Chapter 66

Although both board games and live-action battle royale games prioritized the capital for their store openings, the ones truly most deeply influenced and affected by the games were Helian Cheng’s northwestern army and the Rirong spies lurking in Qizhou.

Putting aside the northwestern grand encampment for the moment, let us first speak of the Rirong spies.

This time, Rirong’s southward advance to launch a war, encroaching upon frontier towns and engaging in pillaging and slaughter, was merely secondary—or rather, the Rirong commander who issued this order, namely the Great Chancellor of the Desert Kingdom, Bilege, was well aware that even if they deliberately intercepted the dispatches of the northwestern army to prevent them from receiving timely reinforcements, as long as Helian Cheng did not die, the northwestern army would not fall into chaos, and their grand ambition of entering the Central Plains and unifying the realm would remain an unachievable dream.

Sure enough, this surprise attack had not succeeded; of the five-thousand-strong force, fewer than three thousand ultimately returned. Being able to burn down the northwestern camp on their way back was truly an unexpected bonus.

Fortunately, this was not Bilege’s primary objective. On the surface, he had mobilized troops on a grand scale, matching the magnitude of a full-scale war against Daqi, making it look like the annual seizure of supplies. In reality, however, he had prepared an elite force disguised as Daqi commoners, who were dispersed and blended into various towns to establish intelligence outposts against Daqi. This laid a solid foundation for expelling the northwestern army, seizing political power in Qizhou, and ultimately executing their grand blueprint of invading the Central Plains later on.

Bilege had calculated exceptionally well. The towns he meticulously selected were those with the highest concentration of mixed-blood faces. The moment they breached these places, their first move was to set the towns on fire, directly reducing the government offices housing household registration records to unrecognizable ashes. Afterward, there were numerous other schemes; in short, the spies successfully infiltrated the towns and settled down securely.

Bilege had performed surface theatrics to perfection, genuinely sacrificing the lives of two thousand soldiers. As a result, Helian Cheng truly failed to perceive any hidden clues, only pondering how to intimidate these barbarians so they would not dare head south to plague the borderlands.

Bilege could not help feeling immensely pleased with himself, as if he had already beheld the magnificent future scene of slaying Helian Cheng, routing the northwestern army, and storming into the Central Plains.

Then, Bilege received his first intelligence report. He remained utterly dumbfounded for quite a while before cursing furiously, "Sand table games? I had you slip in there just to play sand table games? Fun? Interesting? Just how fun and interesting can a mere sand table game possibly be? And they call it Daqi’s secret weapon, the descent of the Eternal Sky... In your amusement you have lost your ambition, you bunch of good-for-nothings!"

The Eternal Sky referred to the blue vault of heaven; the Rirong people regarded the Eternal Sky as their supreme deity and the symbol of eternity.

The spies Bilege had chosen were the elite of the elite. While their keenness might not match that of Fuling, they were at least on par with Cui Zui, and they quickly discovered that the sand table game possessed the function of enhancing physical performance.

One faction believed this must undoubtedly be the most classified troop-training method of the northwestern army; another faction argued, "Since any sand table can achieve this degree, this is clearly the function of the sand table," firmly believing that this was the descent of the Eternal Sky, bestowing upon them a divine weapon for victory.

Later on, the sand table game suddenly became utterly ordinary. Although it was still the same gameplay as before, the images in their minds were no longer clear and coherent, playing it was no longer as interesting as before, and their bodies no longer received any enhancements.

The Rirong spies belonging to the pro-Eternal Sky faction instantly became even more agitated, shouting, "It is all because you refused to believe in the Eternal Sky and angered the deity, causing Him to withdraw His divine powers! This is entirely your fault; you are the sinners of our Desert Kingdom!"

Bilege—who, driven by his subordinates' absolute conviction and taking the risk to come over with half-doubt to experience whether this sand table game was truly so miraculous, found himself thinking: "..."

Although his subordinates had split into two opposing factions, what they spoke of pointed to the exact same thing. Bilege hesitated between whether they were collectively rebelling to fool him, or whether it was genuinely real and he had simply arrived at an unfortunate time and missed it. Ultimately, the Great Chancellor, who called himself a wise man, painfully chose the latter possibility.

For this reason, Bilege chose to remain in the town, personally presiding over the Desert Kingdom’s Intelligence Center stationed in Daqi. At this time, however, he had no idea that this choice would be the turning point of his life's destiny, leading him to make countless decisions in the years ahead that went entirely against the wishes of his ancestors.

*

As for the anomalies concerning the sand table game, though others remained clueless, both Helian Cheng and Dr. Chang were well aware of it, knowing this was undoubtedly the handiwork of Long Aotian.

Gazing at the restored battle situation within the chess-board-sized mini sand table before him, Helian Cheng lowered his gaze and stared for a long time at the ten small wooden figurines huddled together. He picked up a writing brush and swiftly jotted down phrases on paper, such as "Helian Cheng used Flash, Zhou Yushu exchanged positions with the Empress Dowager using his third skill, Dr. Chang's second skill... Qian Dezhong..." and the like.

Had anyone from Zhaoyang Palace been present, they would instantly have recognized this as a match they had played once before.

Since the server only permitted IP logins from the capital and Qizhou, and the northwestern army held a blind confidence in Helian Cheng and Dr. Chang—not to mention the fact that both hero skills were indeed quite good—the probability of these two character cards appearing among the opponents matched by Xue Jin'an and his companions was exceptionally high.

Among them, some played well while others did not. In the match Helian Cheng was deducing, the losing MVP was Qian Dezhong, and the performances of Helian Cheng and Dr. Chang could not be considered particularly stellar.

Presumably, even Xue Jin'an would never have guessed that these were actually operated by real people in the flesh.

Helian Cheng had even been chewed out by a teammate for failing to play his own character well, with that teammate arrogantly clamoring, "If you don't know how to play Helian Cheng, you should have said so earlier! Give that hero to me and I'd slaughter the entire opposing side straight through, alright? Tsk, it's precisely because the northwestern army has good-for-nothings like you that Rirong dares to be so arrogant! If it were us from the Imperial Guard, hehe, mere Rirong..."

——At that moment, the battle dispatches from Qizhou had finally reached the capital, spreading like wildfire. All civil and military officials in the imperial court were filled with righteous indignation over Rirong's burning of the towns. The peace faction suggested dispatching envoys to the Mobei royal court to interrogate the Rirong Khan, while the war faction raised their arms and shouted, "No need to send envoys, just order the northwestern army to strike directly and question them!"

However, the voices of these two factions were ultimately suppressed by the Minister of Revenue, Feng Yinshou, whose stance was simple: "Whether we dispatch envoys or wage war, whichever side does not come to me for funds, I shall stand with that side."

Immediately, the clamoring officials of both factions fell silent. Only Xu Pingchuan, the Minister of War—who at that time had not yet resolved the issue of military expenditures—stepped forward, seizing every opportunity to beg for money.

"When all is said and done, it is simply that Daqi's military is not formidable enough, which is why those barbarian thieves dare to harbor covetous desires. We should drill our troops more diligently and enhance the military's strength..." After a torrent of impassioned words, he shook with righteousness and said in a ringing voice, "Your Majesty, this subject believes military expenditures should be increased by another thirty percent. If so, within five years, no petty villains will ever dare offend Daqi again!"

Having long guessed what Xu Pingchuan intended to do and too lazy to refute him, Feng Yinshou simply knelt directly before the Emperor and, without batting an eye, recited a passage reminiscent of the *Memorial on Expressing Feelings* to tender his resignation: "Your Majesty, this subject is fifty-five years old this year, and my mother is seventy-six. The days left for this subject to display loyalty to Your Majesty are long, while the days left to repay and care for my mother are short..."

This resignation was handled in an extremely perfunctory manner, clearly intended to seal someone's lips. Even the Emperor, who was quite accustomed to such scenes, could not help but massage his brow and cast a sideways glance at the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet standing at the very front acting as background scenery.

Sighing inwardly as he wished to have zero involvement in this mess, Jiang Wan ultimately stepped forward to smooth things over. Though he spoke at great length, his words translated roughly to: It's the festive season, let's not make things too ugly; the Emperor values his dignity as well. Furthermore, Rirong is Daqi's hidden ulcer, a fact known to all, and a battle will inevitably be fought in the future. But that battle is certainly not happening this year, especially since this year is almost at an end, and General Helian has already won a victory... Whatever matters remain can wait until next year to be discussed.

Thus, the affair concerning the northwest was temporarily shelved.

Jiang Wan’s words were exceedingly plain and easy to understand; even a child on the street could comprehend them. For an Imperial Guard soldier to utter such remarks could basically be deemed intentional.

As the army tasked with guarding the imperial capital, the Imperial Guard had plenty of connections stuffed into its ranks, causing many of its officers and soldiers to hold an inflated view of themselves and look down upon other armies, particularly the northwestern army stationed in Qizhou to confront Rirong.

While these people did not dare point fingers and curse at Helian Cheng directly, whispering cynical remarks behind his backs was entirely second nature to them.

Helian Cheng, who had been pointedly cursed at: "..."

Ultimately, it was Dr. Chang's set of three successive sarcastic remarks that turned the tables:

"Is that so? Then how many battle achievements do you currently have? Why aren't you out slaying enemies and wiping out bandits? Don't you like it?"

"You die an awful lot of times, don't you? Striving so hard to die—is it because you haven't found a style of death you actually like?"

"Why aren't you exerting yourself yet? What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for the Rirong army?"

This barrage effectively passive-aggressively forced that Imperial Guard soldier offline out of sheer frustration.

Of course, the reason Helian Cheng was repeating this match using the sand table was not out of nostalgia for Dr. Chang's rare sharp tongue, but rather because he was interested in Long Aotian’s tactics—yes, the moment they clashed, Helian Cheng knew that the person controlling Minister Chu on the opposing side was Long Aotian.

He did not suspect Long Aotian’s true identity because of this; both he and Dr. Chang unanimously believed that since Long Aotian had created this game, it was entirely possible for the opponent to manipulate all the characters, never once suspecting that Long Aotian himself was restricted by the rules of his own ability.

It was only a pity that after Helian Cheng finished grinding and reached a state of effortless mastery over the game's mechanics, he could no longer get matched with Xue Jin'an. As the sand table game soon shifted into a battle royale, he could only regretfully find a small sand table by himself to repeatedly deduce this sole matchup over and over again.

Yet this time, the outcome deduced by Helian Cheng still ended in failure, prompting him to sigh with emotion: "His tactical layout is truly meticulous; there is simply no opening to exploit."

This skirmish inside the small sand table had been proactively initiated by Long Aotian’s side. Helian Cheng’s deduction began from the moment the team fight broke out; however, the moment he started deducing, he was shocked to discover that every seemingly casual step taken by the opponent was actually meticulously planned by Long Aotian.

Long Aotian had calculated every single possibility, so no matter how Helian Cheng altered his positioning or adjusted his skill sequences, victory remained entirely out of reach. The absolute best result he could achieve was managing to keep himself as the sole survivor.

What a terrifying layout capability!

Sighing with emotion, Helian Cheng inadvertently glanced at the battle situation on the large sand table, which displayed the opposing forces of the current military exercise.

The three-day military exercise had begun the previous night upon the division of camps. A total of eight thousand troops were deployed, divided into the Blue Flag Camp and the Red Flag Camp. Whichever side successfully breached the opposing camp to capture the flag, or whose troop losses reached eighty percent, would be deemed victorious. Meanwhile, Helian Cheng, acting as the referee for this duel, independently commanded a two-thousand-strong force stationed at the main base, welcoming attacks from both sides.

In Helian Cheng’s projection, the main base was the easiest to defend and hardest to attack, and given his relatively rich combat experience, both sides should have directly reached a consensus to eliminate his side first before settling other scores. However, both the Red and Blue factions instead treated Helian Cheng as an extra boss stage, intending to first decide a victor between themselves before coming after him.

Helian Cheng could understand their mindset; after all, the commanders of both sides were his direct subordinates, so reluctance to come into direct conflict with him was understandable. Yet, after reviewing the "steady and error-free" tactical deployments of both sides, he still could not help but feel a twinge of regret.