36: Chapter 36 New Campaign

Wang Ye stared at the game-over screen, his eyes dazed.

He still hadn't recovered from the game.

Only when he saw that his personal mission was complete did he snap back to reality.

[The entire regiment annihilated 201 enemies.]

Seeing this number of kills, Wang Ye knew clearly that if it weren't for Old Kui's 246th Regiment charging at the front, his regiment wouldn't have been able to secure so many kills.

Old Kui's regiment was charging with their lives, drawing fire.

At this moment, the audience in the livestream room was congratulating Wang Ye on completing his personal mission.

But Wang Ye couldn't bring himself to be happy.

In his view, this didn't count as mission completion.

It cost the lives of so many people to trade for this kill count.

What if more Little Devils came?

How many would that require?

"Brothers, the streamer is ending the stream today; the aftereffects are quite significant."

Saying this, Wang Ye closed the livestream, exited the game, and stepped out of the virtual pod.

Although only a few hours had passed in reality, several days had passed in the game.

The things experienced over these past few days were too much.

It was even more than what he had experienced during his few days of closed beta testing.

It was hard to let go.

His mood was somewhat dejected.

He needed some time to recover.

Not just him; after the game ended, the other players were the same.

After experiencing this battle, their moods were extremely heavy.

This battle was fought too bitterly.

They were nearly wiped out, yet only killed over three hundred Little Devils.

This result was very hard for them to accept.

The results of this battle were edited and uploaded to the internet by quite a few people.

Three thousand players, only three hundred kills.

Are they, the players, this weak?

But when they finished watching the video, they all fell silent one by one.

Because the gap in strength was too vast.

"Is the gap between an agricultural nation and an industrial nation really this big?"

"The more I watch, the more uncomfortable I feel. Pure infantry fighting a three-dimensional army of land, sea, and air—even if a god came, they couldn't win, right?"

"The gap in military equipment is just too huge; even if everyone were a special forces soldier, carrying this kind of equipment would just be throwing their lives away."

"A single naval shell could take out dozens; pure infantry are just targets. This is dimension-reduction warfare."

"If our modern military came, with the level of these Little Devils' divisions, we could level their land in less than a day."

"How do you guys think China can win in this game? I don't see any hope at all!"

The comments online were one-sided, not believing that China in the game could defeat the Little Devils.

Because this gap made it impossible for them to even imagine how to win.

Seeing these comments, Zhou Yang frowned.

These comments were too pessimistic.

But thinking about it, it was normal.

If he didn't know this history, he wouldn't be able to imagine how the revolutionary martyrs of the past remained steadfast in their belief to save the nation while seeing no hope of victory, in situations that were nearly hopeless.

One must know that before the Battle of Shanghai, all sectors of China held a pessimistic attitude toward the victory of the War of Resistance.

Yet, the Battle of Shanghai forged the mettle of the Chinese nation and demonstrated the unified determination of the Chinese people to resist the war.

Although the Battle of Shanghai did not achieve victory, its significance was irreplaceable.

It seems it's not just the game; this plot also needs to be explained to these players; it can't just be simple CG.

Otherwise, the players won't understand these things.

Thinking of this, Zhou Yang immediately recalled memories regarding the War of Resistance.

Then he logged into the entertainment creation platform, wrote down the historical events leading up to the Battle of Shanghai, and uploaded them to the Anti-War Competition backend.

Setting it to update tomorrow.

Time quickly arrived at the next day.

Early in the morning, Zhou Xiaoyi opened her livestream.

After finishing that game yesterday, she also had no mood to continue streaming.

So, after chatting with the viewers in the livestream room for an hour or two, she ended the stream.

She hadn't even slept well last night.

Just after opening the game, she discovered that the game had updated.

Checking the update content, she was somewhat surprised.

Because the game had actually updated with game-related plot.

Before, when she played the game, she never understood why Japan wanted to attack China.

Now that the game plot had been updated, she definitely had to take a good look.

Besides this, the game had actually opened a new campaign.

Yesterday she had just finished experiencing one campaign, and today there's another?

Compared to the plot, Zhou Xiaoyi was more curious about this new campaign at this moment.

She clicked on the campaign introduction.

Zhou Xiaoyi's eyes widened.

[Battle of Luodian — The Meat Grinder]

[After the Japanese Army attacked Shanghai on August 13, 1937, they attempted to outflank the Chinese army from the flanks and landed in areas such as Luodian on August 23, heading straight for the northwest gateway of Shanghai.]

[Luodian is a strategic location leading to the urban area of Shanghai; controlling this place could cut off the retreat of the Chinese army, thus becoming the focal point of the struggle between both sides.]

[In the Battle of Luodian, the Central Army poured out all its strength, and various local armies arrived one after another to support.]

[This battle was dominated by close-quarters combat and street fighting, with corpses littering the fields on both sides; the battlefield was known as the "Meat Grinder."]

[In this battle, approximately 60,000 Chinese troops participated, with nearly 30,000 casualties.]

[Although the Battle of Luodian ended in a tactical failure, its tragic and heroic resistance greatly encouraged the determination of the national war of resistance.]

After reading the introduction of this campaign, Zhou Xiaoyi already felt the weight of the four words "Meat Grinder."

This battle was even more brutal than the Battle of Hongkou.

She had already experienced the cruelty of war once, and now a second, even more brutal one was coming.

This is chasing after her to kill her.

At this moment, the audience in the livestream room, seeing the introduction of the Battle of Luodian, all gasped.

"I thought the casualty count in the Battle of Hongkou was already high enough, I didn't expect there to be even more."

"That's obvious, the game CG introduced that 750,000 were deployed and nearly 300,000 were casualties; this is only a part of it."

"I feel bad for Sister Yi; she just finished experiencing it yesterday, and now it's here again."

"Do you think Sister Yi will be too scared to experience it again? After all, everyone knows how brutal the battle situation was yesterday."

Seeing the words of the audience in the livestream room, she took a deep breath and said: "Let's first take a look at the game plot that was just updated today; we'll experience the new campaign later."

After speaking, she exited the campaign mode interface, then turned to find the newly updated plot introduction.

She prepared to watch these plot points and then see how other streamers were playing before choosing whether to enter the game.

The audience in the livestream room heard Zhou Xiaoyi's words and did not force her to play.

After all, yesterday, they, the audience, were also terrified and depressed.

Not to mention Zhou Xiaoyi who experienced it personally.

If their 'electronic pet' were scared out of her wits, they would have no more joy.

Subsequently, Zhou Xiaoyi clicked on the plot introduction.

As her vision went black, her consciousness entered into a scene.

She opened her eyes again and found herself in a bustling market.

But the scene around her made her feel very strange; she had never seen it before.

"Extra, extra! Read all about it! Today's latest newspaper! Manchukuo has been established in the Northeast, Wang... the great traitor..."

Hearing the newsboy's hawking, Zhou Xiaoyi suddenly woke up.

At this moment, a newspaper fluttered to her feet.

She picked up the newspaper and looked at the content on it.

But before she could finish reading all the content, the scene before her changed again.

This time it changed to a new city, with heavy traffic all around.

Cars passed by from time to time.

Seeing the surrounding architecture and scenery, Zhou Xiaoyi suddenly realized, isn't this place Shanghai?

Similarly, a newspaper fluttered to her feet.

This time she learned to be smart; she picked it up and paused for a few seconds.

Letting the viewers in the livestream room record the content of the newspaper.

Just like this, she changed from one place to another, holding one newspaper after another.

Gradually piecing together the historical puzzle.