Spare Me, Great Lord!

Luo Nan? Luo Bei?

What a casual name! Honestly speaking, Lu Shu did not believe in such coincidence at all. As if having read his mind, Luo Nan took out his wallet and retrieved a photo. “Here. This is our photo.”

Defensively, Lu Shu took a look at the photo. It was taken in a park and the two young “Luo Nan’s” were posing with their fingers showing the number “two”.

That was unexpected. What the hell was going on? The answer to his confusion could not possibly be so ridiculous!

“Hold on,” Lu Shu said after some consideration, “I need to confirm this.”

At this moment, the blue glow outside the Gate to Hell bloomed like a flower. The splendid light had seemingly transmitted everyone in the snow back to the base.

Strips of blue light swayed in the sky. Lu Shu cast a brief glimpse at it and called Nie Ting via his satellite phone. To his surprise, the call failed, and it was more like his phone was spoiled, not because of the bad signal.

Suddenly Lu Shu turned towards the blue-tinted sky. Then, he turned to Chen Zuan and urged, “Give me your phone.”

Confused, Chen Zuan dug out his phone and passed to Lu Shu. Lu Shu switched on his phone, whose screen immediately turned black once the power was on.

As expected, all electronic devices would be destroyed instantly once their power was on.

Lu Shu returned the phone to Chen Zuan, who stared at it in shock. “Brother Shu, why didn’t you use your own phone?”

“My phone is not free,” replied Lu Shu calmly.

“From Chen Zuan’s distress, +666!”

What kind of excuse was that? Why did you purposely use other people’s phones when you had already suspected that the sudden explosion of magical energy could destroy electronic devices?!

“My phone is not free either, Brother Shu!” the little fatty protested angrily.

“Never mind the details,” replied Lu Shu.

“From Chen Zuan’s distress, +747!”

At the moment, Lu Shu felt slightly disadvantaged that he could not confirm Luo Nan’s claim, as all his deductions would have been wrong if Luo Nan was telling the truth.

But the thing was, Lu Shu could sense something fishy about this man. Hence, he could not afford to let his guard down.

Suddenly, he was reminded of a story about the Jade Cipher ¹ he heard about last time. The incident had a simple beginning, a netizen published his bizarre encounter on a famous web forum under the username of “whisper218”.

Then, another person called “snow_on_heart” commented below, “218, I will strangle you if you mention the Jade Cipher again.”

After that, both people disappeared from the world.

As a result, the name “the Jade Cipher” made its first public appearance, which came along with many subsequent rumors and even a movie of the same name.

Back to the issue at hand, it would not have escaped the eyes of the Heavenly Network if the story about Luo Nan’s twin brother was fake. Nonetheless, Lu Shu believed that this matter was unrelated to the Jade Cipher because the Heavenly Network was extremely cautious when handling such cases.

Anyway, Lu Shu and Lu Xiaoyu would not have joined the Heavenly Network either if they had not been sent to the orphanage when they were still babies.

Lu Shu was a meticulous man and he definitely did not want to make the wrong judgment regarding such a crucial matter. After some thinking, he ordered, “Return via the same route because I have to go back to confirm your identity.”

Helplessly Luo Nan smiled. “I’m not lying. I really have a younger brother called Luo Bei. At first, I had already decided to withdraw from the Species Research team and I had even submitted my application to be transferred to the cultivation college. But how could I have expected that my brother would get himself into this trouble at this critical moment? Thus, I had no choice but to pick up where he left off.”

After a short pause, Lu Shu commented, “Pick up? Any lines?”

“From Luo Bei’s distress, +666!”

“From Lu Xiaoyu’s distress, +177!”

“From…”

The entire group turned to Lu Shu in astonishment, while Lu Xiaoyu looked at him expressionlessly. “Wow. That was unexpected…”

But Lu Shu remained quiet. He was not trying to be lame, but to test his real name. For some reason, this guy had not produced any distress points even when Lu Shu and the rest questioned Luo Nan’s identity, and this was why Lu Shu felt suspicious.

If he was truly Luo Nan, he would have produced at least 1 or 2 distress points when doubted. However, he did not, as if… he had seen it coming.

Back in the classroom where Lu Shu obtained Luo Nan’s real name, he was still “Luo Nan”. But now, this man was no longer Luo Nan!

What on Earth had happened inside the Gate to Hell? If Luo Bei had really entered, why could he return while the others had all vanished? Besides, why did he lie? What was his intention?

From the start, Lu Shu had always thought that he was only running errands for Nie Ting this time. But now it seemed not that simple. Could he have… misunderstood Nie Ting this time?

Based on the current situation, it was highly likely that they were lured there by Luo Nan and Luo Bei, not Nie Ting.

Nonetheless, Lu Shu insisted that he should not be blamed because it was easy to associate this matter with his identity as an audit student. It was simply too much of a coincidence!

Luo Bei said with a smile, “You may want to check the steel bar on the right side of the temporary building. A long time ago, all of the staff here carved their names on it when bored so that their future colleagues would know who had come before. My brother’s name is there too.”

Immediately Chen Zuan went to check. Then, he shouted over, “Brother Shu, there’s really a name called ‘Luo Bei’ here.”

Until then, Lu Shu could confirm that Luo Bei had survived for some reason while his team had disappeared together with the surveying base. But now, Luo Bei was trying to lead them into Death Valley.

Lu Shu grinned. “I see. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. Please pardon me. After all, being careful is never wrong. Okay then, let’s head to Death Valley.”

Luo Bei replied, “Your suspicion is understandable. I won’t take it too hard against you for this matter. Anyway, I would have done the same if I were you. In any case, the Heavenly Network needs meticulous people like you.”

“Haha, glad to know that you don’t mind,” said Lu Shu. Then, he took the lead and walked towards the Death Valley. Before that, he glanced at Lu Xiaoyu, but the latter remained silent.

At that moment, Lu Shu was also curious about what the mysteries hidden inside Death Valley were.

And where Luo Bei wanted to bring them to.

…