Lu Heng

Biodata

Power Progression

Background

Lu Heng studied pharmacy in the real world and was already familiar with medicinal herbs before obtaining his profession. He also belonged to the military and knew Song Tangqiu before entering the Survival Apartment. Unlike Song Tangqiu, he did not enter the apartment deliberately 40 108.

He knew that the authorities had learned of the apartment through a plane-crash survivor who returned and demonstrated physical changes. However, he could not obtain current research details from Song Tangqiu: information about real-world investigations into the apartment was muted, while ordinary conversation remained unaffected 108.

Appearance

• Amber eyes, noted during his conversations with Su Cheng and after his rescue from Shunshun Tunnel 108 169.
• White medical protective clothing while treating plague patients in Bru Village 38.
• Cross necklace worn deliberately to reinforce his identity as a divine envoy; it is an ordinary accessory rather than a supernatural item 39.

Personality

Lu Heng is courteous, guarded, and commercially minded. At their first meeting, he maintains a safe distance from Su Cheng and offers his own information when he realizes he has questioned her without reciprocating. He treats information, medicine, supplies, and protection as negotiable resources, but explicitly considers basic mutual trust essential to a successful trade 38 40 108.

His medical work combines practical incentives with assistance to others. Treating villagers earns profession experience, and he arranges continued care because relapses carry a penalty. Nevertheless, he cures Bru Village’s remaining plague cases and later confronts Shen Ying after encountering her slaughtering natives 40 42 108.

He remains analytical under supernatural pressure. In Shunshun Tunnel, he tests whether the game’s rules bind ghosts as well as humans, refusing to react to threats that would provoke him into breaking those rules. His trust in Su Cheng also becomes increasingly explicit: he shares a conflicting mission without bargaining and later allows her to remove his Calamity Seed 166 167 171 173.

Abilities & Skills

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

His profession converts herbs and other medicinal materials into tablets, pills, injectable solutions, and poisons according to their properties 38 40.

• Medicinal production: Creates antidiarrheal tablets, stomach-protecting pills, antibiotics, painkillers, and hallucinogens. He describes the resulting medicines as stronger than ordinary equivalents and free of side effects 40.
• Plague treatment: Produces antibiotics effective against the Black Death and treats both mild and severe cases in Bru Village 38 40.
• Poison extraction: Processes five jin of poisonous mushrooms into 190 ml of lethal poison and 200 ml of hallucinogenic poison, doubling their potency 109.
• Drug refinement: Extracts medicines from existing tablets while removing side effects. His refined green tablets aid memory and amnesia, while refined white tablets help repair emotional stress responses 109.
• Mental-attack countermeasures: Supplies potions that reduce the effects of the deceptive figures outside White Moon City 171.
• Restorative medicine: Uses healing, strength-enhancing, and energy-replenishing medicines during dangerous encounters 172 173.

Profession Experience and Limits

• Experience gain: Every person he saves grants profession experience; more serious illnesses yield greater rewards 40.
• Relapse penalty: If a patient relapses within twenty-four hours, nearly half the experience earned from that treatment is deducted 40.
• Processing time: Converting five jin of poisonous mushrooms requires approximately four hours 108.
• Supply constraints: When infected travelers approach Bru Village, his available medicine can save only some of the mildly ill patients 39.
• Usage guidance: He advises against continuously taking his refined memory medicine for more than a week 109.

Medical and Epidemic-Control Skills

• Herbal knowledge: Identifies and gathers medicinal plants, including plants that repel mosquitoes and insects 38.
• Patient care: Treats Song Tangqiu’s gunshot wound and recognizes the need for a cleaner environment before debridement 107 108.
• Infection prevention: Works within Bru Village’s quarantine and disinfection arrangements, changing protective clothing after contact with infected patients 38 40.

Firearms and Combat

• Coordinated shooting: Fires at difficult angles while Su Cheng pressures Shen Ying, helping force her retreat 107.
• Instruction: Teaches Su Cheng shooting fundamentals and provides further guidance over two days 109.
• Sustained combat: Fights alongside Song Tangqiu against a giant python and surrounding snakes, killing the python while Su Cheng pursues Shen Ying 110.
• Specialization limit: His development prioritizes pharmaceutical efficiency rather than direct combat, leaving him disadvantaged against combat-focused opponents such as Shen Ying 108.

Supernatural Rule Analysis

• Safe questioning: Uses “What’s your name?” after catching ghosts in Shunshun Tunnel, avoiding provocative questions about their deaths 166.
• Rule testing: Correctly deduces that repeated questions are permitted despite the ghosts’ claims, and that their threats are intended to provoke violations 167.
• Vulnerability to cheating penalties: His ability to see through a substituted blindfold ultimately exposes him to punishment from the tunnel itself 167.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Handgun and ammunition — Used against Shen Ying and the giant python. He trades one hundred bullets and shooting instruction for Su Cheng’s Spirit Talisman 107 109 110.
• Long staff — Takes it with him when investigating the appearance of snakes in the forest 109.
• White jade clasp — A protective item that heats up near supernatural danger. It shatters while releasing a silvery-white light that briefly repels the tunnel’s invading energy 163 166 167.
• Astrolabe — Activated with blood from his fingertip to locate a giant shadow carrying what the group seeks; a crack appears during use 172.
• Spirit Talisman — Acquired from Su Cheng after he failed to obtain one at auction 109.
• Cross necklace — A prop for his divine-envoy identity, lent to Su Cheng when she confronts the infected travelers 39.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Plague Instance

Lu Heng first meets Su Cheng while gathering plants in the mountains. By then, he has spent four days in a seven-day survival mission and has brought the plague in Bru Village under control. The villagers revere him as a divine envoy, and he treats patients in a designated quarantine zone 38.

When armed infected travelers approach the village, Su Cheng warns him and helps prevent bloodshed by staging a divine manifestation. Lu Heng keeps the arrivals outside the village and negotiates further trades with her: profession information in exchange for her assistance, followed by medicine production in exchange for twenty-four hours of care for recovered villagers after his departure 39 40.

He leaves after curing every remaining plague case in the village. His departure alarms the villagers, but Su Cheng reassures them before their relocation into the mountains 42.

Competitive Match and Forest Reunion

Xu Shaowei identifies Lu Heng as the second-place contestant in a competitive match won by Shen Ying. She also recalls buying medicine from him at a substantial cost in supplies 102.

Su Cheng later encounters him and the wounded Song Tangqiu fighting Shen Ying. After helping drive her away, she guides them to shelter. Lu Heng exchanges pneumonia medicine for lodging, reveals his military affiliation, and negotiates an arrangement splitting his manufactured medicine with Su Cheng in return for protecting him and Song Tangqiu 107 108.

During their stay, he refines Su Cheng’s poisons and medicines and teaches her to shoot. When Shen Ying attacks through a giant python and numerous snakes, he and Song Tangqiu kill the python while Su Cheng confronts her 109 110.

Out-of-Control City

With contestants’ memories sealed, Lu Heng becomes a paranormal streamer on Star Moon, gaining nearly a million followers from only two videos. Both recordings capture genuine supernatural attacks. Although he realizes that he does not belong to this world, he cannot initially remember his original circumstances 147 162 163.

During a livestream in Shunshun Tunnel, he and Yun Xi participate in a deadly blind-man’s-buff game. Lu Heng discovers how to survive by following its rules, but a substituted see-through blindfold leads to his exposure as a cheater. The tunnel attacks him, destroys his protective jade clasp, and embeds him in its wall 166 167 169.

Su Cheng frees him, dispels the yin energy in his body, and brings him back to the hotel. His memories return after the rescue. He then reveals that his mission—to stop the New Year’s gala—opposes the others’ apparent objective 169 170 171.

Investigating beyond the city with Su Cheng and Wang Tai, he uses his astrolabe to locate a giant shadow. A Calamity Seed subsequently drives him and Wang Tai into violent conflict. Su Cheng removes both seeds, with Lu Heng cooperating despite the pain 172 173.

He accompanies Su Cheng and Yan Xing to the mall rooftop, finds a box of Calamity Seeds on the cardinal’s body, and helps fight the creature that emerges from it. Before the instance ends, he asks to meet Su Cheng again after their return 174 176.

Special Affairs Bureau Recruitment

Lu Heng later invites Su Cheng to join the government’s Special Affairs Bureau. After presenting the official benefits, he personally asks her to become his captain. She accepts 179.

Relationships

• Su Cheng — Recurring trading partner, combat ally, and rescuer. Their dealings develop from cautious exchanges into substantial trust; he eventually recruits her for the Special Affairs Bureau and asks her to be his captain 38 40 108 169 173 179.
• Song Tangqiu — Military associate known before entering the apartment. Lu Heng treats his gunshot wound, arranges protection for both of them, and fights beside him against the giant python 108 110.
• Shen Ying — Enemy since the competitive matches. Their hostility continues when he encounters her killing natives; she later appears as his temporary assistant while his memories are sealed 108 163.
• Yun Xi — Fellow paranormal streamer and participant in the Shunshun Tunnel game. She follows his example in exploiting the ghosts’ obligation to obey the rules 162 166 167.
• Wang Tai — Companion during the investigation outside White Moon City. They attack one another under the influence of Calamity Seeds before Su Cheng removes the seeds 171 172 173.
• Xu Shaowei — Former medicine customer who encountered him during a competitive instance 102.
• Bru Village residents — Patients who trust and revere him as a divine envoy. He cures their plague and arranges follow-up care before leaving 38 40 42.

Notable Quotes

“Besides, every trade should be built on a basic level of mutual trust.” 40

“That’s my question. You have to answer it, or you’re breaking the rules!” 167

“My savior, take your pick.” 170