After briefly comforting all the players in front of the screen, the young man with round-framed glasses began to sing.
It was a soothing, melodious song, and his singing was quite good, making even Zheng Jie instinctively click “Interesting” for him.
"Good, it seems there are still many rational players."
This made Zheng Jie feel slightly relieved.
Performer No. 2 was a girl who still had tear stains on her face. While waiting for the young man to finish his performance, you could faintly see her body trembling slightly.
Zheng Jie noticed there seemed to be a small water stain on her chest as well, not knowing if it was from crying too much or some other reason.
[Community 12, Zhao Duo]
Zheng Jie almost couldn’t help wanting to give her an “Interesting” vote in advance.
However, as soon as the microphone switched to Performer No. 2, the big screen transmitted words that shocked Zheng Jie immensely.
Performer No. 2’s tearful shout directly destroyed the atmosphere that had just stabilized somewhat.
Zheng Jie was also stunned.
Lying? What did she mean?
The young man had only said to stay calm and restrained throughout, and mentioned that killers’ resources weren’t unlimited.
These were all truths, where was the lie?
Zheng Jie’s attention was completely drawn to the talent show on the big screen.
"Two players are already dead!
"They were both female players with many likes! Is this a coincidence?!
"What does this mean?
"Just like the sister I met with earlier said, many male players have already started taking action!
"The number 1 contestant just now, I don’t know if you did it intentionally or accidentally, but your words will cause very serious misleading to all female players!
"What do you mean ’the dislikes in killers’ hands are limited’?
"The game is still ongoing, we’re still having meetings. As long as male players exchange dislikes with each other, they can still steadily gain 3 dislikes in the next three hours!
"If in the final one or two meetings, these male players who have accumulated 5 dislikes all commit murder together, it would be enough to kill all female players, not leaving a single one!
"You hear these words with ulterior motives now and maintain restraint and rationality, but no matter how you exchange ‘Dislikes’ later, the number of dislikes won’t be as many as male players have!
"The final result is only one: all female players die! All visa time gets taken by male players and God’s Imitators!
"Even if you’ve formed fixed partnerships, they can completely change their minds in the final meeting!
"So there’s only one thing you can do now, which is to use the ’reporting’ mechanism for self-protection before enough male players exchange and collect 5 ‘Dislikes’!
"This is the only way to survive this game!"
Zheng Jie’s brows furrowed into knots. After just hearing the beginning, his hand had unconsciously reached for the “Boring” button.
"How can she do this!!"
Zheng Jie was angry because this contestant’s behavior was blatantly inciting conflict. The harm of such statements was even greater than killing in meetings.
Because killing had costs for players. Whether consuming 6 “Likes” or 5 “Dislikes,” it would be hard to kill a second time in the short term.
But this contestant’s speech directly incited hatred among all players. As long as a few players believed it, several more lives would be lost immediately.
Pressing “Boring,” as long as 20 people did it, could immediately cut off the talent show performance.
But before pressing it, Zheng Jie hesitated briefly, because according to the second phase game rules, cutting off the talent show performance through “Boring” was equivalent to directly killing the performer.
Zheng Jie wasn’t completely psychologically prepared for killing yet.
After struggling for a few seconds, he gritted his teeth and still pressed the button.
"Whatever, my life is also in danger. At this time, how can I have the energy to care about so much else!
"If other female players listen to what she said and want to report me, then she’s actually murdering me too. Why can’t I fight back?"
However, after pressing the “Boring” button, nothing happened.
Until Performer No. 2 finished speaking and ended the talent show, and the results appeared on the big screen, nothing still happened.
[Performer No. 1 cumulatively received 22 “Interesting” votes, earning 2 additional “Likes.”]
[Performer No. 2 cumulatively received 17 “Interesting” votes, earning 1 additional “Like.”]
Seeing this result, Zheng Jie deflated completely.
He understood that even pressing the “Boring” button was meaningless because he couldn’t gather 20 votes.
The players who clicked “Interesting” couldn’t and absolutely wouldn’t actively click “Boring.”
There were 40 players total in this game, 20 male and 20 female players each.
If all male players clicked “Boring,” it could indeed reach 20 votes, but that possibility was low because some would inevitably hesitate or not have time to click.
From the 17 “Interesting” votes, it was even possible that some male players had given Zhao Duo “Interesting” votes.
Because the two currently dead players were both female, plus the current talent show performer herself, female players had at most 17 votes.
Some of these female players definitely didn’t agree or didn’t want to click “Interesting,” so the only explanation was that some male players had also clicked “Interesting.”
Regardless, Zhao Duo had completely finished this series of inflammatory words and had an irreversible impact on the entire game’s progress.
After calming down, Zheng Jie realized that if standing from female players’ perspective, her words were truly too damaging and too inflammatory.
So far, almost all players had understood the game’s basic rules.
According to the matching mechanism, there would be one same-gender match for every three or four matches.
Unlike opposite-gender matches which easily caused friction, same-gender matches were generally easy to negotiate.
Behaviors like exchanging likes and dislikes between same-gender players might have been rare in the first 4 hours, but would increase dramatically in the latter 4 hours.
This meant that large-scale dislike exchanges among male players was indeed possible.
As long as these male players had three or four dislikes previously, they could very likely accumulate five during the subsequent dislike exchange phase.
What about female players? They had many likes, but likes couldn’t offset dislikes or prevent them from being killed.
They could kill through reporting, but reporting required accumulating three times.
That meant if female players did nothing, then by the final meeting, the worst-case scenario would be:
Male players would first agree to exchange likes, ensuring they could get an additional 30,000 minutes of visa time, then press "murder" in the last second before the meeting ended, consuming their final 5 dislikes.
At that moment, female players would have absolutely no ability to resist, and one report’s counterattack would be ineffective.
The only solution would be to consume “Likes” first, use the reporting method to accumulate three times and kill male players in advance, before most male players had exchanged and accumulated 5 dislikes.
But this was exactly the problem:
If you kept reasoning according to this logic, both sides would become a spiral of mutual harm:
Female players would indiscriminately report male players, and reported male players would indiscriminately murder female players.
The final result would be rivers of blood.
Due to the game’s special mechanism, players matched in pairs. Even if everyone was initially restrained by conscience, in the final meeting, as long as there was a cascading collapse, massive deaths were entirely possible.
Did methods exist for self-protection through “Likes” or “Dislikes”?
They existed, but the conditions were harsh and extremely cost-ineffective.
To avoid being killed by male players, female players would need to exchange “Dislikes” among themselves as much as possible. As long as the number of dislikes exceeded those of male players who wanted to kill them, they would be safe.
But the problem was that most female players originally had relatively few dislikes. Even after exchanging, they would still die when encountering male players with more dislikes.
Moreover, whether exchanging “Likes” or “Dislikes,” each meeting could only choose one.
And same-gender meetings only occurred once every three or four times.
Compared to exchanging dislikes, exchanging likes was obviously more worthwhile for female players because 2 likes could perform one "report."
Although it wouldn’t cause immediate death, as long as enough female players were all reporting simultaneously, the killing speed wouldn’t necessarily be slow.
The same applied to male players. Although they could protect themselves by exchanging “Likes,” obviously exchanging “Dislikes” had better cost-effectiveness.
In summary, up to now.
The “Blind Date Game” had become a "Killing Competition."