Leaving
The child died.
Died in the whimpering wind, died in the silent rain, died in front of Huang Suyue.
The more than twenty of them watched helplessly as this child struggled in pain, watched as his blood drained bit by bit, watched as his wound festered and stank, yet could do nothing...
The girl's heart-wrenching cries and shouts lingered by Huang Suyue's ears. Her chest heaved violently, her eyes full of 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 to the stiff Huang Suyue's side and opened his mouth.
"Miss, we should go."
Huang Suyue slowly turned her head and looked behind her.
"Uncle Quan... Does us taking this money really have any meaning?" Huang Suyue said hoarsely.
Uncle Quan could understand Huang Suyue's meaning and let out a long sigh, saying:
"Miss, money itself has no meaning whatsoever. But after this disaster, we always have to survive... This is the wealth we fought hard to earn. If it's just annihilated in the war like this, it would be too much of a pity."
"Then what if... what if this disaster cannot be passed? What if there won't be a Red Dust Main City anymore?"
Uncle Quan was stunned in place.
"But Miss, regardless of whether it has meaning or not, they are already here." Uncle Quan's brows furrowed tightly. "Could it be that you want to burn them all on the spot?"
"...No."
Huang Suyue looked at the extremely bloody house, a touch of decisiveness surfacing in her eyes.
"Uncle Quan, you are right... Money itself has no meaning whatsoever, it's just a currency used for circulation... We can't use money to buy the child's life, but we can use money to stop more people from losing their lives."
"How to stop it? We are just merchants. How can worldly wealth possibly resist those people from the Wuji Domain?"
"Of course, it's by using the method we are most skilled at... trading."
Uncle Quan looked at the girl before him doubtfully. He fundamentally couldn't understand Huang Suyue's train of thought... Trading? Could it be using money to bribe those people from the Wuji Domain? How could that be possible? Since they had already started a Realm War, how could they possibly retreat for this bit of money?
"I don't want to be a deserter anymore, Uncle Quan." Huang Suyue pointed at this neat row of the convoy.
"We grew up in the Red Dust Domain, we live here... I want to use this money to do something more meaningful, rather than taking them and being a Cowardly Turtle."
"Then, then what about Willow Town?"
"...Not going to Willow Town anymore." Huang Suyue took a deep breath, brilliant light flickering in her eyes.
"We're returning to the Red Dust Main City!"
...
"Did we really... escape from 'Guernica'?"
The moment he heard this sentence, Chen Ling was stunned on the spot.
He fell silent.
Looking at the charred town before his eyes and those scattered corpses, everything he felt in The Scroll also surfaced in his mind... They had escaped the 'Guernica' of the painting, but failed to escape the Guernica of reality.
Real war was even crueler than paintings.
Eight of Clubs had never been a pampered person, nor was he a rookie who couldn't handle blood. He had seen too many storms since his youth. Even when facing a hell-on-earth-like scene in the Aurora Domain, he didn't have such a violent reaction... But the situation in the Red Dust Domain was different.
On one hand, he had been tortured in 'Guernica' for too long and already had psychological trauma; on the other hand, back then Aurora City was killed by extreme cold, formless and shapeless. The whole city's people froze to death in silence. But what the Red Dust Domain 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?"
Eight of Clubs raised his head. That pale face looked at Chen Ling, full of incomprehension.
"Chen Ling, you also stayed in 'Guernica'... Now, do you have absolutely no feelings at all?"
Chen Ling was silent for a long time. He even closed his eyes, feeling everything around him... But ultimately, he still opened his eyes and answered frankly and calmly:
"...None."
"...Hehe, then you truly are heartless."
Eight of Clubs staggered up from the ground and headed straight in the direction of the Red Dust Main City.
"Where are you going?" Chen Ling suddenly spoke.
"I am not you, Chen Ling... I've already stayed in 'Guernica' for too long. The shadow of war has already been carved into my spinal cord. I can't be an 'Audience' who thinks this has nothing to do with me."
"You want to intervene in this war?"
"Before joining the Dusk Society, I was once the Ninth Hall Master here."
"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 Reboot the World. When the time comes, whether it's the Red Dust in the flames of war or the Aurora in the ice and snow, they will all be reversed by time..."
"If because everything is meaningless, we don't do anything at all, then for what reason do we exist at this very moment?! Everything we've experienced, everyone we've seen, relatives, friends, are you trying to say their life or death also doesn't matter?!"
Eight of Clubs glared into Chen Ling's eyes, his voice resounding forcefully.
"I am not an emotionless machine... Chen Ling. I can participate in the Realm Funeral as a member of the Dusk Society... but before that, asking me to watch helplessly as this place turns into a living hell, I can't do it.
Perhaps my intervention can't change anything... but that feeling of being powerless in the face of war, I don't want to experience it a second time."
Eight of Clubs walked past Chen Ling's shoulder, a gentle breeze swirling lightly over the withered earth.
The world fell into a deathly silence.
Chen Ling silently watched Eight of Clubs walk away and didn't stop him...
Strictly speaking, Eight of Clubs intervening in the Realm War and helping the Red Dust faction could already be considered violating the Dusk Society's neutral stance, but he didn't think a Sixth Stage Eight of Clubs could change anything.
Since he wanted to fulfill his duty as the Ninth Hall Master, then let him be... What did it have to do with himself?
Chen Ling and Eight of Clubs walked in opposite directions. He returned to the main group of the Dusk Society. At this time, Bai Ye and the others also looked over with complicated expressions, not knowing if they had seen the scene just now.
But in the crowd, Nine of Hearts' figure was also gone.
The disappearance of Eight of Clubs and Nine of Hearts made the crowd's team seem a bit thinner, but as if having some kind of tacit understanding, no one mentioned their disappearance.
"Hearts... are we still leaving?" Jian Changsheng asked cautiously.
"Leave, why not leave?"
Chen Ling looked persistently in a certain direction in the misty rain.
"We will continue to Willow Town."