Chapter 1268: Wei Family Conglomerate, Du Xue (Expanded Version)

However, Su Sheng quickly calmed down.

Even if he wanted to quickly earn points, there was no other way for now; he could only take it slow, because today's game time was almost up.

After tidying up, Su Sheng reluctantly glanced at his exclusive redemption vault, then logged out of the game.

Climbing out of the game pod, Su Sheng collected himself, glanced at the time, pulled out his phone, and called Chen Jianping.

Chen Jianping hadn't been online the previous night; he had been staying at the military district hospital with Chen An'an.

The phone rang twice and was answered.

"Hello, Chairman…"

Chen Jianping's voice came through.

"Is An'an okay?"

Su Sheng asked.

"She's fine, she's awake, just a bit weak."

"Um… Chairman, thank you."

Chen Jianping hesitated a moment, then said over the phone.

Su Sheng laughed: "It's fine, no need to say that. Since you're my subordinate… no, I should say you're the chief pharmacist of our Yanhuang Guild, that makes you one of us."

Su Sheng quickly corrected himself, having had some contact with military personnel the previous night, and besides accompanying Chen Jianping to take An'an to the military district hospital, he had also brought along some habits from his prior service.

"Mm-hmm, I stayed with An'an all night last night; her mood has basically stabilized, and I'll be online tonight." Chen Jianping said.

"No rush, An'an is important." Su Sheng laughed.

After inquiring about An'an's condition, Su Sheng hung up the phone.

Su Sheng thought for a moment, then made a call to request leave.

Today Su Sheng doesn't plan to go to work; he intends to make another trip to the military district.

Mainly, yesterday's incident with An'an genuinely worried Su Sheng.

Besides a batch of core members of the Yanhuang Guild, the composition of the other personnel also needs to be examined.

So, he needed to communicate with Chief Canglong.

Especially now, the National War System has already begun, and the National Battle Map is already a chaotic mess. Coupled with Huaxia's current momentum, those lurking rats are surely even more anxious.

As long as nothing unexpected happens, in this first-quarter settlement, the Huaxia server side will undoubtedly be uncontested first place.

……

That day, Su Sheng and Xuan Yu Wu met with Chief Canglong again.

Regarding Su Sheng's proposal, Chief Canglong nodded, indicating understanding.

Of course, according to estimates, at minimum one needs to be a Group Leader or higher in the Yanhuang Guild to qualify for protection.

After all, those lurking rats would gain nothing by targeting ordinary Yanhuang Guild members.

Only by harming core members could they truly affect the Yanhuang Guild.

Furthermore, if they really went mad enough to attack even ordinary members, then this game of contending for supremacy would lose its purpose.

At that point, it would be completely a case of tearing off the mask.

If one wants to protect those Group Leader and above members, this also requires them to sign some confidentiality agreements; since they are on the list, they naturally also have the right to know certain things.

On this point, Su Sheng nodded, indicating he would inform them.

That's good; signing confidentiality agreements also comes with state endorsement. As long as the Yanhuang side doesn't run into major trouble, I estimate these Yanhuang core cadre group leaders, if they wanted to defect to another guild, would have to think twice.

Su Sheng couldn't help feeling a bit amused; every major guild has a conglomerate behind it, the sole exception being Morning Star, which itself has become a major conglomerate.

Although he himself had no conglomerate behind him, he did have the greatest background… tsk tsk, let's look into a guild endorsed by the military.

Although the rules state that officials cannot officially participate on the surface, there's no prohibition against officials endorsing gaming guilds.

…

He also expressed his approval of the Yanhuang Guild; during this period, the Yanhuang Guild's development in the game, as well as the recent movements on the National Battle Map, were clear to Chief Canglong, after all he's in charge of that.

After staying half a day at the military district, Su Sheng received a satisfactory reply, and only then did he leave together with Xuan Yu Wu.

After Xuan Yu Wu sent Su Sheng home, he then left…

Regarding today's talk between Chief Canglong and Su Sheng, the burden on Xuan Yu Wu's shoulders grew heavier again.

However, just as Su Sheng returned to his room… Xuan Yu Wu's phone rang again.

Su Sheng felt a bit puzzled—hadn't they just parted? Why wasn't this mentioned earlier?

"Hello, what's up?"

Having answered the call, Su Sheng inquired.

"The matter you reminded me about yesterday now has some leads."

Xuan Yu Wu spoke from the other end of the line.

Upon hearing this, Su Sheng furrowed his brows: "What did I remind him of yesterday?"

Oh~

Su Sheng suddenly realized.

According to our investigation, all the clues from yesterday's incident point to the Wei Family Conglomerate.

Xuan Yu Wu continued.

Su Sheng couldn't help raising his eyebrows: "The Wei Family Conglomerate has such gall?"

Even back in the era of the Heroes' Game, the gaming world already had an unwritten rule: grudges in the game must not spill into reality.

Of course, whether this rule is followed depends on the individual; who knows about those lurking rats in the dark.

However, the Wei Family Conglomerate…

Xuan Yu Wu continued speaking: "Including the overseas account used to pay that guy, they are all overseas account numbers of a low-level supervisor under the Wei Family Conglomerate."

"But these all seem to be just appearances; we already have someone negotiating with the Wei Family Conglomerate, and earlier the Azure Dragon Chief even personally visited them—by rights, the Wei Family Conglomerate shouldn't be this crazy."

"How about Du Xue's side?"

Su Sheng thought for a moment, furrowed his brow, and asked.

"I was about to say that too—although all the clues point to the Wei Family Conglomerate, in reality it seems there isn't much actual connection with them; the real hidden hand behind this should be that former young mistress of the Wei Family."

Xuan Yu Wu continued speaking.

Su Sheng's brows knit: "What's the situation with Du Xue's side now?"

"They've already completely split from the Wei Family Conglomerate; his methods are indeed not low, relying on his former position as the young mistress, he's taken a lot of flesh from the Wei Family."

"If nothing unexpected happens, that Wei Family low-level supervisor is probably also that person's."

"Is there anything that can self-verify?"

Su Sheng asked.

"No, that's his cleverness—all the traces point to the Wei Family Conglomerate, but he himself is completely clean."

Su Sheng couldn't help but fall into thought.

"This woman—over the years, how did her mind become so deep?"

Du Xue…

Su Sheng also felt somewhat helpless; even knowing it was her, there were no clues or evidence, so nothing could be done. After all, rules still have to be followed.

And the reason Su Sheng took early retirement was because he had previously broken some rules.

Of course, having already done it, Su Sheng doesn't regret it.

"I understand, keep an eye on that person." Su Sheng nodded.

"I will, just this once—she won't get another chance."

Xuan Yu Wu answered firmly, "With this one time, she's already embarrassed enough; if there's a next time, he'd also be letting down his former self, that old captain…"

After hanging up, Su Sheng's gaze grew deep.

The game…

"Ah Sheng, what's wrong?"

Huan Jie's voice came from outside; Lin Huan, who had entered Su Sheng's room, saw that Su Sheng's expression was off.

Su Sheng reached out and grabbed Huan Jie's hand; with a little force, he pulled her into his embrace.

"Nothing, just thinking about some things."

Su Sheng said.

Lin Huan didn't struggle, but patted Su Sheng's somewhat dishonest claws and scolded: "Don't move around, we're about to enter the game."

…

…

Entering the game, Su Sheng first opened the honor points ranking and saw he was still at Top Rank. Entering the game, Su Sheng first opened the honor points ranking and saw he was still at Top Rank.

However, the gap with second-place Shen Wang wasn't that big; on the contrary, the gap with third-place "I am not Thanos" was huge.

Su Sheng's side has 5.47 million points, Shen Wang's side has 5.46 million, and the third-place "I am not Thanos" has only 4.77 million.

After closing the ranking, Su Sheng set off directly.

Today he also doesn't plan to run a dungeon; first he wants to consolidate his advantage.

Otherwise, that old brat Shen Wang could overtake him at any moment.

Just…

A day's game time has passed.

Su Sheng also earned nearly 10,000 points.

But that old brat Shen Wang's points only increased by a little over 100 to 200; it seems after being overtaken by me, he lost motivation.

Of course, it's also possible he's secretly brewing something bad.

After all, the commander's exclusive exchange vault is really too tempting.

Of course, Su Sheng is also thinking about the impact of this commander-exclusive exchange vault—each server's National Battle Map commander can have such a vault.

It's estimated that for some top players, their strength will see some increase.

When the time comes to meet those old opponents again, there might be a different experience.

Of course…

The terrifying exchange points inside the commander-exclusive vault are estimated to make most small-server top players hesitate.

Wanting to redeem them is no small difficulty.

Going offline.

…

Over the next few days, aside from Xuan Yu Wu's guy being busy running around, everything else continued progressing in an orderly fashion.

After Su Sheng slightly stabilized the gap, he also went back to continue doing a daily dungeon run, then strolled through the National Battle Map.

However, as the situation on the National Battle Map became livelier, Su Sheng also noticed a strange phenomenon.

It seems that during this period, players' overall levels haven't really increased.

Mainstream players' levels are still around 81 to 80.

Those who can reach level 83 are almost all the top players of each server.

As for level 84, so far only Su Sheng himself has it.

Including Su Sheng himself, the daily source of experience is just that dungeon run—although the experience isn't low, compared to the massive amount needed for leveling up at this stage, it's simply nowhere near enough.

Furthermore, lately everyone's attention has been on the National Battle Map; although its penalty counts as only half of the outside's, and after dying and leaving that day, one cannot re-enter the National Battle Map.

But how many players can actually go through the National Battle Map without dying even once?

Except for Su Sheng, this kind of freak…

Even the Yanhuang Guild has quite a few people who crash on the National Battle Map.

Including Chen Guan, they all crashed once; that time they ran into a team led by an expert from the Eagle Sauce Server, which ultimately caused the crash.

In this situation, everyone's level naturally couldn't increase during this period.

Su Sheng seems to have somewhat grasped why the National Battle Map was designed this way.

Apart from being linked to its own and new resource allocation, it's likely mainly intended to curb players' development speed.

After all, the game has only been live for over a year, but players' levels have already rushed past 80.

At most, in a bit over a year, the game will hit the level cap of 100.

Of course, hitting level 100 likely isn't the game's end, but the lifespan is set right here.

So, the National Battle Map is also another normal method of curbing players' growth.

I have to say, Teng Long Company's move is pretty extreme.

Of course…

This is unrelated to Su Sheng; given his current edge, as long as he doesn't deliberately court death, there is currently no player in the National Battle Map capable of killing him.

As long as he doesn't lose experience, the experience from daily dungeons lets him slowly increase his level.

Although it's a bit slower, since everyone is slow now, there's no issue.

Of course, this doesn't affect Su Sheng's zeal for grinding National War Merit.

After all, at this point, for Su Sheng, the main task is to contribute to the National War and secure fragment 21; next is another piece of the Skeleton Divine Dragon five-piece armor set.

After all, Su Sheng's warehouse still contains fragments 22, 33, and 44; obtaining fragment 21 would directly elevate the Grand Path Ring to stage 22, significantly boosting his stats.

As for the Skeleton Divine Dragon armor, Su Sheng's Giant Elephant Battle Armor is still usable, so there's no hurry.

It's not that he's only missing one piece of a five‑piece set; even if he obtained it, he'd still lack three pieces.

Regarding set bonuses, only a handful of lucky players on the game forum have managed to piece together some sets, and those are comparatively low‑tier.

The effect stats are indeed impressive, but on that equipment level they fall short.

…

Time, trickling along.

The Huaxia domestic server's advantage keeps increasing—not only leading the national fortune rankings but also ranking first in total points among all servers.

Even on the honor points ranking, sixty percent are Huaxia players.

Among them, Su Sheng and Shen Wang have a massive lead in first and second, while third place is likewise taken by Ying Jiang, the player called 'I am not Thanos,' who is as steady as an old dog.

Fourth place goes to Gu Qingcheng of the Huaxia server, fifth to Mao Xiong, and sixth to Xingchen, the leader of the Huaxia Qiming Star Guild.

Seventh place is the Po Xiao Guild's chairman, the Twelve‑winged Angel…

Eighth place is a player from the Eagle Sauce Server…

Ninth place is also a friend of Su Sheng, the Mao Xiong girl who loves cabbage.

Tenth place is surprisingly Xiao Zhe… Lu Zhe of the Yanhuang Guild's long‑range squad!!

Just looking at the top ten, the Huaxia domestic server holds six places.

Further down the list it gets even more exaggerated; in any case, the Huaxia side occupies almost sixty percent of the honor ranking.

On the domestic server game forum, everyone is delighted.

But as the game progresses little by little and the first season's settlement draws near, domestic server players begin to sense something amiss.

But before the Huaxia players could even work out what was happening, a system announcement suddenly set the whole Zhu Lu Game ablaze again.

But Su Sheng, upon seeing the system announcement, showed utter delight.