From beneath that fish mask ca the sowhat lazy, sleep-deprived voice of a young man.
"You..."
Suddenly getting cursed out, the Raccoon knitted his brows, instantly wanting to fire back.
"The farce is over, idiots. I truly despair for your intelligence."
Before the Raccoon could say a word, the Fish cut him off entirely.
"Just run a basic probability calculation and you can figure out the result. Seven of us are voting, aning the total number of outco combinations is 2 to the power of 7. That is 128 possibilities. "According to the plan the Rabbit outlined, let us set the majority faction as M, and we require M to ultimately be an even number. That ans M=4 or M=6. In this scenario, adding the narrator makes it exactly odd, achieving a stable state. I just did a rough calculation; these two possibilities combined account for 84 outcos. This probability is roughly equal to 65.6%, which is our chance of surviving this round of voting."
At this point, Mr. Fish pushed at the center of his mask's brow.
That was where a pair of glasses should have been.
"But what if we happen not to land on that outco?"
He countered,
"You should know that there are 42 combinations where M=5, taking up a full third of the total. Humph... 42, the ultimate answer to the universe." The Fish sneered and continued, "In that case, the death toll will be two people, leaving six of us, and the ga will proceed to the next round. Because there will be 5 voters left, that leaves 32 possibilities. "Let us set the majority faction for the second round of voting as M1—then when M1=5, the next narrator dies, which combined with the two eliminated from the previous round brings the total to three. When M1=4, a stable state is achieved, and the death toll remains one person, which added to the previous round still totals three. "When M1=3, we will still eliminate two people, leaving four people remaining, and the ga will enter the decisive round. By that point, we would have already killed four people. "Do you understand now, idiots? I have absolutely no idea what kind of nonsense you think you are playing."
The Fish pushed his
"glasses" again and said flatly, "In other words, when M=4, the death toll is three; when M=5, the death toll is at least three; when M=6, the death toll is one, which seems to be the best possible outco... But unfortunately, there are only 14 combinations for that, a probability of a re 10.9%."
By the ti he reached this point, Lin Ya's face had already turned pale. She was trembling, her body shaking uncontrollably.
Because she was smart... Hearing this, she already realized what a massive mistake she had made.
"And then there is when M=7, where the narrator is eliminated."
The Fish let out a cold laugh, speaking slowly,
"There are only two combinations for this outco. Under normal random distribution, the probability of achieving this is only 1.5%. M=6 and M=7 together make up 16 combinations, a probability of exactly 12.5%—this is the chance for the 'minimum sacrifice' that we can only achieve through random choice. "Incredibly small, isn't it? But there is another possibility... One that we only need to choose, and we will absolutely achieve it. Its success rate is 100%." At this point, he struck the right armrest of his chair with force.
He looked arrogantly at the soft-mannered Raccoon and commanded,
"Listen, no random choices allowed. Everyone, vote red right now. "If the Wolf randomly rolls red, we eliminate the Rabbit. If the Wolf randomly rolls blue, we eliminate the Wolf, and we will still achieve victory afterward."
He tilted his head back to look at Ming Po, not eting his gaze directly, his eyes filled with the arrogance of a genius.
"Listen up, Wolf."
The Fish warned,
"If you don't want to die, vote red along with us. "This is the true surefire way to win!"
Splendid! The Host in the very center of the table marveled silently in his heart.
That was pure data, absolute logic. At the sa ti...
it was also a masterful piece of sophistry. Throughout his chaotic logical calculations—filled with various numbers, algebra, and probabilities designed to leave people dazed—the premise of
"not actively killing anyone"
had sohow vanished without a trace. He was comparing the success rate of
"backstabbing the peace-weaver"
with a
"fair battle where everyone relies on their own abilities,"
deliberately trying to obfuscate the underlying concepts. And the Fish's domineering, arrogant posture, backed by piles of data, was rely designed to construct the persona of a
"genius"
to intimidate the crowd and bluff his way through. Yes, a bluff.
Because no matter how beautifully he spun his words, he could not alter one critical fact: This strategy was fundantally identical to the
"Dog's"
initial strategy! Using a faction block to avoid betrayal by first voting out the narrator.
The Dog had hoped this process would loop indefinitely to continuously whittle down the numbers of those ahead of him; that plot was too easy to see through, so people caught on.
The Fish was much more clever— In an even-numbered tie, the premise for everyone to tacitly vote for a draw was that each individual believed everyone else would do the sa. This kind of trust, completely devoid of any guarantees, was dangerously fragile.
The mont people realized that others might backstab them, everyone would plunge into a standard prisoner's dilemma! Naly: if you believe others will vote for a tie, and everyone votes for a tie together, everyone survives.
If you choose to betray, you are guaranteed to survive and can even reap greater rewards. If you believe others will vote for a tie but end up betrayed, you will be executed.
The Host had been running the Ga of Deception for nearly ten years. He naturally knew that if the prisoner's dilemma was played an infinite number of tis, the expectation of
"mutual trust"
was optimal. But when played only once, betrayal was invariably the optimal choice.
Therefore, once the Fish's plan succeeded, he would absolutely backstab in the next round! He intended to rely on a backstab during this peaceful draw to drastically slash the number of survivors, thereby securing victory in one fell swoop!
Precisely because of this, he could not accept the possibility of a
"random failure."
Even if that possibility was only one-third. However...
The Host looked toward the Fish with great interest. The only issue was that the Fish had overlooked one thing.
The other people at this table were no fools either. From a god's-eye view, the Host saw it very clearly: If the Rabbit were eliminated by them, the narrator for the next round would be the Wolf.
Counting from the position nearest to the Wolf, to the Wolf's left were the Fox, the Fish, and the Red Panda; to his right were the Bear, the Raccoon, and the Butterfly. The Fox beside the Fish, as well as the Butterfly and the Bear opposite him, were all intelligent people.
They would all realize they had fallen into a prisoner's dilemma. And this situation differed slightly from a standard prisoner's dilemma—if your teammates chose not to betray while multiple people on the opposite side chose betrayal, you would be the one to die!
The more people who betrayed, the greater their advantage beca! Once they entered a chain of suspicion—'you guess whether I will backstab,' 'you guess whether I guess you will backstab'—his plot would lose all aning.
After all, no one knew anyone else here, and wearing masks prevented them from reading facial expressions. When the ti ca, they would be dragged right back into a hell of mutual suspicion, relying on luck to slaughter one another.
A bit clever, but not by much. Still, he could be considered malleable talent.
After all, for a newcor encountering the Ga of Deception for the first ti, having the courage and the plan to step up and control the room was already quite excellent. If this were a Ga of Deception from previous years, he might truly have managed to dictate the rhythm.
If the Fish could survive, then after a few more rounds of the ga and upgrading his Title a bit, he would likely develop quite well. If he could upgrade to the rank of Pure Lead of Week and obtain the authority to design gas...
with slightly more cautious play, he could continuously plunder Ti Chips from others. After all, while the Fish's strategy was nothing more than sophistry and possessed a massive loophole, the strategy was undeniably effective.
Because he did not need to fool everyone. As long as he fooled enough people, he would automatically fulfill the requirent of the
"majority faction."
It was just like an election— Even if the smart people recognized the issue, as long as a larger number of fools were deceived by him, he could still erge victorious. Speaking of which...
the quality of the Wronged Dead at this table was truly excellent. The Host sighed inwardly.
To think that a re qualification match, filled with a circle of newcors who weren't even at the Hour's Red Copper level, could produce plays worthy of the Day's False Gold or even the Pure Lead of Week level! Even the Bear and the Butterfly could gain no advantage before them.
It was a bit of a pity—had he known their caliber was this high, he would have chosen a ga with a higher survival rate for the selection match. Among the Wronged Dead he had signed, it had been a very long ti since a high-level Deceiver of the World had erged.
Usually, not a single one would appear for years, yet this year several had arrived at one table... At this thought, the Host shifted his gaze back to Ming Po, continuously recording without missing a single second of detail.
Faced with the Fish's bluff, how would the Wolf respond?
"Hold on."
Ming Po raised his hand, gesturing for everyone to pause their voting. Although so had imdiately voted red upon hearing the Fish's words...
there were still those with sharp intuition who remained hesitant. They vaguely sensed that sothing was off—the Raccoon and the Red Panda, for instance.
Upon hearing Ming Po's voice, the two of them instantly let out sighs of relief as if liberated, looking between the Wolf in the third seat and the Fish in the sixth seat. Ming Po spoke first in a gentle tone, asking the Fish with genuine curiosity,
"What is your na?"
"I am Mo Qian." The Fish replied coldly, "You might have heard of ."
"Apologies, I haven't," Ming Po answered without the slightest hesitation. "..."
Having suffered a setback, the Fish fell silent for a mont before asking back with a hint of anger,
"What exactly are you trying to do?"
"Nothing,"
Ming Po simply smiled, displaying no tension whatsoever.
"I just wanted to remind you, great genius... "Don't forget, the next narrator is ."
"So what—" the Fish said impatiently.
But before his words could fully leave his mouth, his pupils contracted sharply! He had already realized where the problem lay.
However, it was too late!
"I can indeed follow your vote, join you all in voting the Rabbit out, and enter a peaceful draw," Ming Po said in a leisurely manner. "However... since everyone has decided to act this way, it ans none of us consider changing our votes to be a backstab, correct?"
The blood-stained wolf head looked incredibly eerie at this mont.
"Therefore, in the next round which belongs to ... I will no longer forbid any form of vote-changing behavior from any of you. "In the next round, everyone will rely on their own abilities. Vote for whoever you want. If you all vote on one side to throw out, it doesn't matter to , as long as you aren't afraid of a non-peaceful draw where people are guaranteed to die again next round. I propose that even if soone changes their vote, there is no need for everyone to unite and sanction them in the next round... After all, everyone has already done it once, haven't they? "In any case, all I wanted was a random outco;
changing it to a different kind of fun doesn't matter to . "Since you all don't like a 66% chance of survival, let us change it to 50%. That feels much fairer." Ming Po looked at the sweating Fish and said mildly, "What do you think, Mr. Mo?"
He leaned his body forward slightly, while the Fox recoiled backward in terror, utterly terrified that he might accidentally block the Wolf's line of sight toward the Fish.
"Let say a word of fairness..."
Just then, the old man disguised as the Bear, who had not spoken a word since his narration ended, suddenly broke his silence. By now, his speech retained barely any trace of dialect, shifting into a much more standard version of the common tongue.
Using a low, grandfatherly tone, the old man delivered a slow, drippingly sarcastic remark.
"Can the very first person who advocates for voting out the author of peace truly withstand the temptation of profit and stand firm on the path of peace without wavering? "You must keep in mind... the fewer the people, the greater the rewards..."
Hearing the old Bear's words, the atmosphere instantly froze. The Butterfly looked at the Bear in astonishnt.
He had actually spoken those words aloud! Directly opposing the Rabbit who preached trust.
The Bear had finally brought the rule of 'the fewer the survivors, the greater the clear rewards'—a rule that everyone had pointedly ignored or 'deliberately avoided ntioning' from the very beginning—starkly out into the open.
The absolute core of this ga lay right here, and it was the crucial reason why the Rabbit's plan could never work—the fewer the people, the greater the rewards, and those who were betrayed had no way to exact revenge.
"Or, everyone, I have another train of thought right now... to grant you one final 'opportunity for peace.'" Ming Po spoke softly, tapping the left armrest of his chair to switch his vote from red to blue. "Now we have returned to an equilibrium—you have chosen red, and I have chosen blue, making the probabilities equal. Everyone else, go completely random. Since it is random, it will naturally be the will of heaven that kills us, not your doing. "Of course, you can also secretly alter your votes manually; I don't mind. But do so at your own peril." Ming Po extended his hand, pointing directly at the shivering Fish.
His voice carried no tremor, completely devoid of any tension.
"Co then, Mr. Mo. "I bet your life against mine. Are you in?"
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