Chapter 681: Blurry

The creaking of the gate slowly echoed.A figure in a red robe emerged alone from the desolate courtyard...

Even though Grandma tried her best to persuade him to stay, Chen Ling didn't linger at Li Qingshan's house, nor did he go inside to rest and wait for Li Qingshan to return. He was well aware of the situation in Red Dust City. Since Li Qingshan chose to go back, it wouldn't be easy for him to come out;Perhaps, he might never come out.

Chen Ling frowned deeply. He couldn't understand why Li Qingshan, being only a second-tier practitioner, would risk his life to go back. Any enemy from the Sorcery Association encountered on the road could kill him. What was the point of him taking such a big risk? Could a second-tier practitioner really change the entire battle situation in Red Dust?

Li Qingshan was gone, Kong Baosheng had probably returned to the main city, and Huang Suyue still hadn't arrived. No one else from the entire Startled Swan Pavilion, except for Chen Ling himself, had chosen to seek refuge in Willow Town.

A light drizzle pattered on Chen Ling's shoulders. As soon as he stepped out of the gate, he seemed to sense something and turned his head to look beside him.

Beside Li Qingshan's front door, a figure was furtively peeking out, seemingly eavesdropping. Upon suddenly seeing Chen Ling emerge, their eyes met, and an awkward silence fell between them.

"Spade, what are you doing here?" Chen Ling asked in a low voice.

"Oh... well, you see..." Jian Changsheng scratched his head and feigned looking around. "I was looking for the restroom, couldn't find it... somehow got lost and ended up here."

Chen Ling's eyes narrowed slightly. "Are you following me?"

"No, I'm not, I didn't..." Jian Changsheng realized he couldn't talk his way out of it, so he steeled himself and gritted his teeth. "Yes, I was following you. What about it? Want to fight?What happened when you tried to kill me isn't over yet. I couldn't beat you the last two times, but you might not win this time either!"

Faced with Jian Changsheng's provocation, Chen Ling had no interest in wasting time with him. He simply walked through the rain, heading towards the members of the Twilight Society.

Jian Changsheng followed closely beside him, hesitated for a moment, then cautiously spoke:

"I just heard, your theater partner went back to the main city?"

"...Yes."

"Aren't you going to help him?"

"Why should I go?" An unbidden anger rose in Chen Ling's heart, and he frowned. "I told them before that Willow Town was the safest, but they chose not to come and instead went back to their deaths! I don't understand what they're thinking."

"Actually, it's not that hard to understand, is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"They're from the Red Dust Realm. They grew up here. Is there anything wrong with wanting to protect their home?" Jian Changsheng spread his hands, hitting the nail on the head.

Chen Ling paused, taken aback.

"No... but they clearly can't change anything... and it's meaningless, isn't it? How can that be right..."

Hearing this, Jian Changsheng's expression gradually grew serious. He slowly stopped walking:

"Heart... no, Chen Ling. Actually, I wanted to say this before, but ever since you came out of that broken painting, you've been very off."

The figure in the large red opera robe also stopped, frowning as he looked at him.

"Although you used to be somewhat cold-hearted, you weren't cruel and merciless," Jian Changsheng said slowly. "Before, in the Aurora Realm, you would get angry seeing people freeze to death, you would chase after Yan Xiang because you couldn't stand the high-priced coal, and you would turn back and charge into the tide of disaster to save Han Meng... You still radiated a human warmth.But now... all I see in you is absolute indifference, and a repulsive 'meaninglessness' philosophy."

"If, as you say, everything is meaningless, then wasn't everything you did in the Aurora Realm also meaningless? Han Meng, Wen Shilin, and your brother—are you going to deny their very existence as well?!"

Chen Ling froze in place.

Jian Changsheng stepped forward, his eyes almost fixed on Chen Ling's face, shimmering with doubt and anger.

"To be honest, I don't know when it started, but your face feels strange to me... Your features are becoming increasingly blurred in my eyes, little by little losing your original characteristics, turning into... into something I don't recognize...It seems you're no longer the Heart 6, Chen Ling, that I knew."

His face...

Chen Ling's pupils constricted slightly.

He instinctively took a half-step back, as if remembering something, then quickly walked to the edge of a nearby river and looked down at the water.

This location, this action, was very familiar to Chen Ling.The first time he came to the Red Dust Realm, when he was contaminated by the Joker's white ash and lost all his abilities, Chen Ling had also "looked at his face" here. He never imagined that after such a long time, he would once again look into the water here.

But this time, the psychological impact on Chen Ling was far more intense than that first encounter with the Joker!

The large red opera robe stood still beside the withered willow branches. He stared blankly at his reflection in the river... It was a blurred face, not because the water was rippling, nor because it was murky,but because his face was genuinely blurred.

His once straight nose bridge, willow-leaf-shaped eyes, and fine spots on his cheeks... everything had vanished. The face that belonged to "Chen Ling" was losing its distinctiveness, even becoming flattened, transforming into a generic, template-like, mass-produced face devoid of any memorable features!

Chen Ling stared, rubbing the unfamiliar face vigorously with both hands. The feel of his skin and features was entirely familiar to him, exactly the same as before, yet for some reason, in his own eyes and in the eyes of others, his face was simply blurred...

Chen Ling's fingertips gripped his chin, and he tore hard!

A layer of skin floated away into the air,But in the water's reflection, his face was still blurred.

"How could this be... how could this happen?" Chen Ling murmured to himself.

He kept changing his face, one layer of skin after another fluttering above the river, but without exception, all the faces were blurred and featureless... It was as if... as if a mysterious veil separated him from this world.

He was growing distant from this world.He was transforming from "Chen Ling," a person within the world, into an "observer" standing outside it.

Was it a side effect of the Guernica incident? Was it the result of him becoming too immersed in the role of an "observer," gradually losing his empathy? Was the fourth wall growing stronger, severing his connection with this world?!

Just then, a reminder from his master, which he had once ignored, suddenly echoed in Chen Ling's ears!

"No matter the scenario, you are not an observer, but a real, existing 'person.'Your existence is defined by yourself. If you abandon the characteristics of being a 'person,' no one can save you..."

Chen Ling's hand, which had been continuously tearing off layers of skin, suddenly froze in mid-air.

He stiffly lowered his head, looking at the blurred reflection of his face in the water, and murmured:"Am I... abandoning the characteristics of a 'person'?"