God's Imitator

Chen Guangming was completely unsurprised by this result, ”I said, since your community is most noble and suffered the least losses in this game, then of course you must bear the final instant death punishment, because only this is fair.”

Cao Haichuan sighed, ”Alright, since you want fairness, then I’ll give you fairness.”

He took one last look at Zhang Shichao, ”Sorry.”

Zhang Shichao didn’t understand why he would say this, but had a very bad premonition in his heart.

Cao Haichuan came to the console and put 30 gold coins into it.

Then new information appeared on the big screen.

[A player has chosen to query and broadcast the criminal’s detailed files.]

[Chen Peng, male, 47 years old.]

[Occupation: Construction worker]

[Originally rented in a suburban rental house. Due to rising rent, at a friend’s urging, purchased a discounted commercial apartment on the top floor of a certain development through borrowing and loans.][After moving in, discovered the house had serious quality problems and was uninhabitable.]

[After unsuccessful negotiations with multiple parties, killed the salesperson who sold him the problem property.]

Unlike the previous simple text information, this time real footage appeared on the big screen, including the criminal’s living environment, work conditions, and a series of scenes including kneeling and calling the police during the negotiation process. It allowed almost all players who saw it to immerse themselves in the criminal’s first-person perspective.

Especially him working hard under the scorching sun on the construction site, yet ultimately powerless against the house’s quality problems, creating an extremely strong contrast.

Seeing this information, all players were stunned.

At the same time, they instantly understood why Cao Haichuan couldn’t provide proof earlier.

Because without announcing specific case details, other players absolutely wouldn’t believe it. But as soon as case details were announced, everything would change and couldn’t be undone.

Wang Weidong was also stunned, because he thought of a rule in the game.

[Before the game ends, the system will conduct ’lie detection’ on all field players. If at this time the player’s true inner thoughts are completely consistent with previous voting results, they will be marked as ’perfect judge.’]

[If the number of ’perfect judges’ is fewer than 10 people, then all players except ’perfect judges’ and ’audience’ will additionally trigger instant death punishment once.]

The game’s lie detection mechanism didn’t detect when players voted.

But detected when the game ended.

That is to say, if when the game ended, a certain player changed their view on a previous vote, for example originally believing ’guilty,’ but now believing ’innocent,’ it would similarly trigger the lie detection mechanism.

Only players who were completely consistent would be marked as ’perfect judges.’

Clearly, as a murderer, Chen Peng’s crime was irrefutable, with no ambiguous space.

So when that initial simplified criminal file appeared, the vast majority of field players didn’t even think and voted ’guilty.’

This was indeed their true thoughts. Without understanding specific details, they couldn’t possibly indiscriminately vote innocent for a murderer.

But after seeing the specific files and real footage, their thoughts instinctively underwent some changes.

According to game rules, when players believed the criminal was ’with no other choice’ or had ’understandable circumstances,’ they should vote ’innocent.’

Chen Peng was an honest person forced into a corner.

He used half a lifetime’s savings to purchase a house, but due to the salesperson’s deliberate concealment bought a house fundamentally uninhabitable. Despite trying every method, he couldn’t resolve it. Ultimately his emotions collapsed and he chose to go to extremes.

This fit the concept of ’with no other choice.’

The concepts of ’guilty’ and ’innocent’ in the Gallery weren’t the same as in law. Previous judgment games had all executed similar standards.

Some criminals’ actions didn’t violate laws but still might be judged guilty. And the reverse was also true.

As long as players had participated in other judgment games or understood the rules of other judgment games, they were very clear about this.

The Gallery’s lie detection mechanism would precisely capture players’ instinctive inner reactions. Only very few could resist this instinct.

Even worse, field players’ behaviors in the game also inevitably reflected on real-life behaviors, further catalyzing this emotion.

This also meant they would suffer instant death punishment one additional time when the game ended. Except for those few players who could still use shelters to avoid death, other players were already beyond saving.

...

Fan Zehui instantly lost some emotional control, questioning incredulously, ”Are you crazy!

”Won’t doing this also kill players from your own community together!

”You could have completely chosen not to reveal the truth and not trigger lie detection punishment! So what if we selected your community in the final vote? You were already dead anyway, but other people from Community 17 still had shelters. They could still survive!

”But now you’ve exposed the truth. Won’t other players from Community 17 suffer instant death punishment twice consecutively?”

Cao Haichuan shook his head, ”No, they won’t. Because at the very beginning, we cast ’against-conscience votes.’

”Because I thought of this case. I was the police officer who handled the dispute at that time.”

Everyone was completely stunned.

Only now did they remember that in the initial ’rehearsal’ of the second phase, the voting time seemed much longer than every subsequent vote.

Originally they hadn’t paid attention, but thinking about it now, it should be because Community 17 used ’against-conscience votes’ after internal discussion.

The reason Li Renshu refused Zhang Shichao’s suggestion to use against-conscience votes together was also because at that time, players from Community 17 no longer had against-conscience votes.

And this against-conscience vote also meant players from Community 17 would inevitably become ’perfect judges’ and wouldn’t suffer additional instant death punishment due to the lie detection mechanism.

Clearly, the so-called ’rehearsal’ at the start of the second phase wasn’t to let players familiarize themselves with game rules, but had buried a huge trap that could fit all players inside.

If no one exposed it, then this trap wouldn’t function.

But once someone exposed it, there was no more room for recovery.

Cao Haichuan continued, ”The reason I did this actually has another reason.

”In this game, besides our 5 communities and 30 audience members, there are other players.

”Although the rules don’t mention them and we can’t find any trace of their existence, I’m very certain they must exist.

”Other players should have also noticed, right? Like Chen Guangming.

”But you very tacitly chose not to say it.

”Of course, it’s also possible you didn’t guess it, but learned of this because you received special information. In that case, you couldn’t say it and could only be forced to keep it secret.

”But in any case, these ’hidden players’ have always existed in the game.

”Whether it’s the development order of nine-square grids or the order of criminal judgments, they’re all decided by them.

”The gold coins paid for bidding on plots should also all have gone into their pockets.”