Li Cheng said, "Therefore, the ones who survive until the end in this program must necessarily be one male and one female. Or several males and several females.
In this case, what do you think is the most advantageous situation for an individual?"
"The most advantageous situation..."
Little Red Riding Hood tilted her head and thought for a moment, then realized, "Only having oneself of a particular gender!"
Li Cheng smiled slightly, "The fewer people of your own gender, the more of the opposite gender, the more advantageous it is for yourself. If there is only one person of your own gender, it becomes a situation where you cannot lose no matter what.
In other words, the essence of this reality show does not lie in the conflict between sexes, but in the competition among the same gender.
What Annie did was actually digging her own grave."
He leaned against the wall, jumped onto the table, and reached out to try to unscrew the ceiling track’s fastening nut.
A mechanical arm immediately extended from the track, holding a small LCD panel marked with an ’X’, and spoke loudly to Li Cheng in a mechanical voice, "Contestants, please do not obstruct or damage the camera system, or bear the consequences."
"Sorry, occupational hazard, I’ll be careful next time."
Li Cheng quickly withdrew his hand, his expression earnest.
The mechanical arm paused for a moment and silently retracted.
Geez, they’re watching so closely, are they worried the contestants might figure out how the camera system works... Follow current novels on Novᴇl_Fire(.)net
Li Cheng squinted his eyes thoughtfully, and from the Backpack, pulled out several metal cans the size of paint cans, each plugged with wires, taping them onto the villa’s wall surface.
While doing this, he also paid attention to the movement of the track’s mechanical arm.
Little Red Riding Hood stared at Li Cheng’s actions, her eyes wide, her voice trembling slightly, "Are those bombs..."
"Yes, homemade IEDs." Li Cheng casually replied.
IED, full name Improvised Explosive Devices, come in various forms and utilize materials including but not limited to old grenades, shells, civilian detonators, fertilizer, etc. Common in real-world asymmetrical warfare, they are a weapon of the weaker side against the stronger side’s armored units and infantry units.
These explosives were all made by Li Cheng from materials he purchased in backstreets and personally crafted in Bone Corridor.
The reason for crafting them by hand, apart from wanting to hone real combat skills, was also because of a prevalent notion on player forums — to some extent, the killing field considers "external items" in a newbie player’s Backpack as part of their own strength, thereby increasing the difficulty of missions.
Avoiding scenarios where newbie players load their Backpacks with a dozen or twenty Cloud Burst Bombs, unleashing havoc as soon as a monster appears.
And if the firearms, ammunition, drones, vehicles, and the like are crafted by the player’s hand, they won’t be counted as "external items."
During this period, Li Cheng studied theoretical mechanics, material mechanics, structural mechanics, soil mechanics, fluid dynamics, munitions engineering, and explosives technology, not only learning to make IEDs but also military demolition.
All IEDs can be controlled by shortwave signals, and their placement locations are all the villa’s load-bearing walls — if Li Cheng gets eliminated, he wouldn’t mind blowing up the entire villa to see how the production team would react.
You see, the overall societal worldview, perspectives on life, and values evolve rapidly with the environment. Before 1954, the United States still enforced racial segregation, yet by 2020, it could spark the Black Lives Matter movement, across just over sixty years.
From the barrage of messages across the television screen, it’s apparent that the outside world is at least in the 22nd century, experiencing nuclear wars, wasteland chaos, and even the rebuilding of civilization. Logically speaking, moral and ethical perspectives should also have drastically changed. Yet, surprisingly, the taste of the audience hasn’t deviated much, and Annie’s methods of framing still work.
This in itself is an abnormality...