God's Imitator

Lin Sizhi nodded, signaling her to continue.

Qin Yao, quite encouraged, explained, ”From the campaign speeches, Cai Zhiyuan should be considered a complete defeat, right?

”He clearly felt victory was assured, so he didn’t consider specific speaking strategies at all. Of course, it’s also possible that’s just his personality. As a programmer, he’s always been straightforward in his speech, so he couldn’t be bothered to think that much.

”Overall, he focused on emphasizing his performance in ’Simple Q&A’ and ’Self-Selected Game,’ trying to win through hard skills.

”But he spoke first, which already put him at a disadvantage, since everyone’s thinking would subconsciously be led astray by the person who spoke second. And what he said was too brief. Even after Li Renshu reminded him, he didn’t add supplementary remarks.

”So what he said actually didn’t have much substance. He wasted this precious opportunity to canvass votes.

”Yang Yuting’s speech, on the other hand, could be called quite standard.

”She clearly stated the theme of her speech from the beginning, which was ’safety.’ This really captured the psychology of civilian players.

”Clearly this was a strategy she’d thought through beforehand, because if comparing earnings, she definitely couldn’t compete with Cai Zhiyuan. Only through her performance in judgment-type games could she close the gap as much as possible.

”After that, Yang Yuting used three different angles around the theme of ’safety’ to demonstrate her advantages.”First, she argued that ’in the current environment, safety is more important than earning visa time.’ Second, she had everyone recall her ’performance in judgment-type games.’ Third, she expressed her determination to ’continue helping in judgment-type games.’

”It was like weakening Cai Zhiyuan’s advantages and pulling him into her area of strength.

”For players in the community, Fu Chen’s departure happened to create such a gap.

”But Cai Zhiyuan was actually competing with Wang Yongxin for the same ecological niche. When it comes to earning visa time, they both can do it. Everyone naturally hopes the third game core is responsible for other game types.

”So thinking about it this way, everyone ultimately choosing Yang Yuting is actually quite reasonable.

”Although I still think choosing Cai Zhiyuan would be better, after understanding this point, I feel this result is actually unexpected yet logical.

”After all, even in debate competitions, situations where someone changes their viewpoint because one side’s debaters perform better on the spot are quite common, right?”

Lin Sizhi nodded, ”Mm, analyzing from logic, this result is completely reasonable and entirely possible.

”Moreover, your analysis of both people’s speeches is quite correct.

”In debates or campaigns, ’agenda setting’ is far more important than ’speech content and rhetoric.’

”Like in a certain year, two politicians were competing for president. One politician’s speech theme was ’continue maintaining the nation’s glory,’ boasting about how glorious the victories were in foreign wars. But the other politician defeated him with just one simple sentence: ’It’s the economy, stupid.’

”Because the latter saw the people’s confusion and saw the increasingly serious economic problems within the country under continuous wars.

”So even though he didn’t have any particularly special content or rhetoric, he still won victory merely through ’agenda setting.’

”Ordinary players in the community currently very urgently want a game core who can help them in judgment-type games. Even if they can’t completely trust and rely on them like Fu Chen, they should at least show this kind of courage and responsibility.

”So from this perspective, Yang Yuting indeed achieved a complete victory in the matter of ’agenda setting.’”

Qin Yao nodded repeatedly as she listened. Although she couldn’t articulate the specific principles, being able to figure out these intricacies still made her feel she had made great progress.

But then, Lin Sizhi somewhat abruptly changed the subject, ”But unfortunately, this situation has nothing to do with our analysis.”

Qin Yao was stunned, ”Huh?”

Lin Sizhi explained, ”Actually, if you think carefully, you’ll find this vote count isn’t quite normal.

”Cai Zhiyuan received three votes. I had one vote, and you also had one vote.

”This means that even if all your previous analysis holds true and some people temporarily changed their minds because of Yang Yuting’s speech, among all the remaining players, only one person voted for Cai Zhiyuan.

”And analyzing by normal logic, this person could only be Cai Zhiyuan himself.

”Everyone else voted for Yang Yuting. Is that reasonable?”

This question stumped Qin Yao.

”Hey, that’s true.

”I didn’t think carefully about who exactly these three votes were from before. Looking at it now, the two of us both voted for Cai Zhiyuan, and Cai Zhiyuan must have also voted for himself. That’s already three votes!

”Yinzhang held the ’First Player Identity Card,’ so she didn’t vote.

”That means the remaining six people all voted for Yang Yuting.

”Including Wang Yongxin, Yang Yuting, Li Renshu, Zheng Jie, Auntie Zhou, and Dai Yifan.

”Zheng Jie, Auntie Zhou, and Dai Yifan were clearly led to victory by Cai Zhiyuan in ’Simple Q&A.’ It should be reasonable for them to vote for Cai Zhiyuan.

”Even with the reasons I analyzed before, someone might change to vote for Yang Yuting, but not all three of them together, right?

”This shows the three of them discussed it privately and coordinated their votes.

”But why didn’t Li Renshu vote for Cai Zhiyuan either? No matter what, at least one of her and Cai Zhiyuan becoming game core would make the structure more stable, right?”

Lin Sizhi nodded, ”Yes, this is the unreasonable part.

”The question is, which is more likely: Cai Zhiyuan not voting for himself, or Li Renshu not voting for him?”

Qin Yao thought about it, ”Both possibilities are very small!

”So... actually Cai Zhiyuan didn’t vote for himself?

”Wait!

”In that case... Zheng Jie, Auntie Zhou, and Dai Yifan not voting for him also seems problematic. The three of them couldn’t be so in sync. Most likely they discussed it, but the result of the discussion was actually not to vote for Cai Zhiyuan...

”Could it be that Cai Zhiyuan told them beforehand privately not to vote for him?

”But in that case, couldn’t Cai Zhiyuan just not participate in the game core competition from the start? The result would be the same.”

Lin Sizhi shook her head, ”No, the result isn’t the same.”

Qin Yao lowered her head and thought, then suddenly understood somewhat, ”Oh, I see!

”For Cai Zhiyuan, the result of this matter isn’t actually important. What’s important is the process!

”Because he and Li Renshu are actually the core of the community, but if they don’t have convincing performances in games, as time passes, it will become increasingly difficult to win people’s respect.

”Especially after losing Officer Cao, it’s even more so.

”So Cai Zhiyuan, through his performance in ’Simple Q&A’ and ’Self-Selected Game,’ has already sufficiently proven his ability to crack games. For him, getting game core status actually isn’t that good.

”Because his power has no room for additional increase. Recruiting people in games isn’t that important to him. But besides that, it adds a lot of extra responsibilities.

”But his current state is actually the most cost-effective for Cai Zhiyuan.

”His and Li Renshu’s combined position is actually more stable now, and no one will consider whether they can command respect anymore. And for some dangerous games, since he’s not a game core, even if he doesn’t enter, no one can say much.

”After all, there’s still you, Wang Yongxin, and Yang Yuting ahead of him.

”This way, he has more freedom when choosing which games to enter.”