Chapter 978: Three Disheveled People

Edge of the Wuji Domain.

On a remote street, three figures wearing bamboo hats passed through the drizzling rain.

The rain hit the surface of the bamboo hats, making a ticking sound. Even though their attire was so abrupt, the pedestrians on the road didn't notice their existence at all. They were like ghosts from another world, wandering in the haze of Wuji.

In the end, the three figures stopped at the same time in front of a restaurant at the corner of the alley.

Da da da—

One of them stepped forward and tapped gently on the glass door of the restaurant.

The boss who was dozing off at the dining table was awakened by the knocking sound. He looked at the door blankly, but as if he didn't see anything, he suspiciously lay back down...

The person who just knocked on the door was stunned, as if realizing something, and turned to pat the bamboo hat of the white-haired figure.

"Idiot, hurry up and wrap the bandages! He can't see us anymore!"

The white-haired one said "Oh," and slowly began to wrap the bandages on his arms, looking at Jian Changsheng with some resentment, seemingly offended by his patting his bamboo hat crooked... He quite liked this broken bamboo hat.

"...What kind of look is that." Jian Changsheng was a bit speechless. "If it weren't for you secretly burying yourself in the ground in the middle of the night to play disappear, causing us to look for you everywhere the next day and attracting the pursuit of disaster, we would have arrived long ago!"

Jiang Xiaohua lowered his head silently, aggrieved. After more than ten seconds, he said in a low voice:

"It's warmer sleeping in the dirt... I accidentally overslept."

"Alright... let's eat first." Sun Bumian opened his cracked lips, his voice as hoarse as if he had just walked out of a desert. "If we don't eat... I'm going to... starve to death."

With that, his legs went weak, and he nearly collapsed onto the ground.

Tap, tap, tap—

Jian Changsheng pounded desperately on the glass door. "Boss, help us!!"

The boss woke up from his dream with a start, seeing the three people at the door in tattered clothes, with one of them deathly pale and leaning against the wall, looking as if he were about to kick the bucket at any moment.

He immediately jumped off his chair and hurried to open the door.

"What's going on? What's wrong with him? Do you need any medicine??"

Jian Changsheng scanned the wall, his speech as rapid as a machine gun.

"We need braised mutton, chicken in a clay pot, sour and spicy cabbage, goji berry and black-bone chicken soup..."

The boss: ...

He thought it was a heart attack; turns out they were just starving ghosts.

The boss gave them a speechless look, tied on his apron, and walked into the kitchen.

"Wait, it'll be quick."

Jian Changsheng and Jiang Xiaohua helped Sun Bumian sit at the nearest table, but the latter acted as if he had no bones, collapsing onto the tabletop the moment he sat down, looking like his soul had left his body.

Seeing this, Jian Changsheng couldn't help but speak up:

"You're starving to this point, why don't you just eat a candied hawthorn to tide yourself over..."

Hearing the words "candied hawthorn," Sun Bumian's eyes widened, and he violently whipped his head to the side, beginning to retch dryly!

"Don't mention those three words." Jiang Xiaohua tried to save Sun Bumian's fragile life. "He's already starved to this extent; if he keeps vomiting, he'll run out of bile..."

After Jiang Xiaohua finished speaking, he paused for a moment, his throat beginning to bob gently.

"And now that you've said it, I also..."

"Ugh—"

Jiang Xiaohua turned his head toward another trash can and began to dry heave.

Jian Changsheng: ...

The journey through the Gray Realm was undoubtedly a hellish trial for the three of them... For the first few hours after entering the Gray Realm from the Tian-Shu Domain, everything went smoothly. Relying on Jiang Xiaohua's power to shield them from all calamities, they even cooked a hotpot on the road using a newly bought pot and ingredients.

The nightmare began when Jiang Xiaohua buried himself in the dirt without saying a word...

After that night, Jian Changsheng and Sun Bumian woke up to find Jiang Xiaohua missing, and they felt as if the sky had collapsed.

They searched frantically for Jiang Xiaohua, thinking some powerful calamity had broken his ability and snatched him away under the cover of darkness... During the search, they accidentally attracted a group of calamities and had to fight them off. Fortunately, these calamities were only at the Fourth Order, and they managed a narrow victory. However, in the process, their pot and all their food were destroyed.

Just as Jian Changsheng and Sun Bumian were sweating profusely from the fight, Jiang Xiaohua crawled out of the ground, slow and leisurely, even stretching in front of the calamities...

At that moment, Jian Changsheng's desire to kill reached its peak.

After that, Jiang Xiaohua seemed to realize he had made a mistake and followed Jian Changsheng and the other obediently. Although they didn't encounter any more calamity attacks, all their food was gone.

With no other options, they had to resort to eating the candied hawthorns Sun Bumian conjured to stave off hunger.

But while Jian Changsheng and Jiang Xiaohua could stomach the candied hawthorns, Sun Bumian refused to eat them, relying on his constitution to tough it out for several days straight.

After eating candied hawthorns for so many days in a row, Jian Changsheng and Jiang Xiaohua's attitude toward them shifted from "pretty good" to "a bit monotonous" to "hard to swallow"... Finally, it reached the point where they couldn't even hear the word "hawthorn."

Finally... they arrived at the Wuji Domain!

When plates of fragrant dishes were served, the eyes of all three turned green, especially Sun Bumian, who looked like a dying lion, nearly shoving the plates into his mouth along with the food.

Since there were no other cooks, the boss had to stir-fry one dish at a time. Every time he finished a dish and served it, the previous one had already been wiped clean... Beside the empty plates were three pairs of glowing green eyes, staring straight at him.

The sweat on the boss's forehead grew denser. He was swinging his spatula in the back kitchen until it felt like it might smoke, but no matter how hard he worked, he only harvested a pile of mercilessly empty plates. In all his years of business, this was the first time he had felt "bullied" in his own shop.

The boss worked for a full hour and a half before the three ancestors outside were finally full.

"Hiccup..."

Sun Bumian lay back against his chair, closing his eyes and letting out a satisfied burp. "I've come back to life..."

"What's the next step?" Jian Changsheng wiped his greasy, shiny lips. "We've reached Wuji, how do we save Red Heart?"

"...Good question." Sun Bumian answered honestly. "I don't know either."

"You don't know??"

"Why would I know? Weren't you the one who insisted on saving Red Heart? I thought you had a complete plan."

"I..." Jian Changsheng was speechless. "I was thinking, once we reached the Wuji Domain, we'd make detailed plans... Look, we're not familiar with the Wuji Domain, how could we deploy in advance? Don't we have to get here first?"

"That's true."

Sun Bumian picked his teeth with a toothpick and asked, "So now, do you have a plan?"

"...I'm not familiar with the Wuji Domain... but... Plum Blossom should be very familiar with it!" Jian Changsheng changed the subject, turning to look at Jiang Xiaohua, his eyes full of hope. "Plum Blossom, this time we really have to rely on you!"

“……？”

Jiang Xiaohua, who had been silent the whole time, looked at the two of them blankly. After feeling their sincere gazes, he blinked...

Then he pointed at himself innocently:

"Me... go defeat the Silver King?"