Han Mengying looked at the sign displaying the total Wealth Value, and sure enough, the numbers on it had changed.

[Current Total Wealth: 262,146 minutes of visa time]

Now, among the seven people remaining in the venue, the four commoner players each had over 50,000 time, and on the wealthy conglomerate's side, only one person had over 40,000. This was all the total wealth.

The rest of the wealth had been taken by the five who had Departed.

The other four commoner players had expressions as bewildered as Han Mengying's.

If they had known these people planned to run, these four commoner players would have done everything to stop them.

As long as they had a vote in the management, they would have certainly opposed it.

But the problem was that Lin Sizhi chose a special point: in the 16th round of the game, the age composition of the players was: 5 juniors, 3 youth, 1 adult, and 3 seniors.

Among them, only one senior could enter the management, and in terms of wealth ranking, Lin Sizhi was undoubtedly the highest.

And there was only 1 adult player.

Under these circumstances, Lin Sizhi could freely change the tax rate, and no matter how he changed it, it would definitely pass.

For Sun De, by the end of this round of the game, he would be reborn as a junior, and all his wealth would be taken away by a 100% estate tax.

And now, Lin Sizhi chose to run at the last moment before the end of the 16th round, setting the Departure tax for the wealthy conglomerate to 0%, leaving him about 30 seconds.

How could Sun De not run? Of course, he had to run for his life.

The 8 buttons in the Work Area required 8 players to occupy and use them, otherwise the 'Wealth Shrinking' penalty rule would be triggered, and the wealth of everyone in the venue would shrink by 20%.

If there aren't enough people in each subsequent round, wealth will continue to shrink each round.

With 4 rounds remaining until the end of the game, the players left in the venue could surely choose to endure the wealth shrinkage and keep making money to reduce the loss.

But no matter how they struggle, they can't reach 500,000, and at the end, they can only take out '10%', which can't reach 10,000 either.

This will also trigger an additional penalty of deducting 50,000 minutes.

The most critical point is that if only one of these two penalty mechanisms is in effect, it wouldn't be so severe.

For example, assuming Sun De didn't leave, even if he was penniless, the situation wouldn't get this bad.

Because there were still 8 people in the area, they could occupy all 4 groups of buttons, preventing the wealth shrinkage, and during these four rounds of the game, it would still be enough to earn back the total Wealth Value to 500,000.

But Sun De's departure left the seven remaining people completely trapped here.

...

Luo Wei panicked. As a new player, her initial visa time was only about a month, and it would undoubtedly be completely deducted.

She hurried to the safe zone's departure entrance, but since she didn't have enough visa time, she couldn't pass the gate.

"Lawyer Lin, didn't you promise to take me back to the Community? Weren't you supposed to take me away too?"

Lin Sizhi looked at her with a smirk: "Is my acting really that good?

"Even to the point that you truly believed I would be forgiving enough to pardon a betrayer?"

Luo Wei's face turned ashen immediately. It was clear the promises Lin Sizhi had made to her were deceitful.

From the very beginning, Lin Sizhi never intended to let her return to Community 17.

Betrayal is something that, once it happens, will happen again. How could it really just be forgiven?

As for why deceive her, the reason was simple:

By then, the game had reached the 12th round, so the 'Wealth Shrinking' penalty mechanism had already been activated.

If Luo Wei refused to use the work button, combined with the four wealthy conglomerate players, Lin Sizhi's side wouldn't have enough for eight people, leading to wealth shrinkage.

If that happened, a lose-lose result might occur, and Lin Sizhi and the others wouldn't be able to smoothly take away so much visa time.

By giving Luo Wei a bit of hope, she would obediently cooperate.

In fact, with Luo Wei's intelligence, she should have considered the possibility of being deceived. But in desperate situations, when people grasp at a potential lifeline, they would instinctively deceive themselves.

Of course, even if Luo Wei really didn't cooperate, Lin Sizhi had other alternative plans, like trying to cooperate with Sun De, which could also avoid wealth shrinkage.

But doing so would lack elegance.

Luo Wei felt her hands and feet turn cold and looked helplessly at Qin Yao and Cai Zhiyuan, holding a sliver of hope that they might say something kind for her.

Perhaps there was still a chance for redemption.

After all, as an actuary, she was certainly more valuable to the community than Zhou Guifen, an old lady, right?

If the three of them were willing to take her back into the fold, she could still survive with interest-free loans upon returning to the community.

However, Cai Zhiyuan's words mercilessly shattered her fantasy.

"You still don't understand?

"It's not just you scrutinizing Community 17; Community 17 is also scrutinizing you.

"Do you really think your little tricks can fool anyone?

"You're dissatisfied with not being able to integrate into Community 17's management, and similarly, the management of Community 17 is contemplating what position you should have.

"If you were loyal enough, shared our ideals, and proved your abilities, then we wouldn't mind giving you some say.

"Why do you think I let you connect with Community 4?

"On one hand, it was to keep you unaware of secret plans, leveraging your interactions with Han Mengying to cover them up;

"On the other hand, it was to create conditions for Community 4 to poach, to see if you would entertain thoughts of betrayal.

"You're a new member, so Lawyer Lin and I don't mind letting you win without doing anything yourself. As long as you seriously execute the group's decisions and resist temptation from other communities, we could have led you to successfully complete this game.

"Or, if you could see through Lawyer Lin's and my plan and even propose optimization suggestions, we would have raised our evaluation of you.

"But unfortunately, you couldn't even pass the simplest test.

"Sometimes, the more one calculates, the lower the threshold for betrayal becomes.

"Of course, what disappointed us wasn't just your betrayal, nor merely your foolishness, but your arrogance.

"You arrogantly believe yourself better than those you call 'burdens', arrogantly think you deserve more say, and arrogantly presume you're powerful enough to have the freedom to choose your community.

"But in this game, how much better did you perform than those 'burdens' you looked down upon?

"At least I can be sure that any of those 'burdens' swapped with you right now would probably be standing with us, holding ten thousand minutes of visa time, rather than standing against us like you."

Cai Zhiyuan paused briefly before continuing, "I don't know how long you'll last in Community 4, but in any case, here's a small piece of advice for you.

"In the New World, foolish people might die, stubborn people might die, unfaithful people might die—any type of person might die. But these are not absolutes; under certain circumstances, such people could live long.

"Only one type of person is sure to die, and they die the quickest.

"Arrogant people do not deserve to survive in the New World."

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