Han Mengying looked at the sign displaying total wealth value. Sure enough, the numbers had changed.
[Current Total Wealth: 262,146 minutes of visa time]
Of the 7 people remaining in the venue, the four Civilian players each had around 50,000+ time, while only one person on the Conglomerate side had around 40,000+ remaining. This was all the total wealth.
All other wealth had been taken away by the five who departed.
The other four Civilian players had expressions as confused as Han Mengying’s.
If they had known these people wanted to flee, the four Civilian players would definitely have tried every means to stop them.
As long as they had votes in management, they would definitely oppose but the problem was, Lin Sizhi chose a special moment: in round 16, players’ age composition was: 5 childhood, 3 youth, 1 ‘Adult’, 3 ‘Old Age’.
Among them, only one ‘Old Age’ player could enter management. According to wealth ranking, Lin Sizhi was undoubtedly the highest and there was only 1 ‘Adult’ player.
In this situation, Lin Sizhi could freely change tax rates. No matter how he changed them, they would definitely pass.
Now, Lin Sizhi chose to flee at the last moment before round 16 ended, adjusting Conglomerate departure tax to 0%, leaving him about 30 seconds.
How could Sun De not run? Of course he had to sprint desperately.
The 8 buttons in the work area needed 8 players to occupy and use them, otherwise the ’wealth shrinkage’ penalty rule would be triggered, shrinking everyone’s wealth in the venue by 20%.
If subsequent rounds also lacked sufficient people, wealth would continue shrinking each round.
With 4 rounds left until game end, remaining players could of course choose to tough out the wealth shrinkage and continue earning money to reduce losses but no matter how they struggled, they couldn’t possibly reach 500,000. In the end they could only bring out ’10%’ and couldn’t possibly reach 10,000.
This would trigger the additional penalty of deducting 50,000 minutes.
The most critical point was that if only one of these two penalty mechanisms took effect, it actually wouldn’t be so catastrophic.
For example, suppose Sun De hadn’t left. Even if he was penniless, the situation wouldn’t have become so terrible.
Because there would still be 8 people in the area who could fill 4 button groups without triggering wealth shrinkage, so in these four rounds, it would still be enough to earn total wealth back to 500,000 but Sun De’s departure completely trapped the remaining seven people here.
Luo Wei panicked. As a new player, her initial visa time was only about a month and would definitely be completely deducted.
She hurriedly came to the departure safe zone entrance, but because she didn’t have enough visa time, she couldn’t pass through the gate. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩~𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢~𝔫𝔢𝔱
"Lawyer Lin, didn’t you say you’d let me return to the community? Weren’t you supposed to take me with you?"
Lin Sizhi looked at her with a half-smile, "Am I that good an actor?
"Did I even give you the illusion that I’d be tolerant enough to forgive betrayers?"
Luo Wei’s face instantly turned deathly pale. Obviously, all those promises Lin Sizhi gave her were lies.
From the beginning, Lin Sizhi never intended to let her return to Community 17.
Betrayal was something that, having happened once, would happen again. How could there be true forgiveness?
As for why he deceived her, the reason was simple:
The game had already reached round 12, so the ’wealth shrinkage’ penalty mechanism was already activated.
If Luo Wei refused to use work buttons, plus the four Conglomerate players, then Lin Sizhi’s side couldn’t gather 8 people, causing wealth shrinkage.
In that case, there was still possibility of mutual loss, and Lin Sizhi and others couldn’t successfully take away so much visa time.
Giving Luo Wei some hope would make her cooperate obediently.
Actually, with Luo Wei’s intelligence, she should have thought of this possibility of being deceived. But in desperate situations, when grasping a possible lifeline, people subconsciously deceive themselves.
Of course, even if Luo Wei truly didn’t cooperate, Lin Sizhi had other backup plans, like trying to cooperate with Sun De, which could also avoid wealth shrinkage but that would be somewhat inelegant.
Luo Wei felt her hands and feet go cold. She helplessly looked at Qin Yao and Cai Zhiyuan, harboring a sliver of hope that these two might say some good words for her.
Perhaps there was still chance for redemption.
After all, as an actuary, she was surely more valuable to the community than Zhou Guifen, that old aunt?
As long as the three were willing to accept her again, after returning to the community there would be interest-free loans, and she could still survive.
However, Cai Zhiyuan’s words ruthlessly shattered her illusions.
"Don’t you understand yet?
"Not only were you evaluating Community 17, Community 17 was also evaluating you.
"You think your little schemes fooled anyone?
"You were dissatisfied that you couldn’t integrate into Community 17’s management. Similarly, Community 17’s management was also considering what position to give you.
"If you were sufficiently loyal, aligned with our ideology, and proved your abilities, we wouldn’t mind sharing some voice with you.
"Why do you think I had you contact Community 4?
"On one hand, it was to conduct secret plans without your knowledge, having you and Han Mengying occupy each other’s thinking time as cover for the plan.
"On the other hand, it was also to create conditions for Community 4 to recruit, seeing whether you’d have thoughts of betrayal.
"You’re a new member, so Lawyer Lin and I didn’t mind carrying you to victory. Actually you didn’t need to do anything. As long as you earnestly executed group decisions and resisted other communities’ temptations, we could help you successfully complete this game.
"Or, if you could see through mine and Lawyer Lin’s plan, even propose optimization, we would upgrade our evaluation of you.
"But unfortunately, you couldn’t even pass the simplest test.
"Sometimes, the clearer people calculate, the lower their betrayal threshold becomes.
"Of course, what truly disappointed us wasn’t entirely your betrayal, nor entirely your stupidity, but your arrogance.
"You arrogantly believed you were more excellent than so-called ’burdens,’ arrogantly believed you naturally deserved more voice, arrogantly believed you were strong enough to have the privilege of freely choosing communities.
"But in this game, how much better was your performance than those ’burdens’ you spoke of?
"At least I can confirm that randomly switching any of those ’burdens’ you mentioned would now be standing with us with 100,000 minutes of visa time, rather than standing against us like you.
"I don’t know how long you’ll survive after going to Community 4, but regardless, let me give you a small piece of advice.
"In the New World, stupid people might die, stubborn people might die, disloyal people might die, any type of person might die, but none of these are absolute. Under certain specific circumstances, these people can also live long.
"Only one type of person will definitely die, and die fastest.
"Arrogant people don’t deserve to survive in the New World."