God's Imitator

Yao Yuan nodded. "I get it. That makes everything add up.

"Even though both of you could use the help function at the time, it was obvious that Deng Xiao’s situation was more dangerous, so you chose to let him make the decision himself.

"But because he’d once cast a Sudden Death Ticket on you, he felt guilty. He thought he could hold on a bit longer, wanted to buy more time for Lawyer Lin, and make the one and only help chance count as much as possible, so he chose to delay that event, and ended up missing the window a little.

"The final outcome is really regrettable.

"I think both Brother Lu and Deng Xiao performed very well in the game. Especially Deng Xiao—what he did is truly admirable."

The information on the big screen disappeared, and the other players stopped discussing the topic.

Qin Cheng lowered his head and thought for a moment, then looked at Lu Bingjun. "Brother Lu, I’m pretty curious about the ’Immunity Coupon’ thing.

"You mentioned before that during the Judgment confession phase, you’d persuaded other players to confess and use the Immunity Coupon to save themselves, because the later death mechanisms might not allow you to use the Immunity Coupon for self‑rescue.

"Is that true? Or was it just in‑game rhetoric?"

Lu Bingjun shook his head. "I don’t know.

"Just like I said in the game, it was only a guess.

"We never ran into exactly the same situation in previous games, and right now there’s no way to verify it.

"But I do tend to think that the Immunity Coupon can only offset instant‑death punishments. Other punishments and damage can’t be offset."

He glanced at Shen Bowen and Lin Sizhi. "I think on this question, we should ask for your views.

"Maybe the areas you were in have run into something similar before?

"Or, just from the standpoint of veteran players, do you think the Immunity Coupon could take effect in this kind of situation?"

Shen Bowen considered for a moment. "I’m inclined to say it can’t."

Lin Sizhi also shook his head slightly. "It can’t.

"The Walkway’s underlying rules are fairly rigorous. If a rule is written very clearly, with no semantic traps and no other rule that conflicts with it or supplements and amends it, then we can assume that rule is fixed and not subject to change.

"The item description for the Immunity Coupon has been very explicit from the start: once used, it can protect the target player in this Community for 24 hours, during which it can offset one instant‑death punishment.

"Instant‑death punishment is carried out by the bracelet injecting a lethal toxin into the player, and offsetting the punishment should be directly blocking that injection.

"But the item description for the Immunity Coupon has never said it can offset other death penalties, nor has it said it can cure a player’s injuries or illnesses."

Huang Shengjie’s eyes went wide; he was a bit incredulous. "Huh? Then what good is the Immunity Coupon?

"When the Imitator designs a game, all he has to do is not use instant‑death punishments at all, and instead, like this time, design some punishment rule that targets the player’s body. Wouldn’t that let him just bypass the Immunity Coupon however he wants?

"This time it’s angina and cardiac infarction; next time he can do brain death, and the next one liver cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer...

"Given the current medical capacity of the Community, pick any one from hundreds of terminal illnesses and it’s enough to kill a player."

Shen Bowen seemed like she wanted to say something, but she looked at the silent crowd and held her tongue.

However, after the silence dragged on for a long time, she finally couldn’t help asking, "You mean you’ve never had an open‑identity Imitator before? You’ve never gotten any information out of an Imitator?"

Yao Yuan was silent for a moment, then shook his head. "We did manage to capture an Imitator once, but we didn’t manage to get much out of him.

"Most of what we have is speculation based on known game rules."

Shen Bowen sighed. "All right, then I’ll share a bit of information.

"Our Community once had an Imitator whose identity was out in the open. From him, we learned a lot of things only Imitators would know.

"The pity is, he died very soon, so the information we have is actually still quite limited.

"But it happens to be enough to answer this question:

"An Imitator’s freedom when designing a game is much more limited than you’d think. It’s not like, if he wants the players to die in some particular way, they just have to die that way.

"Once a game is designed, a bunch of Imitators submit it for review and bid on it together—you know that much, right?

"So an Imitator has to think about how other Imitators will design their games, has to guess the Walkway’s intent, and can’t make it too outrageous, or it’ll definitely be eliminated.

"And in the category of ’death,’ the restrictions are clearly the tightest. The Walkway allows Imitators to kill players, but the killings have to fit the Walkway’s will.

"So, if an Imitator wants to bypass the Immunity Coupon and kill players in ways other than ’instant‑death punishment,’ he has to incorporate the Walkway’s requirements and present a very special kind of game.

"Like this Judgment game.

"Originally, the victim’s sudden death was due to a heart problem, and this time it’s also a Judgment game, so the Imitator could design a new death method centered around ’sudden death.’

"In other words, if the Walkway had provided a different case and different requirements, this sort of design wouldn’t have passed review, or it wouldn’t have beaten other Imitators’ proposals.

"So, just like the First Player Identity Card’s privilege of refusing to enter a game can’t be used to refuse games ’with a Judgment nature,’ the Immunity Coupon also can’t exempt players from all forms of death.

"Of course, for Imitators, simply setting the in‑game death method as ’instant‑death punishment’ is also the safest and easiest way to get through review.

"So in most cases, the Immunity Coupon can still save your life."

Even though Shen Bowen’s conclusion in the end leaned toward optimism, the players present still didn’t feel much like cheering up.

Lu Qi looked very downcast. "What a shame. Our Community’s luck is just too bad.

"The Immunity Coupon just barely wasn’t ready in time.

"If the Immunity Coupon had come off cooldown before this game, then no player would have died.

"Just like Brother Lu suggested."

Lu Bingjun nodded. "Yeah. If we’d had an Immunity Coupon, I would have chosen to confess right away and then use the Immunity Coupon to save myself.

"This is a Judgment game after all. Using one Immunity Coupon to ensure everyone survives—no matter how you look at it, that’s an absolutely worthwhile deal."

Qin Cheng lowered his head and pondered for a moment. "But... I do have a question.

"Isn’t this ’confession’ phase a bit too lenient?

"If the Imitator didn’t add this phase at all, or set it up so that two people had to confess to be acquitted, wouldn’t that make more sense?"

Huang Shengjie was a bit surprised. "How is that ’more sense’? Wouldn’t that just be harsher? If two people had to confess to end the game, that’d mean two of the three Communities have to produce an Immunity Coupon.

"That’s even less likely, isn’t it?"

Qin Cheng nodded. "It is harsher. But this is a Judgment game.

"The Imitator’s goal is to kill players, so why set up a phase that, at first glance, looks actually pretty lenient?

"Suppose we ignore the specific roster of participants and only look at the game mechanics. The three Communities have very likely all already unlocked the Immunity Coupon; the only real question is whether it’s off cooldown.

"As long as any one of the three Communities is willing to pay the price of an Immunity Coupon, all the effort the Imitator put into devising these mechanisms goes up in smoke. Wouldn’t that bother him?"