Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 169 - 164: A Thousand Miles Without a Cock’s Crow

Chapter 169: Chapter 164: A Thousand Miles Without a Cock’s Crow

In Return Order Space, Zhao Haiping was also ready to enter this new instance of Trial Illusion.

Although he hadn’t cleared the Cavalry Trial instance yet or received the riding skills, Zhao Haiping decided to set it aside for now.

On one hand, because his progress in the Cavalry instance was good, clearing it was only a matter of time; on the other hand, he was curious about this new instance.

"The ’Heroic Spirit from Humble Beginnings’ instance", everyone guessed, was a special instance for the founding emperor of the Great Sheng Dynasty.

According to the previous update announcement, this instance featured a solo main character, and its difficulty was the highest in the entire Great Sheng Dynasty.

That is to say, any player, regardless of identity or profession, would play as Emperor Taizu of Sheng upon entering.

However, the update announcement also stated that the instance was divided into different stages, allowing players to freely form teams to tackle each stage separately, and the final rankings would be based on the team’s clearance scores.

Many players speculated that this might be due to the instance’s high difficulty, hence the necessity to play it in segments.

The life journey of Emperor Taizu of Sheng started with a bowl and ended with reinventing Huaxia. Throughout the entire process, there was much that was recorded in the history books.

In different historical periods, he faced entirely different challenges: in his youth, he faced survival challenges; later, as he joined the Rebel Army and pacified the Northern Barbarians, he faced military challenges; and in his later years, when governing the country, he faced challenges in politics, economics, and institutional reforms.

Players generally severely lacked in some areas, and even if there were all-rounders, they were very few.

Thus, it would clearly be too difficult for a single player to tackle all these challenges.

Therefore, players could freely form teams and tackle different historical stages and be ranked based on team scores.

However, there was some discrepancy among players concerning the "freely tackling different historical stages".

For instance, if you were playing as the young Emperor Taizu and I as the youth Emperor Taizu, what would happen if you mismanaged and starved to death? Then what should I do?

These specific rules were still unclear.

So, Zhao Haiping planned to first explore the situation, especially if teamwork was required, to quickly find a reliable team to compete for the leaderboard.

After all, teams with higher rankings during this clearance could obtain more resources and higher positions in the upcoming Return Order Expedition.

...

In Return Order Space, the chaos of time and space continued to roll.

Representing the historical timeline, the river of history extended further into the distance, and in front of the "Sealing Nobility Against My Will" instance, a new instance appeared: "Heroic Spirit from Humble Beginnings".

This time, the extension was longer than before and somewhat obstructed ahead.

It seemed like a dim, murky barrier momentarily halting the advancement of the historical timeline.

This indicated that the battle line between Return Order and the demons was temporarily stuck here; only by cracking the "Heroic Spirit from Humble Beginnings" instance could they continue to break through upward.

The "Heroic Spirit from Humble Beginnings" instance, like a shining star in the sky, played a crucial role as the main star in the entire constellation.

Zhao Haiping took a deep breath and stepped into the Trial Illusion.

Then, he found himself in an entirely new starting scene.

It was a wilderness.

As far as his eyes could see, the ground was cracked, the yellow earth displayed interwoven fissures. There were no grasses, no trees, only holes from dug up roots and bark-stripped dead trees.

In the nearby village, he could hardly see any living people moving about, only several emaciated corpses lay on the roadside with flies swarming everywhere.

Such scenes naturally made Zhao Haiping think of a few lines of poetry.

"White bones revealed in the field, over thousands of miles no roosters crow; out of the hundred living people, only one remains, such thoughts sever one’s gut!"

This was clearly a scene after a drought.

But not long after, the scene changed again.

Still at the same place, but this time, a waft of black smoke drifted from afar.

When the black mass got closer, Zhao Haiping realized that it wasn’t smoke at all, but a vast swarm of locusts.

These locusts, like a sandstorm, gnawed everything in sight, all flora and fauna.

Soon, they flew away.

Next, there came a flood. The turbid floodwaters swiftly engulfed everything, turning everything nearby into marshland, and the villagers floated and sank with the floodwater, eventually disappearing from Zhao Haiping’s sight.

Zhao Haiping had not yet officially started the Trial Illusion, so he witnessed all this from a kind of god-like perspective.

Only by witnessing such cruel scenes could one understand that the historical records of "people eating each other during great disasters" were not an exaggeration but a very real recording.

In front of Zhao Haiping, identity cards appeared.

These cards were styled like the ones from the previous two Trial Illusions, beautifully designed with relief sculptures of different identities.

There were four identity cards in total: "Beggar," "Rebel Army," "Commander," and "Emperor."

It was clear that the protagonist on all four cards was the same person, with a square face and broad forehead, possessing a naturally commanding aura.

However, the details of the appearances varied with each identity.

For instance, the Beggar was clearly the youngest and his clothes were tattered.

The ages on the four identity cards increased progressively from the Beggar in his teens to the Emperor in his sixties or seventies, which was quite noticeable.

However, this time choosing an identity wasn’t as simple as just clicking on it; there was an additional avatar slot under each card, indicating that each player could only represent one identity.

While Zhao Haiping was pondering his choice, a new dialog box popped up.

[Player Chu Ge invites you to join the team, do you agree?]

Zhao Haiping couldn’t help but perk up.

Chu Ge? That could work!

Just as he was considering who to recruit as strong teammates, a strong candidate arrived on his own.

He immediately clicked confirm.

A moment later, three figures appeared in front of Zhao Haiping.

Zhao Haiping recognized them all; they were Chu Ge, Lu Heng, and Huo Yunying.

Not much needed to be said about Chu Ge and Huo Yunying, but Lu Heng had played Wang Zongchang in the instance "Not My Intention to be Ennobled," where he had performed excellently as a Combat Scholar and his unrestricted combat skills had impressed everyone.

"OK, now we have everybody!

"Our team composition is perfect," Chu Ge said with satisfaction.

Zhao Haiping was somewhat surprised, "Eh, aren’t you teaming up with Li Hongyun?"

Chu Ge laughed, "Who would want to team up with that kind of luck monger! We agreed to form our teams separately and see who can clear it fastest. You all have to perform well, if we lose to him, I won’t be able to show my face."

Lu Heng hesitated, "Both of us are scholars; wouldn’t that be a bit repetitive? Wouldn’t it be better to swap in an assassin player?"

Chu Ge shook his head, "No need for that.

"The professions aren’t particularly important in this instance, what’s key is to complete the objectives of different stages.

"I chose you because I think you can be crucial in a specific stage."

Lu Heng was taken aback, "Oh? Which stage?"

Chu Ge, "Beggar!"

Lu Heng, "..."

Clearly, two things about Lu Heng had left a deep impression on Chu Ge; one was his high tolerance for pain while playing Wang Zongchang, and the other was his ability to unleash immense damage with his unrestricted combat skills, despite his frailty.

So in Chu Ge’s view, the role of the Beggar was perfect for Lu Heng.

Zhao Haiping curiously asked, "So, you’ve already planned all these identities?"

Chu Ge nodded, "Yes, I’ve thought it through.

"Actually, from the images and names on these four identity cards, one can roughly guess the objectives of each stage.

"The Beggar and the Rebel Army are self-explanatory. The Commander identity might be a bit misleading, but combining it with the age, it’s not difficult to deduce it involves commanding troops against the Northern Barbarian army.

"As for the Emperor, that identity is more deceptive.

"Based on the image on the identity card, it seems to be Emperor Taizu of Sheng around seventy years old, which means it wasn’t long before his demise. Therefore, the Emperor role is mostly likely a purely puzzle-solving or political intrigue segment.

"This makes it easy to assign: Lu Heng will be the Beggar, Yunying will be the Rebel Army, Hai Ping you will be the Commander, and I will be the Emperor."

Everyone nodded, "Sounds logical."

Although being the Emperor was the highest status, everyone’s goal was to clear the instance, so high status wasn’t a big concern.

Moreover, in terms of solving puzzles and handling political intrigue, Chu Ge was indeed the best, making him the most suitable choice to play the Emperor.

"So what does this initial scene mean?" Huo Yunying asked.

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