God's Imitator

Yang Yuting fell into a long silence, obviously thinking.

Regarding the ”five-person group,” Li Renshu’s explanation was that because they didn’t want public discussion to cause trouble for Ding Wenqiang, they first had a simple ”meeting” in private, and only made the proposal public for everyone to vote and discuss after considering it thoroughly.

Although this explanation seemed reasonable enough, among the people in this community, probably only Ding Wenqiang and Su Xiucen would believe it without reservation.

The others would believe at most half of this explanation.

Moreover, the selection of people for this five-person group was indeed quite strategic.

Wang Yongxin had high sensitivity, so he was the first to realize this point. Although Yang Yuting hadn’t paid special attention initially, now that it was pointed out, she could belatedly recall some previous clues.

Yang Yuting looked up at Wang Yongxin, ”Why did you choose to discuss these things with me?”

Wang Yongxin looked sincere, ”Because among the remaining people, I think you’re a smart person. The cost of communication might be lower, and you’re more likely to share my stance.

”Moreover, there are many things I might only be able to accomplish with your help.”

Yang Yuting nodded, ”You’re right, we do have some similar ideas.”And...

”You want me to gather the remaining people together as much as possible? After all, most of these people are women.”

Wang Yongxin seemed surprised, apparently not expecting Yang Yuting to figure it out so quickly, but he soon smiled and nodded, ”Exactly, it’s convenient to talk with smart people.”

The so-called ”similar ideas” would be more accurately described as ”similar social class.”

Before entering the New World, Wang Yongxin was a startup company owner, while Yang Yuting was a company executive.

To put it simply, they were both ”wealthy people,” or had both been ”decision-makers” or ”managers” in companies.

Therefore, even though the two hadn’t had much interaction before, they would naturally recognize their similar ideologies.

Just like Ding Wenqiang and Su Xiucen would also have this natural sense of similarity.

Besides the ”five-person group,” the remaining people were: Jiang He, Wang Yongxin, Qin Yao, Su Xiucen, Xu Tong, Ding Wenqiang, and Yang Yuting.

Since there was only one woman, Li Renshu, in the ”five-person group,” this meant that among the remaining 7 people, women made up the vast majority.

The only man, Ding Wenqiang, didn’t get along well with Wang Yongxin.

So if Wang Yongxin wanted to gather the remaining 7 people together to some extent, he had to rely on Yang Yuting to win over the other women.

Especially Xu Tong, Qin Yao, and Jiang He.

Sorting out these issues wasn’t difficult for Yang Yuting.

She thought for a moment and asked, ”So what kind of goal do you want to achieve?

”Overthrow this five-person clique?”

Wang Yongxin shook his head repeatedly, ”No no no, I’m not trying to create division. I’m just seeking ’self-protection.’

”If the seven of us continue to remain in an atomized state, then we’ll be like fish on the chopping block.

”If we can reach some kind of consensus early and organize to some extent, then each of us will be safer.

”At least when we might be robbed, we can unite to resist immediately.”

Yang Yuting nodded, ”I understand. You want me to get as close to others as possible, especially Xu Tong, Qin Yao, and Jiang He.

”If we can similarly form a relatively cohesive small group, then at least on some major issues, we’ll have the power to resist and won’t suffer losses.”

Wang Yongxin nodded, ”Exactly. In the short term, we can’t do much, and we don’t need to do much.

”But it’s always necessary to plan ahead.”

Yang Yuting asked again, ”Why don’t you choose to join that five-person group? With your ability, you should be able to get some voice there too.

”Even after some time, you might be able to replace some of them, like... Cai Zhiyuan?”

Wang Yongxin shook his head, ”It’s difficult, this is a rather complex issue.

”The composition of an organization isn’t simply about ability, but also considers division of labor, mutual trust, and first-come-first-served.

”From a small company to a large country, will capable people definitely be absorbed into management? Not being absorbed is actually the more likely scenario.

”There will always be interest distribution problems within organizations. If you’re not at the table, you’ll be on the menu. Many times it’s not that people don’t want to let you sit at the table, but there are only so many seats at the table. Who do you plan to push out? So you can only be on the menu.

”Overall, I’m not suitable for that place, and they don’t welcome me either. Otherwise, no one would have ever extended an olive branch to me.

”Similarly, the other six people including you couldn’t enter that small group either.

”Because five people is already its limit.”

Yang Yuting lowered her head in thought for a long time, finally saying, ”Alright, then we can initially reach consensus on this issue.

”I’ll increase contact with others.

”If there’s any progress later, we’ll discuss it immediately.”

Wang Yongxin stood up and opened the door, looking outside.

”You go back first. I’ll wait a few more minutes to stagger our timing.”

Just as Yang Yuting was about to leave, she suddenly thought of something and asked, ”One last question.

”When we voted on the community protection fund earlier, was the opposing vote yours?”

Wang Yongxin seemed helpless, ”Is my character so well-established? No, it wasn’t.”

Yang Yuting nodded, ”It’s fine, I was just asking casually. Having a troublemaker in the community makes me feel a bit uneasy.”

Wang Yongxin didn’t mind, ”Heh, I actually think this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

”How do you know he’s definitely a troublemaker? Maybe he simply didn’t like the process by which this proposal was pushed forward, but was too embarrassed to express it publicly.

”Since the community grants each of us equal voting rights, voting against is naturally each person’s freedom.

”This time is fine, but if next time and the time after that, every proposal from the five-person group passes unanimously... that would be more terrifying, wouldn’t it?”

...

Lin Sizhi returned to his room and first opened his personal computer to check his remaining visa time.

[297 days - 19 hours 25 minutes]

Seeing this time, Lin Sizhi fell silent for a moment.

Because the time was more than a month longer.

Lin Sizhi’s initial visa time was 117 days, and the visa time he earned from ’Blood Poker’ after deducting the community protection fund was approximately 143 days.

Together that was around 260 days.

The extra 37 days had only one explanation:

Some player had died in the ’Blood Poker’ game, and his visa time had been transferred by the Gallery to Lin Sizhi as the game designer.

The ’Blood Poker’ game itself had an extremely low death rate, because the only way to die was to get carried away gambling and bleed oneself to death.

But obviously, no matter how safe a game was, there would always be some people who would really keep courting death repeatedly.

Although from the Gallery’s intention, this game was meant to complete visa time distribution and didn’t encourage too many casualties, the Gallery wouldn’t care about individual player casualties like this.

However, this also brought Lin Sizhi’s remaining visa time to quite an exaggerated number.

Fortunately, after the game ended, the big screen only announced the amount of chips all players had earned in the game, but didn’t announce everyone’s remaining visa time.

Otherwise, Lin Sizhi would definitely become the focus of everyone’s attention and couldn’t hide it.

This was also precisely why Lin Sizhi wanted to earn as much visa time as possible in games.

On one hand, as the game’s designer, he had already prepared loopholes for himself, and obtaining large amounts of visa time from them would allow him to be more at ease when facing games.

On the other hand, this could also hide his identity very well.

Perhaps some people would think that after becoming a ’God’s Imitator,’ one must keep as low a profile as possible and not earn too much visa time in games.

After all, the more high-profile one was, the more attention one received, the more likely one’s identity would be exposed.

But Lin Sizhi didn’t think so.

Because God’s Imitators would inevitably kill players during the game design process.

As the game progressed continuously, players would have more and more visa time, and the visa time gained from killing players would also increase.

If he always kept a low profile and didn’t gain much visa time in games, he wouldn’t be able to explain where the massive amount of visa time on him came from later.

Of course, other players could hardly see exactly how much visa time Lin Sizhi had, but there would be many places to use visa time in the future, and some clues would inevitably be revealed.

So creating an impression that ”he already had a lot of visa time” as much as possible also benefited hiding his identity.

Besides this, the more visa time Lin Sizhi earned, the stronger his presence in this community’s small group and the higher his status, the more beneficial it would be for integrating into the core group.

More beneficial for protecting himself.

Just like this morning, Lin Sizhi was the only person invited besides the four-person group, which was obviously directly related to his profession and performance in the game.

Having drunk some red wine during lunch, Lin Sizhi now felt somewhat drowsy and fell into a deep sleep lying on the bed.

...

More than an hour later, Lin Sizhi woke up.

Opening the curtains, the current time was 3:43 PM.

Coming to the study, Lin Sizhi found new information had appeared on the computer screen.