God's Imitator

Zhao Heng did not take long to think it over. He gave a quick nod, ”Deal. Then you can go now.”

Yao Yuan shook his head, ”I’m sorry, but our cooperation starts from Round Three. We’re obviously not just walking away in the middle of this one.

”You’ve already brought this much Contraband. The moment we leave, you’d push it all into the cell block immediately. That wouldn’t be fair to us.”

Zhao Heng raised an eyebrow, ”Hmm? Didn’t you say you have no realistic path to overtaking us and were conceding the winner’s returns to us?

”If that’s the case, what does it matter to you whether we deliver a little more or a little less?”

Yao Yuan shook his head, ”It still matters. It would make us feel uncomfortable.

”The proposal I’m making is based on the assumption of perfectly rational actors, similar to the logic of the pirates and the gold coins problem, but in reality almost no one operates as a perfectly rational actor.

”So in the vast majority of cases, the side with the advantage has to make a concession to avoid a lose-lose outcome.

”Here’s my offer: push a third of the Contraband through the Medical Room window, and we’ll leave immediately.”

Zhao Heng’s expression darkened, ”I don’t like bargaining with people. And I don’t like being threatened.”Yao Yuan took half a step forward, ”Then we’ll wait here until Round Two ends. I’m in no rush.

”These are all materials you spent Gold Pounds to buy. Once the round ends, they’re worthless.”

Zhao Heng’s expression remained dark. He thought for a while longer, then turned to Peng Xinyuan, ”Go.”

Yao Yuan shook his head, ”No. Have the young woman come instead, and give her two more units of Contraband.”

Because of her physical condition, Zhou Xiaoying was carrying the fewest units of the three, only six.

Zhao Heng was silent for a moment, then tossed the two units in his hand across.

Zhou Xiaoying struggled considerably just to lift all of it. Six units had already been a strain, and with two more added it was close to the limit of what she could manage, forcing her to shuffle forward at a very slow pace.

Meanwhile, Yao Yuan and Zhou Wanlin moved silently alongside her, maintaining a consistent distance.

Had Zhao Heng or Peng Xinyuan been the one delivering the Contraband, either of them might have changed course on passing Community 23’s cell block and pushed some of it through on the way. The strength advantage of male players made that a real risk.

With a female player, those concerns didn’t apply.

Finally, Zhou Xiaoying reached the area below the Medical Room window with her load of Contraband.

”Set it down. You can go.”

Hearing those words from Yao Yuan, Zhou Xiaoying felt an enormous sense of relief.

But the moment she turned to leave, she heard what sounded like another sentence from Yao Yuan, and it was clearly directed at her.

Zhou Xiaoying startled. She quickly glanced toward Zhao Heng in the distance, but he clearly couldn’t hear anything over the industrial roar of the factory machinery, which swallowed all ambient sound.

She didn’t dare linger. She left almost as though fleeing.

Yao Yuan, Huang Shengjie, and Zhou Wanlin each got to work, pushing the Contraband units through the Medical Room window.

Then, true to their word, the three of them turned and left quickly.

All three of them sprinted back to the Raw Materials Warehouse. Round Two was nearly over.

”Sister Wanlin, who should go to the Inspection Room for this round?”

Technically it was Huang Shengjie’s turn as Distributor this round, but Zhou Wanlin had more experience with the inspection side.

But Yao Yuan had already moved ahead of them and stepped up to the Inspection Room entrance.

”I’ll handle it.”

Huang Shengjie paused, ”Yao Yuan, do you know the specific inspection rules?”

Yao Yuan gave no answer and simply stepped inside.

Shortly after, Round Two ended.

Everyone gathered in the lounge immediately and shared all their information, then fell into silence.

The current situation was genuinely difficult.

Huang Shengjie was the first to apologise, ”I’m sorry, everyone. I’ve already committed two violations.

”I just lost control. I punched Zhao Heng without thinking.”

Zhou Wanlin made a fist and said to Huang Shengjie, ”Don’t apologise, you did great. Honestly, I can’t stand the sight of that Zhao Heng either. If I could, I’d have punched him myself.”

Huang Shengjie looked touched, ”Thank you, Sister Wanlin.”

Yao Yuan also offered some comfort, ”It’s fine. That’s not on you.

”Zhao Heng is no ordinary player. He’s Community 23’s leader.

”Under the Second Stage’s community merger rules, Community 23 should be a newly assigned number, a community cobbled together from smaller fringe groups and new players. But whatever else is true, Zhao Heng is a fairly capable player, and he happens to be well-suited to this game’s mechanics.”

Geng Yuxia was baffled, ”How did this game’s selection mechanism fail to filter him out?”

Yao Yuan explained, ”It’s not surprising, really. There have only been two games before this one. If he happened not to participate in either for whatever reason, he wouldn’t be filtered out.

”With such a small sample size, this kind of anomaly is easy to produce.”

Geng Yuxia still looked puzzled, ”But what about the third criterion? Players who participated heavily in community discussions should also have been filtered out.”

Yao Yuan had clearly already considered this, ”That’s likely because Community 23’s internal dynamics are quite unusual. Zhao Heng is the kind of leader who makes decisions by decree and almost never takes part in open discussions.”

Huang Shengjie looked surprised, ”You can actually run a community like that?”

Yao Yuan nodded, ”A leader’s style and a community’s dynamics reinforce each other.

”Based on the intelligence Li Mao shared, Community 23’s structure is quite particular.

”Zhao Heng operates as an absolute authority within Community 23. He uses a core group of five veteran players to control the rest of the community, and has built a rigidly hierarchical system within it.

”This includes a collective punishment arrangement: regular players are paired with someone they’re close to, and if one of them makes a mistake, both are punished together.

”Control of the medications is another tool.

”The reason Zhao Heng was selected into this game is that he almost never speaks during community discussions. Most of the time, he lets other core members discuss among themselves, and only steps in to deliver a final ruling.

”It’s similar to certain ancient emperors who rarely spoke, which meant their subordinates had to constantly try to divine their intentions, and they never had to worry about saying the wrong thing.

”That creates an atmosphere where, because the rules are never stated plainly, their authority becomes impossible to predict and therefore impossible to resist.”

Huang Shengjie frowned and said, unconvinced, ”Playing the local tyrant in a community of fourteen people? That’s a bit absurd.”

Geng Yuxia said with some confusion, ”If their community is that high-pressure, you’d think it would fall apart the moment someone tried to pull people away. But you both tried to recruit Zhou Xiaoying and Li Mao, and they both hesitated. Why?”

Yao Yuan was quiet for a moment, ”That takes a bit more to explain.

”Because Zhao Heng also has generous rewards and a promotion system in place within the community.

”If you perform well in games, you can earn a larger share of visa time, more medications, and even more authority.

”In other words, once you climb into the inner circle, you can exert pressure on the people below you at will.

”Of course, the number of spots in the inner circle is limited. Someone goes up, someone comes down.

”But regardless, that kind of advancement pathway is more accessible and more immediately tangible than in most other communities.

”Wu Xiufang is one of the new players he promoted by making an exception.”