I agree. This purgatory level probably the "real" world (minus game ui) and this Kongming most likely the original/new soul, not the "player". MC's loop probably because Kongming "player" using save/load.
It can’t just be loading, because it’d be kinda silly to replay the same event over and over if what you want is upgrade materials - you’d lose them on every load. It’s likely that they were all new game cycles. The question is, is it a different player, or no player?
I think it’s kind of interesting that she was capable of grasping the concept of a video game, despite the setting seemingly being feudal china, and yet doesn’t seem to understand that the main character is usually just an avatar for an outside force. Do you think it’s just bad writing, or are they going somewhere with this? (I think right now my money is on lazy writing)