God's Imitator

The subsequent dealing turned out to be exactly as Zheng Qingyun had predicted. Their side began winning consecutive rounds.

The score shifted from 4 to 2, to 4 to 6.

[Community 6 wins. Highest total: 19.]

The player to Zheng Qingyun’s right turned over their hidden card with some surprise. It turned out to be a 10.

Combined with the face-up 9, it was a total very close to 21, and winning was only natural.

The grim tension that had remained on Zheng Qingyun’s face finally eased. He let out a long breath and looked at Wei Changfeng, ”I did say luck always fluctuates.

”If I had started hitting earlier, I’d have wasted 4 penalty counts by now.

”It’s a good thing we’re both players who can stay patient.”

Wei Changfeng nodded, ”Yes. Let’s continue.”

Lin Sizhi carried on, ”After that, I won four consecutive rounds, bringing the score to 6 to 4.”Now what would you do? Would you start hitting?”

Qin Cheng’s expression showed some inner conflict, but he eventually said, ”I probably wouldn’t say anything yet.

”Because earlier, when you were two rounds behind, you proactively chose not to hit, saying it was normal variation in luck.

”And it turned out just as you said: the gap closed back on its own.

”Now I’m two rounds behind, and it feels awkward to immediately push to start hitting when you didn’t in the same situation.

”If I trust you, I’d wait, just as you suggested before, until the gap reaches 4 rounds before anyone hits.

”If I don’t fully trust you, I’d start hitting once the gap reaches 3 at most.”

Lin Sizhi nodded, ”The next round, you win, bringing the score back to 6 to 5.”

Qin Cheng followed on immediately, ”That to some extent increases my trust in you. So far the luck looks fair. There doesn’t seem to be any cheating.”

Lin Sizhi continued, ”But then I win two more in a row, bringing it to 8 to 5.

”Lu Qi, what would you do at this point, if it were you?”

Lu Qi was caught off guard by the sudden question and paused, ”I’d probably wait one more round.

”At 6 to 5, the luck looked roughly even. You winning two in a row after that could just be a temporary streak.

”That kind of fluctuation should still be within normal range, right?

”And after all, we said we’d start hitting once the gap reached 4 round wins.

”So I’d look at one more round.

”If I won this round and it became 8 to 6, that’s completely manageable. Just keep playing.

”If you won again and it became 9 to 5, that would feel suspicious, and I’d definitely start hitting.”

Qin Cheng thought for a moment, ”Then you’ve been tricked. The other side has just taken an easy extra round win.”

Lu Qi looked genuinely confused, ”Wait, how? Why would you be certain the other side would definitely win?

”Were they cheating? But I can’t think of anywhere cheating would even be possible.”

Huang Shengjie was equally puzzled, ”Right, it doesn’t make sense.

”Every round gets a fresh deck, and the dealing, shuffling, and replacing are all done by the machine. How would you even tamper with it?

”Unless someone can do real magic?”

Shen Bowen had already come to a realisation, ”If you could swap cards without touching the machine, that would be magic, not a trick.

”The only explanation is that something is wrong with the machine.

”Could one of the three opposing players be the Imitator who designed this game?

”And they built some kind of hidden mechanism into the machine that, once activated, deals them a higher total?

”But that doesn’t quite work either. From everything we’ve seen in the Gallery, even when mechanisms have been built with a backdoor, triggering them requires some specific physical action. You can’t just control them mentally.

”If it required some visible physical action to activate, that action itself should have drawn suspicion much earlier.”

Everyone was stuck for a moment.

Lin Sizhi spoke up, ”Because we can’t see the scene directly, certain pieces of information are unavailable to us, and the truth is almost certainly hidden in exactly those gaps.

”My guess is that the machine was deliberately designed with a flaw.

”The way it shuffles, and the way it replaces the deck, both likely have problems.

”This is a rules trap the Imitator set from the very beginning.

”If someone had been on the scene, comparing the suits and point values of previous hands across rounds might have confirmed this much sooner.”

Both Lu Bingjun and Ye Lin showed mild surprise at this.

Lu Bingjun nodded, ”That’s right. When we debriefed at the time, it was only by repeatedly cross-referencing every player’s card suits and values from earlier rounds that we confirmed this point.

”To do that, we bought the full game records for every player. A large portion of that cost came out of pocket for Ye Lin and me.

”It’s a shame. If we had thought of this sooner, perhaps that money could have been saved for the community fund instead.”

Ye Lin also sounded mildly regretful, ”It really was a significant amount of visa time.”

Huang Shengjie was genuinely indignant, ”So they really were cheating?

”Are the Community 6 players animals?

”They had a perfectly good cooperation strategy and they just had to go and cheat anyway?

”And what was even the point? Once the round win gap hit 4 or more, they’d be found out eventually, right?

”All that for a lead of 4 round wins?

”Short-sightedness has to have some kind of limit.”

Qin Cheng shook his head slightly, ”No, this isn’t that simple.

”I can roughly imagine the mentality and reasoning behind Zheng Qingyun’s decision. It’s not actually short-sightedness. He had his own thinking.”

Round 13.

[Community 6 wins. Highest total: 20.]

Zheng Qingyun flipped over his hidden card. A pair of tens.

”Well, my luck’s finally come around.”

Zheng Qingyun was visibly pleased. Even though Community 6 had put together a small winning streak earlier, the higher totals had come from the other two players on his side. His own luck had been consistently poor.

Drawing a total of 20 was genuinely something worth smiling about.

Xu Yili had steeled herself for the pain, but still couldn’t suppress a low grunt when it arrived.

Wei Changfeng and Gao Teng made no sound at all.

The score at this point was 8 round wins to 5, with Community 6 having reversed the lead and now ahead by 3.

Wei Changfeng’s devices had completed a full cycle and were back at the knee.

When the first cycle reached the neck ring, even Wei Changfeng felt a trace of anxiety. He hadn’t dared to move at all.

After all, a blade cutting the neck only needed to graze a major artery to be fatal.

Fortunately, when the pain finally subsided, Wei Changfeng reached up to check and found the blade had only cut a very shallow wound on the side and back of his neck. Nothing serious.

Based on the degree of injury so far, if the cooperative strategy continued as planned, it should be possible to endure through all thirty rounds with everyone surviving.

When the second cycle activated, the wounds were longer, deeper, and more painful, but still within a range that could be endured.

Wei Changfeng’s tolerance for pain was higher than most, which was why he made no sound.

As for Gao Teng, because of his paralysis and the complete absence of sensation in his lower body, the activations at his ankles, knees, and thighs produced no pain for him whatsoever.

Wei Changfeng looked at Zheng Qingyun. His expression had taken on a faintly unfriendly quality, but he still kept his voice as level as he could, ”Starting from the next round, we’ll be hitting. That’s alright, yes?”

Zheng Qingyun picked up on the shift in Wei Changfeng’s expression and gave a quick nod, ”Of course. No problem.”

But at that moment, Gao Teng, who had been sitting with his head down and saying nothing the whole time, suddenly looked up and fixed a hard, unwavering stare on Zheng Qingyun.

”You’ve been cheating.

”Haven’t you?”