Lu Bingjun chuckled dismissively, "This kind of analysis is a bit too omniscient.

"The rule to examine the Imitator should have been imposed by Walkway onto the Imitator. We encountered a similar situation in the first phase of the game.

"However, Xu Yiheng obviously took much precaution to mitigate risks.

"He deliberately split this game into four zones and restricted players to only meet with adjacent rooms, aiming to maximize the disruption of interaction among players.

"When we listened to them recounting the game process, we could distinctly feel this divide: even though they were in the same game, they were completely unrelated to each other.

"In such circumstances, the information all players gather is severely limited. The vast majority of players don’t even know Xu Yiheng’s name. How can they identify him?

"To identify Xu Yiheng requires many steps: surveillance, communication, confirming suspicion, finding evidence, spending all medical points, convincing at least half of the players to vote.

"If any step fails, Xu Yiheng could remain safe and leave unscathed."

Shen Bowen nodded in agreement, "Yes, I understand that. But from the perspective of the game mechanism, these things aren’t impossible, are they?

"If players could first confirm they have obtained special medicine to ensure their own safety, there would be ample time and motive to use surveillance and communication functions, seeking out the Imitator."

Lu Bingjun waved his hand, "Being able to do something is one thing, whether you will actually do it is another.

"Suppose you’re a strong player in the game facing two choices: first, shut yourself in a room and spend a lot of medical points trying to find the Imitator, if unsuccessful, lose everything; second, use other game mechanisms to extract medical points from weaker players.

"How many would choose the former?

"Obviously, the latter is more reliably profitable."

Shen Bowen was silent for a while; she seemed like she wanted to argue but felt it was futile and difficult to reach a definite conclusion.

So after a moment of silence, she looked at Lin Sizhi, "So, Lawyer Lin, what’s your view?"

Lin Sizhi glanced at the two of them, "I don’t think your perspectives are fundamentally in conflict.

"Xu Yiheng’s skill, among the Imitators, shouldn’t be bad, but it’s not top-tier.

"The key point is: an Imitator with lots of visa time is not necessarily the strongest."

Qin Cheng nodded, "Yes, I agree.

"Previously our analysis clearly fell into a trap, assuming a wrong premise.

"The incorrect premise was: since Xu Yiheng could win the design right in the first game of the second stage, he must be a top-tier Imitator.

"And the fact that he earned so much visa time further reinforced this false impression.

"But upon reflection, perhaps having money, winning the bid in this game election first, and less effective at hiding one’s intentions, these three traits have some internal connection?"

Qin Cheng paused slightly, then continued to explain, "Earning visa time is only a part of the Imitator’s ability, not the entirety.

"Let’s assume there are two Imitators, one stronger, but there are many strong players in the same region, so he is more cautious, not designing or participating in potentially risky games, only taking action at critical times;

"whereas the other is slightly weaker without strong players in the same region, or these strong players have no intent to target him, so he actively participates in risky games, trying all possible means to earn as much visa time as possible.

"Thus, the latter will certainly have more visa time but likely won’t survive as long as the former."

Shen Bowen nodded, "Yes, I agree with this viewpoint.

"Take this game invitation for instance, we currently don’t know exactly how the bidding is conducted among the Imitators, but since it’s the ’first game,’ it could either drive Imitators into a frenzy or make them deliberately avoid it.

"Let’s assume all relatively strong Imitators lack visa time.

"Therefore, under cautious Imitators generally choosing to hide themselves, for an Imitator like Xu Yiheng to ultimately emerge, it’s not surprising."

Lu Bingjun also frowned in contemplation for a moment, eventually nodding.

"Your meaning is...

"Originally, thinking this game is for each Imitator to showcase abilities and choose the strongest, but actually, it turned into the strongest Imitators all hiding themselves and pushing a greedy-minded Imitator out to test the waters?

"Hmm... when you put it that way, it does make sense."

Everyone fell into a brief silence.

Initially, many players like Deng Xiao, Geng Yuxia, and Wen Wan felt fortunate at the Imitator’s death. After all, it was the first time they encountered a strong Imitator dying in a game, distributing considerable visa time.

At the same time, they felt a bit regretful, thinking it would have been good to have entered the game themselves.

But now it seems, Xu Yiheng’s death does not signify the player’s victory or the Imitator’s defeat.

This game seemed more like a mere appetizer, with Xu Yiheng as the sacrifice other Imitators tacitly pushed onto the table.

Other Imitators may have used their visa time due to fiercer competition, unable to bid higher; or upon reaching a certain bid, realized the excessive risk and chose to withdraw.

Or simply planned to abandon it from the start.

So ultimately, it was a comparatively weak and high-risk-inclined Imitator like Xu Yiheng who emerged.

...

Lu Bingjun clapped his hands, "Well, the results of this game were indeed unexpected, it’s a good start, but we also must be cautious and not become complacent.

"Let me summarize several key points of this game.

"Then you can supplement afterwards."

Everyone nodded, especially Qin Cheng, Huang Shengjie, and Lu Qi, all listening attentively.

Lu Bingjun briefly organized his thoughts and said, "First is the issue of pre-paying visa time.

"Now it appears adopting the ’designated selection’ instead of ’free bidding’ method was correct.

"If some communities adopted bidding, once competition occurred, the overall prepaid visa time would increase, thereby affecting strategic freedom in the game."

Lu Qi was still a bit confused, quickly raising her hand to ask, "How does it affect strategic freedom?" 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Lu Bingjun explained, "Because this game, in terms of ’identity allocation,’ actually has hidden rules.

"According to the official rules, identities are distributed based on pre-stored medical points: below 10,000 is a regular patient, 15,000 to 20,000 is a VIP patient, 20,000 or more might become sales.

"But based on the game’s actual situation, it can be inferred there are at least two hidden rules:

"First, the identities of doctor and auditor are screened based on knowledge background and certain special factors.

"For instance, Dr. Qin only pre-stored 10,000 medical points yet still got the doctor identity.

"Second, it will attempt to distribute the five players from each community participating in the game among four regions, with at most two players in the same region.

"So in retrospect, we were executing the optimal strategy.

"If free bidding, there could be a dire scenario:

"Players lacking medical expertise entering the game, resulting in no players being assigned to positions like doctor or auditor.

"Moreover, there would likely be only one sales person, with other players all assigned as patients, utterly incapable of cooperating.

"From this perspective, our collective decision-making was very correct."