God's Imitator

Yao Yuan paused briefly and continued his explanation, ”If the assistance function is used too early, it is very likely to be wasted.

”Because all players’ information is gradually revealed as the game progresses.

”The audience player, as an outside observer, can certainly view the game’s content more objectively and comprehensively, but they are not omniscient. They have access to no more information than an ordinary inner room player.

”Community 7 is a case in point: they effectively wasted their assistance opportunity.

”Tang Qing is almost certainly one of Community 7’s core players. If he had been given more time to observe and think, he might have been able to offer considerably more.

”But Wei Hongbing’s death panicked Li Hui, and Li Hui and Shi Guoliang were completely unable to form any kind of cooperation, so Li Hui used the assistance opportunity in a rush.

”The information available at that point was not enough to allow Tang Qing to identify the Impostor, which meant there was no way to break open the situation from a higher vantage point.

”So his statement only ended up functioning as a more powerful version of a guilty party’s regular speech, which is to say it could only help his community’s guilty player escape scrutiny by attacking other players.

”After thinking it through, Tang Qing chose Deng Xiao, who had been overlooked up until then but was well-suited as a target.

”In the short term, that strategy did work. Deng Xiao came under fire, and Li Hui was able to survive a little longer.”But looking back in hindsight, this was only drinking poison to quench thirst. Because after that, Lu Bingjun immediately found a weakness in Li Hui and retaliated, and Li Hui did not survive either.

”Tang Qing could not have done much differently. He may have anticipated this kind of outcome, but once Li Hui pressed the help button, he had no choice but to say something.

”He couldn’t simply say nothing.

”Our community’s situation was the same. If the assistance had been used too early, without sufficient evidence, Lawyer Lin might not have been able to identify Xu Guangxin as the real Impostor. In that case, all he could have done was speak the same way Tang Qing did.

”And after that, even if Lawyer Lin later found the Impostor, the one assistance opportunity would already have been spent, and he would have had no way to speak again.

”Taking it a step further: even if the timing had been early enough and Lawyer Lin’s instincts had been sharp enough to notice something off about Xu Guangxin without having enough evidence yet, how would he convince the other players to vote for him?

”Without strong enough evidence, he might have drawn fire onto himself instead.

”Of course, waiting too long when the right moment has arrived and missing the window is equally costly.

”But either way, players inside the game have no way of accurately knowing whether their community’s audience representative has already gathered the key information needed to turn things around. So hesitation over whether to use the assistance function is essentially unavoidable.

”If you think inner room players should throw caution aside and use the precious opportunity very early to call on Lawyer Lin, that would only make sense if you were absolutely certain that Lawyer Lin already knew the truth from the very beginning. And in that case, if he’s not the Imitator who designed this game, who else would he be?

”If you had to name the ideal window for using the assistance in this game, it was the writing time of the sixth round.

”And Deng Xiao used it in the seventh round.

”Just one round later than the perfect window. That is hardly an outrageous mistake.

”During writing time, players have to think about what to copy onto the board and also whether to call for help, and a moment’s hesitation is enough to miss it.

”Picking at this kind of question from the comfortable vantage of a post-game debrief accomplishes nothing.”

Lu Qi said with some embarrassment, lowering her head, ”I’m sorry. I was just asking off the top of my head. I hadn’t thought it through.”

Yao Yuan nodded and said, ”It’s fine. New players asking naive questions is understandable, and everyone here is tolerant of that.

”Since this is a free discussion during the debrief, everyone is of course welcome to say what’s on their mind.

”I do want to remind everyone, though, that some things are said casually by the speaker but can carry unintended weight for the listener. For your own sake as well as the community’s, many things are worth thinking through carefully before they’re said.”

Everyone fell into silence. It was clear this particular topic had reached its natural end and was not suited for further discussion.

Yao Yuan’s message had been clear: being excessively critical of a player’s performance in the game risked making an unfair inference about their motives, turning what was a forced mistake under pressure into something that looked like deliberate wrongdoing, and potentially damaging the community’s internal trust and stability.

Yao Yuan’s explanation had clearly not convinced everyone.

Was the truly perfect window really only the writing time of the sixth round?

What about the fifth round? If assistance had been called before Xu Guangxin used his, the fifth round’s speaking time would have gone entirely to Lin Sizhi.

What Lin Sizhi would have said might not have been the same as what Bai Zhilan said. Would the outcome have been different?

But with Yao Yuan having already made his position clear, pressing further on what looked like a fine detail was genuinely not appropriate.

So most players fell back into silence.

But then Lu Bingjun spoke.

”Actually, I have a rough idea of what Deng Xiao was thinking.

”He may have overestimated how much his body could endure, and at the same time, he probably wanted to hold on a little longer to buy us more time.

”I checked his voting record.”

Even as Lu Bingjun finished speaking, the relevant query results were already appearing on the large screen.

Everyone was mildly surprised, but then realised Lu Bingjun must have used the vending machine in his room to run the query during the rest period.

Since he had already paid the corresponding visa time to access the records, they could be viewed at any point without paying again.

The record showed clearly the sentences Deng Xiao had chosen to copy in each round, the lie detection results, and the voting choices, though the records were quite concise and did not include what he had actually said.

Lu Bingjun had obviously only pulled the most basic version of the game records.

More detailed records would presumably have been far more expensive, and as someone who had lived through the game himself, there was no need to spend that.

But among all the information, one entry stood out sharply.

In the fourth round, the round when Li Hui had called on Tang Qing for assistance and Tang Qing had accused Deng Xiao.

Deng Xiao had cast his Sudden Death Vote for Lu Bingjun.

Many players looked slightly awkward, as though something of the deceased’s private life had been exposed at an uncomfortable moment.

But Lu Bingjun’s expression was serious, ”I want to be clear: I looked up this record not to apportion blame or hold Deng Xiao responsible for anything.

”At the time, Tang Qing had pointed out Deng Xiao’s offence, and had also compelled all players to vote under the ’Offence’ criterion. With the other players’ offences not yet fully exposed, Deng Xiao almost certainly had no way to cast a vote for anyone else.

”In all likelihood, the only real choice available to him was between me and himself.

”What I want to say is that his choice was the right one.

”If we could have communicated, I would have asked him to vote for me.

”Because we are allies from the same community. Under those circumstances, I should unconditionally take that vote for him, and we share the risk together.

”Perhaps it was partly for that reason that he felt some guilt toward me, or perhaps he believed he could hold on for two more rounds. Either way, that may be why he kept hesitating, and ultimately delayed calling for assistance.

”I chose to respect his decision.”