Chapter 762: The Lie

Lu Qi tried to work out what might have happened. Perhaps something in Zheng Chunhua's story had been deliberately vague, meant to slip past the game's lie-detection mechanism.

"Someone who once mattered a great deal to me used to smoke," the key question was who exactly this "someone who mattered" actually was. An ordinary listener might assume a former lover, a parent, or a close friend.

But Lu Qi knew Zheng Chunhua's real profession was a teacher, which meant this "someone" could just as easily have been a former student.

Looking at it now, it seemed clear that Zheng Chunhua had genuinely been trying to exploit a loophole. What teacher hasn't had a troubled student sneaking cigarettes at some point? If the Gallery's sincerity detection ran on the looser side, he might genuinely have gotten away with it. After all, insisting that some struggling student had "mattered a great deal" to him wasn't an unreasonable thing for a teacher to claim.

Unfortunately, his gamble hadn't paid off. The sincerity mechanism in this game appeared to be quite strict, and it had almost certainly judged that none of those students genuinely qualified as someone who "mattered a great deal" to him, triggering the violation for dishonesty.

Lu Qi felt a real pang of disappointment. "Such a shame. If Uncle Zheng had actually managed to stay on stage through that, every extra round would have meant more visa time recovered, and it would have given Qin Cheng cover too, guaranteeing at least one of our endorsers made it to the end.

"Now it's just backfired on him."

[!! ELIMINATION PERIOD !!]

[This round's elimination will follow Standard 3.]

[Audience members, please vote based on common sense: which product category is most likely to cause bodily harm? That category's endorsers (excluding first place) will lose their eligibility and leave the stage.]

[Endorsers remaining on stage may choose to Unmask.]

The display on Lu Qi's forearm gave a light vibration, prompting her to cast her vote. This vote wasn't mandatory, meaning abstention was allowed, but voting against your genuine belief wasn't permitted.

She tried tapping an option and found both Alcohol and Luxury Goods greyed out, unselectable, since deep down she was certain Tobacco was the clear answer for causing bodily harm.

All the Community 2 players chose to abstain, though that clearly wasn't going to change the outcome. Before the brief countdown ended, Tobacco had unquestionably received the most votes.

What surprised Lu Qi was that a small number of players had genuinely voted for Alcohol instead. Some smokers genuinely believed, deep down, that tobacco was harmless, pointing to cases of lifelong smokers who'd lived into their eighties or nineties as proof. Though rare, this kind of thinking still existed among the players in this game.

That, at least, worked in Community 2's favour, since these players would very likely become devoted supporters of Qin Cheng.

The other two players competing for the Tobacco endorser role, besides Qin Cheng, were eliminated outright, a genuinely unfair outcome for them. Under either of the first two elimination standards, only one of them would have been cut, leaving at least one to advance alongside Qin Cheng into the next round. But with elimination now based on "common sense," the entire Tobacco category had been wiped out in one stroke, leaving only the single highest-Heat-Value survivor.

Qin Cheng chose to unmask as well. He didn't play it up dramatically, simply offering the audience an elegant bow of thanks, though he still received a fair share of applause and cheers. Perhaps his lean frame, decent looks, and identity as a doctor lent a certain boost to endorsing tobacco specifically.

At the same time, Lu Qi heard Yao Yuan's voice beside her.

"Alright, the four of you, your top priority from now on is to keep your eyes locked on Qin Cheng before and during every Frenzy Period, not missing a single second, and make sure you land among his top 10 contributors of Heat Value.

"I'll handle everything else.

"I might be away from here for a good while going forward, going to talk with players from other communities. Just focus on your own task."

Hearing this, Lu Qi felt considerably more at ease.

With Qin Cheng now an endorser, Yao Yuan had voluntarily taken on the Agent role. Though he still couldn't unmask, he could now speak freely and purchase headlines from Media Representatives. The other players finally had a clear anchor to follow.

Shen Bowen had apparently also been weighing whether to become an Agent herself, but since Yao Yuan had already claimed the role, that question no longer needed considering.

They'd also noticed, over the earlier rounds, that Yao Yuan had been quietly tracking the floor the entire time, monitoring the movement of players across different communities, which was reassuring in itself.

Lu Qi pointed quickly toward the Reflection Room, since she was starting to worry about Zheng Chunhua. He hadn't unmasked before being confined, so the other players didn't know his actual name, which should have kept him relatively safe. But in theory, if his name were ever leaked, he'd still face a real risk of death, as would any player confined to the Reflection Room.

Yao Yuan thought it over and gave a slight shake of his head. "No need to worry. He probably went in on purpose."

Lu Qi paused, unsure whether Yao Yuan genuinely meant this or was simply trying to reassure everyone. Purely by the rules, entering the Reflection Room offered no benefit whatsoever, only downside. But the way Yao Yuan phrased it suggested there might be some hidden mechanism tied to the Reflection Room. And even if there were, how could he possibly know that already?

Still, since he'd already said as much, no one pressed further, choosing instead to focus on their own tasks.

Shen Bowen pointed toward one of the distant screens, her meaning clear enough: was Yao Yuan interested in bidding for a screen or purchasing a headline?

If they were going to bid for a screen and become a Media Representative, Shen Bowen was clearly the best candidate for it. But after thinking it over, Yao Yuan shook his head again.

The venue had 16 large screens in total, with 4 auctioned off each round. This was now Round 3, meaning 12 screens already had confirmed Media Representatives. Community 2 hadn't bid on a single one so far. In the next round, the final 4 screens would also be auctioned, and by then every screen would have an owner.

Though an Agent could always pay to purchase a headline, when a Media Representative received multiple competing headline requests at once, they had full discretion over which one to actually run. For many communities, spending 20,000 minutes of visa time to control a single screen felt expensive, but seemed worth the cost purely for peace of mind.

That was likely exactly why the bidding prices for these screens had stayed consistently high, with no sign of ever coming down.

But Yao Yuan and Qin Cheng didn't seem to share that instinct. Their approach leaned more toward a conservative defensive strategy: secure one endorser to survive to the end within a low-competition category, and otherwise avoid unnecessary spending, minimising potential losses across the board.

New headline text appeared across the screens once more.

[Cosmetics! Clothes! Watches! Gao Jialiang!]

Six screens displayed this message simultaneously, while the earlier "Support Jiang Chenyan!" headline had been squeezed down to just two screens.

Clearly, Community 13, Gao Jialiang's community, was pressing their advantage while it was hot, leveraging his looks and momentum to pull in even more Heat Value and overtake Jiang Chenyan. They must have spent a substantial amount of visa time to secure headline slots on his behalf.