Chapter 1385: Lou Yu and Lu Xun

Under the tent lights, a soaked figure stood there, holding a blue folder in his hand. His lenses were covered in rain, and he looked incredibly disheveled.

"Lou Yu, did you receive an invitation from Yang Xiao too?" Lu Xun asked straight to the point.

"I... I didn't." Lou Yu's confidence was a bit lacking. "I received a message from Dr. Qi asking if I wanted to take the same car over, and that's how I found out about this... I know it's not good to come uninvited, but I heard you all had some... encounters here? So, I wanted to come and see."

"What do you mean 'heard'?" Wu Tongyuan retorted. "Weren't you there that day too?"

"No, the person who came here that day wasn't me; it was someone who looked exactly like me!"

"What?"

Wu Tongyuan frowned tightly. "Are you a twin?"

"No... I don't know how to tell you... But I saw him. He was the one who told me to come here, to retrieve something from the meteorite crater... something that belongs to me."

Behind his rain-soaked lenses, Lou Yu's gaze was incredibly serious.

Wu Tongyuan was bewildered. He didn't understand what Lou Yu was talking about and could only cast his gaze toward Lu Xun beside him...

Lu Xun hesitated for a moment and turned to look at the military personnel nearby:

"Contact Yang Xiao and see what he says."

In any case, Yang Xiao hadn't invited Lou Yu initially. Lu Xun trusted Yang Xiao, and even more so, he trusted Director Chen. He felt they must have their reasons for doing so... But now that Lou Yu had appeared here inexplicably, it was undoubtedly a variable.

The figure nearby nodded and immediately used the communicator to contact the camp at the meteorite crater.

……

"What did you say?"

At the entrance of the camp, Yang Xiao's brows immediately furrowed tightly.

"What's wrong?" Su Zhiwei, who happened to be passing by, walked to his side.

"...There's been an accident."

Yang Xiao looked back into the camp tent, where three figures were playing Fight the Landlord with a deck of cards, seemingly unaware of what was happening here.

Yang Xiao's gaze swept over the surveillance cameras throughout the camp. With a slight movement of his fingertips, he manipulated the footage from these cameras, and the twelve hidden listening devices in the tent were all disabled as well.

"Come out with me for a moment," Yang Xiao said in a low voice.

Su Zhiwei nodded slightly, and the two walked out of the camp silently, heading toward the dark forest nearby.

The two arrived in front of the empty forest, and Yang Xiao spoke softly:

"Director Chen."

A moment later, a black shadow in a bright red opera robe appeared like a ghost in the dark forest.

"What happened?" Chen Ling asked.

"Lu Xun contacted me and said... Lou Yu is here too."

Chen Ling's eyes narrowed immediately.

"Lou Yu?"

"Yes, he said he met someone who looked exactly like him, and that person told him to come here to retrieve something that belongs to him." Yang Xiao couldn't make up his mind either, and after hesitating for a moment, he asked, "What should we do? Should we let him in?"

Someone who looks exactly like him... retrieve something that belongs to him?

According to this, the Lou Yu at the checkpoint now should be the original Lou Yu of this era, the one who hadn't obtained the Red Star's wish power... The future Wuji Jun had already met him? What happened between them?

And what is the thing that belongs to him?

Chen Ling pondered for a long time before speaking:

"...Let him in."

If the one at the checkpoint is truly the ordinary Lou Yu of this era, then it doesn't matter if he's let in;

If that is Wuji Jun disguised as an ordinary person, since he already knows that all the Nine Lords are in Shennongjia, it would be meaningless not to let him in... If he wanted to, he could break through the checkpoint directly, arrive at this camp in an instant, and kill all the Nine Lords here, without giving Lu Xun a chance to send a message.

After receiving Chen Ling's answer, Yang Xiao sent a message directly to the checkpoint, telling them to come in together.

"You stay here, I'll go check that out."

Chen Ling took a step back, and his dark figure vanished into the dark forest once again.

When it came to Lou Yu, Chen Ling still couldn't rest easy. His figure moved rapidly through the forest, and he soon arrived near the checkpoint...

At this moment, Lou Yu had just received permission to go in with Lu Xun and Wu Tongyuan.

"Wu Tongyuan?"

Chen Ling saw the haggard figure who had lost a lot of weight, and his gaze fell back onto Lou Yu nearby...

The last Wuji Jun Lou Yu hadn't hidden his murderous intent toward Wu Tongyuan at all, but this time, Lou Yu was walking beside Wu Tongyuan, close enough to kill him with a slight movement of his fingers, yet he showed no intention of attacking.

From this, it seems that the Lou Yu before him really isn't the Wuji Jun in Chen Ling's memory.

Neither Lu Xun, Wu Tongyuan, nor Lou Yu noticed Chen Ling's presence in the shadows.

"Lou Yu, why do you look so much thinner than before?" Lu Xun carefully examined Lou Yu beside him.

"The last time we met was last year, right? After the New Year, I think I've been like this." Lou Yu smiled bitterly. "After all, I'm not like you, having such a respected teacher as a backer... My pressure is too great."

Lu Xun instinctively wanted to say that they had met not long ago, but according to Lou Yu, the last time they met must have been the other him...

No wonder he felt Lou Yu was a bit different when he interacted with him last time. He thought Lou Yu had made a breakthrough in his research over the past year and had become much more composed.

"Gold will always shine." Lu Xun said earnestly.

"We've known each other since you were still a doctoral student... I know how suited you are for the path of scientific research. Later, I asked you to come with me to the Shanghai institute, but you ended up choosing another one... If you had come with me to Shanghai back then, perhaps everything would be different."

"...You know, Lu Xun, at that time, only they were willing to give me a high bonus... My mother was sick, I had no choice..." Lou Yu shook his head with a bitter smile.

"It's not that I didn't want to choose a brighter future... I'm just a child from a poor family. I don't have the confidence or capital to chase the future... And my luck isn't as good as yours."

Lu Xun looked at the dejected Lou Yu beside him, wanting to say something but stopping.

"Lu Xun, I just found out that you invited me to come for the exploration a while ago... Honestly, I'm very grateful to you. In all the time I've walked until today, only you have always trusted me and given me opportunities to show myself... But during that time, my phone was stolen, and I didn't know about it at all."

Lou Yu paused for a moment, his gaze looking into the deep night in the distance, murmuring to himself.

"If I hadn't missed your invitation back then, and had gone to explore the Red Star with you, and had obtained an encounter like you all... perhaps my life would be different, right?"