God's Imitator

Zheng Qingyun asked, "So you want to use this opportunity to verify whether this machine can detect sweat-marked cards or not?"

Wei Changfeng shook his head slightly. "I think there's a high chance it can't detect them. Because as long as a player touches the cards, they'll inevitably leave traces—maybe sweat stains from being nervous, or dents from unconsciously pinching the cards.

"It's probably very hard to distinguish those from professional sweat-marking.

"So there's no need to verify this. As long as we tear one card apart before the end of each round and let the machine replace the deck with a new one, that's enough.

"The game rules don't forbid it, so it's allowed.

"That way it's fairer for everyone, isn't it?"

Zheng Qingyun looked at the machine in front of him again. Through the frosted glass, he could vaguely see the tabletop below it open up, the original deck being sent into a special slot for destruction, and at the same time a new deck being taken out.

After the new deck was unwrapped, it still ran through one minute of shuffling.

"Mm, no problem."

Zheng Qingyun had no objections to this. Everyone continued to follow the previous procedure and carry out the cooperative strategy.

...

...

Qin Cheng looked at everyone. "That's about all the cooperative strategies I can think of. Sister Bowen, anything you want to add?"

Shen Bowen thought for a moment. "Hmm… that's very comprehensive already, especially the point about deliberately damaging the cards to prevent sweat-marking. I didn't think of that at first either."

Huang Shengjie frowned tightly. "But I have a question: why do we have to put the hand cards back ourselves? Is there some trick hidden here? Why can the machine deal automatically, but not collect the cards automatically?"

No one was able to give an exact answer.

Shen Bowen pondered for a while before saying, "This seems like a neither-big-nor-small suspicious point, but I can't immediately think of what specific problem it implies.

"It might be a trap set by the Imitator, but it might also be the Imitator just being lazy.

"From my professional perspective, if time is limited, it's very hard to make a mechanical design flawless; you can only first ensure the basic functions are completed.

"If players were allowed to deal the cards themselves, the room for trickery would be huge and the game would be extremely unfair, so the dealing must be done by the machine.

"But collecting the cards doesn't really matter.

"The Imitator uses this mini slide to deal cards. The structure is simple and easy to understand, and it also lets everyone clearly see the face of each card dealt face up.

"If it also had to take on the function of collecting cards, that would require additional, complex mechanical structures. They might have felt that was unnecessary or too troublesome, so they simply solved it with a crude but simple card-collection slot."

Huang Shengjie said, "Hmm… that does make sense.

"Brother Lu, what was the situation like in the actual game? Did they manage to cooperate?"

Lu Bingjun nodded. "Your guesses are right. Old Wei did exactly that.

"Looking at the subsequent game records, it's obvious that he and the other side reached an agreement: neither side requested extra cards.

"And he also thought of the possibility of 'sweat-marking'. Every round he tore up one of the collected cards to ensure the deck was replaced with a new one each time."

Huang Shengjie lowered his head in thought. "Hmm… coming up with such a strategy within the time before the game officially starts is already not easy. I don't see any obvious problem with it for now.

"So… let's keep going?"

From the earlier description, Wei Changfeng was at least on the same level as Lu Bingjun: both a Community leader and a game core. It wasn't surprising he could think of such a strategy.

This also matched everyone's estimate of his strength.

But the final game result showed that this particular game wasn't that simple; there must be pitfalls they hadn't thought of yet.

Lu Bingjun continued, "After that, both sides had wins and losses, with Old Wei's side having slightly more wins.

"By the 6th round, the win count for the two sides was 2:4, with Old Wei's side having 4 wins."

Lu Qi was a bit surprised. "So their luck was pretty good, huh? But with a gap of two wins already, the other side should almost be unable to sit still and want to start drawing extra cards, right?"

Lu Bingjun shook his head. "No.

"The game record doesn't include the small talk between the two sides, but the 6th round obviously took longer, so they may have had some discussion during that time.

"However, in the subsequent rounds, the other side still didn't request extra cards. They kept playing with just the initial two cards.

"After that, their luck started to improve and they gradually caught up.

"By the 13th round, the wins were 8:5, with the other side leading by 3 wins."

Huang Shengjie froze for a second. "Wait, 8:5? So in the subsequent 7 rounds we only won once, and they won 6 times?

"That's not right, is it? That really doesn't look right."

Lu Bingjun said, "At 2:4, the other side won four games in a row, bringing the score to 6:4. After that, Old Wei won one game, making it 6:5, and then they won two more in a row, ending at 8:5."

Huang Shengjie was puzzled. "When it was 6:4, they'd already won four in a row. That's when they should have decisively called a stop! Or at least started drawing extra cards, right?

"Why did they play one more round?"

Qin Cheng frowned slightly, trying hard to visualize the scene during the game.

"It is a bit odd. When the other side has won four in a row, regardless of whether there's any trickery, you should directly start requesting cards.

"And the other side shouldn't have any reason to refuse."

While everyone was trying to replay the situation, Lin Sizhi had already fetched a deck of cards from the rest area. He toyed with it in his hands while watching their progress.

After waiting a moment, he said, "Let's do a quick simulation of the scene back then.

"We'll roll the score back to 2:4. Suppose I'm Zheng Qingyun from Community 6, and you're Wei Changfeng.

"I'm already 2 points behind."

Qin Cheng thought carefully for a moment. "Then, out of friendliness, I might ask: do you want to start requesting cards now?

"After all, according to the prior agreement, once there's a certain win-gap between the two sides, the side that's behind can start requesting cards to close the gap.

"As the side with the advantage, for the sake of maintaining our cooperation, I would very likely ask this out of courtesy."

Lin Sizhi shook his head. "I would proactively say I don't want to request cards yet, and say that we can wait until the win-gap stretches to 4 games or more before we start. It won't be too late then."

...

...

6th round of the game.

Wei Changfeng looked at the scoreboard. Community 2 had 4 wins; Community 6 had 2 wins.

"Do you want to start requesting cards now?

"There's already a gap of 2 wins. It's not a lot, but for fairness' sake, if you start drawing extra cards now, our side is totally OK with it."

Zheng Qingyun seemed a bit tempted and hesitated for a moment.

But after thinking it through carefully, he still shook his head in the end.

"No need for now.

"Luck fluctuates. It's completely possible to have multiple consecutive wins, with the win-gap temporarily widening to 2, 4, or even more.

"We have to play a total of 30 rounds, and this is only the 6th.

"As long as our luck improves later, we can make up the difference by winning several in a row.

"Requesting cards too early will consume extra 'penalty' uses. That's wasteful and unnecessary.

"Let's wait until the win-gap stretches to 4 or more before we start requesting cards."

Wei Changfeng nodded. "All right. If the win-gap keeps widening, you can start requesting cards at any time."

Neither side dwelled too much on this point and continued the game following the established procedure.