Free Web NovelChapter 589: Chapter 588: A New Invitation
At the same time, Lu Bingjun had already finished adjusting the visa times together with the other players, making sure that Deng Xiao, who had suffered pain twice, was rotated back into the top 7 and wouldn’t be easily pushed out again. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
After the adjustment, Lu Bingjun once more confirmed the rough ranking of the players, excluding the top three exempt players:
4. Zhou Wanlin (0 times)
5. Zheng Chunhua (1 time)
6. Deng Xiao (2 times)
7. Huang Shengjie (1 time)
8. Shen Bowen (0 times)
9. Yao Yuan (1 time)
10. He Qinyun (1 time)
11. Wen Wan (1 time)
12. Geng Yuxia (1 time)
13. Qin Cheng (1 time)
14. Lu Qi (0 times)
Of course, this list does not represent the players’ actual remaining visa times; most of them had stored away their extra visa time in order to maintain this order.
Deng Xiao had already suffered pain twice, so he was given a "higher priority" within the top 7—that is, when other players later rotated into the top 7, they would preferentially replace someone else rather than Deng Xiao.
Strictly speaking, Zhou Wanlin should also have been rotated into the back 7, but right now she was filling in for Qin Cheng’s slot.
Qin Cheng had decided that he would suffer pain one more time himself, confirm the exact effect of the basic medication in the Community, and then exercise his exemption right.
So for the moment, Lu Bingjun didn’t deliberately tweak things; this more or less counted as a special favor for Zhou Wanlin, and as long as no player raised explicit objections, they would just turn a blind eye for now.
Of course, as more rotation players were added, it was only a matter of time before Zhou Wanlin entered the back 7.
Deng Xiao came over to stand beside Lu Bingjun and said in a low voice, "Thanks, Old Lu."
Lu Bingjun shook his head. "No need to thank me. This is a rule everyone already agreed to—I’m just following the book.
"You’ve already endured pain twice, so you should be rotated to the front.
"If any player in the back 7 suffers pain twice, they’ll be rotated forward just like you, until everyone in the back has suffered pain twice."
Deng Xiao let out a quiet sigh and went on in a low voice, "But... I’m a bit worried. Can this system really run as normally as we imagine?
"You must have realized it too—the further this goes, the more problems the system might have.
"The more I think about it, the more worried I get.
"Look, first there’s the luck issue.
"I’ve been rotated once, so during the three rounds of pain, I was actually only in the back 7 for two of them.
"And wouldn’t you know it, I got picked both times.
"Lu Qi has been in the back 7 the entire time, and he hasn’t been picked even once.
"If we push it to an extreme, isn’t it possible that we get a situation like this: a certain player stays in the back 7 the whole time, but no matter how everyone else rotates, he never gets picked?
"Judging from how this system is currently running, it looks like pure chaos, so something like that could totally happen.
"Then there’s the visa time gap issue.
"In a few weeks or a few months, everyone’s visa time gap will only get wider and wider. We can raise the interest-free loan limit and have everyone adjust things by storing visa time, but there’s still a ceiling.
"What if the gap gets too big later and we can’t balance it anymore?
"On top of that, there’s another problem: what if someone lies? fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
"Each time the pain hits, three players are selected. From the last three rounds, every time exactly three players came out to claim it, so so far there hasn’t been much of an issue.
"But once a player’s gone through it once, they can describe the pain in detail. If, at some point, a player falsely claims it, and we suddenly have four people all saying they suffered the pain, what then?
"We have absolutely no way to tell, and the system doesn’t give any hints either.
"Old Lu, have you thought about these issues? Is there any way to solve them?"
Silently, Lu Bingjun shook his head. "I’ve thought about them, but for now I don’t have a solution either.
"We’ll just have to take it one step at a time."
He paused for a moment, then asked, "Right, I forgot to ask you just now—how did the second round of pain feel compared to the first?"
Deng Xiao thought about it. "Much better!
"Maybe it’s the medication, maybe it’s psychological.
"Even though it’s just the most basic medication in the Community, it does work."
Lu Bingjun nodded. "Yeah, so as the number of times you suffer pain increases, you can gradually adapt to this kind of pain.
"Just like patients who are tormented by pain for a long time slowly get used to it.
"That counts as good news, since this kind of pain is very likely to become normalized in the future."
Deng Xiao patted his arm. "Relax, Old Lu, you’re doing pretty damn well.
"Anyway, no matter how things go, I’ll remember the way you’ve looked out for me, and I’ll keep backing you!"
Lu Bingjun nodded. "Thanks."
...
That night, when Lin Sizhi returned to his room, he found another game-design invitation waiting on his personal computer.
[Hello, Lin Sizhi.]
[In the Walkway, death is the players’ normal state—and the ladder of progress.]
[Please be prepared. The second phase of the game has only just begun.]
[Five days from now, the Walkway will run several different Judgment games at the same time. The game assigned to you is: Case D.]
[In the drawer of your desk, you will find the list of related Sinners, but not the case files or verdicts.]
[This game invitation will, as before, be "bid on" by all Imitators in the current phase of New World, with each case bid on separately.]
[If "approved," the proposal that "pays the most visa time" will be selected.]
[In addition, any "profits voluntarily waived by the Imitator" will be treated as an extra bonus factor.]
[Only after a successful bid can you view the case files and verdicts.]
[The bidding window is 24 hours, and the deadline for the game design proposal is 8 p.m. four days from now. Good luck!]
Looking at this game invitation, Lin Sizhi murmured to himself, "So it looks like ’bidding for the right to design the game’ is going to become the norm in phase two?
"This time you can even improve your odds by voluntarily giving up profits.
"So the Imitator is basically paying to work?
"We’ve managed to reach the ’money earned in the Walkway is spent in the Walkway’ stage this early, huh."
According to the rules, an Imitator could only see the names of the Sinners involved this time, not their specific crimes.
In other words, an Imitator could determine whether there was someone they wanted to target in this round of Judgment, but before they actually paid visa time and obtained the qualification, they couldn’t use the crimes to roughly shape a game design.
This undoubtedly increased the risk.
If an Imitator paid a large amount of visa time, only to discover that the player they wanted to target had committed a relatively minor crime, or that it was impossible to design a game that was sufficiently targeted and lethal, that would be a pure loss.
On top of that, there was one more difference in this game invitation.
It now allowed Imitators to explicitly state, during bidding, that they would give up part of their share of the profits.
On the face of it, suppose two Imitators bid at the same time. Imitator A offers 500,000 minutes of visa time, while Imitator B offers only 400,000 minutes but gives up all of their share of profits from the game. In the end, Imitator B might still win.
Of course, no one could estimate the exact figures; this was part of the black box in the Walkway’s rules.
"Anyway, for a long time at the beginning of phase two, Imitators are probably going to be stuck in this endless self-cannibalization mode."
Lin Sizhi opened his desk drawer and took out the materials for this round.
Unlike before, there were no specific Sinner files, just a simple list.
Lin Sizhi skimmed over the list; most of the players were unfamiliar.
Until he saw the names of two fellow Community players.
[Community 2 – Lu Bingjun]
[Community 2 – Deng Xiao]
...
...
The next day, everything in the Community proceeded as usual. Nothing happened.
That night, when Lin Sizhi returned to his room again, he found that the bidding results for this Judgment game had been released.
[The current highest bid is: 320,000 minutes of visa time, plus all Imitator profits generated in the game.]
Naturally, Lin Sizhi had no reason to put up that much visa time, so he had dropped out of the competition early on.
As for the Imitator who won the bid, designing this game was essentially pure out-of-pocket work: not only would they earn nothing, they would also have to pay an extra 320,000 minutes of visa time from their own pocket.
Clearly, they had only one goal: to target one of the Sinners selected this time.
The only question was who exactly that person was.
