Everyone nodded one after another. It was obvious that the situation Lu Bingjun described was highly likely to occur; in fact, in the games that had already taken place, there must have been Communities that had stepped into this pit.

Among the different player identities, the closer the distance, the easier it is to cooperate.

For example, Sales can cooperate with Auditors, Auditors can cooperate with Doctors, and Doctors can cooperate with Patients.

But if there’s one layer in between, the difficulty of cooperation rises exponentially.

For instance, if a Sales wants to cooperate with a Doctor, they have to bypass the Auditor. Although they can communicate in a limited way through the glass of the floor‑to‑ceiling window or by using the call function, the foundation of such cooperation will be much weaker.

And Sales and Patients just happen to be at the two ends of the entire drug sales chain; not only is communication difficult, there’s also absolutely no room for cooperation within the game mechanics.

If players from the same Community are all divided into Sales and Patients, it will most likely turn into meaningless internal friction, making it so that the Community as a whole can only obtain negative returns from the game.

However, many people also heard the subtext in what Lu Bingjun said:

Although he kept saying this was thanks to collective decision‑making, it was still more thanks to himself; after all, in the end he was the one who made the final call.

Lu Bingjun went on, "So I still want to give a special commendation to Qin Cheng.

"If he hadn’t volunteered to participate in the game, our Community probably wouldn’t have been able to obtain advantageous identities like Doctor and Auditor. If that had been the case, the outcome of this game would really be hard to say."

Qin Cheng shook his head. "Brother Lu, you’re exaggerating a bit. In this game, I actually didn’t do much. I just tried to hold Zone D and keep the drugs from spreading, and in the end I still failed."

Lu Bingjun smiled. "No need to be so modest. Newcomers as strong as you and Shengjie—I’ve never seen any in the first‑stage games.

"Next is the matter of choosing different identities in the game.

"Sales–Auditor–Doctor–Patient together form a food chain for drug sales, but the whole chain is actually a negative‑sum game.

"Sales and Auditors at the top of the food chain have a huge advantage. They can choose to protect themselves, they can choose to help Patients, or they can choose to harvest Patients.

"Patients at the bottom of the food chain, on the other hand, have almost no autonomy. They only have two options: either, like Qian Li in Zone C where Shengjie was, act as accomplices, colluding with Doctors to exploit other Patients, or else they can only passively protect themselves and resign themselves to fate.

"In that sense, this game is actually not balanced.

"However, there is one thing I do want to emphasize. Of course, this only represents my personal opinion.

"I believe that advantageous identities helping Patients is the better solution.

"Which is exactly what Qin Cheng was trying to do throughout the game.

"Whereas you two veteran players, Ye Lin and Zheng Chunhua... your performance was actually overshadowed by Qin Cheng’s.

"Although on the surface, you two did indeed earn more visa time, Qin Cheng’s actions should have left a better impression on players from other Communities.

"The second‑stage games have only just begun. Inevitably, Communities will gradually be distinguished as benevolent or hostile.

"If we can establish connections with other benevolent Communities, we may be able to gain a better edge in subsequent games.

"This is the difference between long‑term interests and short‑term gains."

Zheng Chunhua lowered his head and said nothing. From the looks of it, he had completely accepted Lu Bingjun’s criticism.

Or rather, he might already have been thinking about this himself.

In the first half of the game, he had been acting according to Qin Cheng’s requests, resisting the temptation of Sales as much as possible and protecting the safety of the Patients.

But under the dual pressure from Sales and Patients, Zheng Chunhua quickly lost ground and failed to hold out to the end the way Qin Cheng did.

And in terms of the outcome, if he had also held out, although he would have earned less visa time, the overall result might have been more optimistic.

Ye Lin, however, clearly had a different view.

"I actually think Uncle Zheng’s choice was the right one.

"Expressing goodwill to other Communities and preparing for future cooperation is certainly one possible game strategy, but it shouldn’t become our Community’s only strategy.

"It might also make other Communities think we’re easy to handle, easy to use—soft targets.

"As for being the good guy, having one is enough. The rest of us should still seize every opportunity to earn more visa time.

"Our Community’s construction fund has a fixed deduction quota. The more we donate, the more special items we can unlock, and the more strategic freedom and fault tolerance we’ll have in future games.

"So whether we’re helping players from other Communities or earning visa time, both are just strategies; there shouldn’t be a hierarchy between them, and we definitely shouldn’t promote one while suppressing the other."

Lu Bingjun smiled. "Heh, of course, strategic freedom is certainly something we have to consider.

"And like I said, these are just my personal views.

"And they’re limited to this one game."

Ye Lin didn’t say anything more.

Lu Bingjun turned his gaze to Huang Shengjie again.

"Aside from Qin Cheng, I think Shengjie’s performance also deserves special praise.

"Although at the beginning, Shengjie was a bit lost because it was his first time entering the game and he didn’t get a special identity, and he was even taken advantage of by players from other Communities, luckily he didn’t get dragged in too deep. Once he realized something was wrong, he did his best to cut his losses.

"After that, he even successfully rooted out the Imitator.

"So, next comes the highlight of this review session: let’s have Shengjie tell everyone about his thought process in catching the Imitator! Let’s welcome him!"

When Lu Bingjun finished, he took the lead in clapping, and the other players all applauded as well.

Shen Bowen and Ye Lin both subconsciously looked at Lin Sizhi; seeing that he was also applauding, they raised their hands and symbolically clapped twice.

Huang Shengjie stood up a bit embarrassed. "Brother Lu, you’re giving me too much credit. Thinking back on it now, I was really just lucky and stumbled into it by accident.

"When I made the accusation, I did first narrow the Imitator’s identity down to an Auditor to reduce the scope, but that was also a matter of drawing the target after shooting the arrow.

"In reality, it was from Du Peng, who was in the same zone, that I first sensed something was off.

"I specifically looked for players from the same Community as Du Peng based on the information I already had, and only then did I notice, from Sister Ye Lin’s account, that Xu Yiheng’s behavior was somewhat abnormal.

"As for a lot of what I said during the accusation, I was also forcing it, shoehorning things onto him. Because I had to make what I said sound as convincing as possible.

"And then there’s the fact that Lawyer Lin, Sister Ye Lin, and Qin Cheng all provided me with a lot of information. It was entirely thanks to their help.

"In any case, thank you all again!"

Huang Shengjie bowed to everyone, and they applauded once more.

Lu Bingjun deliberately clapped a few more times, then said approvingly, "Well said!"

He looked over at Lin Sizhi again. "Lawyer Lin’s performance in this game was also very good, especially in providing Shengjie with a lot of key information. The role you played was irreplaceable.

"But... I am a bit curious: Lawyer Lin, why did you decide to use surveillance to collect information from all the zones right from the start? Did you already plan from the beginning to end this game by finding the Imitator?"