Chapter 7 : I’ll Bet My Life Against You

The voice that came from beneath the fish mask belonged to a young man. It was somewhat lazy, like he had not fully woken up.

“You…”

Having suddenly been scolded, Raccoon immediately frowned and was about to curse back.

“The farce is over, idiots. I truly grieve for your intelligence.”

But before Raccoon could say anything, Fish cut her off directly. “If you calculate the probability just a little, you can figure out the result. With seven of us voting, the total number of possible final outcomes is two to the seventh power. That is, 128 possibilities.

According to Rabbit’s plan, we set the majority side as M, and require M to end up as an even number, meaning M = 4 or M = 6. Under such circumstances, once the narrator is added in, the total just happens to be odd, reaching a stable state. I roughly calculated it just now, and these two possibilities together add up to 84. The probability is approximately 65.6%, which is the probability of us surviving this round of voting.”

At this point, “Mr. Fish” pushed at the space between the brows of his mask.

That should have been where his glasses were.

“But what if we just so happen not to hit that possibility?”

He asked in return, “You have to know, the possibility of M = 5 has 42 outcomes, accounting for a full one-third. Hmph… 42, the ultimate answer to the universe.”

Fish gave a cold laugh and continued, “At that time, the number of deaths will be two, and we will still have six people left, so the game will enter the next round. Because there will be five voters, there will be 32 possibilities left.

Let us set the majority side of the second round’s vote as M1… then when M1 = 5, the next narrator dies, and together with the two eliminated in the previous round, that makes three people. When M1 = 4, it enters a stable state, and the number of deaths is still one, making a total of three people with the previous round.

When M1 = 3, we will still eliminate two people, then be left with four people again, and the game will enter the deciding round. At that point, we will already have killed four people.

Do you understand now, idiots? I have no idea what the hell you people are playing at.”

Fish once again pushed at his “glasses” and said flatly, “In other words, when M = 4, the number of dead is three; when M = 5, the number of dead is at least three; when M = 6, the number of dead is one, which seems to be the best possibility… But unfortunately, it has only 14 outcomes, with a probability of merely 10.9%.”

By the time he said this, Lin Ya’s face had already turned pale.

She trembled, her body shaking uncontrollably.

Because she was very smart… The moment she heard this, she had already realized just what kind of huge mistake she had made.

“And that is when M = 7, the narrator is eliminated.”

Fish sneered and slowly spoke. “There are only two possible outcomes like that. According to normal randomness, the probability of achieving it is only 1.5%. M = 6 and M = 7 together have a total of 16 possible outcomes, and the probability is exactly 12.5%—this is the possibility of achieving the ‘minimum number of sacrifices’ through randomness.

Very small, isn’t it? But there is one other possibility… As long as we choose it, we can definitely achieve it. Its success rate is 100%.”

At this point, he slammed the armrest on his right.

He looked arrogantly at the soft-tempered Raccoon and ordered, “Listen, no randomness. Everyone, choose red now.

If Wolf randomized into red, then we eliminate Rabbit. If Wolf randomized into blue, then we eliminate Wolf. After that, we will still obtain victory.”

He raised his head and looked toward Ming Po. He did not meet Ming Po’s eyes. His own eyes were filled entirely with the arrogance of a genius.

“Listen, Wolf.”

Fish warned, “If you don’t want to die, then choose red with us.

This is the true guaranteed winning method!”

Brilliant!

The host in the very center of the table marveled inwardly.

That was pure data, absolute logic.

At the same time… it was also high-level sophistry.

In that messy string of logical operations filled with all sorts of numbers, algebra, and probability—enough to make people dizzy—the premise of “not actively killing anyone” had somehow vanished without a trace.

He compared the success rate of “backstabbing the proposer of peace” against “each person fairly gambling with their own ability,” precisely to try and confuse the concepts within.

And Fish’s arrogant, domineering posture, along with the large amount of data he had piled up, was merely to create the persona of a “genius” so he could bluff everyone and muddle his way through.

Yes. Muddle through.

Because even if he talked until the heavens collapsed, he still could not change one important fact:

This strategy was, in essence, actually the same as Dog’s original strategy!

By grouping up to avoid betrayal, they would first vote out the narrator. Dog had wanted this process to cycle endlessly, constantly cutting down the number of people ahead of him. That scheme was too easy to see through, so people had discovered it.

Fish was a little more sophisticated.

In an even-numbered peace game, the premise for everyone tacitly tying the vote is that each person believes the others will do the same.

This kind of trust relationship, without any guarantee whatsoever, is extremely fragile.

The moment people realize that others might backstab, everyone will fall into a standard prisoner’s dilemma!

That is: if one believes the others will vote to a tie, then everyone voting to a tie means everyone survives; if one chooses to betray, then one will definitely survive and receive even greater rewards; if one believes the others will vote to a tie but is betrayed by someone, then one will be executed.

The host had been hosting the Deceitful Game for almost ten years.

Of course he knew that in a prisoner’s dilemma played countless times, the expected value of “mutual trust” was optimal; but in a one-shot game, betrayal was absolutely the optimal choice.

Thus, if Fish’s plan succeeded, he would definitely backstab in the next round!

He was planning to rely on this backstab in the peace game to greatly reduce the number of survivors, thereby directly establishing his victory!

It was precisely because of that that he could not accept the possibility of “random failure.”

Even if that possibility was only one-third.

However

The host looked toward Fish with great interest.

The only problem was that “Fish” had overlooked one point.

The others at this table were not idiots either.

From an omniscient perspective, the host could see things very clearly:

If Rabbit was eliminated by them, the narrator of the next round would be Wolf.

Then, counting from the positions closest to Wolf, on Wolf’s left side would be Fox, Fish, and Red Panda, while on his right side would be Bear, Raccoon, and Butterfly.

Fox beside Fish, as well as Butterfly and Bear across from him, were all intelligent people. They would all realize that they had already fallen into a prisoner’s dilemma.

And this situation was a little different from the prisoner’s dilemma—if one’s own teammates did not choose betrayal, while multiple people on the opposing side chose betrayal, then one would die instead!

The more people betrayed, the greater the advantage!

Once they entered the chain of suspicion of “you guess whether I backstab,” and “you guess whether I guess whether you backstab,” his scheme would have no meaning whatsoever. After all, no one here knew anyone else, and they were wearing masks that prevented them from reading expressions. At that point, they would once again be dragged into the hell of mutual suspicion, relying on luck to kill others.

A little clever, but not that clever.

Still, he could be considered worth developing. After all, he was a newcomer coming into contact with the Deceitful Game for the first time. Having the courage and a plan to stand up and make a move was already relatively outstanding. If this were a Deceitful Game from previous years, perhaps he really could have taken control of the tempo.

If Fish managed to survive, then after a few more rounds of games and upgrading his title a bit, he could probably develop quite well.

If he could upgrade to the level of “Clear Lead of Weeks” and obtain the right to design games… with just a little caution in his operations, he would be able to continuously plunder Time Chips from others.

After all, although Fish’s strategy was nothing more than sophistry and had a massive flaw, this strategy was indeed useful.

Because he did not need to fool everyone.

As long as enough people were fooled by him, he would automatically satisfy the requirement of being the “majority.”

This was just like an election—

Even if all the smart people realized the problem, as long as a greater number of fools were deceived by him, he could still win.

Speaking of which… the quality of this table of wrongfully dead is truly not bad.

The host sighed inwardly.

He had not expected that a mere qualifying match, a circle of newcomers who were not even at the “Red Copper of Time” level, could actually produce moves at the level of “False Gold of Days,” or even “Clear Lead of Weeks”! Even “Bear” and “Butterfly” could not gain any advantage before them.

What a pity—if he had known they were this good, he would have chosen a game with a higher survival probability for the qualifying match. Among the wrongfully dead he had signed contracts with, it had been a very long time since a high-level Deceiver had been born.

Usually, not even one came in several years, yet this year, several had come at one table

Thinking this, the host turned his eyeball toward Ming Po, continuously recording, not missing even a single second of detail.

Faced with “Fish’s” bluff, how would “Wolf” respond?

“Wait a moment.”

Ming Po raised his hand, signaling for everyone to stop voting first.

Although after hearing Fish’s words, someone immediately voted red… there were also people with sharp intuition who were still hesitating.

They faintly sensed that something was wrong somewhere—for example, Raccoon and Red Panda.

After hearing Ming Po’s words, the two of them immediately relaxed as if they had been freed, looking toward Wolf at Seat Three and Fish at Seat Six.

Ming Po first spoke gently, asking Fish with great interest, “What’s your name?”

“I’m Mo Qian.”

Fish said coldly, “You may have heard of me.”

“Sorry, I haven’t.”

Ming Po answered without the slightest hesitation.

“…”

Having hit a wall, Fish fell silent for a while, then asked back somewhat angrily, “What exactly are you trying to do?”

“Nothing.”

Ming Po merely smiled, not nervous in the slightest. “I’m only reminding you, great genius

Don’t forget, the next narrator is me.”

“So wha—”

Fish said impatiently.

But before he could finish, his pupils suddenly contracted!

He had already realized where the problem lay.

But it was too late!

“I can indeed follow the vote and eliminate Rabbit together with you, then enter the peace game.”

Ming Po said slowly.

“However… since everyone has decided to do this, that means none of us believe changing votes counts as backstabbing, correct?”

That bloodstained wolf head looked so eerie at this moment. “Then, in the next round that belongs to me… I will no longer forbid any form of vote-changing behavior among you.

In the next round, everyone relies on their own abilities. Vote for whoever you want. Even if all of you vote for one side and vote me out, I don’t mind, as long as you aren’t afraid that the next round will still definitely be a non-peaceful round where someone dies. I propose that even if someone changes their vote, they do not need to be jointly sanctioned by everyone in the next round… After all, everyone has already done it, haven’t they?

Anyway, what I want is randomness. I don’t mind switching to another kind of fun.

Since everyone doesn’t like a 66% chance of survival, let’s change it to 50%. That would be fairer.”

Ming Po looked at the sweating Fish and said gently, “What do you think, Mr. Mo?”

He leaned forward slightly, while Fox was so frightened that he leaned backward, terrified that he might accidentally block Wolf’s line of sight toward Fish.

“Allow me to say something fair…”

At that moment, Old Bear, who had not spoken again since the narration ended, suddenly opened his mouth.

By now, there was no longer much trace of dialect in his words. Instead, it had become much more normal Mandarin.

With a deep and kindly tone, the old man slowly spoke in a passive-aggressive manner. “Can the first person to advocate voting out the proposer of peace truly resist the temptation of benefits and firmly stay on the path of peace without wavering?

You have to know… the fewer the people, the greater the reward…”

Hearing Old Bear’s words, the atmosphere immediately grew heavy.

Butterfly stared at Bear in astonishment.

He actually said those words aloud!

Contrary to Rabbit, who advocated trust

Bear had finally dragged into the open the rule that no one had mentioned from the very beginning—not even once, or rather, that everyone had “deliberately avoided mentioning”:

The fewer the survivors, the greater the clear reward.

The core of this game lay precisely here, and this was also the key reason Rabbit’s plan could never work—fewer people meant greater rewards, and those who were betrayed could never take revenge afterward.

“Or, everyone, I have another idea now… I’ll give you one final ‘chance at peace.’”

Ming Po spoke softly and slapped the armrest on his left, switching himself from red to blue.

“Now we have returned to a balanced state… you chose red, I chose blue. The probabilities are equal. Everyone else, randomize. Since it’s random, then naturally, the one killing us is fate, not you.

Of course, you can also secretly and manually change your own vote. I don’t mind. But you bear the consequences yourself.”

Ming Po pointed at the trembling Fish, his tone not shaking in the slightest. There was not even half a hint of nervousness in it. “Come on, Mr. Mo.

I’m betting my life against yours. Are you in?”

(End of Chapter)