God's Imitator

Fu Chen thought for a moment, ”Right, that makes sense. If it were purely random, and one side happened to have all the relevant data for the questions, then this game would no longer be an estimation game but would become a luck-based game.

”Thinking about it this way, splitting it half and half is indeed more reasonable.”

Xu Tong suddenly realized something, ”I get it!

”If we get the data, that means the other side very likely didn’t get it, which is when we can be more decisive about making additional investments.”

Fu Chen had an epiphany, ”Oh, that’s exactly right!

”We do need to be more decisive about additional investments. Although the company’s account balance is currently relatively safe, if we keep reducing it like this, it won’t be long before we risk a cash flow break.

”Once it breaks, everything will be over.”

Everyone looked at the company details panel on the computer.

[Company 17 Limited]

[April company account balance: 149,000 minutes of visa time][May estimated income: 40,000 minutes of visa time]

[May estimated expenses: 68,000 minutes of visa time]

Xu Tong looked somewhat worried, ”We can reduce employee compensation by at most 30%, which means cutting from the original 80,000 minutes to 56,000 minutes.

”But we’ll quickly have expenses exceeding income again. I think we still need to conduct layoffs.”

Li Renshu considered seriously for a moment, ”Aunt Su said that if we’ve really thought it through, she’ll agree to layoffs.

”But we need to carefully consider whether now is the time when layoffs are absolutely necessary.

”This is a judgment game. Any decisions related to morality must be made carefully.”

Xu Tong explained, ”But from my work experience, there are definitely slackers in any company, it’s just a matter of how many.

”If you really want to streamline a company’s costs to the minimum, the best approach is to decisively conduct large-scale layoffs and test-run for a period.

”After discovering that certain people are indispensable, bring them back.

”This method works much better than general blind layoffs.

”This game doesn’t just have layoffs, it also has hiring. And it’s an economic winter outside, which means laid-off employees won’t be able to find work in the short term and will still be hanging around in the job market.

”We could completely lay off a large batch of employees, then observe how the company operates. If there’s really a risk of shutdown, we can recall some of the key people.

”There might even be a possibility of exploiting system loopholes:

”For example, this month we have 20 employees with compensation of 72,000. Next month we lay off half, only needing to pay 36,000 in compensation. The month after that, even if we recall all the laid-off people and wages return to 72,000, wouldn’t the 36,000 we saved next month still be real money added to the company account?”

Fu Chen looked at her somewhat suspiciously, ”But I seriously suspect that once you lay people off, you’ll absolutely never hire them back.”

Xu Tong was momentarily speechless, not knowing how to refute this.

However, after pausing, she continued, ”The key is to try it, to verify the game mechanism.

”If we don’t test these operations, how can we know whether they’ll work?

”I know judgment games need to consider moral issues, but perhaps running the company better is also one of the conditions for the judgment not to trigger.

”I still think we should attempt layoffs. This game surely won’t give us an instant death penalty just for laying off a few virtual employees, right?”

Li Renshu finally made the decision, ”Fine, then let’s be decisive.

”Lay off 4 employees and simultaneously reduce everyone’s salary by 30%. Since we’ve decided to do it, we should be as decisive as possible.

”Xu Tong, you stay at the company to adjust the plan. Fu Chen and I will go conduct market research.”

...

Xu Tong stared at the computer screen, waiting for new data to appear.

At the same time, she unconsciously squeezed the player in her pocket.

Su Xiucen’s obsession was always wanting to save everyone, not understanding the necessity of elimination and trade-offs.

Just like Ding Wenqiang’s death before, in the Gallery, it was something that couldn’t be helped, yet Su Xiucen still hoped that Wang Yongxin and Lin Sizhi would pay more to save him.

This game was the same.

Under an economic winter, layoffs were an unavoidable choice. If excessive sympathy for the weak led to company bankruptcy, wouldn’t everyone lose their jobs? Wouldn’t it implicate even more people?

So this was the judgment game that God’s Imitator had arranged for Su Xiucen.

The only good news was that this judgment game wasn’t like the ’King’s Judgment’ that deceived Ding Wenqiang into going down a single path to the end.

Instead, from the beginning, Xu Tong from the same community was arranged to guide and help Su Xiucen break free from her obsession.

As long as they could successfully break the obsession and achieve the goal of ’surviving the economic winter without company bankruptcy,’ no one would die in this judgment game.

Hopefully Su Xiucen would agree to the layoff plan.

During the idle time waiting for data, Xu Tong also occasionally switched to the ’Humanistic Care’ section to check.

Suddenly, she stopped.

Originally there were only two employees with work-related injuries, both with liver cancer.

Now, the first employee with liver cancer had disappeared, seemingly cured, but suddenly there were three more employees with work-related injuries who had lung cancer!

Moreover, their cure rates were 50%, 30%, and 0% respectively.

Xu Tong’s heart suddenly tightened.

The keyword ’lung cancer’ rang a bell for her.

The previous audio recording mentioned that Su Xiucen’s husband died of lung cancer, which was also her greatest obsession.

So would these virtual employees trigger the obsession in her heart?

”Perhaps my real task isn’t just to convince Aunt Su to conduct layoffs, but also to convince her to abandon these work-injured employees?”

Xu Tong fell into conflict.

From a treatment cost perspective, if they only used conventional treatment, 1,000 per person wasn’t really that large an amount but the problem was that as the game progressed, the speed at which these work-injured employees appeared seemed to be getting faster and faster.

Moreover, if there was only one lung cancer employee, perhaps Su Xiucen wouldn’t be so affected but if there really appeared many, many lung cancer employees, would it make Su Xiucen think of her husband’s coworkers, or even more people?

Perhaps from Su Xiucen’s position, she would think that saving these people was also a necessary condition for completing the judgment game.

That would be difficult to handle.

Just then, the CEO’s office door opened, ”Little Xu, could you come over for a moment? I want to discuss something with you.”

...

Xu Tong came to the CEO’s office and sat down at the large desk.

Su Xiucen said gently, ”I see in the ’Humanistic Care’ section that there are some work-injured employees. If we cure them, does it have any special effects? Have you verified this?”

Xu Tong answered truthfully, ”Currently one employee has been cured, but we can’t tell yet what specific effects it has.”

Su Xiucen hesitated for a moment, then said, ”Should we try this special treatment?

”Although it’s more expensive, conventional treatment seems to take a month to take effect. If we treat those employees with low cure rates, it might drag on for five or six months, which would actually cost more money, wouldn’t it?”