Chapter 381

Duo Tuo Lei has always considered himself unmatched in intelligence.

Whether in scientific research or in scheming, he always looked down on others with a superior attitude.

Only after meeting Luo De.

Every time he makes a move, he ends up embarrassed.

When he encounters those who like to subdue others with force, he answers with even greater violence.

When he encounters those who like to play conspiracies, he constantly pulls out strange tactics, making his own schemes feel like punching cotton—soft and leaving him feeling uneasy all over.

This time was no different.

He had clearly worked out everything, even entertaining the idea of mutual destruction, preparing to drag everyone who bore him ill will into the mire together.

But he hadn't expected.

Luo De had actually figured out his plan again.

Especially his contact with A Pei Pu, which he believed was flawless and impossible for a third party to discover.

How did Luo De know that? Facing the somewhat surprised and annoyed Duo Tuo Lei, Zhongli thought it over, confirmed what Luo De had previously told him, and then said: "Luo De said, you are a scholar of real substance, so before you die, you must be made to understand your death."

"Cough—"

Zhongli cleared his throat, imitating Luo De's tone, and said: "Actually, your deal with A Pei Pu—I guessed it. But I'm ninety percent, even certain, that A Pei Pu's abnormal behavior is related to you. So to be safe, I placed one hundred and sixty protections on the World Tree, ensuring you can't destroy it before I stop."

"By the way, you should know that."

"I have some connection with the World Tree, so you don't need to doubt whether I'm using false words to frame you."

"In short."

"One hundred and sixty protections, all of divine level—if you think you can break them all at once, go ahead and try; otherwise, when I counterattack, I definitely won't show mercy."

Zhongli finished speaking.

Duo Tuo Lei's eyes instantly showed a troubled expression.

After a long while.

He took a deep breath and sighed, "All my schemes came to nothing—I still lost in the end."

Duo Tuo Lei, who rarely shows his true face, quietly removed his mask, revealing his handsome youthful visage.

"Morax."

"Now I can understand why you gave up that descender."

"This guy is probably really the breaker you've been looking for a long time."

Luo De saw through the plan.

Duo Tuo Lei also had no intention of trying according to the original plan; it felt as if he had set down a burden, leaning sideways on the chair Zhongli gave him, gazing toward Sumeru Cheng and letting out a deep sigh.

But his expression still showed some reluctance.

After sighing a few times, he again asked Zhongli: "I want to know how I provoked this guy. We should never have met—why does he harbor such great killing intent toward me? Even without sparing the cost, he definitely wants to kill me and all my slices."

"Oh, this."

Zhongli replied verbatim: "Because his student was once seized by you for human experiments, he can't swallow this anger."

"Just because of this?"

Duo Tuo Lei was stunned.

It's not that this reason isn't valid.

In his view, the reason is actually reasonable, but reason is mixed with a bit of absurdity and unreality.

On this Teyvat continent,

The teacher-student relationship is not as good as it appears.

There has never been a case where a teacher, to stand up for a student, would openly offend an extremely troublesome enemy.

Although Duo Tuo Lei admits he was completely outplayed by Luo De,

but his arrogance remains unchanged.

In Duo Tuo Lei's own eyes, he is the most troublesome human on the Teyvat continent, without equal.

Captains, clowns—these humans stronger than him,

they just rely on brute force.

once they don't use their brains.

Such enemies, compared to his own high-intelligence, scheming-savvy self, are absolutely not troublesome.

No matter who,

as long as they have some understanding of him,

they definitely won't act like a lunatic and fight him to the death, even at the cost of dragging the whole country down.

Duo Tuo Lei doesn't understand.

Why! Why does Luo De dare to do this? Does he have the confidence to win? Or does he have the confidence that even if he loses, he won't suffer unacceptable losses?

If I recall correctly,

When Luo De first faced him, he didn't yet have enough strength to match him; at that time, Luo De, if not for the Ice Queen's and other executives' faces, he could have been crushed with a single finger, and none of the later events would have happened.

An ant actually overturned a giant dragon.

Such absurdity left Duo Tuo Lei dazed and lost in thought.

As for his question,

Zhongli, as if he had anticipated the question, spoke leisurely: "Luo De once told me: you are a person with vicious thoughts, treating human life like grass, lacking the most basic reverence for life; sooner or later you will again bring disaster to Sumeru Cheng. For the long-term development of Sumeru Cheng, taking advantage of the fact that Sumeru Cheng is currently undergoing large-scale construction, even if there are some losses, they are within an acceptable range; so why not simply eliminate this hidden danger, giving Sumeru Cheng a future state of absolute stability."

"."

After hearing this, Duo Tuo Lei again lost his composure.

He had originally thought.

Over the years, he has been tempered both by slicing and by participating in various experiments and plans, enough to have tempered his mind and emotions to the point of being impervious to water and fire.

But now he has to admit something.

That is, he has been somewhat thrown off balance by Luo De's baseless accusation.

At the same time, he blurted out a heartfelt soul question: "Just because of this?"

Just because he once conducted human experiments in Sumeru, he might later do something dangerous to Sumeru.

Is Luo De going to launch a preemptive war against him to completely eliminate the potential threat?

And he still says, what, what, "nip trouble in the bud"? Bah!

Duotuo Lei felt his blood pressure rise.

His whole life has been a calm, still-water mind, but now Luo De's words have made him boil with anger.

What made his qi and blood surge even more was.

Zhongli also took the chance to fan the flames, saying: "Hmm, little friend says it's just because of this."

"."

Duotuo Lei's body began to tremble slightly.

I don't know how much time it took.

The explosion sounds over at Sumeru Cheng have stopped, the Three Gods and the Evil Dragon's final show is also quickly drawing to a close.

Only then did he finally recover from his inner turmoil.

Things have come to this.

Saying anything else is useless now.

All I can say is that I've encountered a madman, a true madman, a true madman even crazier than me.

Thinking this far.

Duotuo Lei couldn't help but curse: "Madman!" "Yeah, little friend also said that."

Zhongli's fanning continues: "He had me tell you, thanks for the chaos you caused in A Ru Cun; otherwise he wouldn't have thought of impersonating the Red King himself. He also thanks your research; otherwise he'd remain a false Red King his whole life. Now he can enjoy being a true Red King. And your desert research lab—without it, the desert tribes wouldn't have united so quickly. Oh, right, he also said, thanks for your help; originally he was worried about how to wrap up this Flower God's Birthday Festival, but your uproar lets him more easily and smoothly become the Red King in the hearts of the desert people."

Every word Zhongli said gripped Duotuo Lei's heart hard.

But he really had no power to refute.

Because the facts are just that.

Riding his own east wind, Luo De not only completed the unification of the desert tribes but also seized a true divinity, and in one fell swoop pushed the desert's greening line to Sweet Dew Flower Sea, thereby giving the desert a truly prosperous foundation, and he now has the qualifications to truly ascend to godhood.

"Whoosh—"

Duotuo Lei exhaled, then suddenly laughed: "But my god‑making plan also succeeded, right?"

"In terms of universal reason."

"Indeed so."

This time Zhongli didn't snap back; he firmly nodded.

Theoretically, Luo De is the god created by Duotuo Lei.

That is definitely correct.

After all, he borrowed Duotuo Lei's picked‑up Red King belief system, hid behind the false Red King divinity of the key artifact, and ascended as a god in that way; in a sense, this is a successful practice of Duotuo Lei's research findings.

"Hehe—"

"Hehe—"

"Hahaha—"

Duotuo Lei suddenly burst into hysterical laughter, laughing more and more maniacally, more and more hysterically.

Zhongli just sat there quietly, watching.

Luo De said.

Duotuo Lei might still have some trump cards; he must guard against his feint‑to‑attack‑west tactic, using his last trump card to cause destruction to Sumeru.

So Zhongli dared not relax, always staring at Duotuo Lei with full focus.

The facts show.

In this event, the meticulous Luo De made his first miscalculation.

No.

It should be said that he almost miscalculated.

Because Duotuo Lei indeed still had a trump card he could use, but he ultimately gave it up.

Seeing him rise after his laughter, he restored his original confidence and pride, saying: "I know you'll surely say Luo De predicted my last trump card and prepared for it."

"If that's the case."

"Then let this god‑computing element miscalculate once."

"Hehe—hahaha—"

Duotuo Lei burst into laughter again.

But this time his laughter lacked the previous madness; instead, it carried a touch of sorrow and resolve.

Zhongli somewhat failed to grasp his emotional shift, continuing to stare at him, fully on guard.

"No need to look at me like that."

"That trump card as a backup—I won't use it again."

"This also counts as me winning back a city, right?"

No longer the previous dejection and loss, Duotuo Lei smiled, pointing at the Lidugu experimental base, and said: "Originally in my plan, if all my plans failed, I would use the collected Archon's resentment and Abyssal Power together to contaminate this machine, forcing Luo De to sit in it himself; then the self‑destruct device inside would detonate as soon as anyone sat in the cockpit."

"Just like this."

"Bang—"

Duotulei made a gesture of fireworks exploding, smiling: "Even if he successfully inherits godhood, under the power of this god-level mechanical explosion, he won't be able to get out of bed for ten or eight years."

You've thought very thoroughly.

Zhongli slightly raised his eyes, shook his head, and said.

Duotulei's move is indeed vicious, but it's still the kind of vicious move that Luo De knows is a trap yet must jump into.

Archon's resentment plus the power of the Abyss.

These two things together, given the capacity of that divine body, are absolutely a huge amount of pollution; besides Luo De, no other person or divine being could withstand the level of pollution on this machine.

And once Luo De resolves the pollution issue and steps onto the polluted divine body, the self-destruct will come as promised, blowing up the Luo De inside into severe injury.

This way, Duotulei can not only retaliate against Luo De's strike against him, but also completely destroy the Ice Queen's plan, thereby retaliating against her abandonment of him.

Zhongli didn't hold back his praise: "It's indeed a very perfect, very influential plan."

Hmph—

What a pity.

Unable to see that guy's sorry state in person.

Duotulei shook his head with a hint of regret, then immediately threw a strangely shaped piece of hard iron at Zhongli.

This is the key to that machine.

It is also the only key that can dismantle his self-destruct program.

After throwing that thing, Duotulei felt as if he had lost all his strength, weakly sitting on the bench, silently looking up at the sky.

Er

After receiving the key, Zhongli examined it carefully for a while.

Then he also glanced at Duotulei, who seemed somewhat lost and dispirited.

After a brief hesitation.

He then took out another key identical to the one Duotulei gave.

Duotulei, who had originally stopped caring about worldly affairs, didn't even glance this way.

But I don't know why.

He just felt something in his heart, suddenly got an impulse, and glanced over at Zhongli.

It's fine if he doesn't look.

As soon as he saw the other key in Zhongli's hand, Duotulei, who had barely regained his confidence and pride, instantly froze like a wooden chicken.

What is this in your hand? Where did it come from?

Duotulei felt like he was about to go crazy.

The key he painstakingly made, how could he see an identical one in someone else's hand in the blink of an eye?

Oh, this.

Zhongli waved the new key in his hand, calmly replied: "This was given to me by Little Friend Luo De. He said that the scholars working with you all carry Void Terminals, and while working with you, they have completely scanned the structure of this divine body, and then discovered this backdoor."

Zhongli pondered for a moment, then raised a finger and said: "Little Friend Luo De said that back then, breaking the Void still had its uses."

Duotulei was completely speechless.

He had thought of everything, but never imagined that the Void could analyze objects; with its ability comparable to a supercomputer, the backdoor he left behind, as long as someone with intent uploads the divine body's entire structure, will surely be detected by the Void.

And now.

He has been utterly defeated, even his last backdoor has been cracked, and there's nothing left he can bring to bear.

Damn bastard thing.

After a mournful burst of laughter, Duotulei chose to end his own life, in his own way, without relying on others, drawing an imperfect end to his crazy life.

(End of chapter)