God's Imitator

After hearing the rules, 'Gray Wolf' He Xiaojun felt his mind go blank, with no clues whatsoever.

"So, does that mean the elimination of players in the second stage is done through 'Guess the Number'?

"But the rule is so vague, it doesn't say how exactly we are supposed to guess!

"How can one accurately guess the standard answer from numbers between 0 and 100?

"I can only think of one strategy now, which is to keep guessing '50'. After all, this number isn't too far from 0 or 100, but if I can't hold on to the end, the longer I persist, the more I lose.

"Because with each round of 'Guess the Number', an additional 5000 debt is incurred.

"I definitely can't hold on to the end, so the wisest move is to pay off all debts and exit 'Guess the Number' early.

"But I need to have at least 30,000 chips on hand to exit!

"I can choose to convert 20,000 chips with my visa time and immediately clear the debt, but wouldn't that mean losing 20,000 chips outright in this game?"

Although it's unclear how exactly to guess the number, the 'elimination mechanism' is clear.

To put it simply, the second stage of the game will involve guessing numbers seven times, during which players can freely play cards.

If a player chooses to continuously participate in the 'Guess the Number' game, from the second 'Guess the Number' onwards, every round will incur an additional 5000 chips in debt.

Although becoming one of the last five candidates can exempt all debts, getting eliminated in the middle would be troublesome.

In the worst scenario, if eliminated in the last round of guessing numbers, one would incur a debt as high as 60,000 chips.

With insufficient chips, and having double the visa time deducted, it's basically a death sentence.

If you don't want to incur more debt, the best option is to exit 'Guess the Number' early, but the prerequisite is to immediately pay off the current debt.

He Xiaojun currently has 9000 chips, meaning he needs to exchange his visa time for 21,000 chips.

It's definitely more cost-effective than having double deducted later on, but it also feels like a loss of 20,000 minutes of visa time for doing nothing, akin to cutting your losses.

He's trapped in a dilemma.

After much deliberation, He Xiaojun finally made up his mind to exchange his visa time for 20,000 chips.

His visa time was already limited, and exchanging chips felt like his heart was bleeding.

These chips are not enough to pay off all the debts, but He Xiaojun doesn't need to rush because there's still time.

As long as he clears his debts before the results of the second round of guessing numbers, the debt won't increase further.

Therefore, players actually have 30 minutes to make a decision.

Since the second stage has just begun, He Xiaojun thought he should go to the game hall to get a sense of the actual situation and try to find players from this community.

If he could latch onto a strong ally, find a player willing to cooperate, or learn the tricks of 'Guess the Number' from other players, he wouldn't need to make a hasty decision.

He could wait and see.

Of course, he might end up with nothing, in which case he would have to find a way to immediately submit chips to pay off the debt, at least to prevent the losses from further escalating.

…

Likewise, just having heard the rules of the second stage, 'Rabbit' Han Mengying had no intention of proactively paying off her debts.

At this time, with a large number of chips in hand, the only thing she considered was how to earn more.

Especially the final prize pool of 'Guess the Number', which was very tempting.

According to the game rules, the chips players use to pay off debts would all go into this prize pool.

This means the total prize pool accumulated might exceed a million, and winning it alone would be a massive gain.

Of course, Han Mengying also knew that winning this prize pool alone was nearly impossible, which is why the 'Contract Coupon' rule exists in the game.

Moreover, the rules for this 'Guess the Number' aren't clear; the specifics of guessing are a problem.

"The gameplay of 'Guess the Number' sounds like a multiple logic game, but it deliberately omits the specific rules of the multiple logic game, especially the specific parameters to multiply, why?

"Of course, from the elimination mechanism, as long as I keep my chips high enough, I shouldn't be eliminated.

"So the primary task is still to earn more chips.

"And this Imitator is so arrogant? Even though there are 40 people involved in this game, as long as the Imitator is identified, it greatly reduces the difficulty of discovering the Imitator.

"If truly discovered, as long as the vote by all players exceeds 70%, it's absolutely not difficult to achieve, then they would be dead for sure.

"Trying to earn chips repeatedly by mistaken identification? Such greedy recklessness..."

While Han Mengying quickly contemplated game strategies, the wooden box with the countdown 'clicked' open automatically.

Han Mengying hurriedly picked it up and noticed that it indeed contained 16 pieces of 1000 chips, as promised, according to 10% of the remaining visa time.

After entering the second stage, Han Mengying once again exchanged the maximum limit of 20,000 chips, and along with the chips she already had, her total chip count reached as high as 85,000.

Of course, 40,000 of these are from exchanging with visa time, which shouldn't be considered net gain.

Besides that, there was a small note in the wooden box, which was the 'Imitator's advice to Foolish Players'.

Han Mengying took the note and looked at it. There were only eight big characters and a line of small words.

'Give up thinking, play randomly.'

'(This advice mainly applies to the first stage.)'

Han Mengying was speechless: "That's it? Is it necessary to have a separate box for such a simple strategy?

"And it even marked that it only applies to the first stage, which means, if Foolish Players don't smash the box on their own, this advice won't even be useful.

"Well, for some novice players who know nothing, this could count as somewhat useful advice.

"Playing randomly at least eliminates the negative impact of 'psychological processing' and counts as a simple defensive strategy.

"No wonder I've encountered a lot of players playing randomly.

"So be it, this advice is originally aimed at 'Foolish Players', it's normal that I can't use it, having additional chips is more important anyway.

"But for those Foolish Players with already limited visa time, if they didn't smash the box to see this note early and chose to wait, they'd be pissed off."

The game in the second stage had officially started, and Han Mengying pushed the door of the lounge open and left.

…

This time, behind the door was no longer a simply furnished combat room. Instead, it turned into an extremely vast space.

The ceiling height here was a few meters, making it feel very spacious. What was particularly eye-catching was a transparent glass cylinder in the center of the hall, directly connecting to the hall's ceiling, which was temporarily empty inside.

Just as many players were contemplating its purpose, a 'clang' sound suddenly came from inside.

Many chips fell from the sky into this glass container.

A rough count showed about 30 pieces.

Han Mengying understood, this was the 'final prize pool of Guess the Number' mentioned in the game rules.

All chips players used to pay off debts would enter this prize pool, meaning it would accumulate more and more.

What made Han Mengying a bit helpless was, which player was this, acting so timidly?

Clearly, the debt wouldn't increase until 30 minutes later; why pay it off so early, not even trying the first round of 'Guess the Number'?

Apparently, with enough participating players, there are bound to be those who are overly cautious and conservative.

This doesn't necessarily mean it's a wrong strategy; it's just that the game doesn't have only one solution, and players have their own ways of surviving.