God's Imitator

That evening.

Feeling somewhat weighed down, Huang Shengjie grabbed a cocktail and drifted out to the outdoor area, sipping it slowly.

After a while, he heard footsteps approaching from behind.

Part of him had hoped it would be Ye Lin, but when he turned, he found Qin Cheng instead.

That was fine too, of course, but for some reason, deep down, Huang Shengjie still felt he’d rather be talking through his real thoughts with Ye Lin right now.

”So, if we actually pass that motion this week, you’re voting in favour, right?” Huang Shengjie asked.

Qin Cheng settled into the outdoor sofa across from him. ”Yes. I already told you where I stand.”

Huang Shengjie leaned back, gazing up at the sky, clearly conflicted. ”I’ve been stuck on this.

”I’ve thought about it for a long time, and I still want to vote against.

”I know it could lead to something bad, but I just can’t fully talk myself into it.”

Qin Cheng offered some reassurance. ”There’s no need to talk yourself into anything. Voting in favour is the one that needs a justification. Voting against doesn’t.

”Instead of agonising over whether the motion passes, you might get more out of thinking about other things.”

Huang Shengjie nodded. ”Yeah, fair enough.

”Actually, Qin Cheng, there’s something I’ve never quite worked out. I didn’t feel comfortable asking it during the debrief.

”But it’s been bothering me a lot.”

Qin Cheng thought it over. ”Let me guess. It’s about who Wen Wan chose.

”You’re stuck on why she picked you as one of her helpers.

”And you also feel guilty, thinking you didn’t perform at your best in the game and couldn’t save her.

”But raising that question during the debrief would’ve been awkward.

”Because it comes across as shifting blame onto yourself, as though you’d let her trust down, and it also would have put Ye Lin and Lu Qi on the spot. So in the end, you didn’t feel comfortable asking.”

Huang Shengjie looked surprised. ”I hadn’t thought it through in that much detail, but yeah, that’s exactly the thing I can’t make sense of.

”Before we entered the game, I actually thought about it. If I were Wen Wan, I’d have picked Zhou Wanlin, Lawyer Lin, and Lu Bingjun without hesitation.

”Even if not Lu Bingjun, it should have been you at least.

”So why did she end up choosing Lu Qi, Ye Lin, and me?

”The more I think about it, the more suspicious Ye Lin starts to look to me, honestly.”

Qin Cheng thought for a moment. ”If you approach it from the angle of ’Ye Lin is the Imitator,’ a lot of the loose threads do come together.

”You can actually build a fairly coherent chain of logic out of it.

”Suppose Ye Lin really was the Imitator behind Trust Marketplace. Maybe she said something to Wen Wan privately, convincing her to choose her as an audience member.

”And once inside the game, all Ye Lin needed to do was score around ninety percent, since the audience needed to hit a full hundred to actually have a shot at saving the offender.

”Ninety percent looks like genuine effort while still leaving room to distance herself from the outcome entirely.

”When exactly did she see through Zeng Yiming? Had she already decided from the start that he couldn’t possibly be a good person, or did she only realise it near the end?

”There’s no way to verify that, and yet it changes everything.

”And in the debrief afterward, Ye Lin’s statements seemed somewhat contradictory too.

”She was the one who broke down the game’s mechanics, exposed the discrepancy in the payout figures, and laid the Imitator’s malice bare for everyone to see. But then she turned around and concluded that the Imitator might not even be in Community 2.”

Huang Shengjie nodded quickly. ”Right, that’s exactly what bothered me too.

”Because breaking down the Imitator’s profit structure comes across almost like Ye Lin proving she withheld nothing, that she never deliberately concealed how the game worked, clearing her own name as a ’player.’

”But then arguing the Imitator isn’t in Community 2 looks like she’s clearing her own name as the Imitator instead.

”Which only really makes sense if she genuinely is the Imitator herself.”

Huang Shengjie paused, then continued, still visibly torn. ”Of course, I know there are other explanations too.

”Like, the reason she keeps insisting the Imitator isn’t in our community could just be the same reason as always: she doesn’t want to see Lu Bingjun use any excuse to expand his own power or infringe on the community’s boundaries. She keeps insisting these games weren’t done by the same Imitator, and that the Trial Rules motion is a serious overreaction.

”So she’s just holding her ground on principle.

”But that still doesn’t explain why Wen Wan chose her as a helper going into the game.”

Qin Cheng was quiet for a moment. ”Let’s go back to the very starting point, then.

”Wen Wan is the key to unlocking this.”

He paused briefly, then added, ”Ye Lin is a sharp person, after all. She has her own strong sense of rights and boundaries, and a lot of her behaviour could be driven by multiple overlapping motives at once, which makes her much harder to analyse cleanly.

”But Wen Wan is a much simpler thinker. Working through her behaviour might actually get us closer to the truth.”

Huang Shengjie sighed, a little helpless. ”But isn’t a fool’s sudden impulse often harder to untangle than a villain’s careful scheming?

”Who knows why she picked the three of us.

”What if we spend all this time reasoning it through, arguing with nothing but thin air, and the real answer is just that she made some random decision on a whim?”

Qin Cheng shook his head. ”Shengjie, I think you might have the wrong idea about what it means to be simple-minded.

”A simple-minded person doesn’t act without any motive at all.

”You just don’t see the motive because you don’t understand how they think, so you can’t connect the motive to the behaviour.

”And honestly, I don’t think what Wen Wan did here counts as an act of foolishness at all.”

He paused briefly, then continued. ”Let’s lay out a few basic assumptions and follow them through carefully.

”Do you really think Wen Wan is foolish enough not to know who’s stronger, Lawyer Lin or Ye Lin?

”Foolish enough not to understand how dangerous it is to enter an Elimination-type game as the offender herself?”

Huang Shengjie shook his head. ”No.

”Whatever else is true, she’s a veteran player who’s survived since the first stage. She’s not blind, and her intelligence is perfectly normal.

”That’s exactly what I can’t make sense of.”

Qin Cheng let out a sigh. ”Don’t project yourself onto this. Just because you’d fully trust Lawyer Lin doesn’t mean Wen Wan would too.

”Think carefully. What did the game invitation actually say about the selection criteria?”

Huang Shengjie seemed to catch something. ”The standard was: Audience Representative should be someone she ’trusts absolutely and mutually,’ and Regular Audience Members should be people she ’trusts relatively, with a certain degree of capability.’

”Trust comes first.

”I would’ve picked Lawyer Lin because I trust him.

”If Wen Wan didn’t pick him, that means she doesn’t trust him.

”Whatever else is true, if she genuinely selected people according to that standard, it means that across the entire community, the players she trusts most are Lu Qi, Ye Lin, and me.

”Isn’t that even more absurd, though?

”Or, is that really what she genuinely believes, deep down? And is there a reason behind that belief?”

Qin Cheng gave a nod. ”Rather than getting stuck on why she didn’t pick Lawyer Lin, it might help more to think about why she didn’t pick Lu Bingjun.

”It’s probably driven by the same underlying reason.”