang, every checkpoint, every participant who died there, seemed to be awakened by some force, sitting up blankly from their respective corpses... Their eyes were hollow, as if they had lost self-awareness, with only a few higher-tiered ones retaining a glimmer of light.

Snow-white chains extended from the man’s hand seal, piercing the void and tethering the wrists of all the ghosts. Following this, the dozens of ghosts stood up slowly as if being controlled.

They drifted lightly through all the checkpoints, walls, and floors, finally arriving beside the owner of the Yin-Yang eyes!

His eyelids lowered again, covering the Yin-Yang pupils, and those ghosts vanished from sight, leaving only a bone-chilling cold lingering around.

He stepped slowly into the passage.

As he trod upon the steps, a moment later, he emerged from the Dark Palace to the surface... When that dim yellow sunlight fell upon him, those lowered eyes closed completely, like a blind man isolated from the world.

"Sunset is coming..." He murmured, bathing in the sunset with his eyes closed,

"After a thousand years, the Ghost God Path shall finally return to the world."