Late Ming Dynasty: Summoning players from Liaodong to support the Ming Dynasty

As the horses' hooves trod the newly built official road, Lu Jian and all his men reined in their horses.

Beneath my feet lay an impossibly smooth road surface. The compacted soil was covered with a layer of fine pebbles, making it firm and stable to walk on, and even in this winter, there wasn't a trace of mud. Neat drainage ditches had been dug on both sides of the road, stretching all the way to the horizon.

How could this be a war-torn border road?

Even the imperial roads outside the capital city might not have such a standard!

Lu Jian and his group exchanged silent glances, each face etched with unspeakable shock. Not long ago, they had heard the description of "hell on earth" from those defeated soldiers, but the road before them was like a resounding slap in the face, a blow to their once-proud judgment.

"Boss..." a guard's voice was hoarse, "Who... built this road?"

He was referring to the figures busy on the official road in the distance, the countless player teams that had been ignited by the fire of involution after the establishment of the "pioneer" Wang Han and his guild.

Lu Jian didn't speak; he simply tapped the horse's belly lightly with his whip, urging the mount to move forward slowly.

The further you go, the stronger that absurd and eerie feeling becomes.

The fields and abandoned villages that should have been along the official road have now been transformed into bustling construction sites.

On an open field to the east, hundreds of people were chanting strange slogans as they turned the soil with a wooden tool resembling a plow, something Lu Jian had never seen before. Their movements were wild and chaotic; it seemed less like farming and more like they were venting their boundless energy. Several men got into a fight over the ownership of the furrows, and without a word, they started brawling. Instead of stopping them, the bystanders formed a circle and cheered loudly.

At the foot of the western mountain, another group of people were clanging and banging on something. Flames shot into the sky, and thick smoke billowed out. There, a row of ridiculously simple earthen blast furnaces appeared, and several burly men with bare chests were frantically blowing air with huge wooden bellows, singing "We workers have strength."

Further away, people were still cutting down trees and mining ore, each one like a wound-up tin toy, tireless and full of energy. Their faces showed no signs of weariness from labor, only an extremely excited frenzy.

This land is not lifeless at all; on the contrary, it is full of vitality.

But this vitality has a chilling madness about it.

"These...are all people from Guangning City?" The young imperial guard was beginning to doubt if he was dreaming. "They...don't seem to be forced laborers."

The conscripted laborers wore faces of numbness and fear. But these people wore faces of joy.

A pure, heartfelt, and incomprehensible joy.

"Go and ask."

Lu Jian finally spoke, his voice rough and hoarse, like a stone polished by wind and sand.

A capable imperial guard received the order and spurred his horse forward. He silently adjusted his breathing, and his entire demeanor changed. Having spent years interrogating prisoners in the Northern Garrison, he possessed an imposing and stern aura that would make most people's legs go weak.

He stopped a young man who was carrying a bundle of freshly cut timber and humming an unknown tune.

The imperial guard, looking down at them, cleared his throat and asked in a deep, interrogative tone, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

His voice was not loud, but every word was clear, exuding an official's authority.

The player carrying the log stopped and looked him up and down.

That glance sent a chill down the spine of the imperial guards.

There was no fear or submission in his eyes as expected; instead, it was like... like a butcher who hadn't eaten for three days seeing a fat pig delivered to his doorstep.

The player's gaze lingered for a moment on the outfit worn by the imperial guard, which, though disguised, was made of materials and craftsmanship far exceeding that of ordinary items. Then, his eyes swept over the magnificent warhorse beneath him, and his eyes lit up instantly.

"Oh, a newly spawned elite NPC?"

The player threw down the wood with a "clatter," rubbed his hands together, and approached with a smile that was the kind of smile that only appears when you see top-tier equipment in a game—a smile that was a mixture of flattery and greed.

The guard instinctively gripped the hilt of his sword, his body tensed, and he took a half-step back.

This person...aren't they afraid of me?

"Brother, look at your outfit, you're definitely someone with a story!" The player's words were like honey. "Triggering a hidden quest? Or some limited-time event? Give me the coordinates, I'll kill monsters for you, I guarantee you'll complete the quest! You see, I'm a casual player, my combat power isn't great, but my errand-running, mail delivery, and material gathering are top-notch! Fair prices, no cheating!"

The Imperial Guards' brains have gone blank.

His interrogation skills, which he used to extract secrets from countless prisoners, were completely useless at this moment.

Because he couldn't understand a single word.

Newly added? Does that mean a new NPC? What's their ID number? Hidden quest? Coordinates? Monster killing?

Every word seemed like a language from another world, rampaging through his mind, leaving him dizzy and his head blank.

"Um... Big Brother?" Seeing that he didn't react, the player tentatively held up two fingers. "I'll take 30% of the reward! No, no, 20%! 20% is fine too! I mainly want to make friends with someone as high-ranking as you, so it'll be easier to get things done in the future!"

The imperial guard suddenly snapped out of his daze, as if stung by a scorpion, and yanked the reins hard, retreating back to the ranks in a disheveled state.

"Boss..." He stammered to Lu Jian, his lips trembling for a long time, but he didn't know how to report.

"What did he say?" Lu Jian frowned.

"He...he's talking nonsense..." The capable guard's face was full of confusion and frustration. "What...bullshit...coordinates...and he even said he wanted to...take 20% of it from us..."

Lu Jian fell silent.

He looked at the player in the distance. The player clicked his tongue regretfully when he saw the guards leave, picked up the wood again, and continued working while humming a little tune.

He didn't look like a commoner who had been questioned by the government at all; he looked more like... a merchant who had missed out on a deal.

Lu Jian's gaze slowly swept over the dozen or so elite Imperial Guards under his command.

He saw faces just like his, filled with confusion and absurdity.

These people were the Ming Dynasty's top secret agents, capable of extracting information from the dead and uncovering grand conspiracies from the slightest clues.

But now, they were completely stumped by a few incomprehensible slang terms.

Lu Jian suddenly felt that the imperial sword in his arms, which could execute first and report later, had become somewhat comical.

He was about to ask another question when a girl with colorful hair darted over and held up a small, glowing cube.

"Wow! Look, guys! The latest NPC outfit! This outfit is so cool, is it the flying fish uniform of the Imperial Guard? Although it looks a bit old, the cut is perfect! I love it! I definitely have to find a way to get a set!" Qian Lele muttered to himself as he circled around the Imperial Guard while livestreaming.

The guard was completely bewildered by the scene. He instinctively gripped the hilt of his sword, but the girl showed no fear. She even brought her face closer, trying to see the texture of his clothes.

This elite member of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, who could make the dead speak even in the imperial prison, experienced for the first time what it meant for a scholar to encounter soldiers. No, this was even more terrifying than encountering soldiers; he had encountered a group of madmen he could not communicate with at all.

He fled in panic, returning to Lu Jian's side, his face deathly pale. His lips trembled for a long time before he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence: "Boss...they...they don't seem to understand human language!"

Lu Jian's face was so dark it could drip water.

Just then, a noisy shouting and cursing suddenly erupted from a small hill not far away.

"Damn it! You guys from the Iron-Blooded Brotherhood, have you no shame? This mining site was discovered first by our God-Slaying Pavilion!"

"Bullshit! Is your name on this mine? Let's see what you've got!"

Before the words were even finished, the two groups of players, totaling over a hundred, charged together, howling and screaming. Swords clashed, shouts of battle shook the heavens, and the scene instantly became incredibly bloody.

Lu Jian's elite cavalry immediately went on high alert, each drawing their swords, thinking they had encountered a rout.

However, what happened next left these dozen or so seasoned Imperial Guards, who were used to seeing life and death, completely petrified.

A player was stabbed in the chest by three knives at the same time. He screamed in agony, but his body did not fall down. Instead, he turned into a blinding white light and disappeared into thin air!

Another player was struck on the head by a large axe, his entire upper body exploding into a cloud of blood mist. But the next second, that cloud of blood mist also turned into white light and dissipated into the air.

The battle came quickly and went quickly.

Within the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, seven or eight people were "dead" on the ground.

There were no corpses, no wails, and no blood-soaked scenes.

There were only streaks of white light and a faint smell of burning in the air.

The victorious members of the Iron-Blooded Brotherhood, led by a leader, laughed triumphantly. They picked up several glowing ores and a broken iron sword from where the "corpses" had disappeared, whistling as they strode away.

Meanwhile, the remaining members of the defeated [Godslayer Pavilion] grumbled and cursed as they helped the wounded retreat.

"Damn it, just you wait! See you at the respawn point in half an hour! If I don't kill you all back to the starting village, I'm not 'One-Hit Wonder'!"

"Let's go, let's go back to town to resupply and call for reinforcements! We're going to slaughter those bastards from the Iron-Blooded Brotherhood today!"

They weren't discussing their companion's death, but rather how to take revenge and get their revenge. Their tone was as relaxed as if they were discussing which pub to go to for drinks that evening.

Death, here, seems to have become a ridiculous child's game.

The entire hillside fell silent once again.

Only the cold wind blows, stirring up the snow on the ground.

Lu Jian and his elite guards remained frozen in place, still on guard.

"Boss..." The young spy's voice was choked with sobs, filled with uncontrollable fear, "We...were we under some kind of sorcery? The people here...they...they can't be killed..."

The three words "unkillable" are like three invisible hammers, striking hard into everyone's heart.

Lu Jian's knuckles had turned white from gripping the reins too tightly.

He forced himself to calm down and used all the common sense he had built up over the past thirty years to analyze the situation.

Illusion? Impossible. Such a large-scale and realistic illusion is unheard of.

Sorcery? Ghosts? But in broad daylight, what ghosts could control tens of thousands of living people?

All the knowledge, experience, and logic in his mind became pale and powerless in the face of this subversive scene before him.

His rationality was crumbling.

"Keep going."

Lu Jian squeezed out three words through gritted teeth, his voice so hoarse that even he felt like a stranger to himself.

He had to see it for himself, to go to the heart of this city. He needed to know what kind of monster that man named Chu Ze had created on this land.

The group moved forward again, the atmosphere extremely tense.

As they crossed the last mountain ridge, the outline of Guangning City finally appeared in its entirety on the horizon.

In that instant, Lu Jian's pupils contracted sharply.

That was not the low, dilapidated earthen city in Liaodong that he remembered or that was described in any intelligence reports.

What appeared before him was a colossal, gray-white object with sharp edges and a chilling aura.

Its city walls are no longer the traditional vertical structure, but present an eerie tilt angle. Not a single brick or stone can be seen on the walls, as if they were carved from a single, huge piece of gray rock. At the corners of the city walls, instead of rounded corner towers, there are sharp bastions that protrude like claws.

The entire city, like a prehistoric behemoth lurking on a snowfield, is full of primitive, savage, yet precise industrial aesthetics.

It lay there quietly, completely out of place among all the gentle, natural buildings on this land.

It is a declaration in itself.

A merciless mockery of all the war aesthetics of the old era.

"This...this is Guangning?" a member of the imperial guards exclaimed in disbelief, rubbing his eyes as he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Lu Jian did not answer; he simply stared intently at the gray-white giant city.

Just then, the strange voice they had heard before, the voice of tens of thousands of people gathered together, came through the wind, becoming clearer and clearer.

The sound was powerful and rhythmic, making one's eardrums buzz.

Lu Jian held his breath and finally heard the deafening shout.

That wasn't a battle cry, nor a drill chant, but a song.

A "military song" he had never heard before, with a stirring yet strange melody.

The voices of tens of thousands of people converged into a torrent, emanating from that gray-white megacity and washing over the land.

"We are pests! We are pests!"

"Where are the champions of justice?"

"Pests! Pests!"

"We want to eat rice!"

"..."

The singing soared to the heavens, carrying a frenzied, unrestrained, and spine-chilling joy.

"Thump."

The youngest of the imperial guards finally succumbed to the successive mental shocks. His eyes rolled back, and he fell straight off his horse, unconscious.

Lu Jian remained seated on his horse, motionless.

He simply stared silently at the distant, gray-white city of monsters, listening to the maniacal song that seemed to pierce his ears like demonic chants, and felt a chill run down his spine from his tailbone to the top of his head.

The imperial sword in his arms, a symbol of the emperor's power, now burned his heart with a throbbing sensation.