Chapter 60

Xue Jin'an never expected that a single sandbox could activate two games, both of which were large-scale combat games. The difference was that one was a five-on-five tower-pushing team battle game, while the other was a tactical survival game supporting solo, duo, or squad combat against players across the entire map.

For a moment, Xue Jin'an was unsure how to choose, so he simply had people carry the sandbox into the room.

The sandbox prepared by Helian Cheng was intended for military operations and was extremely large and heavy, making it impossible to place on the stone table in the courtyard. To ensure the sandbox remained intact, Fulu specifically found three guards of similar height and build, instructing them to apply force simultaneously from three directions to carry it inside.

While Fulu went to fetch the men, Lingzhi immediately tidied up the largest desk in the study, barely managing to accommodate the sandbox.

Watching the guards carefully set down the sandbox and anxiously inspect it to ensure the terrain inside remained completely undamaged, Xue Jin'an let out a relieved sigh.

"Have some tea before you go, elder brothers. Sorry for the trouble," Shouquan said, quite adept at winning people over. Without waiting for their refusal, he poured them tea and quietly slipped a piece of broken silver into each of their hands. "We'll be living together for a long time, and there will surely be times when we have to trouble you. Please bear with us, brothers."

Shouquan naturally looked younger than his years, and when he smiled, he wore an innocent and harmless expression that effortlessly inspired a certain fondness.

The three guard brothers exchanged glances and readily accepted the silver. After all, their superiors had not instructed them to make things difficult for the Seventh Prince. Their captain had said that the Seventh Prince could do whatever he pleased within Zhaoyang Palace; as long as he didn't run outside, they should simply pretend to know nothing.

Whether they accepted this money or not would not affect their decision to turn a blind eye to the Seventh Prince's actions. Since that was the case, why shouldn't they take it?

In truth, everyone in Zhaoyang Palace was well aware of what these guards were thinking and understood why they thought that way. It was nothing more than the Seventh Prince having the Empress Dowager to back him up, while the Emperor's attitude remained ambiguous, leaving them reluctant to cause too much offense.

However, Shouquan and the others understood very well that relying on others could never compare to relying on oneself. The Empress Dowager's influence could be borrowed once or twice, but not indefinitely. Spending money to grease palms and win people over was still necessary.

Shouquan served the three guards two plates of pastries as well. "It's freezing outside after all. Warm up before you leave."

Seeing this scene, Lingzhi nodded with considerable gratification. The Seventh Prince had two eunuchs by his side: Fulu was loyal and steadfast, while Shouquan was meticulous and thoughtful. Most importantly, neither of them held the prince back—they were doing very well.

She turned behind the screen and entered the inner chambers, only to see the Seventh Prince glance at the screen and slightly frown, though he said nothing. With a soft laugh, she thought to herself: *Well, the Prince didn't hold them back either. That's also very good.*

Xue Jin'an had indeed heard what Shouquan said to the guards and could even tell from the wind passing through the air that Shouquan had slipped them silver. Xue Jin'an didn't find it immoral or anything of the sort; he simply felt that the amount of money given was a bit too much.

Although ever since Teacher Xiao X upgraded and started scampering daily to fleece the Emperor, his accumulated wealth meant Xue Jin'an was no longer short of money, before that, Xue Jin'an had been a poor soldier earning a salary of fifty wen.

Yet, feeling it was too much was one thing, but Xue Jin'an had no intention of stopping them. He trusted Fulu and Shouquan quite a bit, knowing that they must have their reasons for doing such things.

"Master!" Cui Zui arrived at that exact moment. Treating himself entirely as one of the family, he untied his heavy cloak and casually tossed it over a chair, calling out as he walked inward: "Master, you're actually not practicing martial arts in the courtyard at this hour today. What happened?"

He turned into the inner chamber and instantly spotted the sandbox occupying the entire desk, exclaiming in surprise, "Where did this sandbox come from?"

As the saying goes, those who stay near vermin are tainted with red, and those who stay near ink are stained black. Cui Zui had been by Xue Jin'an's side for quite some while now; simply watching him solve problems had made him familiar with many mountains and rivers. Coupled with the fact that he had read numerous military books after deciding to pursue the path of martial arts, he quickly recognized the terrain within the sandbox. "Isn't this Qizhou, where the Northwest Army is stationed?"

Xue Jin'an nodded to confirm his words.

Cui Zui's hands instantly grew itchy, and he wanted to play a match of combat. Xue Jin'an raised no objections and casually asked whether he wanted to play the five-on-five team arena or the arena where a single team faced players across the entire map.

Without any hesitation, Cui Zui chose the latter: "Since it's a game, naturally one should choose the most thrilling and exciting option."

"You don't even know the rules yet; how can you determine which one is more thrilling? In this world, the most thrilling and exciting thing has always been the human heart." Lingzhi chose the team arena.

Fulu and Shouquan declared they understood none of this and did not intend to participate in the debate. Lingzhi therefore called for Fuling, who didn't even ask what it was about and unhesitatingly stood on her side.

"Alright, then it's Honor Gorge," Xue Jin'an decided on the spot. "However, we're still missing one person."

Since neither Fulu nor Shouquan played, this last spot very fortunately fell upon Xuan Eleven, who had no right of refusal whatsoever.

Xue Jin'an explained the rules and gameplay to them—things like the top, middle, and bottom lanes, jungling and supporting. The few people hearing this for the first time listened very intently, and beneath their earnestness was an eagerness to try.

Since they were all novices playing for the first time, to avoid conflicts, they discussed and settled their positions from the very beginning: Lingzhi took the top lane, Fuling the middle lane, Cui Zui the iron marksman took the bottom lane, Xuan Eleven jungled, and Xue Jin'an filled the support role.

The five of them stood before the sandbox as Xue Jin'an started the game. Magical energy flowed from his fingertips into the game panel, which instantly burst with a sky full of scattered shooting stars, dazzling and mesmerizing to behold.

[Match successful. Please select a hero.]

Following adaptation, all the hero characters in Honor Gorge had been replaced by famous figures from this world, and different skins and skills also varied subtly. For example, if there was a hero named Xue Jin'an in the game, there would be the original skin Xue Jin'an and the artifact-spirit Xue Jin'an. Although they were judged to be the same hero, they were actually not the same person, and their skills were naturally worlds apart.

As for what heroes they possessed, it depended entirely on the people they usually interacted with, and which skins could be activated based on their intimacy levels or interaction indices with those people... In short, because the hero selection phase itself was filled with uncertainty, the game system simply chose not to make the opponents' choices public.

A blue page popped up in front of each person, displaying the heroes they possessed.

Xue Jin'an felt that ever since he came to this world, he had been quite law-abiding and well-behaved, having interacted with very few people, so he shouldn't have many heroes. Yet when the page popped up, he saw dense, countless rows of avatars.

The front row featured: Imperial Concubine skin Zhou Yuting, Chu Wenjing skin Zhou Yuzhuo, original skin Empress Dowager, original skin Lu Bingzhu, original skin Master Cen, Master skin Cui Pengfei, disciple skin Cui Zui... These were heroes activated by intimacy.

Meanwhile, those activated by interaction indices further down were numerous, and surprisingly, the only positive indices belonged to Li鹤春 and the Fifth Prince; everything else—the original skin Emperor, the sarira skin Chu Wenwan, the zombie skin Xiao Shu, the manic-depressive skin Fourth Prince... were all negative indices.

Actually, if Xue Jin'an wasn't playing the support role, he really would have liked to try out some of the negative-index heroes.

One had to know that the skills of these heroes were all determined based on aspects such as their personality traits and life experiences. The sarira Chu Wenwan, the zombie Xiao Shu, and so on sounded quite interesting. Whether he played them or not wasn't important; he mainly just wanted to see the effects of their skills.

Unfortunately, the time for selecting heroes was short and not enough for Xue Jin'an to scan their skills into his mind one by one. But it didn't matter; the game wouldn't run away anyway, so he could just save it for next time.

Based on the answers provided by the data analysis, Xue Jin'an chose Zhou Yuzhuo.

Zhou Yuzhuo with the Chu Wenjing skin had his life experiences divided into three parts: researching Gu worms in Dianzhou, replacing Chu Wenjing's identity to infiltrate the Chu family, and finally participating in the struggle for the throne and seeking revenge as occurred in the original plot.

Therefore, Zhou Yuzhuo's first and second skills were both names of Gu worms, with their effects being Gu poison stack damage and debuff cleansing respectively; the third skill could randomly swap the positions of any two people on the field, while the fourth skill sacrificed 60% of health to deal 200% damage to a marked enemy.

Soon, everyone finished their selections and clicked ready one after another. It was only at this moment that the heroes chosen by both sides were exposed.

Well, the opposing side consisted of three Helian Chens and two Dr. Changs. A single glance told them these were people from the Northwest Army; it was thanks to this being a low-tier match that repeating heroes was permitted.

Xue Jin'an's side consisted of: Lingzhi in the top lane (original skin—Empress Dowager), Fuling in the middle lane (original skin—Lu Bingzhu), Cui Zui in the bottom lane (rebel king—Cui Zui), Xue Jin'an supporting (Chu Wenjing—Zhou Yuzhuo), and Xuan Eleven jungling (original skin—Emperor).

...Wait, had some dirty thing snuck in there? Xue Jin'an fell into silence as he looked at that Emperor.

"Why did you choose him?" Xue Jin'an issued a soul-searching question.

Xuan Eleven swallowed his saliva and said with a bitter expression, "Your Highness, this maid has only activated a single hero."

Xuan Eleven lied. In truth, he had activated many heroes—so many that he couldn't even count them himself.

After all, he was a member of the Bureau of Attire; he didn't know how many secrets he had spied on and handled for the Emperor. It could be said that every famous and living official in Great Qi was among them.

Yet, numerous as they were, Xuan Eleven simply dared not bring them out, especially the Bureau of Attire skin of himself. Releasing any of those would be exposing his identity as a spy—even though everyone seemed to already know tacitly and simply hadn't torn away the pretense.

However, Xuan Eleven's self-esteem as a spy did not allow such a mistake to occur, so he took a bold step and locked in the original skin Emperor.

"His Majesty is quite formidable," Xuan Eleven argued in a small voice.

"Really? I don't believe it." The Emperor's ineptitude had already deeply rooted itself in Xue Jin'an's mind.

Xuan Eleven immediately swore that he would play this game properly.

And as facts proved, Xue Jin'an's suspicions were extremely well-founded.