God's Imitator

Huang Shengjie was still a bit dissatisfied: "Actually, if both parties agree that the third round examiner doesn’t enter the Review Room, they can cooperate, right?

"Because once the Review Room is locked, subsequent examiners can’t enter either, so both parties can safely transport contraband."

Qin Cheng shook his head: "There’s nothing feasible.

"In this game, you can’t restrict the personal freedom of the opposing players. If you send someone to watch the opposing community, once their examiner enters the Review Room, our players won’t have time to return and report."

Everyone fell silent.

Huang Shengjie was somewhat helpless; he completely understood why Qin Cheng’s group’s earnings were relatively low.

Because the cooperation in the second round of the game doesn’t mean anything, and in the third round’s prisoner’s dilemma, it’s almost insoluble, inevitably leading to a double-loss outcome.

Unless in the rare scenario where both parties’ players are simple-minded, either didn’t think of this layer or did but didn’t act, possibly resulting in a double-win outcome for maximum profit.

The situation in Huang Shengjie’s group is actually more exceptional than special.

One could even say it’s an unscientific stroke of luck.

Because Yao Yuan, in executing his plan against Zhao Heng, established a fairly reliable cooperative relationship with Wu Xiufang.

This cooperative relationship isn’t ’mutual trust,’ but ’collusion.’

For Wu Xiufang, she didn’t care much about the profit; her primary aim was letting Zhao Heng die. And after confirming Zhao Heng triggered the special penalty, she didn’t enter the Review Room again.

Because she still needed to maximize her outside time to communicate with Zhou Xiaoying and Peng Xinyuan, preparing what to do after returning to the community.

Meanwhile, Huang Shengjie didn’t purposely calculate against the other side or forcibly pursue 1.5 times profit but chose to forgo assigning examiners, opting for all to transport contraband to maximize the total contraband transported.

This way, Huang Shengjie’s group effectively maximized their profit in the third round of the game and, combined with the gold pounds gained from killing Zhao Heng, surprisingly surpassed Qin Cheng’s group’s earnings.

Yao Yuan looked at Zhang Yan, then at Qin Cheng: "So when did you decide to poach people?

"Did the poaching strategy not affect your profit?"

Clearly, what Qin Cheng described about the final round somewhat contradicted the ’successful poaching.’

As both sides were 5 vs. 5, evenly matched; if they had poached Zhang Yan before the third round of the game, the game would’ve become 4 vs. 6, making it straightforward with no suspense.

And naturally, the mutual-injury scenario wouldn’t likely occur either.

Zhang Yan proactively said: "Let me explain this matter.

"Leaving Community 16 was my personal decision from the start, unaffected by anyone else.

"During the first round of review, I asked Wen Wan about some situations and then expressed my intention to join proactively.

"However, joining Community 2 had one unique condition: to continue fighting for Community 16 until the game ends.

"Because leaving Community 16 was because of differing ideologies, and honestly, I’m still friends with many from this community; there’s no fundamental conflict, so I didn’t want to betray them."

Qin Cheng added: "Yes, we internally discussed this issue repeatedly during rest periods after the first and second rounds of the game and ultimately agreed to this condition."

Lu Bingjun nodded: "That doesn’t seem to be less than honorable.

"But I’m curious, what exactly do you mean by ’ideological conflict’?"

Zhang Yan sighed: "Drugs.

"I’ve always leaned towards having them control drugs as much as possible, or at least find ways to restrict general players’ usage, but consensus was never reached."

Huang Shengjie quickly asked: "What’s the situation with Community 16 now?"

Zhang Yan was silent for a while, seemingly unsure how to describe, and finally said: "It’s... left to fate, nothing has been done.

"Whoever wants to buy can buy, whoever wants to restock can restock.

"However, a reluctant verbal consensus was reached: no one can excessively buy or hoard, and selling at high prices is strictly prohibited.

"So far, it’s barely maintained well, and everyone has been following the rules consciously, but the future... is hard to say."

He paused briefly, then continued: "I was fortunate enough not to participate in the ’Pain Game,’ and the pain within the community was barely endured without using those two types of special drugs.

"But more and more players in Community 16 are using special drugs, which always gives me a strong sense of unease."

"This time, it’s a less risky allocation game with many players involved, ideal for poaching or transferring, so I wanted to take a chance to see if I could find a community that controls drugs."

Wen Wan was somewhat puzzled: "But how did you determine that we were indeed a community that controls drugs?

"Weren’t you worried we might trick you?"

Zhang Yan explained: "That’s why I proposed that condition.

"If you opposed it and demanded I help you win the game before entering Community 2, then you might be deceiving me.

"But if you agreed to my condition, it likely indicates our ideologies are similar."

Lu Bingjun approved with a nod: "Nice, that’s a smart choice."

Qin Cheng looked at Huang Shengjie: "We’ve pretty much discussed our situation, Shengjie, how about your side?"

Huang Shengjie glanced at Yao Yuan and Zhou Wanlin.

After all, the game planning was mainly executed by these two.

But Zhou Wanlin shook her head slightly, indicating he should narrate.

Yao Yuan added: "This time, us winning the game, Shengjie indeed played a crucial role. Without him, nobody could’ve forced Zhao Heng to violate rules.

"Moreover, from his perspective, the whole process might be more exciting."

Huang Shengjie felt a bit embarrassed, but it was inappropriate to decline further, so he recounted the situation briefly.

Qin Cheng was quite surprised: "Your side... is the situation that complicated?"

Many instinctively looked at Yao Yuan.

Shen Bowen showed a noticeably shocked expression: "You successfully killed the leader of Community 23?

"And it was during an allocation game?"

These two games share identical rules; during the game spanning over three hours, Shen Bowen, Qin Cheng, and others constantly considered strategies, but their conclusion was: although the game has a death mechanism, the likelihood of truly triggering it is extremely low.

Because it requires simultaneously meeting three conditions:

The individual or community’s violation count reaches the limit;

Forcing or deceiving a specific player to commit another violation;

Ensuring at least 3 out of the opposing players choose not to donate gold pounds to save the person.