Chapter 639: An Unexpected Player

"What are you doing?"

Peng Xinyuan went still.

Zhou Xiaoying couldn't move, but spoke with urgent insistence, "Open one yourself. Quickly."

Peng Xinyuan didn't understand, "Why?"

Zhou Xiaoying shook her head, "Just open it first and I'll explain after."

Peng Xinyuan looked completely stunned, but in the end he gritted his teeth, "Fine. If I'm going to be punished alongside you anyway, so be it."

He tore open a unit of 'Medications' materials and fell into paralysis as well.

Zhou Xiaoying strained to listen. When no community-wide broadcast went off immediately, she let out a quiet breath of relief.

"We're on the verge of winning. The outcome is already decided. I wanted to see if I could bring some medication back to the community.

"After all, Class M medication is extraordinarily rare and no longer available. As two players who are both dependent on the medications, our actions are completely explainable."

Peng Xinyuan looked helpless, "Are you joking with me?"

Zhou Xiaoying let out a long breath, "Alright. I'll tell you the real reason.

"Before the end of Round Two, the Community 2 player named Yao Yuan specifically asked me to deliver the Contraband. As he was sending me off, he said one sentence to me.

"He said: find a way to trigger two violations. Zhao Heng will definitely die."

Peng Xinyuan was stunned, "Just because of that? He was probably saying it to manipulate you on the spot. You actually believed him?"

Zhou Xiaoying glanced toward the direction of the overhead walkway, "I didn't believe him at first.

"But during the rest period earlier, Wu Xiufang also came and said the exact same thing to me."

Peng Xinyuan froze, baffled, "Why would she?"

Zhou Xiaoying shook her head, "I don't know either. But I decided to try."

The paralysis wore off before long.

The two of them quietly returned to their respective roles and continued their work.

But just as Peng Xinyuan was nearing the cell block, the community-wide broadcast reached him.

[A player of Community 23, Zhao Heng, has exceeded the violation limit and triggered a special penalty.]

[Within 10 minutes, any 2 players of Community 23 must donate all of their Gold Pounds through any available device, totalling no less than 20,000.]

[Otherwise, Zhao Heng will receive an instant-death penalty.]

Peng Xinyuan went still, murmuring in something close to disbelief, "It actually worked.

"But... will really no one save Zhao Heng?"

Before Round Three began, Zhao Heng had redistributed the Gold Pounds among the team.

Before leaving the cell block, he had taken the entirety of the Gold Pounds earned from production. He had then returned to the lounge and collected all the remaining Gold Pounds from Zhou Xiaoying, Peng Xinyuan, and Wu Xiufang, redistributing 10,000 to each of the three.

Li Mao inside the cell block was continuing to earn Gold Pounds and would not run short.

Under this arrangement, if any player other than Zhao Heng triggered the special penalty, any two of the remaining players could use their Gold Pounds to save them.

It was the most conservative and cost-efficient distribution possible.

And if Zhao Heng himself triggered the special penalty, all that was needed was for any two of the other four players to donate their Gold Pounds, and the situation would be resolved.

An extremely lenient condition.

Inside Community 23's cell block, Li Mao was also waiting.

Peng Xinyuan had already pushed a batch of Contraband through the window.

Li Mao had not fed all of it into the machine. He had processed only three units, earning 10,000 Gold Pounds, then paused.

He kept his ears trained on the room, listening carefully for the community-wide broadcast through the roar of the machinery, and also watched the Worker Badge on his chest at all times.

The Gold Pounds he had prepared in advance were sitting right beside him.

The moment he heard notification that Wu Xiufang had donated her Gold Pounds, he would immediately donate his own and save Zhao Heng.

He waited for a long time. But the broadcast announcing Wu Xiufang's donation never came.

In the enclosed corridor, Zhou Xiaoying continued both maintaining the steam train's operation and relaying Contraband toward Peng Xinyuan to shorten his delivery distance.

Then she noticed a figure stepping out from the lounge.

Wu Xiufang.

"You... how did you get out of the Inspection Room?" Zhou Xiaoying was mildly surprised, because more than ten minutes into Round Three had passed, which should have meant the door connecting the Inspection Room to the walkway was already locked.

Wu Xiufang explained, "I never went in.

"I waited at the entrance the whole time. Whether to enter depended on whether I heard the broadcast for Zhao Heng triggering the special penalty.

"Either way, now we can talk about what actually matters when we return to the community."

The minutes passed one by one. No new broadcast came for Zhao Heng.

He was still completely paralysed, and was becoming more and more acutely aware that his life was ebbing away.

Before long, the instant-death penalty would take effect.

"Why? Why won't Wu Xiufang save me?"

Zhao Heng could not make any sense of it.

Because under the previous arrangement, Wu Xiufang was still in the role of Inspector and could donate her Gold Pounds directly from the Inspection Room.

Since she hadn't donated yet, she clearly wasn't on her way. She had actively chosen not to.

Zhao Heng looked at Yao Yuan, who had just returned after delivering his Contraband, and stared at him with something close to disbelief, "Why? How is this possible?

"I promoted her. I gave her enormous power. She's lost her mind. Why would she betray me?"

Yao Yuan said evenly, "Because she can.

"This is the Gallery. The strong and the victorious can do whatever they want."

His own words returned to him unchanged. The muscles in Zhao Heng's face jumped, and his voice began to lose its composure.

"What did you say to Wu Xiufang?

"Did you know her before? But that's impossible, she's a new player who only joined in the Second Stage. Was her identity false from the very beginning?"

Yao Yuan shook his head, "You're overcomplicating this. I had never met her before, and we didn't know each other.

"But I did convince her in two minutes.

"More accurately, it wasn't convincing. It was simply informing: I would give her an opportunity, a chance to kill you.

"Whether or not to take it was entirely her own choice.

"All she had to do was two things: say one sentence to Zhou Xiaoying, and then not donate any Gold Pounds.

"You may not understand why she would want to kill you. I didn't know with any certainty either, for that matter. My plan was full of holes. I was just taking a chance.

"But now that she's made her choice, I can make a coherent explanation after the fact.

"I'm not someone with a particularly strong grasp of political affairs. But I at least have basic common sense.

"Among people who concern themselves with power, the type who knows just enough to be dangerously overconfident is the most likely to get burned.

"The kind of community ecology you've built is essentially a simple 'Qin-style society.' It has the appearance of a system, but it's clear that your understanding of how that kind of system actually works is entirely superficial.

"You're pursuing a highly centralised form of organisation. But can you guess which part of the system is the greatest source of instability?

"The foot soldiers at the bottom?

"The executors in the middle?

"The emperor at the very top?

"None of these.

"The greatest source of instability is the chancellor standing beside the emperor.

"The soldiers at the bottom suffer the most, but they are weak. They have no real power to resist a strong system, and fear is enough to keep them in line. Unless pushed to the absolute limit, they will endure.

"The middle-level executors are the least likely to resist, because they hold a degree of power and fear losing it, while also having some avenue for advancement. They can be managed through interest.

"But the chancellor with high status and great power is different. They hold authority, there is nothing more to gain, and yet they live every day with the terror of serving a ruler who could turn on them at any moment. They carry the most energy in the system and yet are the most restless.

"That makes them the greatest source of instability.

"The same logic applies: the five players from your community who participated in this game map perfectly onto each role in that system."