God's Imitator

Lu Bingjun smiled and waved the point aside, ”That analysis relies a bit too heavily on hindsight.

”The rule allowing players to identify the Imitator must have been forced in by the Gallery. We’ve seen similar things in First Stage games.

”But Xu Yiheng clearly made a lot of preparations to manage the risk.

”He deliberately divided this game into four zones and limited players to only meeting with adjacent rooms, specifically to cut off communication between players as much as possible.

”Listening to the game accounts, you can clearly feel that sense of disconnection: players in the same game with no real link to each other.

”In those conditions, the information any player had access to was severely limited. The vast majority had no idea Xu Yiheng even existed. How would they accuse him?

”To accuse Xu Yiheng required going through many steps: Monitor, Call, confirm suspicion, find evidence, spend all Medical Points, persuade at least half the players to vote.

”If any single step failed, Xu Yiheng would have walked away completely unscathed.”

Shen Bowen nodded and said, ”Yes, I understand that. But from a game mechanics standpoint, none of those steps were actually impossible, were they?

”If a player was able to secure Special Medication early and ensure their own safety, they would have had ample time and motivation to use the Monitor and Call functions to search for the Imitator.”Lu Bingjun made a dismissive gesture and said, ”Being capable of something and actually doing it are two very different things.

”Suppose you’re a strong player and you face two choices in the game. The first is to lock yourself in your room and spend a large amount of Medical Points hunting for the Imitator, with nothing to show for it if you fail. The second is to use the other game mechanics to extract Medical Points from weaker players.

”How many people would choose the first option?

”The second is clearly the more stable return.”

Shen Bowen was quiet for a moment. She seemed to want to push back further, but also felt that continuing in this direction would be talking past each other without reaching any clear conclusion.

So after a brief silence, she looked at Lin Sizhi and said, ”What’s your view, Lawyer Lin?”

Lin Sizhi looked at the two of them and said, ”I think your two perspectives don’t actually conflict on any fundamental level.

”Xu Yiheng’s ability was probably reasonably good among Imitators, but not at the very top tier.

”The key point is this: an Imitator with more visa time is not necessarily the strongest.”

Qin Cheng nodded and said, ”Yes, I agree.

”Our earlier analysis was clearly caught in a logical trap, built on a false premise.

”That false premise was: since Xu Yiheng won the right to design the first game of the Second Stage, he must be one of the top Imitators.

”And the fact that he earned so much visa time only reinforced that mistaken impression.

”But if you think about it more carefully, perhaps being wealthy, winning the first bid of the Second Stage, and having a weaker instinct for concealment are traits that share some internal connection.”

Qin Cheng paused briefly and continued, ”The ability to earn visa time is only one part of an Imitator’s overall capability. It isn’t the whole picture.

”Suppose there are two Imitators. The first is stronger overall, but their region is full of strong players, so they are more cautious. Any game that carries significant risk, they simply don’t design or enter. They only act at decisive moments.

”The second is slightly weaker, but their region has few strong players, or those strong players don’t have their eye on this Imitator, so they actively participate in riskier games and do everything possible to earn as much visa time as they can.

”The second Imitator will certainly accumulate more visa time, but will almost certainly not last as long as the first.”

Shen Bowen nodded and said, ”Yes. I agree with that.

”Take this particular game invitation as an example. We don’t yet know exactly how the bidding worked among the Imitators, but since it was the ’first game,’ it may have drawn intense competition from Imitators, or it may have been one that the more cautious ones deliberately avoided.

”If we assume that all the stronger Imitators are not short of visa time,

”then in a situation where the cautious Imitators have all chosen to keep a low profile, it’s not surprising that someone like Xu Yiheng would end up being the one who came out on top.”

Lu Bingjun also frowned in thought for a moment, then eventually nodded.

”What you’re saying is...

”What we originally thought was a contest where all the Imitators displayed their abilities to select the strongest among them actually turned out to be a situation where all the strongest Imitators chose to stay hidden, and they collectively pushed a money-hungry Imitator to step forward and test the waters?

”Hmm. Putting it that way, it does make a certain kind of sense.”

Everyone fell into a brief silence.

Many of the players, Deng Xiao, Geng Yuxia, Wen Wan, had all felt a sense of relief at the Imitator’s death. After all, this was the first time any of them had seen a reasonably capable Imitator die inside a game, and been on the receiving end of a large share of visa time.

At the same time, there was also a tinge of regret, a feeling that if only they had entered the game themselves, things might have been just as good.

But looking at it now, Xu Yiheng’s death was not really a sign of the players winning or the Imitators losing.

This had been more like an opening course. Xu Yiheng was the sacrifice that the other Imitators had silently and collectively pushed onto the table.

The other Imitators had perhaps depleted their visa time through more intense competition and had been unable to offer a higher bid. Or they had recognised the excessive risk once the bidding reached a certain level and withdrawn. Or they had simply intended from the start to pass on this particular opportunity.

And so in the end, it had been an Imitator like Xu Yiheng, one who had faced weaker competition in their region and had a high tolerance for risk, who ultimately emerged as the winner of the bid.

Lu Bingjun clapped his hands, ”Alright. The outcome of this game was genuinely beyond expectations. It’s an excellent start, but we also need to keep our heads. No getting carried away.

”Let me summarise the main takeaways from this game.

”Everyone can add their own thoughts afterwards.”

Everyone nodded, and the three new players in particular, Qin Cheng, Huang Shengjie, and Lu Qi, all listened attentively.

Lu Bingjun gathered his thoughts and said, ”First, the question of pre-game visa time submission.

”In hindsight, our approach of ’designated selection’ rather than ’open bidding’ was the right call.

”If some communities had used a bidding approach, any competition would have driven the total visa time submitted higher overall, which would actually reduce strategic flexibility inside the game.”

Lu Qi still looked a little uncertain, and quickly raised her hand to ask, ”Why would it reduce strategic flexibility?”

Lu Bingjun explained, ”Because in this game, identity assignment actually involves hidden rules.

”According to the visible rules, identities are assigned based on the Medical Points deposited before entry. Under 10,000 gets you Regular Patient, 15,000 to 20,000 gets VIP Patient, and 20,000 or more gives you a chance at Sales.

”But based on what actually happened in the game, at least two hidden rules can be inferred.

”The first is that the Doctor and Reviewer identities are filtered based on knowledge background and certain special factors.

”For example, Dr. Qin only deposited 10,000 Medical Points, yet still received the Doctor identity.

”The second is that the game tries to distribute the five players from each community participating in the game across the four zones, with a maximum of two players from the same community in any single zone.

”Looking back, we were already executing the optimal strategy.

”If open bidding had been used, a bad outcome could have arisen: players without relevant medical knowledge entering the game, meaning no one from our community was assigned to Doctor or Reviewer roles.

”On top of that, there would most likely have been at most one Sales player, with everyone else assigned as patients, making coordination nearly impossible.

”On that front, our collective decision-making was absolutely correct.”