God's Imitator

Han Mengying clapped her hands happily, ”Very good, very good!

”Those who understand the times are heroes. You are indeed all smart people.”

She looked at Lin Sizhi, ”It feels good to compete with the strong.

”Of course, it feels even better to defeat the strong.

”Thank you, Lawyer Lin. This has been the most wonderful experience since I entered the New World.”

Lin Sizhi’s face still showed no excess expression. Obviously, such an outcome was normal and reasonable.

Han Mengying’s early decision to tear off the mask wasn’t pure adventure, but because she had a deep understanding of community ecology and was very accurate at reading people.

She dared to poach Luo Wei because through several conversations and probing, she saw that Community 17’s ecology had no place for Luo Wei.

For a capable player, voice in the community might be more important than everything else and Han Mengying’s courage to recreate the prisoner’s dilemma came from seeing through Community 12’s ecology.

Obviously, Community 12 was an undeniable community of the weak.When they came to participate in group games, the leader they chose was merely someone like Fan Zehui.

A bit stronger than pure weaklings, but only limitedly so.

Such a community could never form good organization or binding force, frankly speaking, they were scattered sand.

Even if He Ming bowed first, violating the community’s group decision to some extent, he would most likely not be held accountable after returning to the community bbecause a group composed of the weak was unlikely to have clear rewards and punishments.

It would likely be ”you’re good, I’m good, everyone’s good,” continuously covering up conflicts through nice guys’ mediation, ultimately dying in batches in games.

The weak were weak precisely because they couldn’t build sufficient organization.

Conversely, because there was no organization and strict punishment mechanisms, members would treat these seemingly ”harmless” betrayals as no big deal.

When questioned, they would only respond with ”I had no choice” or ”what else could I do.”

Han Mengying proudly turned and left, waving her back to Community 17.

”Sorry everyone, this game, we won.

”You are indeed all smart people, but unfortunately, this is a victory of community ideology.”

...

Soon, the 10th round ended.

Han Mengying looked at the Civilian players still working diligently under high tax rates, showing a satisfied smile.

There were still 10 rounds left. From now on, all income in the game would be taken by the Conglomerate community as the major share.

The visa time each person could eventually bring back to their community would inevitably exceed 100,000.

As for the remaining 3 people in Community 17...

Han Mengying didn’t know if they were still brewing something, but she knew that as long as she firmly held management in her hands, the other side would have absolutely no possibility of turning the tables.

Achieving this was actually simple: ensure that each round’s Conglomerate ‘Old Age’ player had over 150,000 visa time because they had already set high tax rates targeting Civilian players: 70% work tax, 70% investment tax.

Civilian players had no means to save up 100,000 minutes of visa time.

Of course, to avoid these Civilian players making desperate struggles, Han Mengying very cleverly temporarily didn’t impose inheritance tax on Civilians.

This gave working Civilian players an illusion: they seemed able to keep their current wealth but Han Mengying obviously couldn’t be that merciful. She had already decided to maximize Civilian inheritance tax at the end of round 14.

Because in this round, 4 Civilian players would die and be reborn.

Through inheritance tax, she would drain all Civilians as much as possible, only leaving them just enough wealth to avoid the punitive deduction of 50,000.

The later the game went, the more impossible it became for Civilian players to unite and not press buttons, letting wealth shrink.

Because even if Conglomerate players’ wealth shrank, it wouldn’t hurt their foundation, and they could choose to leave the country anytime.

Civilian players, however, might very likely trigger the additional punishment of 50,000 minutes visa time deduction.

So they would most likely helplessly continue cooperating, working for nothing in this game.

Bottom lines were broken step by step like this.

For smart people, this game was just that simple.

Han Mengying’s chest badge made a ”beep” sound, and the information on it changed.

[Community 4 - Han Mengying]

[Identity: Conglomerate (Management)]

[Age: 60 years old (‘Old Age’)]

[Wealth: 166,450 minutes of visa time]

Because taxation had begun, wealth numbers also started having whole and fractional parts.

The current four Conglomerate players were still continuously transferring property and redistributing.

Of course, each time a Conglomerate died, visa time had to be temporarily transferred to other Conglomerate players. For example, Han Mengying’s current 160,000+ wealth had received the inheritance of the previous deceased Conglomerate player.

In the two rounds before her death, she also had to redistribute this wealth within the Conglomerates as much as possible.

Currently, the four Conglomerate players’ wealth composition was roughly 160,000, 70,000, 70,000, and 0.

Before Han Mengying’s death, she would ensure the next ‘Old Age’ player exceeded 150,000 and transfer 70,000 to that childhood player.

If it were other communities, they might prefer to balance wealth later, but Community 4’s situation was special.

First, as an elite-led community, they would absolutely never pass proposals like equally dividing visa time. Whatever they brought back from the game was what they got.

Uneven distribution would cause conflicts.

Second, although wealth configuration could be readjusted in the final three or four rounds, Luo Wei’s special status might cause time constraints.

Although Luo Wei had confirmed she would join Community 4, in the game, she was still a Civilian.

This meant allocating returns to Luo Wei would trigger various Civilian tax rates.

Canceling Civilian tax rates beforehand would affect harvesting Civilian wealth, so Han Mengying planned to cancel Civilian taxes in the final two rounds, then allocate some visa time to Luo Wei.

This way, wanting to simultaneously average wealth among the three Conglomerate players would be even more complex.

With the current game situation stable and no threats, it was better to do some distribution work early to avoid panic in the final two or three rounds.

Then they would only need to consider how to concentrate part of the wealth on Luo Wei.

...

Han Mengying had automatically obtained management status. There was nothing to say about this; currently, no one in the venue had more wealth than her.

Without adjusting tax rates, she didn’t need to enter the management room, just watching these Civilian workers toil diligently from outside.

However, at this moment, Qi Fan, who should have entered management as an ‘Adult’ player in this round, looked at his identity card and cried out in alarm.

”What’s going on? Why am I not in management?”

Han Mengying was startled. She hurriedly rushed to Qi Fan’s side and took his chest badge to examine.

Indeed, there was no management tag.

”Why?”

Han Mengying hurriedly looked up at the venue, then instantly felt her heart nearly stop.

Qin Yao, Cai Zhiyuan, and Zhou Guifen were already waiting in advance at the management room door and swiped their identity cards to enter at the first opportunity.

Han Mengying instantly understood what had happened.

These three players had somehow made their visa time exceed Qi Fan’s, thus seizing the 3 ‘Adult’ management positions!

This was the only explanation but the problem was, how did they do it?

You know, Qi Fan’s current wealth value was also 70,000 minutes of visa time.

The other three ‘Adult’ players would all have to exceed him to squeeze him out of management but how was this possible?

Han Mengying had been paying attention to players’ wealth values. Although Qin Yao, Cai Zhiyuan, and Zhou Guifen had relatively more wealth among Civilian players, they only had around 40,000+.

Because inheritance tax on Civilians hadn’t been collected yet, they could retain this wealth.

Among them, Qin Yao and Zhou Guifen were finance officers, so having slightly higher wealth values was normal.

Cai Zhiyuan’s slightly higher wealth value depended on Community 17’s internal wealth distribution.

Although Communities 12 and 17 had roughly the same total wealth ratio, Community 12’s three people besides Zhou Guifen had visa time in roughly equal distribution.

In Community 17, however, it was relatively concentrated on Qin Yao and Cai Zhiyuan, with Lin Sizhi and Luo Wei having very little wealth.

Han Mengying had long noticed these specific wealth numbers, but they were far from sufficient to threaten the Conglomerates.

To make these three players’ visa time all exceed Qi Fan’s 70,000+, they would need at least another 100,000, and to be safe, over 120,000.

Han Mengying had already raised Civilian investment taxes, and each game round Conglomerate players went to exchange investments first, taking the major share of investment return limits. Civilians absolutely couldn’t obtain so much visa time through investment.

As for inheritance transfers, first someone had to die in the previous round, but clearly only 1 Conglomerate player died in the previous round.

No Civilians died, so naturally they couldn’t transfer inheritance.

How could the three of them suddenly conjure up 100,000 out of thin air?

While Han Mengying was puzzled, continuous broadcast announcements came.

[A player has initiated a proposal to prohibit Community 4 from occupying work buttons. All management players please immediately go to the management room to vote.]

[This proposal has received 3 ”Agree” votes, exceeding half, and takes effect immediately.]

[A player has initiated a proposal to change tax rates. All management players please immediately go to the management room to vote.]

[This proposal has received 3 ”Agree” votes, exceeding half, and takes effect immediately.]

[Current Civilian wage tax adjusted to: 0%]

[Current Civilian investment tax adjusted to: 0%]

[Current Conglomerate wage tax adjusted to: 100%]

[Current Conglomerate investment tax adjusted to: 100%]

[Current Conglomerate inheritance tax adjusted to: 100%]

[Current Conglomerate exit tax adjusted to: 100%]