God's Imitator-Chapter 469: Wishful Thinking and Obsession

In another game room.

'↑The Lovers' sat in the 'Sage' position. A moment later, the door opposite was pushed open and '↑Wheel of Fortune' walked in.

'↑The Lovers' raised her hand indicating for the other party to sit in the 'Thief' position. "You accepted my invitation.

"This still surprises me a bit."

According to the game rules, in the free matching phase of the second stage, players from the same camp could send game invitations to each other.

It just required clicking the tab above to switch. This tab wasn't obvious, and what displayed by default was still the opposing camp's cards.

In the first stage, players from the same camp couldn't possibly be matched together, so '↑The Lovers' naturally also hadn't had a match with '↑Wheel of Fortune.'

And at this moment, she proactively sent an invitation with the 'Sage' identity, and the other party quickly accepted.

So the two entered a 1v1 match for the first time in this game.

'↑Wheel of Fortune' looked at the notice board to the side.

This was '↓The Emperor's' set of rules, which was to say, the 'Number Prisoners' rules.

In each wooden box, there were respectively 1 to 22 vouchers of 100 denomination, with the rest being vouchers of 1000 denomination.

The Thief player freely chose a number a and opened seven wooden boxes to search for this number. Afterward, the Sage player designated a number b, and the Thief continued opening seven wooden boxes to search for this number.

If both times were completely successful, all Wealth Vouchers in all wooden boxes were stolen. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

If successful only once, 7 wooden boxes were stolen.

Even if not successful once, 5 wooden boxes could still be stolen.

'↑Wheel of Fortune' looked at '↑The Lovers.' "You shouldn't feel surprised, and you also shouldn't conduct this kind of boring probe in front of me.

"You should be very clear that I would accept the invitation.

"Because this match is inconsequential for both of us."

'↑The Lovers' was silent for a moment. "You're right. I indeed shouldn't conduct this kind of boring probe.

"After matching with those relatively weak players so much, I seem to have been continuously weakening too, always winning with simple strategies. As a result, when encountering truly strong players, I completely can't adapt to the intensity.

"However, you got one thing wrong.

"This match is actually very important to me.

"I still have some wishful thinking, believing I can beat you in a one-on-one match.

"So, although the result of this game is already determined, I still want to try to see if I can win.

"Even if it's just an inconsequential small match."

'↑Wheel of Fortune' glanced at the notice board again. "If that's the case, you still want to play using someone else's rules?

"I thought you would use your own rules."

'↑The Lovers' was silent for a moment. "For me, winning is more important."

'↑Wheel of Fortune' nodded. "Then, let the game begin."

...

The reason '↑The Lovers' Han Mengying sent an invitation to '↑Wheel of Fortune' Lin Sizhi was because she was very clear that the game's result was actually already determined.

Actually, just from the literal meaning of the game rules, many weaker players would instinctively develop mistaken understanding.

The first stage was the forced matching phase. Players were forced to match with the opposing camp and took turns serving as 'Sage,' 'Thief,' and 'Spectator.'

The second stage was the free matching phase, where any player could be freely matched.

Therefore, ordinary players would think that the first stage was like tutorial mode, mainly used to adapt to the game's basic rules, think about one's own exclusive Sage rules, show oneself to other players, allow players from the same community to confirm one's identity, and prepare for the second stage.

Upon reaching the second stage, it would be confirming the identities of players from the same community, formulating group strategies, confrontation and cooperation occurring between communities and camps, continuously colliding and completing the final results.

But in reality, it wasn't like this at all.

If a certain community only started formulating and executing group strategies after entering the second stage, it would already be completely too late.

Because those strong players had already completed these things in the first stage.

Upon reaching the second stage, in reality the 'true camps' divided by 'interests' were already determined and stable. All players within the camps would enter specific matching modes, transferring Wealth Vouchers with maximum efficiency, and would absolutely no longer accept outside invitations.

Therefore, the second stage was actually 'garbage time.'

Even if a certain player had the best group strategy, there was already no way to implement it.

All of Han Mengying's arrangements and strategies had already been completed in the first stage, so after entering the second stage, she could calmly send an invitation to Lin Sizhi and complete this one-on-one match.

When Lin Sizhi had just entered the room, what Han Mengying said—"you accepting the invitation surprises me" was actually a probing statement.

She still instinctively wanted to bluff a bit, to see whether Lin Sizhi had realized this point and whether she had completed the arrangement and setup of group strategies in the first half of the game.

But very obviously, this kind of wishful thinking instead made her feel more at a disadvantage.

When harboring wishful thinking and placing hopes on the strong player's negligence, it actually also exposed one's own weakness.

But no matter what, when the first stage ended, both parties' strategies were already set. Subsequently, there actually wouldn't be room for improvement anymore.

Han Mengying temporarily stopped thinking about these things and instead focused her attention on the current game match.

...

Lin Sizhi spoke unhurriedly, "The prototype of this game is the '100 Prisoners Problem.'

"An evil warden captured 100 prisoners. Their numbers are from 1 to 100. And in another 100 boxes, slips of paper numbered 1 to 100 are respectively placed.

"But both the box numbers and the slip numbers are in a completely scrambled state.

"The evil warden formulated a rule. Each prisoner has 50 chances to open any 50 boxes.

"However, only when all 100 prisoners find the slip with their own number within 50 tries can they survive.

"As long as one prisoner doesn't find it, all 100 prisoners must be executed.

"If calculated by probability, randomly searching for numbers among 100 boxes with 50 chances, each prisoner's probability of success is only 1/2, and the probability of everyone all succeeding is 1/2 to the 100th power. This is a number so low it can be ignored.

"But the interesting aspect of the '100 Prisoners Problem' is that by executing a specific strategy, these prisoners' survival rate can reach over 30%.

"This strategy is that each prisoner first finds the box corresponding to their own number. After opening it, they then find the box corresponding to the slip in that box, continuing to search like this until opening a certain box and finding the slip corresponding to their own number."