God's Imitator

Before long, the seventh batch had also finished production.

The five offenders each returned to their waiting rooms, and after three minutes, made their way back to the floor once more.

This time, the broadcast rang out again.

[The crime number of Liang Guicheng (Fruit Farmer) has been correctly guessed by at least 2 offender players. Crime has been exposed.]

[Liang Guicheng’s crime: Owner of an orchard approximately 10 mu in size. Due to the fruit’s extreme perishability, he added unlicensed sweeteners and preservatives with no safety certification, and over 8 years sold a cumulative total of 167 tonnes of contaminated fruit.]

[Sentencing outcome: Not yet tried.]

[All audience members, please cast your votes to complete the First Trial.]

Liang Guicheng wasn’t the only one frozen in shock. So was Wen Wan.

She had already worked out Liang Guicheng’s crime number back during the second batch’s production. After all, one of the two pieces of information she’d started with was his last digit, and she’d since narrowed the range of the first two digits based on his appearance.

For Wen Wan, it had been the easiest number of the five to guess.

Even so, she hadn’t genuinely believed his number would actually be exposed. Two separate players needed to guess it correctly for that to happen, and since no one else had access to the last two digits the way she did, there’d been no reason to think it would come together this quickly.

But clearly, she had underestimated someone’s skill, or luck, at guessing numbers.

The broadcast sounded again shortly after.

[The results of the First Trial vote for Liang Guicheng (Fruit Farmer) are as follows:]

[Guilty: 27 votes]

[Not Guilty: 0 votes]

[Charge established in the First Trial. The offender will receive the Instant Death Penalty.]

Liang Guicheng stood frozen. The result was extreme, not a single audience member had voted Not Guilty on his behalf.

That meant if he wanted any hope of surviving the Second Trial, he would need to secure an impossible 270 Sympathy Votes.

The charge had been established, but he hadn’t received the Instant Death Penalty. Clearly, either someone from his own community had used a Death Exemption Ticket for him, or he had chosen to pre-borrow one himself.

This outcome had been expected by everyone, since the game’s mechanics guaranteed no one could die at this particular stage.

But nothing was going to end there. The real trouble was still ahead.

After a brief moment of shock, Liang Guicheng turned toward Wen Wan and Zhao Xiuying, his eyes burning with barely contained rage.

”You two vicious women.

”Why would you still guess my number? Why?

”Is this revenge, just because your own number’s already exposed?

”And you, your number hasn’t even come out yet, but you still wanted me dead so you could keep the medication profits all to yourself, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

To Liang Guicheng, it seemed painfully obvious who had guessed his number: Zhao Xiuying and Wen Wan.

Because under the game’s mechanics, each player held information about the two players following them in sequence. Wen Wan held information on Liang Guicheng and Zeng Yiming, while Zhao Xiuying held information on Wen Wan and Liang Guicheng.

Between them, they held both his last digit and the details of his crime, giving them a far easier path to guessing his number than anyone else.

And early in the game, Wen Wan and Zhao Xiuying had spoken privately, quite possibly sharing information at that time. After that, neither of them had had any further opportunity for private conversation with the other players, which meant Zeng Yiming and He Qing had little reason to be suspected.

Wen Wan hurried to defend herself, ”Brother Liang, please, don’t do anything rash. That’s absolutely not what happened.”

She felt a rising panic of her own. She had actually worked out his number back during the third batch and hadn’t given it a second thought since. They were already on the eighth batch, and she’d nearly forgotten about it entirely.

But now that a second player had also guessed the number, his crime had been exposed, and everything was hurtling toward disaster.

Liang Guicheng’s face twisted with fury. ”Fine. If neither of you wants to live, then we can all go down together.

”Let me tell you all something. He Qing is an air conditioner installer. He’s worked the job for 7 years, installing roughly 6 units a day during peak season. His crime number is the count of faulty units he installed. The last three digits are 286.

”All you need is the first digit.

”And Wen Wan’s last digit is 3.”

The information Liang Guicheng held was the last two digits of Zeng Yiming’s crime number, and the crime details for He Qing.

Even with the crime details known, though, they would mainly help narrow down the first and second digits. The last two digits couldn’t be estimated that way.

But it was clear Liang Guicheng had been guessing constantly and with considerable luck, managing to nail down He Qing’s last three digits using his five allotted guesses.

He almost certainly hadn’t stopped at He Qing alone. He’d likely tried every player’s machine repeatedly, and simply happened to have the most luck with He Qing’s.

For Wen Wan, all he’d managed to pin down was her last digit, a 3.

He Qing exploded with fury as well. ”Have you lost your mind? What does it matter to me if your number gets exposed? I’m not the one who guessed it!

”Why would you expose my crime and my number over that?”

Liang Guicheng looked as though he’d already lost all sense of restraint. ”I don’t care what happens to you. I don’t have any information on those two vicious women anyway.

”Why don’t you go ahead and expose their information too, if that’s the problem?”

He Qing’s mouth twitched with rage. ”Are you playing this game with any brain at all? If you wanted their information, you could’ve just asked me privately!

”Did you have to shout it out to the whole room like a dog?”

Zhao Xiuying’s eyes went wide with shock. ”You’re saying you’d have told him privately if he’d asked? What kind of thing is that to say?”

The floor descended into chaos.

Even Zeng Yiming stood frozen. The game had been running smoothly. They’d successfully produced their medication, sales had been strong, and if they’d simply carried through to the end as they were going, everyone could have made it home safely.

Zhao Xiuying’s vote tally had been unfavourable, yes, but the audience collectively held 27 times 15, which is 405 Sympathy Votes in total, a number that should have been more than sufficient.

But Liang Guicheng’s exposure had sent everything spiralling downward.

His Guilty votes were too numerous, and the Sympathy Votes he’d need to offset them were simply too many. His odds of surviving to the end had plummeted to something close to negligible.

Which was exactly why he had lost control.

And judging by the situation now, it seemed almost every offender had been using their guessing attempts fully, testing every number on every return trip to the waiting room, holding back only their final guess.

Which meant they each already held partial knowledge of everyone else’s numbers.

What Liang Guicheng had just done was equivalent to dropping the first bomb. His intent was simple: trigger a chain reaction and drag everyone down into the same hopeless pit with him.

The rules had already made clear that the total supply of Sympathy Votes was fixed, only 405 in total.

Which meant the more offenders whose numbers were exposed, the more Sympathy Votes would be needed overall, and the death rate in this game would climb sharply.

Realising this, Zeng Yiming shouted, ”Everyone, stop! Not another word!”

He grabbed Liang Guicheng by the collar. ”If you want to live, you’ll listen to me right now!”

He kept the motion carefully restrained, not enough to register as a serious rule violation.

And his shout did have an effect. Whatever authority he’d built up over the course of the game carried real weight in that moment, and the floor finally fell quiet.