God's Imitator

Fu Chen didn’t quite understand. After thinking for a moment, he said, ”You mean if Chen Yumei were the God’s Imitator, she could actually become the Chief Judge herself, then clear the game relatively smoothly, thus escaping judgment? Rather than needing to participate completely passively like now, risking being voted to death in the end?”

Cao Haichuan shook his head, ”No, that’s not the reason.

”If Chen Yumei became the Chief Judge herself and cleared the game smoothly, it would obviously create contradictions in the game mechanism.

”The prerequisite for becoming Chief Judge is giving relatively extreme answers in the five questions before the game starts.

”But if this kind of person serves as Chief Judge, they would most likely be unable to pass this judgment. If they passed the judgment very smoothly, that would instead increase other players’ suspicion that she’s the God’s Imitator.

”Whether Chen Yumei lied during the lie detection or didn’t lie, afterwards other players could potentially find out by purchasing the game records. This wouldn’t be secure.

”If she really were the God’s Imitator, she shouldn’t be unable to think this through.

”Hypothetically, if a God’s Imitator really designed a game to judge themselves, the optimal solution definitely wouldn’t be to obtain an advantageous identity.

”It would be best to let someone else become the advantageous identity, choose a disadvantageous identity for themselves, then find a way to slip through.”

Fu Chen was stunned, ”But isn’t that exactly what Chen Yumei did in this game?”Cao Haichuan shook his head, ”It looks like it, but actually it isn’t.

”The problem lies in the initial screening mechanism.

”If Chen Yumei were the God’s Imitator, she could have completely adopted more covert methods to screen others out and hide herself well.

”She shouldn’t have used this lie-detection question-and-answer format.”

Everyone nodded, roughly understanding.

Chen Yumei indeed seemed more like the God’s Imitator than Li Jiang, but if she really were the God’s Imitator, everyone might very likely not suspect her at all.

She could have used other methods to make Jiang He become the Chief Judge, such as creating a small mechanism similar to Farmer’s Walk, then giving different weights based on gender.

When choosing her assistant, she also could have not chosen Li Jiang, but chosen another player with weaker physical strength.

That way, Jiang He, as someone with relatively superior physical strength among women, would most likely be chosen as Chief Judge, and the game would ultimately still proceed to the same ending.

Without those initial five questions, and with Chen Yumei paddling the entire time without giving any opinions, how could others guess her true inner thoughts?

Even if they purchased her game records, they couldn’t see any flaws at all.

In that case, it could almost be called a perfect crime as a God’s Imitator.

Even if someone suspected Chen Yumei was the God’s Imitator, they fundamentally couldn’t find any evidence.

Therefore, Lin Sizhi and Cao Haichuan, based on this point, believed Chen Yumei was not the God’s Imitator.

Lin Sizhi added, ”Of course, we’ve preset a premise that ’Chen Yumei didn’t suddenly have an intelligence drop’, so we can’t completely rule out her suspicion.

”But regardless, God’s Imitators capable of creating these games must definitely not be stupid, and must definitely have thought things through carefully. They shouldn’t leave such self-contradictory loopholes.”

Wang Yongxin let out a long breath, ”So the conclusion is:

”The God’s Imitator of ’Childbirth Judgment’ is neither the God’s Imitator of ’King’s Judgment’, nor Li Jiang or Chen Yumei.

”And of course it’s even more impossible to be Jiang He, Yang Yuting, or other judged people in this game.

”Because those other judged criminals were basically in a state with no human rights. If they really encountered a Chief Judge with a rather one-track mind who just killed them all, the God’s Imitator couldn’t possibly take that risk.

”We reasoned for so long, and the conclusion is: this God’s Imitator never entered the game they designed at all.

”So we worked for nothing.”

Li Renshu reminded, ”It’s not really working for nothing. At least it’s very helpful for understanding God’s Imitators’ thinking.

”Haven’t you noticed? Although the New World basically hasn’t revealed any more rules about God’s Imitators to us, we’ve figured out a lot ourselves.

”For example:

”God’s Imitators don’t necessarily have to enter their own games, so not every game can end by rooting out the God’s Imitator. Finding the God’s Imitator is more like some kind of hidden clearance secret. Not every game will have one.

”For the purpose of hiding themselves, God’s Imitators most likely won’t keep designing overly homogeneous games. They might even deliberately make some games with styles vastly different from their original style. We can’t determine God’s Imitators solely through game style.

”To find God’s Imitators, the most important thing is analyzing their ’purpose’ and ’intent’, but each God’s Imitator’s situation is different. We can’t mechanically apply one approach.

”With these clues, finding God’s Imitators at least won’t be like looking for a needle in a haystack as before. There’s at least some hope now.”

She looked at everyone, ”Alright, today’s review has gone on a bit too long. Let’s stop here.

”Everyone worked hard. Get some rest early.”

...

That evening, Wang Yongxin and Yang Yuting came to the small room on the third floor.

”Is your injury okay?” Wang Yongxin asked.

Yang Yuting looked at her bandaged wound, ”It’s okay, just a bit itchy. Dr. Zheng said there’s nothing serious, just rest well.”

Both of them fell into brief silence.

Obviously, this judgment game and Jiang He’s death counted as a black swan event for the two of them, full of surprises.

From a negative perspective, Wang Yongxin had one less person he could potentially recruit, and the position of Li Renshu’s five-person group in this community became even more solid.

The death of a member could have originally become an opportunity that would lead to community division.

If the death immunity token had been used improperly, it could very likely have caused the originally stable structure in the community to change again but Li Renshu handled this incident very calmly, and instead won quite a bit of goodwill.

Of course, were all people satisfied with Li Renshu’s performance this time?

Would anyone feel that Li Renshu not saving Jiang He used overly subjective standards?

Hard to say, after all, people’s hearts are hard to read but generally speaking, even if this degree of suspicion really existed, it couldn’t possibly be revealed in the short term.

However, from a positive perspective, Jiang He’s death also removed a mine from Wang Yongxin’s already fragile small group.

Wang Yongxin didn’t dwell too much on it and said, ”Let’s let the past be past. Discussing those things further is meaningless.

”I think the main issue we two need to consider now is what kind of female player the community should recruit next.

”Although theoretically speaking, this matter will most likely still be decided by everyone’s vote, and Li Renshu might guide the discussion, your opinion should also carry sufficient weight.

”On one hand, regarding what kind of female player to specifically recruit, the opinions of other female players in the community will carry great weight. You and Xu Tong can bind two votes, which can influence others to some extent.

”On the other hand, you are after all the direct victim of this incident. As long as your opinion sounds relatively reasonable, most swing votes will stand on your side out of sympathy or consideration.”

Yang Yuting thought carefully for a moment, ”Do you think... finding another actuary is possible? Luo Wei’s situation was an accident after all. Not every actuary can be like her, right?”

Wang Yongxin silently shook his head, ”That won’t work too well.

”From a rational standpoint, Luo Wei’s betrayal was a low-probability event. Recruiting another actuary most likely won’t result in a similar situation. But from an emotional standpoint, most people in the community already have certain prejudices against this profession. Proposing this plan again has a very low possibility of passing.

”Even if we want to choose a high-intelligence woman, we must change to another profession.”