God's imitator

Chapter 57 Preferences for the Brothel

Lin Sizhi paused slightly before continuing to explain, "For example, cell number 1 has the theme of 'oxen and horses running themselves ragged.' Cai Zhiyuan could go in, Uncle Ding could go in, or even Zhang Peng and Wang Yongxin could go in."

"No matter who goes in, they can find a corresponding explanation."

"Zhang Pengjin is about getting idle people to start working. And Wang Yongxin is about letting the big bosses who make money while lying down experience the hardships of being a beast of burden."

"Similarly, if a street lamp can be hung in cell number 2, then Wang Yongxin or Gao Zhankui can be hung as well. If capitalists can be hung from street lamps, then why can't their accomplices be hung as well?"
"Cell number 3, it's reasonable for anyone to go in."

“Zhang Peng can also be allowed into cell number 4, because Zhang Peng has been trying to persuade Uncle Ding. His going to cell number 4 would also fit the theme of ‘silence is golden’.”

"The undeserved disaster in cell number 5 and the fateful events in cell number 6 are just like those in cell number 3; anyone who enters them can find a reasonably plausible explanation."

"The king can make relatively free arrangements. As long as he loudly proclaims the rationality of doing so at the same time, there will always be some viewers who agree with it, and the fairness rating will not drop too much."

"Of course, this is on the premise that the king must have a certain eloquence."

"Moreover, even if the mechanism for judging the king is triggered in advance, it won't be a big problem. Assuming Wang Yongxin is the king, and he is clearly biased towards Uncle Ding and Cai Zhiyuan, he will be safe as long as those two don't vote to execute him."

Fu Chen fell into deep thought: "Hmm...that seems to be true."

Lin Sizhi continued, "Back to the previous topic. If Wang Yongxin becomes king, he might go to prison himself, but of course, the possibility is not high, and he would only go to cell number 3."

"The King will earn a lot of visa time in this game, and Wang Yongxin himself also has a lot of visa time. If it's just a little bit deducted when he goes to cell number 3, he won't mind too much."

"As for Zhang Peng and Gao Zhankui, I don't know much about these two people, so it's hard for me to give a specific guess."

"But from a game mechanics perspective, even the most villainous characters in this game don't necessarily die."

"If the king were to throw two prisoners into the cell right away, and then torture one of them to death in order to get donations from the audience, the fairness rating would definitely be reset to zero very quickly, triggering a trial."

"But as long as the prisoner favored by the king does not vote for execution, the king is safe."

"But the king can only be judged once, and once the vote is passed, the king can do whatever he wants."

"Of course, the actual situation is much more complicated than that, and I am only making an assumption within the game mechanics."

Cao Haichuan nodded: "Yes, so compared to these four people, what is Uncle Ding's biggest disadvantage in this game?"

"I think it can be summed up in two words: conflicted."

"Uncle Ding is the most conflicted of these five people."

"So he used many different standards at different stages of the game."

"This resulted in him not receiving the highest fairness rating, and being disliked by all the prisoners."

Cao Haichuan exhaled a puff of smoke and continued:

"Of course, if Uncle Ding knew about the fairness vote, things might be different, but unfortunately, the game mechanics prevented him from finding out."

Fu Chen frowned and said, "I wanted to say before that it was indeed unfair that the fairness vote was deliberately kept secret from the king."

Lin Sizhi shook her head: "I think this mechanism is quite reasonable."

"Because the king is the dominant party, he has almost absolute control over the game. If he knows that a fair vote exists, he can correct his behavior without hesitation and remain invincible."

“The arcade and copycats will not allow this to happen.”

"Moreover, this mechanism of voting on fairness, like the 'farmers' walk,' has a specific meaning."

"In reality, every subject of the king will vote for the king's fairness in their hearts, and the king will never know how many points he actually has."

"Just like the poem says: 'The water that capsizes the boat is the tears of the common people; you won't know until you see it in a raging torrent.'"

"The king will never know when judgment will come upon him, or even whether such judgment is actually taking place. By the time he sees the judgment, it will be too late."

"Moreover, it is not the audience who truly decide the king's life or death, but the prisoners."

"Just like in reality, when subjects lose trust in the king, the final decision on whether the king will be sent to the guillotine is often not made by the subjects, but by the prisoners and slaves who have been persecuted by the king the most."

"In short, it is precisely because this series of game mechanics is so realistic and ingenious that it intensifies Uncle Ding's traits."

"The reason why Uncle Ding is a bit conflicted is because he has been holding back a lot of anger. He has always felt that the world is unfair and hates this unfairness."

"There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but when he becomes the beneficiary of this unfairness, he's more likely to make some extreme decisions."

"Because he would believe that responding to unfairness with unfairness is the only true form of fairness."

"Just like he asked in the game, 'Why should I?'"
"Even if it's 18000 minutes of visa processing time, they refuse to pay it."

"It's not entirely because of stinginess, but also because of his obsession with fairness, which drove him to do such an irrational thing."

Fu Chen pondered: "So, the more someone cares about fairness, the more likely they are to fall into the trap of Cell Number 3..."

"So, did the game designer guess Uncle Ding's personality based on Uncle Ding's profession and file, or... did he meet or know Uncle Ding before?"
What was his purpose in meticulously plotting to kill Uncle Ding?
"Personal grudge? Or is it about visa processing time?"

Lin Sizhi thought for a moment: "If it's about harvesting visa time, that makes perfect sense too."

"Because this game has one extreme possibility: Uncle Ding kills all four prisoners, and at this point, the fairness score is reset to zero, triggering the King's Trial mechanism, which defaults to four execution votes."

"In that case, the outcome would be total annihilation. Whether it's the time the audience tipped Uncle Ding for his visa, or the remaining visa time for Uncle Ding and the four prisoners, it will all be harvested."

"That would be an extremely exaggerated number."

Fu Chen was silent for a moment, then asked, "By the way, which community did Uncle Ding play with in 'Blood Poker' before? I remember, it was Community 1, I think?" Lin Sizhi didn't say anything more, and the three of them fell silent.

Cao Haichuan stubbed out his cigarette: "We've deduced to about this point. Continuing to delve deeper without finding more evidence might backfire."

"Besides, these are all pure speculations, and it's possible that we're just trying to outsmart the air."

"What if the designer really didn't think that much about it? What if all of this is just a coincidence? It's not impossible."

Just pretend I'm talking nonsense.

"It's getting late, go back and rest."

……

Lin Sizhi returned to her room, washed up, and then turned on her computer.

No new information.

This means that the arcade is unlikely to reopen for at least the next three days.

Reopen the game rules for "King's Trial" to view them.

This is the second S-rated game to appear in the arcade, while even "Blood Poker," which was the only one selected from all the copycat scenarios, only received an A rating.

Lin Sizhi originally guessed that the files issued to each copycat by the amusement park might be different, and that he had not designed the most relevant game since he was not clear about Zhang Peng and Gao Zhankui's crimes.

The copycat who designed "King's Trial" obtained three open-ended files containing the names of Zhang Peng and Gao Zhankui, so he designed an even more stringent game.

However, judging from the circumstances of the "King's Trial," the copycat did not seem to be entirely certain about the exact crimes committed by Zhang Peng and Gao Zhankui.

"Silence is golden" seems to be inferred from Gao Zhankui's position as a station manager, since it's hard for someone in that position not to instigate delivery drivers; while "unwarranted disaster" is more like a catch-all phrase, which can be used to pin down any mistake.

Zhang Peng and Gao Zhankui's crimes were not particularly serious. Even if they had known in advance that Lin Sizhi had improved the design, it wouldn't necessarily have been selected.

Therefore, Lin Sizhi still needed to figure out this crucial question: why did the arcade ultimately choose "King's Trial" instead of the game he designed?

Judging from the game content, Lin Sizhi's game "Life and Death Straight Line" also took into account themes such as algorithmic exploitation, and guessed that these five people were very likely involved in the same case.

Therefore, the core difference should not lie here.

Lin Sizhi considered two possibilities.

The first possibility is that the game he designed wasn't dangerous enough. Although it's called "Life or Death Line," the actual probability of dying in this game is very low.

This is because Lin Sizhi genuinely believes that Ding Wenqiang, Cai Zhiyuan, and Wang Yongxin did not deserve to die and should not be subjected to a trial with such a high probability of death.

A game designed out of necessity, barely matching their crimes, can only be a game with a low mortality rate.

The biggest advantage of the designer of "King's Trial" compared to Lin Sizhi is that he was not limited by the specific crimes of these five players and did not care at all whether the game would result in extremely tragic casualties.

According to the rules of the "King's Trial", it is possible for all five members to be wiped out or for only one person to remain.

The second possibility is that his game design lacked specificity.

Because it was a multiplayer game, Lin Sizhi did not target any specific player with the game mechanics as he had done with Wei Xinjian before.

In contrast, the "King's Trial" not only targeted Ding Wenqiang specifically, but the design of several cells also cleverly incorporated elements of the corridor:

At first glance, it seems to perfectly match everyone's crimes, but upon closer examination, it becomes clear that there is still a lot of ambiguity, and it is not an absolute one-to-one correspondence.

This can also be seen as a better "test-taking skill".

Lin Sizhi wasn't quite sure which reason it was, though it was possible that both were involved.

He looked at the rules governing the king's trials and fell into deep thought.

"Perhaps from the beginning, the game's punishment severity and the criminals' crimes were not strictly matched."

"Ding Wenqiang has already been punished as he deserves by law, and Cai Zhiyuan has done nothing wrong from a legal perspective."

"But the arcade still dragged them into a cruel game of judgment."

"According to the description in the rules, the purpose of the gallery is 'cleaning and judgment,' that is, to clean up the waste and judge the sinners."

"The sinners referred to in the brothel are not simply criminals in the legal sense, but are closer to the concept of 'original sin,' which is related to the weaknesses of human nature."

"Trial games can not only judge players for their existing crimes, but also use entrapment to bring out the original sin in players' humanity and impose severe punishments."

"Under these circumstances, the arcade would still receive very high praise."

"In the game, those who cannot see through the rules, whose original sins are triggered, and who cannot overcome their human weaknesses will be considered by the game gallery as unworthy to survive in the new world."

"For players, they must do any one of these three things in order to have a chance of surviving in the trial game."

"As for the arcade, if a copycat's game meets any one of these three criteria, it may pass the review; if all three criteria are met, it may receive an S rating."

"As for whether players die or not, whether they are wronged or not, whether it is fair, whether the designers have any ulterior motives... none of these are within the scope of consideration of the game arcade."

　A patch was added to Chapter 12: Copycats who achieve an S rating can conceal the visa duration they obtained through their copycat identity in any public setting.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)