God's Imitator

The last two-player battle of the first stage.

This time, Han Mengying obtained the ’Fool Deck’, a disadvantageous deck, but if used properly, she could still win.

Arriving at the battle room, Han Mengying discovered her opponent this time was a male player wearing an owl mask.

Han Mengying tried hard to observe the opponent’s movements, but unfortunately, ’Owl’ had no extra movements at all, just depositing chips and then preparing to start the game.

”Is he an expert or just pretending?

”Should I use scissors to bet he’ll play paper?”

However, just as Han Mengying was seriously considering, an unexpected situation occurred.

’Owl’ separated the five cards in his hand, putting two cards in his chest pocket and holding the other three in his hand, constantly shuffling them.

Then he came to the battle platform and lifted his oxygen mask slightly upward.

Because the oxygen masks had eye holes, lifting it up like this meant he would be blocked by the mask, which could also be seen as voluntarily covering his own eyes.’Owl’ shuffled the three cards in his hand randomly, then placed one.

As for the other two cards, they remained in his chest pocket without being taken out.

Han Mengying felt a slight headache. Obviously, this was another ’random card player’.

There were a total of 5 cards in the deck. These relatively smart players who adopted the ’random card play’ strategy would only shuffle three cards to ensure the probability of the three cards was completely consistent.

But ’Owl’ was different from the ’random card players’ Han Mengying had encountered before in two ways.

First, he directly blocked his vision with the oxygen mask, better isolating the influence of ’psychological processing’.

Second, he chose to put the extra cards in his chest pocket.

The game’s dress suits had many pockets, chest, waist, and pants.

If players put cards in the waist or pants pockets, the battle platform’s black barrier would block the view. Even if secretly taken out, the opponent would have difficulty discovering it.

But the chest pocket was different. This area wouldn’t be blocked, so whether these two cards were taken out or not, the opponent could see clearly.

It seemed this ’Owl’ was a more extreme ’random card player’.

Han Mengying felt somewhat helpless. She could only place down a ’Fool Card (Rock)’.

Because Han Mengying currently held a ’Fool Deck’, when the opponent played cards completely randomly, playing anything was the same.

Since that was the case, naturally it was still best to play the ’Fool Card (Rock)’, the most abundant in the deck, because she could keep scissors and paper to adjust subsequent strategy based on the opponent’s play.

This battle platform had different sound effects based on match results. The card placement positions also had grooves, and it would automatically detect whether both sides’ plays were compliant, so even if players didn’t look at all, they could complete the game.

The black barrier opened, revealing the answer.

’Owl’s’ ’Sage Card (Paper)’ won against ’Rabbit’s’ ’Fool Card (Rock)’.

The battle platform on ’Owl’s’ side emitted the victory notification sound.

Han Mengying was stunned.

”Hm? Luck?”

She saw ’Owl’ still hadn’t pulled down his oxygen mask, nor had he taken out the two cards from his chest pocket, but again made the actions of placing chips and cards.

This meant he could only have taken out another card from the previous three cards in his hand and placed it in the designated area.

Han Mengying frowned slightly. This was simply a freebie question.

She saw very clearly that ’Owl’ had no extra movements from beginning to end. The two cards on his chest hadn’t moved at all. There was no possibility of card switching.

If Han Mengying currently held a ’Sage Deck’ with only one rock, there really wouldn’t be any good methods at this time. No matter what she chose, she couldn’t ensure she wouldn’t lose.

Because ’Owl’ was choosing one from three cards. Having played paper first, afterward it would necessarily be a choice between rock and scissors.

For Han Mengying, playing rock would necessarily be a tie or win. Playing paper or scissors would be hard to say but Han Mengying held a ’Fool Deck’, which happened to have two other rocks.

She immediately placed another ’Fool Card (Rock)’.

The prompt tone ended, and the black barrier opened again.

’Owl’s’ ’Sage Card (Paper)’ once again won against ’Rabbit’ Han Mengying’s ’Fool Card (Rock)’.

’Owl’ directly put all remaining cards into the battle platform for destruction.

”Not playing anymore.”

...

Returning to the rest room again, Han Mengying felt somewhat depressed.

She looked at her oxygen mask in the mirror and discovered the second oxygen canister was also about to run out, so she came to the service counter and spent 2000 chips to refill again.

From the current situation, Han Mengying needed to replenish oxygen approximately every half hour or so, costing 2000 chips.

In other words, over 3 hours, she would need to spend a total of 12,000 chips to replenish oxygen. This was also a non-negligible expense.

This was much higher than Han Mengying’s original expected cost but this was also normal. After all, this wasn’t a distribution-type game but a screening-type game. There would still be players who would lose large amounts of visa time or even face death risk.

’Fool’s Game’ had additional minimum security with no rake. Chips flowing between players wouldn’t deduct extra money, so other methods had to be used to recover some chips.

Currently, it seemed to be mainly through the two methods of ’oxygen replenishment’ and ’debt repayment’.

This also made Han Mengying more firmly believe the idea that ’this game is a trap targeting fools’.

At this moment, Han Mengying had already figured out what exactly happened in her previous battle with ’Owl’ but precisely because of this, she felt even more depressed.

She was actually counter-strataged by the opponent!

Han Mengying had previously encountered players who played cards randomly and also knew the principle behind this strategy.

For less intelligent players, random card play could isolate the influence of ’psychological processing’. This was a defensive strategy.

Compared to other ’random card play’ players, ’Owl’ made more feints, such as deliberately pulling up the oxygen mask to cover his eyes, and had already been continuously shuffling the three cards in his hand before coming to the battle platform.

So Han Mengying mistakenly thought ’Owl’ was a more determined ’random card player’.

Since it was purely random, playing anything was the same. Han Mengying would naturally choose to play the most abundant card in her hand, rock if it was a ’Fool Deck’, paper if it was a ’Sage Deck’.

But in reality, ’Owl’ wasn’t playing cards randomly.

Among the three cards he pretended to shuffle, they weren’t one rock, scissors, and paper each, but at least two papers.

These two papers were also fixed to be played first.

These cards were all very thick, and the card faces had embossing, so even with eyes covered, they could be felt out.