God's Imitator

Very soon, the seventh batch of drugs was also completed.

The five Sinner players returned to the lounge, and three minutes later, each went back to the game field.

But this time, the broadcast sounded again.

[The crime number of Liang Guicheng (Fruit Farmer) has been guessed by at least two Sinner players. His crime has been exposed.]

[Liang Guicheng’s crime: He owns a fruit orchard of about 10 mu. Because fresh fruit spoils easily, he added illegal sweeteners and preservatives to the fruit, and sold a total of "167 tons" of problematic fruit over eight years.]

[Judgment result: Not yet judged.]

[Audience, please cast your votes and complete the "Initial Judgment".]

It wasn’t just Liang Guicheng himself who was stunned in shock; Wen Wan was too.

As early as when the second batch of drugs was completed, Wen Wan had already guessed Liang Guicheng’s crime number.

After all, among the two pieces of information she initially held was info on "the last digit of Liang Guicheng’s number", and then she narrowed down the range of the first two digits based on his appearance.

For Wen Wan, this was the easiest number to guess.

But even so, Wen Wan never thought Liang Guicheng’s crime number would actually be exposed.

Because it takes two Sinner players fully guessing the number to trigger "crime exposure", and the other players didn’t have the last two digits the way Wen Wan did. Logically, they shouldn’t be able to guess it so quickly.

But obviously, Wen Wan underestimated some player’s skill at Guess the Number—or their luck.

Very soon, the broadcast sounded again.

[Now announcing the Initial Judgment voting result for Liang Guicheng (Fruit Farmer):]

[Guilty: 27 votes]

[Not Guilty: 0 votes]

[The crime is established in the "Initial Judgment". The Sinner will suffer an Instant Death Penalty.]

Liang Guicheng froze on the spot. The voting result was too extreme—not a single Audience member had voted "Not Guilty" for him.

That also meant if he wanted to survive the "Second Judgment", he’d need a full 270 "sympathy votes", which looked almost impossible.

The vote result was "crime established", but Liang Guicheng did not suffer an Instant Death Penalty.

Obviously, either a player from his Community had proactively used an Immunity Coupon on him, or he himself chose to pre-spend an Immunity Coupon.

This outcome was within everyone’s expectations—after all, by the game’s mechanics, this phase simply doesn’t kill anyone.

But things clearly weren’t going to end there. The truly bad part was still ahead.

After a brief moment of stupefaction, Liang Guicheng glared at Wen Wan and Zhao Xiuying, unable to suppress the fury in his eyes.

"You two bitches..."

"Why did you still have to guess my number? Why!"

"Is it just because your number is already exposed, so you want to take revenge on me?"

"And you—your number hasn’t been exposed yet, but you still want to kill me so you can pocket all the money from selling the drugs, right? Is that it? Is that it!"

In Liang Guicheng’s mind, the two players who’d guessed his number were painfully obvious: Zhao Xiuying and Wen Wan.

Because according to the game’s mechanics, each player gets information on "the two players after them".

For example, Wen Wan got information on Liang Guicheng and Zeng Yiming, while Zhao Xiuying got information on Wen Wan and Liang Guicheng.

The two of them respectively held the "last digit" and the "specific crime", which made it easier for them to guess the exact number compared to the other players.

And at the start of the game, Wen Wan had privately chatted with Zhao Xiuying, very likely sharing intel.

After that, they had no chance to privately talk with the other players, so Zeng Yiming (Store Manager) and He Qing (Installer) weren’t really suspects.

Wen Wan hurried to defend herself: "Brother Liang, please don’t lose your head, it absolutely wasn’t like that!"

She was a little flustered herself, because she had actually guessed Liang Guicheng’s crime number back when the third batch of drugs was being produced. They were already making the eighth batch now, and she’d practically forgotten about it.

But once another player guessed that same number and Liang Guicheng’s crime was exposed, everything was pushed straight into an abyss with no way back.

Liang Guicheng’s expression twisted into something feral as he snarled, "Fine, since none of us want to live, then we can all die together!"

"Let me tell you this: He Qing is an air conditioner installer. He’s been working seven years, and during peak season he installs around six units a day! His crime number is the number of faulty air conditioners he installed! The last three digits of that number are 286!"

"You only need to guess the first digit!"

"And also, Wen Wan’s last digit is 3!"

The info Liang Guicheng had was the last two digits of Zeng Yiming (Store Manager)’s crime number, plus He Qing’s crime details.

But obviously, even knowing the crime details mainly helps estimate the first and second digits; the last two digits are impossible to calculate.

Still, it was clear Liang Guicheng had been trying constantly. He’d had pretty good luck, using five attempts to successfully determine the last three digits of He Qing’s number.

Of course, it’s impossible he only tested He Qing. He most likely tried everyone’s numbers, and just happened to have a higher success rate on He Qing because of luck.

For Wen Wan, he had only tested out that her last digit was 3.

He Qing flared up instantly: "You’re insane! What the hell does your number getting guessed have to do with me? It wasn’t even me who guessed it!"

"Why the hell are you exposing my crime and my number?"

Liang Guicheng already looked half out of his mind: "Like I care! I don’t even have info on those two bitches!"

"You can expose the info on both of them too, can’t you!"

The corner of He Qing’s mouth twitched with rage: "Are you playing this game without using your damn brain? If you wanted their info, couldn’t you just find a chance to ask me privately?"

"Did you really need to bark it all out here?"

Zhao Xiuying stared wide-eyed in shock: "So you’re saying if we asked you privately you’d just tell us? Do you hear yourself?"

The arena descended into chaos.

Zeng Yiming (Store Manager) was stunned as well. The game had finally gotten on track: they’d successfully produced the drugs, the sales were decent, and as long as they followed the steps through to the end, everyone could safely return to the Community.

Granted, Zhao Xiuying’s revealed voting pattern wasn’t great, but the Audience had a total of 27×15 = 405 sympathy votes in hand—enough in terms of quantity.

But Liang Guicheng’s exposure made the situation nosedive.

He had too many Guilty votes, and needed too many sympathy votes. His chances of surviving had plummeted, becoming almost negligible.

So Liang Guicheng instantly lost it a bit.

And judging from the current situation, it seemed almost all the Sinner players had refrained from wasting their Guess the Number attempts—every time they went back to the lounge, they tested every crime number.

Leaving only their last attempt.

Which meant they all had pieces of other players’ numbers.

Right now, Liang Guicheng’s move was like dropping the first nuclear bomb. His purpose was simple: trigger a chain reaction and drag everyone down into complete despair.

The game rules already said the total number of sympathy votes was limited—only 405.

The more players whose crime numbers get exposed, the more sympathy votes they’ll need, and the death rate in the game will skyrocket.

Thinking of this, Zeng Yiming shouted, "Shut up! Don’t say another word!"

He grabbed a fistful of Liang Guicheng’s collar. "If you want to live, then listen to me."

This level of physical contact wouldn’t be judged a serious violation, and Zeng Yiming carefully controlled his movements.

His shouting actually worked: the authority he’d built up over the previous game phases finally paid off to some extent, and the area quieted down at last.