Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 64 - 60: The New Golden Talent

Chapter 64: Chapter 60: The New Golden Talent

Chu Ge, as the universally recognized strategy master of the game, naturally shared his opinion first.

"I agree with the idea of finding the traitor, but I believe what’s more urgent is to determine exactly who in this instance had their role tampered with. After all, there are thousands of people in the entire county, and searching for a traitor without any clues is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"On the other hand, there are only a few key characters in this game, and if we can quickly identify the tampered role, many problems might be solved quite straightforwardly.

"From what we currently know, the most likely tampered character is Wang Jinhui. Historically, he was revered as a patriotic poet, but his performance in the instance is quite shameful.

"He wasn’t staunch and unyielding, but rather, he seemed to shatter upon the slightest touch.

"This forms a stark contrast with Yang Yan from the previous ’Scholar’s Trial’ instance.

"According to historical records, the militia fought bravely in the ’fire bathed battle’, but Su Xianjun and others didn’t make it into the annals of history. This could likely be attributed to Su Xianjun’s successful plan of setting the theater on fire, sacrificing himself for his country.

"And the executor of the theater burning could very well have been Wang Jinhui, as Su Xianjun and the remaining theater troupe members needed to hold off these Eastern Barbarian invaders. Wang Jinhui seemed to be the only one left to carry out this plan.

"However, in the Trial Illusion, it was Wang Jinhui who let Su Xianjun down. So, if this hypothesis holds, then all we need to do is find a way to activate Wang Jinhui’s character, correct his portrayal, and we could successfully execute the theater-burning plan and clear the instance."

Chu Ge’s analysis was met with widespread agreement, but also opposition from quite a few players.

For instance, another scholar player.

"I actually think that Wang Jinhui is just useless, and it’s very likely that he’s the traitor. Until now, there’s absolutely no record about him other than that one poem propagated as patriotic.

"Historically, there are instances where ’passionate during poetry but too cool when disaster looms’. From what I see in the instance, it’s as if he’s playing himself.

"Moreover, if it really were Wang Jinhui, wouldn’t this instance be too simple? Just by comparing with the historical records, finding the standard answer? I definitely don’t think it’s that simple.

"I think ’being tampered with’ doesn’t necessarily mean changing from a good person to a bad one, but could it be changing from brave in battle to cowardly at a critical moment? Or from a strong combatant to someone of average strength?

"That would be more deceptive.

"For example, the militiaman Gao Ze; if indeed the militia ended up defeating these invaders, then Gao Ze would surely need to play an important role. But from what we’ve seen so far, once this Gao Ze followed the County Magistrate into battle, he just disappeared as if he didn’t exist at all. I think he could be the key to this story."

His opinion quickly gained a lot of support.

"Right, I also think that Wang Jinhui isn’t tampered but that he himself is the traitor. Do you all remember what this instance is called? ’Matters decided yet await the closing of the coffin,’ which means many things aren’t settled until death. Isn’t this title hinting that Wang Jinhui himself is a deceitful usurper?"

"I also think, precisely because Wang Jinhui fits so well, he should be the first to be ruled out. He should even be considered for the list of traitors to be thoroughly investigated!"

But there were players supporting Chu Ge who immediately rebutted.

"But don’t forget one thing—the success of the theater burning might be one of the necessary conditions. If we consider the real history without player involvement, Wang Jinhui seems to be the only one capable of executing this plan. If he were useless, how could the theater-burning plan have succeeded? This doesn’t add up."

But this didn’t completely silence the objectors, who then brought up new speculations.

"At that time, it wasn’t only Wang Jinhui who left the theater, and besides, the idea of burning the theater might not have only occurred to Su Xianjun, right? What if someone else came up with the idea independently?"

"Yes, it seems like everyone has been overlooking Yang Xinyan; although he doesn’t have much of a presence, he too could be the tampered character."

"I also think we shouldn’t always use the logic of games, novels, or dramas to consider this, as these works are logical, but reality isn’t. If this Trial Illusion is actually a recreation of true history through DNA tracing technology, it might be as illogical as reality."

"I think Su Xianjun could also be the tampered character, like maybe originally he was just an ordinary actor, a minor role in the whole affair, but after the demons tampered with him, he was disguised as an extremely important character in this instance to mislead us. If we keep focusing on Su Xianjun, focusing on the theater, we might overlook external clues. After all, according to historical records, it was still the militia who defeated these invaders."

Players began to discuss fervently, much like viewers of a popular detective show debating who the real culprit was.

Characters named and unnamed were all debated over, except for Tang County Magistrate, as he was killed off as per the storyline and exactly according to historical records—there was no reason to suspect him.

Zhao Haiping couldn’t help but sigh, though the game had not yet opened online multiplayer features and it was purely a single-player game, it was more interactive than many online games.

It was simple, without looking up discussions from other players online, the difficulty skyrocketed by several levels!

If one depended solely on themselves, researching historical materials, scrutinizing every character, trying various possibilities, it would be an unimaginably huge workload.

Of course, it didn’t rule out the possibility that certain top players could manage it all by themselves, but average players definitely couldn’t.

From the current situation, it seemed that the game’s official party was also encouraging players to help each other, and collectively decode "Trial Illusion," possibly to foster a spirit of collaboration and cooperative skills for later online multiplayer gameplay.

In any case, after a day of discussion, players were all eager and couldn’t wait to re-enter the Trial instance to verify their guesses.

...

At 10 p.m., Chu Ge re-entered the Trial instance of "Decisions Still Await Coffin’s Seal."

"If I could directly play as Wang Jinhui, that would be best, so I could directly verify my guess.

"Unfortunately, I haven’t unlocked his identity yet, and I don’t know what conditions are required.

"Judging from the conditions to unlock Su Xianjun, it’s very likely that one must experience a key event of the target character to unlock the identity play option.

"Today, I’ll start with playing as Su Xianjun, to see if I can unlock Wang Jinhui’s identity in the process."

Chu Ge checked, and he currently had 51 identity points, just enough to play Su Xianjun for once.

His progress yesterday was similar to Zhao Haiping’s. Except, unlike Zhao Haiping, who had constantly grappled with the bandits, he immediately realized it might be a plot kill after twice trying to help the County Magistrate with no success and switched to play as a member of the theater troupe.

Like Zhao Haiping, he too unlocked the eligibility to play as Su Xianjun.

As for identity points, even though a scholar didn’t have combat means, he managed to share in identity points from enemies killed encouraged by his strong moral rectitude, so although his points were slightly lower than Zhao Haiping’s, it was enough to play a special identity.

He consumed identity points and chose the special identity: Su Xianjun.

Then, three talent cards appeared before him.

[Jin· Master of Drama (Blue): Your knowledge of drama and singing skills are enhanced.]

[Ren· Keen Observation (Blue): Your observational and memory abilities are enhanced.]

[Ren· Eloquent (Blue): Your speech becomes more infectious and persuasive, and it also enhances the effects of strong moral rectitude.]

Chu Ge thought for a moment. All three skills were useful and none he wanted to replace.

Especially Master of Drama; the first time he encountered it, it was a white card and now it had leveled up to blue, making him particularly reluctant to discard it.

Finally, he decided, gently tracing his finger across "Eloquent."

Because the current instance was still in the puzzle-solving phase, both Master of Drama and Keen Observation were helpful for solving puzzles, while Eloquent was only needed during the combat preparation phase.

In case a new skill he drew was less useful, he could choose between the two talents.

As the card flipped, a streak of golden light flashed!

[Ren· Memory Fragment (Gold): A special identity-only talent. During conversations with other characters, there’s a chance to recall memory fragments about that character, and the memory fragments cannot be altered.]

Chu Ge felt a surge of excitement.

A new gold-legendary talent!

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.