47: Chapter 47 I think your game is quite impressive.

Zhang Qingquan spent the first half hour of playing Plants vs. Zombies in boredom.

The only thing that left a deep impression on him might still be the slightly hypnotic voice of Crazy Dave.

Although he admitted that Spark Games' new title, Plants vs. Zombies, was indeed different from the tower defense games he had played before and could be considered fun and outstanding.

But this did not affect his greater anticipation for Spark Games and Jiang Yuan making slay the spire 2.

Even at this moment, in his heart.

The thought of being able to see Jiang Yuan in person before leaving had instead become his biggest expectation.

But this feeling quietly changed after continuing into the night mode.

At that moment, Zhang Qingquan was feeling a bit at a loss as he faced a dead end on the screen.

There was no free sunshine falling from the sky in night mode.

The old strategy he was used to during the day, of first filling the field with Sunflower, completely failed.

A single Sunflower cost 50 sun, twice as expensive as a Sun-shroom; hard-stacking production at the beginning left no sun to plant defensive plants, making him more and more passive as he played—it wasn't as easy to use as before.

The sun deficit grew ever larger, with swarms of zombies accompanied by high-health Buckethead Zombies stepping forward; the plants he hurriedly added in a panic couldn't stop them at all. His defense line broke again and again, and he couldn't even make it past the mid-game after restarting twice in a row.

It was at this moment.

Zhang Qingquan, who had always felt that the game's difficulty was too childish and simple, felt the difficulty of Plants vs. Zombies truly arrive while sweat seeped from his forehead and he was a bit overwhelmed.

He gulped down a large mouthful of iced cola to suppress the irritability in his heart.

Just as he was frowning and thinking hard about how to pass this level, a sudden exclamation came from beside him.

"Holy crap!"

Zhang Qingquan turned his head to look in the direction of the sound.

He saw that Bilibili streamer named Ye Qing staring wide-eyed at the screen, his face wearing an expression of near-excitement.

"What's wrong?"

Someone nearby whose attention had been attracted couldn't help but ask.

Ye Qing didn't speak, just pointed at the screen with a cheerful expression.

Several people, including Zhang Qingquan, hurriedly leaned over to look.

Upon seeing this, he was instantly stunned.

It turned out that Ye Qing was playing the night level 2-4, and his layout was quite different from his own random stacking and patching style.

He didn't pile all the plants in the last few rows, but had planned a layered system in advance.

The last two rows were filled with mature Sun-shrooms to stabilize sun production, Fume-shrooms were placed at the limit of their range for piercing group damage, and zero-cost Puff-shrooms were used flexibly to deal with emergencies.

Ye Qing turned his head, his face full of irrepressible, bright smiles:

"The core of night mode is the sun rhythm. You only have 50 sun at the start. If you don't master the rhythm, you won't even have anything to block the first wave of zombies."

"Sun-shrooms are the core of snowballing in night mode. They cost 25 sun each, which is very cheap. Although they produce little sun in the early stage, it's different once they grow up. They also allow you to save sun for setting up defenses while accumulating production."

"And this Fume-shroom is truly awesome. It can pierce through zombies and armor, hitting Coneheads and Bucketheads together, but it's a pity that its range is short."

"The Puff-shroom is even more of a god-tier item. Zero sun, doesn't consume production. It blocks the first wave of monsters at the start, and if a lane is leaking, you can plant one temporarily to supplement damage and plug the gap. It's purely a free emergency artifact."

After saying that.

Ye Qing hurriedly started the next game again. Looking at his eager appearance, it was as if he couldn't control the urge to start the next game if he said a few more words.

And watching the other party pass every level without any pressure, even playing levels he hadn't seen yet.

Zhang Qingquan opened his mouth, suddenly a bit unsure how to describe this scene.

Were they really playing the same game?

From arriving here until now, everyone had only been playing for nearly two hours, right? Why did it feel like this person in front of him had been playing for a long time?

Up until now, he only knew the general effects of each plant and zombie, and hadn't even figured out which plants to bring for each level to lower the difficulty.

Was he really that stupid?

Or was it because he had been distracted and not playing seriously, so he didn't notice these things?

Before coming here, he had thought that he, who could clear A20 on a single character in over two hundred hours, could at least be considered one of the more talented and skilled ones among this group of ten people.

Now it seems.

Maybe he really just ground his way through by playing for a long time every day?!

Nearby, Liu Sixin saw the commotion here and couldn't help but lean over to watch. After watching, he exclaimed with some amazement:

"I was just having fun playing and thought this game was really fun, but your speed is too fast, Ye Qing."

Ye Qing smiled a bit embarrassedly and scratched his head, saying:

"I'm just used to playing Slay the Spire, so I always think about building combos."

"I was thinking, aren't these plants just like cards? Sun-shroom is a cost-growth card, Puff-shroom is a zero-cost board-clearing card, Fume-shroom is a core AOE output card, Ice-shroom is a group crowd-control card. When you put them together and cycle them, the rhythm never breaks. It's much better than randomly stacking numbers."

As he was speaking, he started another night level, 2-7, which had been unlocked not long ago.

Unlike others who were flustered and robbing Peter to pay Paul while playing night levels.

He started by steadily planting Sun-shrooms in the last two rows, precisely timing the zombies' spawn points, and using zero-cost Puff-shrooms specifically to supplement output. He didn't waste any sun and perfectly held the early gap.

Once the sun production stabilized and the Fume-shroom output system was set up, he used Grave Busters to clear the tombstones in the front row one by one.

The Fume-shrooms precisely arranged in the front formed a stable piercing firepower, and the swarms of Conehead and Buckethead zombies had their armor and health worn down bit by bit by the continuous piercing damage.

Occasionally encountering emergencies where monsters came in multiple lanes at the same time and zombies were bunched up, one Ice-shroom would freeze them all, and combined with the continuous output of the Fume-shrooms, the crisis was steadily resolved. The sun allocation was seamless throughout, and the rhythm was rock solid.

Under the gaze of the people around him, he seemed to get a bit carried away. After successfully passing 2-7, he started two more games in a row, trying Hypno-shrooms to control Buckethead zombies and fight back, then trying Ice-shrooms to freeze the entire screen of zombies. The fancy combinations he showed to the onlookers aroused bursts of praise and admiration from everyone.

Watching this.

Zhang Qingquan smacked his lips, feeling a bit sour in his heart as he silently walked back to his position.

He only felt that the Plants vs. Zombies on the screen in front of him suddenly seemed exceptionally good-looking, making his heart flutter...

And the slay the spire 2 he had been thinking about before didn't seem so hauntingly appealing anymore.

Bad news.

It seemed he wasn't as amazing as he had imagined. Just among these ten people, one could find someone much stronger than him.

As for the good news, it was that Zhang Qingquan suddenly felt this trip to Shanghai seemed to have more than just one goal of meeting Jiang Yuan in person.