Chapter 678: How the Cooperation Was Built

Huang Shengjie asked, "So that means Lawyer Lin was originally in Community 4?"

Lin Sizhi shook his head, "Wang Yongxin and I were both in Community 17."

Yao Yuan ventured a guess, "So your original community had an internal falling out. Wang Yongxin chose to leave and join Community 4.

"And Community 4, with him there, ended up being the surviving community that carried over into the Second Stage?"

Lin Sizhi considered the framing and found it broadly acceptable, then gave a nod, "Roughly, yes."

Neither Lu Bingjun nor Yao Yuan pressed further. They had already sensed that whatever lay behind this was considerably more complicated than it appeared.

For a player of that calibre to feel uncomfortable within a community, there were only two possibilities: seizing control or simply leaving. Given the current situation, Wang Yongxin appeared to have chosen the latter.

But the specific details were not something to dig into. Extracting that kind of information would inevitably come at a price, requiring something to be offered in exchange.

If Lin Sizhi hadn't chosen to bring it up voluntarily, it was best not to press.

Lin Sizhi continued, "As the earlier analysis suggested, after seeing the first pieces of evidence both players submitted, I had provisionally confirmed two things.

"First, the evidence was almost certainly being customised by the Actors themselves, and the details of each piece were part of their game strategy.

"Second, Tang Qing would push aggressively, and his only viable target was me. Wang Yongxin's approach leaned more toward defence, but pure defence wasn't in his nature either.

"Because based on my understanding of Wang Yongxin, his goal in this game could never have been simply 'to survive and go home.' He would certainly want to earn a substantial amount of visa time.

"And that visa time would have to come either from me or from Tang Qing.

"As for Feng Yuguang, both Tang Qing and Wang Yongxin viewed him as someone who could be disposed of at any convenient moment. Neither needed to give him a second thought.

"So regardless of whether Wang Yongxin and I had a prior relationship, the optimal strategy for him in this game would always have been to play both sides.

"Fully committing to either side without reservation risks being betrayed at the final moment."

Qin Cheng nodded thoughtfully, "That makes sense.

"It's a bit like the prisoner's dilemma at the end of 'Prison Factory.'

"If Wang Yongxin had fully aligned with Tang Qing from the start, the initiative would have been entirely in Tang Qing's hands.

"At that point, Lawyer Lin would certainly have gone with active defence. All three of them splitting Feng Yuguang's visa time was never going to be satisfying for anyone.

"And even if they managed to take down Lawyer Lin, Tang Qing could betray Wang Yongxin at any moment.

"Even though both of them held the right to submit evidence, and there would normally be no reason to fight to the death, betrayal at the right moment would still offer far greater returns than the risk it carries.

"If Tang Qing suddenly produced damning evidence against Wang Yongxin in the final round, Tang Qing alone could claim all three players' visa time.

"The temptation would be enormous.

"But if Wang Yongxin also produced damning evidence against Tang Qing in that same final round, the outcome could be mutual destruction.

"So for Wang Yongxin, the optimal strategy was to use his evidence to protect himself and distance himself from suspicion, while simultaneously appearing to both you and Tang Qing as a potential ally, never giving either side a reason to betray him.

"Whoever won in the end, Wang Yongxin would still come out ahead.

"In short, the optimal strategy was exactly what we saw.

"Every piece of evidence he produced had to satisfy three criteria simultaneously.

"First, it had to involve himself as little as possible, minimising his risk.

"Second, it had to appear consistent with Tang Qing's line of reasoning, keeping Tang Qing from suspecting him.

"Third, it had to contain details favourable to you, leaving you room to stage a reversal, keeping both you and Tang Qing absorbed in your confrontation with each other so neither of you could spare the attention to go after him.

"Whether or not you could actually use those details to pull off a reversal, he would win either way.

"And precisely because his strategy was so reliable, and because you already knew each other and understood each other's personalities and game styles, the cooperation could proceed smoothly without any need for direct communication."

Lin Sizhi gave an appreciative nod, "My initial proposal of 'mutual suicide' was not solely about offering the best terms first.

"Under the game's rules, if all four Actors unanimously agreed on a truth, then combining the Actors' and audience members' votes would immediately reach 60, ending the game. Even if that fell slightly short, a few players from other communities could make up the difference.

"And if the game could be concluded in the first round, the audience's judgement of whether each Actor's character was 'guilty' would also be more constrained.

"Taking Feng Yuguang as an example: if he had thrown his full support behind the 'mutual suicide' Possibility Analysis from the very start along with his community members, the audience would have found it very difficult to assign guilt to his character.

"Because at that point, Wang Yongxin had not yet produced any medication as evidence, and the vast majority of key evidence and testimony had not yet been verified as genuine.

"It would have been very hard for the audience to convince themselves that the doctor had directly participated in the crime, which would have left only the Support vote as an option.

"But by the time the third Recess had passed and 'mutual suicide' was finally established as the truth, things had become considerably more complicated. Feng Yuguang's passive performance and the objective existence of the medication as a verified piece of evidence had undermined what would otherwise have been a safe position.

"Once audience members discovered that either vote was permissible, they would inevitably all choose Oppose. That is determined by the game's rules."

Lin Sizhi paused slightly, "But beyond those two purposes, there was also a third.

"Which was to signal to Wang Yongxin several possible directions, to briefly align our thinking, and to establish a clear narrative endpoint. That would make it easier for him to coordinate his evidence with me going forward.

"The direction I proposed at the very start was 'mutual suicide,' and the direction we ultimately arrived at was also 'mutual suicide.' This was not a coincidence. It was the result both of us deliberately worked toward.

"Though we couldn't see the specific rules for submitting evidence, my best guess at how it worked is roughly as follows.

"Tang Qing and Wang Yongxin, in their respective dressing rooms, could access a specific device to customise evidence. They would describe the physical appearance of the prop, and then set two layers of information: its 'true information' and its 'verifiable information.'

"The most representative example is the Lion King Card.

"When Wang Yongxin designed it, he was clearly drawing on a real-world reference point, with some visual similarity but not an exact match.

"The true information he embedded was: this card operates like the real-world Lion King Card, with a very high asset threshold required to obtain it. But he did not set any information about whether the card was active or void.

"The verifiable information he set was: this card was issued by a top-tier casino to one of its high-value patrons. The critical details were deliberately omitted.

"Only by designing it this way could the intended result be achieved."