God's Imitator

Everyone blinked, and a wave of curiosity swept through the room.

Huang Shengjie immediately pressed further, ”Really? What kind of game was it? Tell us everything.”

Lin Sizhi glanced at Lu Bingjun, ”The criteria for an S-tier rating is certainly worth discussing. But I think it would be better to follow the original plan and complete this game’s debrief first, then bring in that comparison for analysis.”

Lu Bingjun nodded in agreement, ”Yes, debrief first.

”Who wants to lead?”

Ye Lin thought for a moment, then said, ”I’ll do it.

”This game looks simple on the surface, but there’s a lot hidden underneath. If I’m not careful, the explanation will only make things more confusing.

”I’ll walk through the general course of events and flag the key moments as they come up, but I won’t explain the hidden mechanics directly.

”Everyone should try to think things through for themselves first, and then I’ll explain.

”After that, Lawyer Lin will still need to walk us through his own thinking in the game.”We were watching from an outside perspective, as omniscient observers, and that would cause us to underestimate how difficult some of those strategies were to execute.

”I’m also very curious when exactly Lawyer Lin arrived at these strategies, and how he managed to establish a working relationship with Wang Yongxin. You two should have had no opportunity to communicate at all. Even exchanging glances was barely feasible given the performance requirements, yet your coordination felt almost telepathic.”

Ye Lin first gave a general account of the game from start to finish, without specifically mentioning the hidden mechanics.

After allowing everyone time to think, she then described the hidden mechanics that had been revealed during the Curtain Call Vote.

During the final minutes of that vote, they had been working urgently to explain things to Lu Qi.

Because if Lu Qi hadn’t broadly understood the rule, she would have been unable to cast an Oppose vote against Tang Qing. And if she had been forced to cast a Support vote, all of her visa time would have been claimed by those who cast Oppose votes, including everything she had earned from her bets. That was processed last, meaning she would have walked away with barely 48 hours’ worth, which would have been disastrous.

So explaining all of this now to the community players was well within Ye Lin’s comfort zone.

After everyone had taken in the full picture of the game, the expressions throughout the community were ones of genuine shock.

The intensity of this first ’Role-Play Game’ had clearly been extraordinary, far beyond anything they had anticipated.

Lin Sizhi, Wang Yongxin, and Tang Qing were all core game players in their respective communities, effectively top-tier players by any measure.

In a game at that level, many community members couldn’t help but picture themselves in Feng Yuguang’s position: taken out almost as an afterthought, barely aware of what was happening.

But even with Ye Lin’s explanation, a great many questions remained.

As she had said, only Lin Sizhi himself could answer them.

Qin Cheng said, with obvious curiosity, ”There are actually two things I most want to know.

”First: when did you realise the Evidence Room had hidden rules? And when did you formulate this strategy?

”Second: how did you know you could work with Wang Yongxin? You had virtually no opportunity to communicate with him throughout the entire game. A direct glance would have been risky given the performance requirements. And yet your coordination felt like complete mutual understanding.”

Ye Lin nodded in agreement, ”Yes. I noticed this in the game too. It’s something unique to the challenges of Role-Play Games.

”In every other game type we’ve encountered, whether distribution-type, Judgment, selection, or elimination, the game itself places no restrictions on players’ movements, expressions, or body language.

”Even in games that prohibit direct verbal communication, players can still signal each other through specific looks, gestures, or pre-arranged signals.

”But in a Role-Play Game, that isn’t possible. Because any unusual behaviour from an Actor, even a stray glance that seems out of place, can invite suspicion from the audience and affect their Curtain Call Vote.

”And most critically, an Actor has no way of knowing how significant the risk of any given behaviour might be. It could be negligible, or it could be enormous.

”That uncertainty is actually worse than a clear prohibition, because it drives all Actors to avoid any unnecessary action whatsoever.”

Lin Sizhi took a sip of coffee and said, ”I realised the Evidence Room had hidden rules fairly early.

”I had that suspicion from the moment I first read the Character Dossier, and subsequent probing and observation were simply to confirm it.”

Huang Shengjie looked confused, ”From the very beginning? How is that possible?”

Lin Sizhi appeared quite candid, ”Because I applied the Imitator’s mindset.”

Everyone in the room sharpened up a little, each leaning in to listen.

Just those five words were enough to tell them Lin Sizhi was about to share something genuinely significant.

Strong players who were willing to share this kind of knowledge openly were rare. Lin Sizhi himself had often remained quiet during debriefs, so this was unusual.

But something about this occasion seemed different.

Huang Shengjie recognised this and focused with complete attention, afraid of missing even a single detail.

Lin Sizhi continued, ”In the Gallery, the best Imitators do not necessarily make the best players. But the best players, after a period of training and experience, often develop the potential to become top-tier Imitators.

”Of course, this is my own conclusion drawn from observation, and I wouldn’t claim it’s definitively correct.

”At first glance, players and Imitators seem to require entirely different abilities. Players are more focused on what might be called ’breaking ability,’ which is the skill of identifying the key or hidden rules within a complex and confusing framework.

”Moving fast enough to formulate a strategy, finding the textual traps embedded in the rules, and so on, all fall under this category.

”Imitators, by contrast, are more focused on what might be called ’construction ability.’ Having decided on a puzzle, an Imitator works to conceal the critical pieces of that puzzle and misdirect players through the game’s form and other rules, steering them in the wrong direction.

”I am a player with a reasonably good breaking ability. Everyone here has probably noticed that.

”In the early First Stage games, I performed well in most situations, and my earnings were reasonable.

”But in certain individual games, I found myself feeling helpless, unable to influence the outcome no matter what I did.

”For example, in the S-tier Judgment Game.

”So in the second half of the First Stage, I was constantly asking myself what my weakness was, and why this kept happening.

”The answer I arrived at was that because of my role, I lacked the Imitator’s mindset, and this produced a weakness in my construction ability.

”Breaking ability alone is enough to win the majority of games, but it isn’t enough to reach the very top.

”To become stronger, it was necessary to acquire the Imitator’s mindset.

”So after that, I devoted focused effort to building this capacity, and managed to develop it to some degree.

”In simple terms, it means approaching problems from the Imitator’s perspective.

”This is what allowed me to win this game.”

As Lin Sizhi described all of this, no one interrupted. But even through the sparse details, everyone could feel the weight and pressure of what an S-tier Judgment Game must have involved.

The more games they witnessed Lin Sizhi in, the higher their assessment of him rose.

But even a player like this had once found himself unable to cope with an S-tier game. That alone was enough to show how formidable such games were.

Of course, as Lin Sizhi himself explained, the reason he was so capable now, able to handle a new S-tier game with composure, was precisely because that earlier experience had transformed him.

He had understood at a deep level that breaking ability alone was insufficient. A player who could not internalise the Imitator’s way of thinking would always, no matter how strong, ultimately remain a piece on the board.

So in the games that followed, he had filled in that gap, and brought that thinking to bear in the ’Jury Game’ with striking effect.

The logic held together clearly and completely.

It could not simply have been innate.