God's Imitator

The next morning, everyone gathered in the hall once more.

Lu Bingjun personally handed the Community Trial Rules motion to every player, his expression notably solemn.

”Everyone already reviewed the content of the motion last week, and nothing in it has changed.

”But over the course of this past week, I made a point of listening carefully to what various players had to say, so I’ve put together two additional versions built on top of the original.

”If neither of these two new versions passes, we’ll move on to voting on the original motion.

”Take a careful look at all three first.”

Lin Sizhi’s eyes moved across the dense text and quickly picked out the differences between the three versions.

The third version was the Community Trial Rules that Yao Yuan had proposed the previous week, the one with the false-accusation penalty built in, with the final punishment being either full stripping of visa time with expulsion, or outright execution.

The changes this time were mainly in the first two versions.

Both of these retained the same core structure as the original, with only slight adjustments to the rule governing how an accused Imitator would actually be judged.

The first version stated: once the required vote threshold was reached, the community itself would determine whether the accused player genuinely was the Imitator. If confirmed, the Instant Death Penalty would apply. If not, the accuser would face the false-accusation penalty, either having their visa time stripped entirely or facing the Instant Death Penalty themselves.

The second version was similar: the community would determine whether the accused genuinely was the Imitator, but this wouldn’t change the outcome. It would simply mean the player’s true identity would be disclosed afterward.

A few players’ faces showed visible confusion.

Lu Bingjun explained, ”More than one player has told me privately that the community’s own systems should confirm whether someone genuinely is the Imitator after the vote, executing them if confirmed, and clearing their name if not.

”Let me answer everyone’s questions on this at once.

”The reason Yao Yuan’s original motion didn’t include a clause like this is that it almost certainly could never pass.

”Imagine the process worked like this: everyone votes, then the community confirms the Imitator’s identity. We’d essentially be able to identify the Imitator at zero cost to ourselves.

”The Imitator would have no way left to stay hidden.

”From the community’s own perspective, that would obviously be an extremely one-sided rule, and there’s no possible way it would ever be approved.

”After all, the community has never been entirely on the players’ side.

”That said, I understand most players still want to try, thinking, what if it actually works?

”So these two new versions are essentially a gamble.

”If either genuinely passes, that would be the best possible outcome.

”But if even the second version fails to pass, that would tell us something too: that the Gallery won’t even allow us to learn a player’s true identity after killing them. And that should put this particular hope to rest for good, so no one keeps holding onto something unrealistic.”

Lu Bingjun paused briefly, then continued, ”In any case, I’ll submit these three motions in order.

”If the first two don’t pass, only then will we vote on the third.

”And if none of them pass, that at least spares us from continuing to agonise over this. We can simply let it go entirely.

”Motions default to an hour of deliberation time, which is usually enough for ordinary matters, but falls a little short for something this critical.

”So we’re deliberately extending that window.

”It’s just a few minutes to 9am now. We’ll allow discussion and deliberation all the way until 5pm this afternoon.

”After that, we’ll move to the formal vote.

”Over these 8 hours of deliberation, everyone is encouraged to discuss the motion however they’d like, including forming small private groups of any size to talk it through.

”Once the vote is cast, regardless of the outcome, we will only vote on this once within the next two months.

”Meaning, even if the final result comes as a surprise to everyone, we absolutely will not revisit this matter for the next two months.

”Alright, everyone, feel free to discuss freely.”

Huang Shengjie looked down at the motion in his hands and suddenly thought of something new. ”By the way, Brother Lu, I’ve been meaning to ask, when a motion is submitted at the Community Management Office, if it fails review, is there any notification?”

Lu Bingjun shook his head. ”No.

”Actually, that’s a good point, and it does highlight a gap. Some of you might worry that I’m not actually submitting the first two motions for review at all.

”So let’s do this instead. I won’t submit the first two motions myself.

”Lawyer Lin, Ye Lin, and Shengjie, the three of you can each submit one in turn.

”If all three of you fail to get either one through review, then everyone should be able to let go of this idea entirely.

”Of course, if either of the first two actually does pass, we’ll vote based on that version and won’t need to consider the later ones at all.

”Does anyone have any other questions?”

Seeing no further objections, Lu Bingjun left the hall and returned to the second floor, apparently not wanting his presence to put additional pressure on anyone else.

Huang Shengjie stared at the motion in his hands, feelings mixed, and let out a long breath.

Lu Bingjun had said that regardless of the outcome, this matter wouldn’t be revisited for two months after this vote.

And two months was actually a very long stretch of time.

Judging from how the first stage had gone, an entire stage lasted roughly three months, and the second stage had already been running for a little over a month.

Which meant two months would likely carry them all the way through to the end of the second stage, though no one yet knew under what conditions the second stage would actually conclude.

As long as this particular motion failed to pass, the entire rest of the second stage should be free of this looming risk.

Even if Lu Bingjun wanted to go back on it later, that would be practically impossible, since he’d already made this commitment publicly. Breaking his word would only leave him with a worse vote tally the next time around.

As Huang Shengjie turned this over in his mind, he read through the details of the rules once more.

Strictly speaking, this motion didn’t necessarily guarantee that anyone in the community would actually die because of it. The conditions attached to it were genuinely demanding.

The players in the community had already scattered, moving in twos and threes, some heading outdoors, others to the partitioned spaces on the first or third floor. Nearly everyone was engaged in some kind of private conversation, trying to get a read on where others stood.

Lin Sizhi, as usual, sat near the window sipping coffee and reading.

Huang Shengjie kept turning things over.

”Ye Lin must be busy right now, I’d imagine.

”I have no idea how much groundwork she’s already laid, how many players she’s already talked around. This is really the last opportunity for any of that scrambling.

”We haven’t recruited any new players yet, so the community only has 13 players total. Lu Bingjun counts as two votes, which means Ye Lin needs a full 7 opposing votes to block this motion.

”It’ll really come down to the swing votes.

”Or, thinking about it the other way, who’s guaranteed to support this motion? Lu Bingjun, Yao Yuan, Qin Cheng, that’s 4, which honestly isn’t that many.

”Lu Bingjun did lose two of his reliable votes with Deng Xiao and Wen Wan gone. That really is a significant blow for him.”

Huang Shengjie went and sat down across from Lin Sizhi and asked carefully, ”Lawyer Lin, how are you planning to vote?”

Lin Sizhi didn’t look up. ”I’ll vote with whichever side has more votes.”