Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors

After a brutal battle, Li Hongyun found himself back at square one.

The situation took a drastic turn at the last moment, and his first attempt ended in failure, just when he thought the prospects were looking good.

"Damn it, where exactly did the problem lie..."

Li Hongyun began to review his first attempt.

He didn't see much of a problem with the part where he followed Lord Qin to conquer the world.

After all, he had established military achievements and prestige during this process and had reclaimed generals like Liu Heita from Hebei, building his own power base.

If the Xuanwu Gate Incident had unfolded as per the original history, he and the Crown Prince would have most likely won with their advantage in troops.

Lord Qin inexplicably sided with the Emperor, making them appear to be the rebels, which led to an utter reversal of the situation and thus all of Li Hongyun's preparations were in vain.

"Is it because my understanding of the historical details wasn't thorough enough?

"Or did Lord Qin get a sneak peek at the 'script'?"

Li Hongyun thought carefully, and either possibility seemed plausible.

Previously, he only achieved a 74% completion of the Xuanwu Gate Incident, so he couldn't claim he had mastered every detail.

Although the Xuanwu Gate Incident he orchestrated was basically consistent with historical outcomes, there were still underlying dangers. Perhaps a change in a known condition could have altered Lord Qin's tactics, and thus the entire course of events.

"Was it because Lord Qin had spies planted in both the Crown Prince Mansion and Prince Qi's Mansion, giving him insight into our moves?

"So, instead of his original plan to initiate the coup, detain Emperor Gaozu of Liang, and then kill the Crown Prince, he changed strategies at the last moment, using our planned attack on the Xuanwu Gate as an opportunity to inform Emperor Gaozu in advance and set up an ambush with the imperial guards within the palace..."

Thinking it over, Li Hongyun found this to be the most likely scenario.

In the actual history, the Crown Prince Mansion and Prince Qi's Mansion were practically riddled with leaks; despite their conspiracy to eliminate Lord Qin, he always managed to receive the news first.

On the day of the Xuanwu Gate Incident, Lord Qin had mobilized so many people for his secret plot, whereas the Crown Prince and Prince Qi were still in the dark about everything.

This difference in intelligence capabilities between the two sides was evident.

"So, do I need to find a way to root out the traitor?

"But traitors aren't that easy to weed out..."

There were no historical records of how many spies Lord Qin had in the Crown Prince and Prince Qi's households.

And for Li Hongyun to unearth these people with his own power was almost an impossible task.

A brute-force approach would be to go back to the previous stage, retry the Xuanwu Gate Incident from a 'god's eye' perspective several times, closely watch every person in Lord Qin Mansion and the Crown Prince Mansion, identify all the undercover agents, then return and eliminate them all.

But this method was clearly impractical.

First, there were simply too many people in both Lord Qin Mansion and the Crown Prince Mansion; the Crown Prince alone had three thousand private soldiers, not to mention a complete bureaucracy within his mansion that would further exaggerate the number.

Even if the scope was limited to core personnel of the Crown Prince Mansion, the number would still be enormous; monitoring each individual from start to finish was highly inefficient and time did not permit it.

Second, the gap between the two was not about a single spy, but a difference in comprehensive intelligence capabilities.

Even if Li Hongyun removed a batch of undercover agents from the Crown Prince Mansion, Lord Qin was still capable of cultivating more spies.

Furthermore, it was possible that by the time Li Hongyun uprooted the first spy, Lord Qin might have already noticed and changed his strategy, potentially replacing them with a whole new group to subvert.

At that point, if he tried to go back to the previous stage to 'copy the answers', he would find there were none to copy.

Therefore, after analyzing for a while, Li Hongyun realized that with his current methods, the problem was essentially unsolvable.

To triumph over Lord Qin in the Xuanwu Gate Incident, he had to establish an intelligence network more formidable than Lord Qin's, keep Lord Qin in the dark while constantly being aware of his latest moves.

Not only that, but in the process, Li Hongyun also recognized a new problem.

That was, what exactly were the specifics for clearing this level?

The game objective was stated as: "Play as Prince Qi and win the Xuanwu Gate Incident."

But what constituted a "win"?

Did killing Lord Qin count as a win? Or could helping Lord Qin also be considered a victory? Or perhaps only by eliminating the Crown Prince, Lord Qin, and Emperor Gaozu of Liang together would count as a win?

Based on Li Hongyun's understanding of the game, it probably defaulted to the highest difficulty without stating it.

Thus, it was very likely that even if he helped the Crown Prince eliminate Lord Qin but did not kill the Crown Prince himself, he would still fail to meet the goal.

Therefore, in his second attempt, Li Hongyun decided to first verify this issue.

Overall, he adhered to the strategy of his first attempt, holding onto Jinyang City, then following Lord Qin to conquer the world, and finally subduing the power of Hebei for his own use.

However, in the final stage of the Xuanwu Gate Incident, while he outwardly stood firm with the Crown Prince, he was actually unconditionally assisting Lord Qin behind the scenes.

As a result, the game difficulty dropped drastically.

With the ultimate insider, Prince Qi, on his side, the Crown Prince had no power to fight back, and the Xuanwu Gate Incident ended without any suspense.

But after accomplishing all this, there was no game-clear notification in Li Hongyun's view.

This meant that helping Lord Qin win the Xuanwu Gate Incident did not count as completing the objective!

Because it was Lord Qin who won, not you, Prince Qi. You were merely a vassal to Lord Qin.