God's Imitator

Zeng Yiming, the restaurant manager, looked around at the group and repeated himself calmly, ”I can confess.

”The players holding information about me should be the two of you, right?

”You can say it now.”

He looked toward Wen Wan and Liang Guicheng.

Wen Wan could hardly believe it, but Zeng Yiming’s expression remained composed and entirely serious.

After a brief pause, she said, ”From what I remember, it was something like this.

”You own a mid-sized sushi restaurant that’s been operating for five years, and about 30% of the plates weren’t properly cleaned. Those improperly cleaned plates were then served to customers, and your crime number is the specific count of how many times a dirty plate was served.

”The unit is ten thousand occurrences.”

Liang Guicheng, the fruit farmer, picked up where she left off, ”The number I saw was ’XX11.’ The last two digits are 11.”

Zeng Yiming gave a nod, ”My restaurant isn’t especially large, around forty-odd tables. During peak hours, we’d process roughly 1,200 pieces of tableware per hour.”In terms of daily operations, around 10 hours a day, though not all of that at peak capacity, so the average daily wash count would be somewhere around 5,000 pieces.

”The information mentions that 30% of plates weren’t cleaned properly. That percentage is actually helpful, I’d have struggled to pinpoint that figure on my own.

”5 years of operation, roughly 1,500 business days, so: 5,000 times 30% times 1,500 days.

”A rough estimate puts it around 2.25 million.

”Though not every improperly cleaned plate would necessarily make it in front of a customer, since some sushi varieties are less popular and cycle more slowly. And the other figures might not be perfectly accurate either.

”So this estimate is fairly approximate.

”Based on my calculation, the first digit of my crime number should be 0, and the second is most likely 2, though possibly 1 or 3.

”With the last two digits being 11, the full number would be 0211. Try filling that in.”

He then turned toward the direction of the large screen and addressed the audience directly.

”I want to confess my crime to everyone watching.

”My sushi restaurant genuinely did fail to clean every plate properly. But there were reasons for it.

”I’m not hoping to escape the charge. I only want to lay out the honest circumstances and let each of you make an instinctive judgment based on the actual facts.

”Sushi is a format that naturally goes through a great many plates. A single customer can easily get through twenty or thirty in one visit.

”Some customers deliberately stack their plates for photos, and those plates end up all piled together for washing, which seriously slows the whole turnaround process.

”Following the standard cleaning procedure, boiling, chemical disinfectant soaking, scrubbing, drying, the full sequence takes at least ten minutes per batch at the fastest.

”But at peak hours, my restaurant was processing 1,200 plates an hour. From collection to returning to the table, each plate had around two seconds.

”I purchased the best conveyor-belt dishwasher on the market, but even running at full capacity it wasn’t enough.

”Buying more plates wasn’t an option either. The kitchen simply didn’t have enough space to cycle that volume.

”If I had lowered table turnover or reduced the number of diners, the restaurant’s profit would have been cut in half immediately.

”I ran a budget sushi restaurant. The profit margins were already thin. Any significant disruption could have led straight to bankruptcy.

”So I knew the problem existed, but had no way to solve it.

”I’ve been in the food business for many years and have seen a great deal. There are far worse hygiene issues than slightly dirty plates. Some roadside stalls heat food still inside the plastic packaging. Some suppliers deliver contaminated ingredients in the first place.

”I’m not denying my crime. I’m only saying this: if the Gallery has charged me for nothing more serious than improperly cleaned plates, and couldn’t find anything worse, then my conscience is probably cleaner than that of 90% of people in the food and beverage industry.”

The expressions on the other players’ faces showed clear shock. The opening of this game had unfolded in a way none of them had anticipated.

But whatever else could be said, this was the best possible development for the other four offender players.

After a brief exchange, the countdown on the large screen ran out and everyone returned to their own waiting rooms.

In the audience waiting room, Huang Shengjie was equally surprised.

”This Zeng Yiming, the restaurant manager, didn’t just confess his own crime. He actually calculated his own crime number from the information available and told the others what to enter.

”All it takes is two players entering the correct number and he goes to trial.

”Truly unexpected.

”He’s from Community 8. Isn’t that the community that Xu Yiheng, the Imitator from the ‘Pain Game’, came from?

”We haven’t encountered anyone from that community since then. This is the first time, and I don’t know what their situation looks like now.

”This Zeng Yiming, he’s probably one of Community 8’s core players.

”His objective was clear, his strategy was thought through, and he knew his own restaurant’s details well enough to rattle off figures and calculate on the spot.

”Though I do wonder if his estimate was accurate.

”Could he have fed everyone deliberately wrong numbers?”

Ye Lin shook her head, ”Unlikely. I’d lean toward the data being genuine.

”What he did is a bit like Fermi estimation, working from logical decomposition and reasonable assumptions, using peripheral data to approximate a core figure.

”And this game happens to provide the last two digits, so Fermi estimation lets you directly pin down the first digit, and narrow the range for the second.

”This is probably the intended approach for this particular mechanic.

”Having the person whose own crime it is do the estimate will obviously be more accurate. They know the details better than anyone.

”I’m not worried about Zeng Yiming lying. What he said is most likely true, though it still needs to be confirmed once the other offender players actually enter the number.

”What does concern me is that Wen Wan has been beaten to it by him.

”If she’d followed the suggestion and confessed earlier, she should still have had a chance to claim the Production Director role for herself.

”But that window has closed now.”

Huang Shengjie thought for a moment, ”I don’t think it’s fair to put that on Wen Wan.

”We did send her that suggestion, but she didn’t feel confident enough to act on it immediately, and that hesitation is understandable.

”A four-character message is one thing to read. Actually acting on it with full conviction requires not just understanding the suggestion, but having the decisiveness to carry it out, being able to plan what comes next on the basis of it, and also being confident enough in your standing within the community to know a Death Exemption Ticket would actually be used for you.

”Zeng Yiming was clearly able to act that decisively because he holds real weight in Community 8. He’s almost certainly a core game player there.

”That’s the only reason he could move so quickly.”

Ye Lin’s expression showed clear regret mixed with concern, ”Even so, not being able to claim that advantaged role is a real setback.

”I’m worried the rest of the game is going to leave her with less room to manoeuvre.

”We’ll have to see how it goes. Let’s just hope Zeng Yiming turns out to be the kind of player who sees things clearly and assigns the Production Rooms sensibly.”