God's Imitator

After a long silence, Zheng Qingyun let out a slow breath that almost seemed like relief.

”I’ve heard that Community 2 has real strength. Seeing it now, that reputation is well-earned.

”But games in the Gallery have always been about outwitting each other and using every advantage you have.

”Everyone here has been through plenty of games. Cooperation was never going to mean trusting each other like fools, unconditionally. Showing what you’re capable of, calling each other out, and then rebuilding, that’s all part of it.

”And I want to be clear about something: what I did doesn’t actually count as cheating. Because at no point did I break the game’s rules or our cooperation agreement.

”The rules say nothing about not being allowed to change the order of cards when returning them. Nothing about not counting cards.

”What we agreed to was: no one takes extra hits, and if a significant round win gap appears, the side that’s behind can take one extra hit per player.

”Did I violate any of the game’s rules at any point? Did I violate anything we agreed to?

”Neither.

”I did not tell you about the machine’s hidden mechanism. But that was never part of our agreement.”That said, the fact that you saw through it proves you’re not rookies. You’re strong enough to be worth cooperating with properly.

”So let me apologise. I’m sorry.

”The current gap is only three round wins. That’s not a large deficit.

”As a gesture of goodwill, I won’t make any further moves from here. I’ll ensure you close the gap and even throw in an extra round win as compensation.

”You start hitting now, confess some harmless little thing, and we’ll choose Insincere Shocked, which deducts 4 points from us.

”Once the gap is closed, we both stop hitting and go back to the original approach.

”That’s still the most advantageous arrangement for everyone.

”Unless you’d rather throw everything away over something this minor?

”If that’s what you want, I’ll see it through with you.”

Zheng Qingyun finished and turned to look at Wei Changfeng, his tone carrying a thread of self-assurance.

Wei Changfeng was quiet for a moment.

Clearly, Zheng Qingyun’s choice to cheat had not been pure short-sightedness. It had been the result of weighing every factor and concluding this was the optimal play.

The technique was deeply hidden, exploiting the machine’s built-in mechanism. Against players of average ability, it would almost certainly never be detected.

As Gao Teng had said, if the realisation had come any later, if Zheng Qingyun had managed to build a seven or eight round win lead, that advantage would have been enormous and irreversible.

Even now, exposed as he was, Zheng Qingyun had assessed that cooperation could almost certainly continue.

Because from a purely rational standpoint, the best strategy at this moment was still to cooperate.

Players who acted on emotion and fought to the death over a single act of deception were the kind who had mostly died in earlier games already. Any player who had survived this long should be able to see this clearly.

With Zheng Qingyun making some concessions to demonstrate goodwill, cooperation could most likely resume.

From his perspective, this had been a strategy with enormous upside and manageable downside, which was exactly why he had executed it without hesitation.

Wei Changfeng considered it at length, then gave a nod, ”Then I’ll give you one last chance. This is also my final gesture of goodwill.

”The high cards you arranged earlier will still be coming to your side, but you must use the scoring adjustments to ensure we win consecutive rounds until we are one round win ahead of you.

”If you draw high cards, add points and deliberately bust. If you draw low cards, deduct points.

”After that, you will make no further adjustments when returning cards.

”Of course, if you can keep the gap between both sides at two round wins or less at all times, that would be the ideal situation.

”If at any point something happens that pushes your lead back to four round wins, I will assume you’re lying to me.

”In that case, it becomes a fight to the finish between us.”

Zheng Qingyun gave a nod, ”Relax. I may be greedy, but I know this is a Judgment Game. I didn’t come here to throw my life away.

”Players as rational and sharp as you are a rarity in the Gallery. I’ll treat that with the respect it deserves.”

Wei Changfeng looked at Gao Teng, ”Xiao Gao, keep a level head.

”Whatever else is true, this is your Judgment Game. Don’t walk into the Imitator’s trap.

”Just this once, don’t act on impulse. Alright?”

Gao Teng lowered his head and was quiet for a moment, ”Brother Wei, you’d already sensed something, hadn’t you?

”You didn’t want to say anything directly. You were looking for another way around it. Because you were afraid I’d lose control.”

He let out a slow breath, ”Don’t worry. I’ll keep myself in check.

”You and Sister Yili entered this game for me. Whatever happens, I’ll make sure both of you get home safely.”

Wei Changfeng gave a nod and looked back at Zheng Qingyun.

”Then let’s continue.”

Back in Community 2’s hall.

Lu Qi asked in genuine surprise, ”Counting cards? You mean keeping track of all the cards that have already appeared?”

Qin Cheng nodded, ”Exactly. In a card game, it means memorising every card that has come out, and from that inferring what’s still in the deck or what the other player might be holding.

”In a game like Dou Di Zhu, for instance, professional card players at the top level all have to master this skill, using their own hand and the way their opponent plays to deduce what the other players are holding.

”The same applies in other card games.

”Anyone who can’t count cards will never become a professional player.

”So whether Zheng Qingyun was a professional player or a professional cheat, he would almost certainly have been tracking every card that had appeared up to that point.

”And that’s how he would have noticed, earlier than anyone else, that even though the machine appeared to go through a full shuffle every round, all the cards dealt to each player were ones that hadn’t appeared in any earlier round.

”By Round 3, the six of them had used thirty-six cards in total, more than half the deck. And still not a single repeat.

”That was enough for him to make a confident guess: the machine’s shuffling was fake.

”The elaborate minute-long shuffle, the frosted glass hiding the interior, the sound of cards being mixed, the shuffling after a new deck was loaded, all of it was an illusion, deliberately designed to mislead the players into believing the cards had been thoroughly randomised.

”In reality, they hadn’t been randomised at all.

”After all that shuffling, the cards were being returned to a specific, consistent state.

”And the shuffling after a new deck was introduced served the same purpose: not to randomise the cards, but to reset them into that same predetermined state.

”This was a backdoor the Imitator had deliberately built into the game’s design.

”Zheng Qingyun’s sharpness as a professional cheat let him see this early on, and he designed his strategy around it.”

Lu Qi found it difficult to accept, ”That’s outrageous.

”Why would he do this? Following the agreed method and cooperating through to the end was perfectly viable.

”Just for a three round win lead, he threw the whole cooperation out and dramatically raised the death risk for everyone. There has to be some limit to short-sightedness.

”Is someone like that really unable to resist cheating the moment an opportunity appears, even if it risks their own life?”

Shen Bowen sighed, ”If someone is a professional cheat, they may genuinely have that kind of habitual thinking and deeply ingrained reflex.

”Cheats and gamblers are both extreme short-term thinkers. It’s possible their hands are running their brains, not the other way around. How else do you explain all those cheats who had their fingers cut off and still went back to it?”

Qin Cheng explained, ”From Zheng Qingyun’s perspective, even if he was caught, Wei Changfeng would most likely still choose to continue cooperating.

”And he was right.”