God's Imitator

As Chen Guangming spoke, he looked at Wang Weidong, ”How many shelters have you sold?”

Wang Weidong thought for a moment and answered truthfully, ”Four.”

Chen Guangming nodded, ”We’ve sold 5. Because in the last round, our two communities were eager to recoup funds, making these audience members lucky.

”But that also means there are still 21 audience members harboring delusions that ’shelter prices will drop.’

”What we need to do is crush their delusions and force them to purchase shelters at the highest prices. This will be very considerable profits.

”You also don’t need to worry about being jointly implicated, because as long as half the players choose to cast against-conscience votes during voting, it’ll be fine.

”Our Community 12 cannot cast against-conscience votes for ourselves.

”But the three of your communities’ numbers added together can definitely ensure exceeding half.”

Zhang Shichao fell into hesitation.

Because against-conscience votes couldn’t be used for criminals from one’s own community, these three communities indeed hadn’t used against-conscience votes yet.There were still three criminals coming: Communities 12, 15, and 17 respectively.

Zhang Shichao had originally considered whether to use the against-conscience vote for Community 17, but in previous exchanges, Li Renshu had already clearly stated that their against-conscience votes had other arrangements and wouldn’t be exchanged.

In that case, Zhang Shichao also didn’t need to save the against-conscience vote for Community 17. Better to secure more benefits for himself.

Chen Guangming’s statement was indeed very attractive.

After a moment of consideration, Wang Weidong nodded, ”No problem, I agree to this plan.”

He had actually already given up competing with Community 12, only thinking about how to sell existing shelters at high prices.

So Chen Guangming’s words hit right at his heart.

Although Wang Weidong couldn’t confirm whether Chen Guangming’s statement was true or false, regardless of whether the crime was actually price gouging on shelters, he should choose to drive up prices.

If there was no such crime, then driving up prices wouldn’t receive any punishment. Of course he should sell shelters at high prices to earn the audience’s gold coins.

If there was such a crime, then no matter whose crime it was, as long as enough people committed the crime, everyone would cast against-conscience votes together.

Because this wasn’t only saving the criminal, but also saving themselves.

Of course, to avoid risks, Wang Weidong wouldn’t do this himself, but would hand it to other players within the community who still had death-avoidance opportunities.

But in any case, driving up shelter prices and extracting gold coins from the audience’s hands as much as possible now aligned with all field players’ interests.

The key wasn’t in not committing any crimes, but in having corresponding methods to avoid them after crimes were clarified.

Zhang Shichao also nodded, ”Alright, I also agree.”

Jin Cheng asked, ”Then specifically what should we do? At what price should we list?”

Chen Guangming explained, ”Very simple. There are still 21 audience members without shelters now. We just need to divide up these 21 audience members.

”According to the number of plots, we can roughly make this distribution:

”Our Community 12 lists 9 shelters. Community 15 lists 6 shelters. Community 9 and Community 7 each list 3 shelters.

”This is roughly consistent with the proportion of plots we currently own.

”We all sell at the same price.

”Now it’s the seventh round. We list at 23 gold coins.

”After each subsequent round, we add 1 more gold coin. That is, by the tenth round, we raise it to 26 gold coins.

”At the same time, we can respectively send players to other communities to supervise each other.

”Of course, this cooperation might also break down. After all, if you insist on listing more shelters or listing at lower prices, I also have no way to stop you.

”But you must understand that if that situation really occurs, you won’t gain more profits. It will only damage everyone’s interests together.

”After all, these 21 audience members are non-renewable resources. Once they buy one shelter, they definitely won’t buy a second.”

Chen Guangming’s plan had clearly been deeply thought through and aligned with these communities’ common interests.

Although they could also choose to list low prices first, each shelter might earn 8-10 fewer gold coins.

Moreover, other communities would also follow with low prices.

In such a situation, everyone’s prices would get increasingly undercut. Profits would actually be worse than the current situation.

The other three looked at each other and ultimately each nodded.

”Deal.”

...

After returning to their respective rest areas, these communities mutually sent out players to different communities to supervise each other.

Then they re-changed all their listing prices.

Strictly following previous agreements, they listed shelters. All were inferior shelters, and prices were all set at 23 gold coins.

Although they couldn’t see the audience’s expressions, they could roughly guess.

Nine audience members had previously purchased shelters at 16 gold coins. Originally, they seemed somewhat like suckers, but now they should be immensely grateful.

Because there were no more 16 gold coin shelters. They had all become 23 gold coin shelters.

After listing, they waited until the seventh round ended. Still no transactions.

Clearly, the audience fundamentally couldn’t accept such prices.

But no one cared whether they accepted or not.

...

The eighth round of the game began.

The third criminal’s list appeared on the big screen.

[Cao Haichuan, male, 39 years old.]

[While serving as a police officer, a farmer was defrauded when purchasing a house, had a dispute with the developer, and called the police. Only conducted simple mediation, took no action.]

[Judgment result: Not judged.]

[In the game, behavior committing similar crimes to the criminal is: ’Did not attempt to stop other players from committing other crimes, and also did not commit other crimes themselves.’]

[You have 10 seconds to choose ’Confess’ or ’Appeal.’]

Everyone was somewhat surprised, looking one after another toward Community 17’s direction.

Clearly, this crime was similar to Zhang Shichao’s crime. Both had large ambiguous spaces.

Just looking at the case itself, this kind of dispute was indeed very difficult for an ordinary police officer to handle. What could be done seemed to be only mediation.

But many people had higher demands for law enforcement officers.

So between ’guilty’ and ’innocent,’ it only depended on players’ inner thoughts and would be influenced by subjective factors.

The determination of similar crimes was also quite cruel.

Simply put, it was ’inaction.’

Whether stopping other players from committing crimes or committing other crimes oneself, neither would be determined as ’inaction.’

But this determination condition was quite hard to guess. Many communities inevitably had this type of player.

Many players’ hearts rose to their throats.

Almost all players believed Cao Haichuan would very likely still choose to appeal. They just didn’t know how many would vote ’innocent.’

However, Cao Haichuan quickly made his decision.

[Criminal chooses ’Confess,’ will suffer instant death punishment in 10 seconds.]