God's Imitator

Yao Yuan nodded and said, ”That makes complete sense.

”While either of you could have used the assistance function at that point, it was clearly Deng Xiao who was in the more dangerous position. So you left the decision to him.

”But Deng Xiao felt guilty about having cast one Sudden Death Vote against you, thought he could hold on a little longer, and wanted to give Lawyer Lin more time so that the one assistance opportunity could have the greatest possible impact. So he kept delaying, and ended up missing the window.

”The final result is deeply regrettable.

”I think both Lu Bingjun and Deng Xiao performed admirably in the game. Deng Xiao in particular. His conduct was something to be respected.”

The information disappeared from the large screen, and the other players let the topic go.

Qin Cheng bowed his head in thought for a moment, then looked at Lu Bingjun, ”Lu Bingjun, I’m curious about the immunity voucher.

”You mentioned during the game that in the confession phase, you encouraged other players to confess and save themselves with an immunity voucher, because the way deaths would be triggered later might be impossible to block with one.

”Was that the truth, or was it a tactic you used in the game?”

Lu Bingjun shook his head, ”I don’t know.”As I said in the game, it was only a guess.

”Because we had never encountered a situation exactly like this in earlier games, there was no way to verify it.

”But I do genuinely lean toward believing that immunity vouchers can only cancel out instant-death penalties, and nothing else.”

He looked at Shen Bowen and Lin Sizhi, ”I think this is a question worth putting to both of you.

”Perhaps the regions you came from had encountered something similar?

”Or simply from a veteran player’s perspective, do you think an immunity voucher would work in a situation like this?”

Shen Bowen thought for a moment, ”I lean toward no.”

Lin Sizhi also gave a slight shake of his head, ”No.

”The Gallery’s underlying rules are fairly rigorous. If a rule is written clearly, without any ambiguous wording that could serve as a textual trap, and no other rule conflicts with it or supplements it, then that rule can be taken as definitive and unchangeable.

”The immunity voucher’s item description has been very clear from the start: once used, it protects the target player from this community for 24 hours, during which it can cancel out one instant-death penalty.

”The instant-death penalty operates by injecting a lethal substance into the player through the bracelet, and cancelling that penalty presumably means directly blocking the injection.

”But the immunity voucher’s description has never stated that it can cancel out other forms of death, nor that it can heal any injuries or illnesses sustained by the player.”

Huang Shengjie’s eyes went wide and he looked somewhat incredulous, ”So what’s the point of the immunity voucher then?

”When an Imitator designs a game, they just need to not use the instant-death penalty at all, and instead design a punishment that acts directly on the player’s body, like they did in this game, and the immunity voucher is completely bypassed.

”This time it was chest pain and cardiac blockage. Next time they could do brain death. After that, liver cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer.

”With the medical resources currently available in the community, they could pick from hundreds of terminal illnesses and any one of them would be enough to kill a player.”

Shen Bowen appeared to want to say something, but she looked at the silent players around her and held herself back.

But the silence stretched on for so long that she eventually could not restrain herself, ”Didn’t you have an Imitator who revealed their identity openly before? Didn’t you receive any information from them?”

Yao Yuan was quiet for a moment, then shook his head, ”We did catch an Imitator once, but we weren’t able to extract much information from them.

”Everything we know has been inferred from the game rules we’ve already seen.”

Shen Bowen let out a sigh, ”Alright. Then let me share some information.

”Our community once had an Imitator who revealed themselves openly. From that person, we learned a number of things that only Imitators would know.

”It’s a shame that they died fairly quickly, so the information we have is actually quite limited.

”But it happens to be directly relevant to this question.

”The freedom an Imitator has when designing a game is considerably lower than most people imagine. It is not the case that however they want players to die, players will die that way.

”Once a game design is submitted, multiple Imitators review and bid on the submissions, as you know. So the Imitator has to consider what other Imitators might design, gauge what the Gallery wants, and avoid going too far outside the acceptable range, or the design will certainly be rejected.

”And on the question of death, that is clearly where the most restrictions apply. The Gallery allows Imitators to kill players, but only in ways that align with the Gallery’s intentions.

”So if an Imitator wants to bypass the immunity voucher and kill players through something other than an instant-death penalty, they have to design a very particular kind of game that fits within what the Gallery requires.

”Just like this Judgment Game.

”Because the original victim died of a sudden cardiac arrest, and because this was a Judgment Game, the Imitator was able to design a new cause of death built around sudden cardiac arrest.

”In other words, if the Gallery had presented a different case or different requirements, a design like this would not have passed the review, or would not have beaten the competing proposals from other Imitators.

”So, just as the First Player Identity Card cannot be used to refuse entering a game with a judgment nature, immunity vouchers cannot protect against every kind of death.

”Of course, for the Imitator, designing the game’s cause of death as a straightforward instant-death penalty is always the most reliable approach and the easiest to get through review.

”So in the majority of cases, the immunity voucher can absolutely still save your life.”

Even though Shen Bowen’s conclusion was ultimately leaning toward the optimistic, none of the players in the room were feeling particularly cheerful.

Lu Qi looked dejected, ”It’s such a shame. Our community’s luck really was terrible.

”The immunity voucher was only a day or two away from being ready.

”If it had finished its cooldown before this game, none of the players would have died.

”Just like Lu Bingjun proposed.”

Lu Bingjun nodded, ”Yes. If we’d had an immunity voucher, I would have confessed without hesitation and used it to save myself.

”This was a Judgment Game, after all. Spending one immunity voucher to ensure everyone survives is an absolutely worthwhile trade by any measure.”

Qin Cheng was quiet in thought for a moment, ”But I do have one question.

”Wasn’t the confession phase a little too generous?

”If the Imitator hadn’t included it, or had required two players to confess for anyone to be spared, wouldn’t that have been more in keeping with the spirit of the game?”

Huang Shengjie looked mildly surprised, ”How is that more in keeping with the spirit? That’s just more severe. If two players have to confess, that means two communities out of three would have to use their immunity vouchers.

”That’s even less likely to happen.”

Qin Cheng nodded, ”Yes, it’s more severe. But this is a Judgment Game.

”The Imitator’s goal is to kill players. Why would they include something that looks, at first glance, like such a generous escape clause?

”If we set aside the specific players involved and only consider the game’s mechanics, the three communities participating would almost certainly have all unlocked their immunity vouchers by now. The only question is whether the cooldown had finished.

”As long as any one of the three communities was willing to spend an immunity voucher, all the effort the Imitator put into designing this game would go completely to waste. Wouldn’t that frustrate them?”