Wang Yongxin was stunned. He suddenly felt that Ding Wenqiang in front of him seemed somewhat unfamiliar.
Cell 3 was still open.
Even without smashing his own finger, conducting one game in Cell 3 would only require deducting 18,000 minutes of visa time.
Even if doubled, it would only be 36,000.
The tips Ding Wenqiang received from the audience were enough to cover this amount.
Even if he didn't want to accept a second judgment, using 18,000 minutes of visa time to share one judgment wouldn't be too excessive, right?
Ding Wenqiang showed an annoyed expression, glaring at Wang Yongxin, "Why are you looking at me with that expression?
"Isn't this exactly what you people have always been doing?
"As a wealthy person, casually letting a little slip through your fingers could feed how many poor people?
"If you paid an extra hundred yuan in social insurance for each delivery worker, perhaps many people injured in traffic accidents could receive treatment!
"These trivial acts of kindness, did you wealthy people ever give them?
"Why is it that when it comes to me, I must share the burden for you all?
"I am the king. My royal status is something I earned with my own abilities, something I achieved step by step!
"Why should I enter a cell and accept the same judgment as you all?
"Whether it's 10,000 minutes of visa time or 100 minutes of visa time, I earned it all myself. Even if it was easy to earn, so what? Why should I give it away to save others?
"If you were to become king, would you really be so noble and selfless as to share the judgment games for other prisoners?
"I don't believe it. If you were that kind of person, you wouldn't have been dragged into this game by the Gallery!"
Wang Yongxin opened his mouth but found himself speechless for a moment.
He had instinctively wanted to answer "I would," but Ding Wenqiang's last sentence made him swallow those words back.
Indeed, he seemed to have no standing to demand any sacrifice from Ding Wenqiang.
Even if it was just a mere 18,000 minutes of visa time.
[Audience #1 tips Ding Wenqiang 3,000 minutes of visa time, with message: Well said!]
[Audience #7 tips Ding Wenqiang 2,000 minutes of visa time, with message: I agree.]
Ding Wenqiang seemed to have made some kind of resolution. At this point, he was the only free person left in the arena, with the other four prisoners all locked in their respective cells.
Ding Wenqiang came to Cell 5 where Zhang Peng was located and expressionlessly initiated another judgment game.
Lin Sizhi leaned back in his chair and quietly sighed.
Having reached this point, he had done his best.
The designer of this game was relatively merciful, having left a way for everyone to survive within the game, and this method wasn't particularly difficult to achieve.
Of course, it might not be the designer's mercy, but rather some kind of survivorship bias: games with no way out couldn't pass the Gallery's review, much less be selected.
But regardless, this path to survival existed, and Lin Sizhi had already clearly pointed it out.
The lives of these four people ultimately rested in Ding Wenqiang's hands.
As an audience, Lin Sizhi couldn't personally enter the game, and this was all he could do.
Audience 1 was indeed a very troublesome opponent.
If Lin Sizhi had done nothing, then Audience 1 would likely have successfully made Ding Wenqiang conduct a third judgment game on Gao Zhankui and killed him.
After killing Gao Zhankui, Ding Wenqiang would fall into an even greater slippery slope.
At that point, Audience 1 could then reveal Zhang Peng's secret and pile on the guilt from killing Gao Zhankui to easily manipulate Ding Wenqiang into killing Zhang Peng as well.
This way, step by step, they could push the king to kill more prisoners, winning maximum benefits for the king faction's audience.
Of course, Lin Sizhi wasn't sure whether Audience 1 had noticed the hidden information in Zhang Peng's videotape, but judging from Audience 1's previous performance, he was a clever and dangerous opponent, and they couldn't take such risks.
Once it reached that point, the prisoner faction would be doomed to lose.
Zhang Peng's hidden information was a chess piece that both the king faction and prisoner faction could use, only the timing of playing it would differ.
Lin Sizhi could only make the first move by exposing Zhang Peng. On one hand, this disrupted Audience 1's predetermined rhythm, and on the other hand, it bought time to persuade Ding Wenqiang to enter a cell.
If that had happened, all five people could have survived.
But unfortunately, Lin Sizhi wasn't a god and couldn't control Ding Wenqiang's thoughts.
[Please vote on the fairness of the king's actions.]
[Voting results: ×√×√××√√××]
[Final fairness score: -20]
[Thank you for your evaluation!]
The audience's fairness evaluation dropped further.
Obviously, for those audiences who genuinely felt Zhang Peng was a rotten person, initiating a second judgment was fair.
But others believed that considering this game's danger level was much higher than the previous ones, conducting a second judgment on Zhang Peng now wasn't fair, especially since Cai Zhiyuan and Wang Yongxin's game punishments were lighter, yet they had only undergone one judgment game.
Moreover, Ding Wenqiang himself hadn't entered a cell.
In Cell 5, Zhang Peng's wails could still be heard from time to time.
Ding Wenqiang scowled and chose not to look at him anymore.
This yellow-haired guy was always making a big fuss over nothing. Just a few nails, yet he was screaming louder than a pig being slaughtered.
After a while, it finally stopped.
Ding Wenqiang turned to look, but was surprised to find that the judgment game hadn't ended yet.
The nail gun was still going "click," "click," shooting nail after nail into the target or Zhang Peng's body.
But one nail had struck right in the center of Zhang Peng's forehead, and the yellow-haired young man had fallen silent.
Ding Wenqiang's mind went completely blank in an instant.
He hadn't expected Zhang Peng to die so easily, because all the previous judgment games could be safely played at least twice.
Gao Zhankui had rolled out of the Iron Maiden a second time, nearly stabbed into a bloody mess, but was still alive even now.
Obviously, the game in Cell 5 was different from the other cells, it was an extremely luck-dependent game.
Theoretically, these games would only become life-threatening on the third attempt.
But if a nail happened to strike right in the forehead, then all probabilities and number of attempts became meaningless.
[Audience #1 tips Ding Wenqiang 4,000 minutes of visa time, with message: He deserved to die.]
[Audience #7 tips Ding Wenqiang 3,000 minutes of visa time, with message: You did nothing wrong.]
[Audience #2 tips Ding Wenqiang 5,000 minutes of visa time, with message: He had bad luck.]
Ding Wenqiang looked at the record on the screen.
[Completed judgments: 6/10]
He had a strange feeling in his heart. Zhang Peng's death didn't seem to affect him much, instead making him feel much calmer.
Ding Wenqiang numbly came to Cell 4, looking at Gao Zhankui, who was still lying on the ground covered in blood.
A moment later, he came to Cells 1 and 2.
At this point, there was an obvious problem: with 4 more judgments needed, Gao Zhankui would very likely die after one more game, and even then there would still be 3 judgment games to complete.
That is to say, no matter what, both Cai Zhiyuan and Wang Yongxin would have to undergo at least one more game.
Ding Wenqiang successively initiated judgment games for Cells 1 and 2.
He ultimately decided to save the most difficult problem for last: first complete the second judgments for Cai Zhiyuan and Wang Yongxin, and as for the final two judgments, he would make a choice of two out of three among the three remaining people.
Cai Zhiyuan and Wang Yongxin said nothing, only prepared themselves once again.