God's Imitator

Chapter 98: The Walkway's Attitude


Everyone nodded in agreement. Initially, finding the Imitator seemed like an exaggerated task, but upon reflection, each step of the deduction appeared to have a traceable path.

Especially since Officer Cao is a professional criminal investigator, his guidance is crucial.

Li Renshu nodded in agreement: "Indeed, the purpose of the Imitator often becomes the key to breaking the case. Things might not be as bad as we think."

Cao Haichuan took over the conversation: "I also agree with this viewpoint. As I speculated earlier, the Imitator doesn't kill people without some cost.

"The more purposeful an Imitator is, the easier it is to catch them in the game.

"But if his intentions are not strong, or if he doesn't dare to blatantly exploit hidden loopholes unnoticed by most, the game's fairness can still be fundamentally guaranteed."

Fu Chen realized an issue: "Wait a minute, I suddenly realized there's one point we still haven't figured out: does the Imitator have to enter his own game?

"This point is very important!"

Everyone fell silent; it was apparent that there wasn't a clear answer to this question yet.

Li Renshu looked at Lin Sizhi: "Lawyer Lin, what do you think? You must have the most say in this matter."

Lin Sizhi shrugged: "I don't know.

"The reason I'm working towards 'finding the Imitator' is because the game's pre-broadcast specifically mentioned rules about killing the Imitator. This rule might be Walkway's hint to us: this game has an opportunity to kill the Imitator.

"But since Walkway hasn't explicitly stated this, I can't be entirely sure either."

Zheng Jie was taken aback: "Huh? It's not entirely certain? I completely believed in your conviction at that time!"

Lin Sizhi chuckled with a bit of helplessness: "That was the most likely scenario and the only way to break the case. Even if it wasn't completely certain, I had to say it that way.

"Otherwise, what should I say? Tell everyone, 'The Imitator might not be in this game'? Did I go to such lengths to audition just to kill the mood?

"I had to appear utterly confident to persuade other players to vote for the kill. Any hesitation on my part might have failed to gather enough of 20 votes.

"What if the Imitator isn't in the game?

"Then what else can be done? Everyone just has to rely on their skills to endure until the game ends.

"As for the Community 1 players, even if they killed the wrong person, so be it. They stirred up the most opposition, thus indirectly being murderers."

Jiang He frowned and said, "I think the Imitator must enter the game, right?

"If he doesn't have to enter the game, then it could become a ridiculous loophole!

"The Imitator could turn the community into a black market, reveal all the rules in advance, then only let other players enter while he doesn't, wouldn't that make him invincible?"

Li Renshu nodded: "Mhm, this makes sense too.

"Maybe Walkway permits the Imitator to take some high-risk, high-reward actions, like openly laying his cards in the community, but the Imitator also has to bear the risk of being coerced, controlled, or even killed by the community players.

"But setting up a black market and not participating themselves would be too much, severely impacting the balance between the Imitator and the players.

"Walkway shouldn't just sit back and do nothing."

Fu Chen thought for a moment: "Perhaps, as Lawyer Lin said, the relevant rules disclosed by Walkway before the game are a kind of hint.

"But…

"Is that really enough? Walkway can't possibly issue such a notice every time the Imitator enters his own game, right?"

Wang Yongxin shrugged: "If Walkway truly doesn't care, we have no way. After all, players are just meat on the chopping board, whether they're cut sooner or later."

Li Renshu stared at the rules on the big screen and suddenly realized something.

She rose and walked to the big screen, pointing to the five rules in the bottom right corner.

"Maybe Walkway has already made restrictions on this behavior.

"Don't you find it strange? Why are these five rules separately listed here? It even specifically notes that they are 'supplementary rules'."

Lin Sizhi had long noticed these five rules, but since no one brought them up, he certainly wouldn't intentionally point them out.

Now, Li Renshu finally noticed them.

The first four rules were ones he had previously submitted to Zhong Yuanyuan.

And the fifth rule is:

[5. The Imitator who designed this game will personally enter the game.]

Many people had shocked expressions; they indeed hadn't noticed this point before.

Because the 'Matchmaking Game' had too many rules, the entire big screen was densely packed, making everyone's eyes hurt. They only vaguely understood by following Zheng Jie's recap.

The five supplementary rules at the end weren't very noticeable.

Xu Tong mused: "These five… maybe the Imitator wasn't satisfied with his own plan, so he added patches?

"That's normal, after all, when we create plans, we often have omissions that need modification."

Li Renshu shook her head slightly: "But in all the games we've seen before, all the games, there hasn't been a similar situation of deletion or modification afterward.

"What Walkway presents to us are complete rules, displayed strictly in chronological order and in a modular way.

"Even if the Imitator wants to delete or modify his rules, he would certainly do so privately and submit them once they are all revised, wouldn't he?

"Supplementary rules should be inserted in their corresponding places, so how can they just be casually attached at the end?

"Would you dare hand such a formatted plan to your boss or leader? You'd definitely get scolded.

"Walkway's review standards should be more stringent."

Wang Yongxin nodded: "Makes sense."

Clearly, Li Renshu, as a civil servant, has an unusually keen sense of 'format'.

Such an after-the-fact amendment that simply hangs at the end seems as eye-catching to her as committing a major infraction.

She continued: "I believe these rules were personally added by Walkway to balance the game's difficulty.

"Because upon careful analysis, these rules are indispensable whether for players' self-preservation or helping them better determine the Imitator's position.

Wang Yongxin was stunned for a moment: "Wait, how can you be sure these rules were personally added by Walkway?

"It's also possible that Walkway rejected the original draft, forcing the Imitator to make adjustments and additions, so Zhong Yuanyuan was compelled to include these rules to make the game more fair."

Li Renshu pointed at the last rule: "'The Imitator who designed this game will personally enter the game'.

"Who besides Walkway has the authority to write this into the rules?

"Zhong Yuanyuan could indeed write it herself, but would she be that foolish? Even if she wanted to enter the game herself to see the crime scene, there would be no need to specifically write it into the rules, right?"

Zheng Jie suddenly understood: "Oh? Is that how it is!

"At first glance, these rules seem favorable to the Imitator, but upon closer thought, they are advantageous to the players.

"Take the third rule, for example; when I was conducting a bluff earlier, I realized that the 10-second death waiting time actually increases the room for player strategy.

"But…

"The first two rules don't seem to have any special effect?

"For example, with the vouchers, if they could be returned, I would consider buying them, as I wouldn't be stuck with them; at most, I'd lose 20% as a handling fee.

"But since I can't return them, I've never been able to make the decision to purchase."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.


Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter