God's Imitator

Zhou Wanlin had specifically instructed Geng Yuxia to inspect completely at random rather than in a fixed order, meaning she was not to select units in a sequence like 1, 3, 5, 7.

So Geng Yuxia did exactly as she was told, inspecting units 2, 7, and 8.

No Contraband was found.

This left Geng Yuxia mildly deflated, as she suspected there must have been at least one or two Contraband units in the shipment and that she had simply been unlucky.

But over-inspecting for the sake of a small amount of Contraband that might not even be there was clearly not worth the cost, so she let it go.

The trolley loaded with ten units of raw materials was automatically sent through to the Holding Area. Community 23’s male player limped out of the Inspection Room with his uneven gait.

Geng Yuxia’s feelings were mixed. It seemed the game’s selection mechanism really was absurd, having filtered out nothing but the weakest players from each community. She had thought Community 2’s situation was bad enough, only to find the other side’s situation was even worse.

Whatever else was true, in this early encounter between two sets of rookies, Community 2appeared to have the upper hand.

Before the male player left, Geng Yuxia took one last look at his Worker Badge.

[Community 23, Peng Xinyuan.]By the time He Qinyun had wheeled the materials back to the cell block, Yao Yuan had already returned from the Medical Room.

”How did it go?” He Qinyun asked.

Yao Yuan shook his head, ”No Contraband was thrown in at any point during my time there, so there was nothing to collect.

”That said, a male player from Community 23 named Li Mao also entered the Medical Room.

”I tried striking up a conversation with him and picked up some information about Community 23.

”Community 23 is an extremely high-pressure, authoritarian community. That might actually be our opening.

”Of course, the accuracy of what he told me still needs to be verified.”

Yao Yuan glanced at the countdown in the cell block. Round One was nearly over.

Next would come thirty minutes of ’Production and Rest Time,’ during which all equipment outside the prison would shut down, though production inside the prison could continue as normal.

Before that point, Yao Yuan and He Qinyun had already gone over the machine’s operation carefully several times.

The machine would automatically convert raw materials into products and did so quickly enough that even accounting for a large amount of Contraband being smuggled in separately, there would be no backlog.

Products would be automatically sold, and the cash dispenser beside the machine would eject Gold Pounds.

Non-Contraband goods sold for 1,200 Gold Pounds per unit. Contraband goods sold for 3,600 Gold Pounds per unit.

He Qinyun pushed the trolley to the designated area. The outer packaging that had been added before the materials were loaded into the steam train was removed, revealing the original labelling of ’Food’ or ’Miscellaneous Goods,’ and the units were slowly carried into the machine by conveyor belt.

Once the packaging was stripped, He Qinyun confirmed that among the twenty-seven units of raw materials, four ’Miscellaneous Goods’ Contraband units had been successfully mixed in.

The Contraband category would not change until Round Two began.

”Things seem to be going well out there. Twenty-seven units is quite a good number, isn’t it?

”The opposing community was probably fairly aggressive with their inspection in Round One, so getting four Contraband units through under those conditions isn’t bad at all.

”Once we have these Gold Pounds, we’ll be able to buy our way out.

”Should one of us go outside and provide support?”

Yao Yuan shook his head, ”No rush. There’s plenty of rest time to think it through.

”With two of us in the cell block, we can divide the work and receive Contraband through two channels at once.

”I can only enter the Medical Room once. The next time, it will have to be you.

”And besides, 10,000 Gold Pounds is worth 20,000 minutes of visa time. That’s not a small amount to spend carelessly.”

He Qinyun nodded and said nothing more.

But after a moment’s thought, Yao Yuan added, ”There’s one thing that’s been nagging at me, though.

”The location of Li Mao’s wound.”

He Qinyun looked up, ”Where was it?”

Yao Yuan pointed to the inner side of his left forearm, ”Here.

”Both of us must have injured ourselves deliberately to get into the Medical Room. But pressing this part of your arm against the machine’s edge is awkward, isn’t it?”

After leaving the Inspection Room, Zhou Wanlin made her way back to the steam train’s operations console with a light step. She was in good spirits.

The opposing inspector’s choices had been largely within what she had anticipated, and things had gone reasonably smoothly as a result.

One Contraband unit had been detected, but the remaining four had passed through without being caught.

That was naturally the result of a specific strategy Zhou Wanlin had employed.

Beyond what Geng Yuxia had been able to work out on her own, there were also a number of derived strategies worth considering.

For instance, the order in which the raw materials were arranged.

One rule in the notice board was particularly important.

[Loading and unloading will always follow a fixed order from the smallest-numbered cargo car to the largest. The loading order and the inspection order are identical.]

If Zhou Wanlin had set the ratio of ’Food,’ ’Medications,’ and ’Miscellaneous Goods’ to 1:2:3, the sorting equipment would arrange them in strict order according to that ratio.

That is, one Food unit, two Medication units, three Miscellaneous Goods units, then one Food unit again, repeating in that pattern until all twenty-eight units had been loaded.

If Zhou Wanlin did not adjust the positions manually, the units would pass through the scanning machine in exactly that order.

An inspector could use this to make predictions, estimate the approximate ratio, and target the ’key positions’ with repeated inspections.

Community 23’s inspector, Wu Xiufang, had pressed the ’Inspect’ button ten times in total, which was clearly an attempt to find precisely this kind of pattern.

She had let the first three units pass, and then pressed ’Inspect’ three times consecutively.

This was because Wu Xiufang had judged that Zhou Wanlin would very likely not dare send all Contraband, but would instead follow a specific ratio and keep the proportion of Contraband relatively low.

Whatever that ratio was, whether 2:1:1, 2:2:1, 3:2:1, or something similar, this approach to inspecting would stand a reasonable chance of catching it.

After three inspections came up empty, Wu Xiufang concluded that either the proportion of Contraband was very low, or Zhou Wanlin had deliberately concentrated it toward the end.

So Wu Xiufang chose to spot-check through the middle of the shipment and then inspect the final three units consecutively.

But Zhou Wanlin had clearly anticipated this possibility. She had included only five Contraband units and had manually adjusted their positions, placing one at the very beginning and scattering the remaining four through the middle section at random.

As a result, four of the five Contraband units escaped Wu Xiufang’s inspection, with only one being caught.

The reason Zhou Wanlin had emphasised to Geng Yuxia that she must inspect completely at random and never in a fixed sequence was precisely that a predictable sequence might happen to miss all of the Contraband entirely.

Finally, Round One ended.

Zhou Wanlin noticed that the steam train’s operations console had been completely locked out, with a single line of text displayed on the screen.

[Rest and Production Time. All equipment outside the prison has paused.]

At the same moment, her Worker Badge gave a faint vibration, and a notification appeared on the back of it.

[All ’Worker’ players must cease all game activity. Non-compliance will result in a violation.]