Chapter 76: Your Fate Depends on Sugoroku (Revealed)
Translator: Pluto Editor: Tehrn
The situation suddenly became confusing.
"He can clearly win with the next step, so why would he want to go backward?" this question surfaced in the audience mind, and many of them couldn’t help furrowing their brows. They wondered if they missed anything. The rules were clear enough — the person who reached the finishing point first would get +1 point and the prizes offered by their opponent — and even though the Red Team only had two prizes left, it was a guaranteed reward… If he moved backward, there was a chance he might get bitten by a dog or some other new penalty.
If so, they wondered why the contestant from the White Team looked that regretful.
"For the 14th turn, one step forward for the Red Team and one step forward for the White Team!
[The game has ended,] this was the first thought which appeared in everybody’s mind. They would know very quickly what the outcome was for this weird game. Somehow, for this turn, Mr. Dot had changed the sequence of the announcement, but this was only noticed by Lin Sanjiu and the contestant from the White Team.
With heavy-laden steps and an ashen face, the young man walked onto the square which was labeled "Victory!" On the other hand, Lin Sanjiu took one step forward onto the 14th square. The question mark disappeared replaced by a picture of a wallet. "The Red Team contestant found a wallet, she opened it and received one individual prize! The White Team contestant reached the finishing point and received the final reward for the game!"
"The White Team gains +1 point, and the team receives the two remaining prizes offered by the Red Team. Congratulations to the White Team for winning the first game!"
Mr. Dot’s words accompanied by a celebratory trumpet tune and sounds of fireworks rang out muffled in the humid arena as if attempting to hype up the atmosphere. However, it was futile. No one from both teams looked happy, both teams gathered in their individual circles and started to discuss with agitated expressions.
When the five members of the Red Team saw Lin Sanjiu exercising her shoulders as she walked back to them, they stood up from their circle, each with different expressions. They approached her, unable to resist questioning her about the situation: "Miss Lin, what just happened?"
"If I had known that you would let the opponent win on purpose because you were afraid to die, I would have—"
"Hey, what’s with you? How could you let that chap bluff you twice! You have caused us all our prizes!"
While the others made a racket about the issue, Lin Sanjiu frowned and shoved Chen Fan’s finger away from her face before she asked coldly, "Are you all idiots?"
"Huh?" Everyone around her was stunned because they didn’t expect words like that from this loser.
Lara glared at her. "Miss Lin, how could you scold others whenever you like? And what do you mean by that?"
"Did all of you really fail to see something so obvious?" Lin Sanjiu chose intentionally to sound offensive. This drew their attention and made them shut their mouths. She laughed in a mocking tone, "Don’t tell me that all of you still think the goal of the game is to reach the finishing point?"
The others were shocked by her words. After a while, Lara muttered, "What did you just say… But didn’t the rules…"
"The rules and introduction to the game are just distractions!" Lin Sanjiu sneered and carried B.Rabbit onto her shoulder. "I realized midway that there were two crucial points in this game."
The four other members kept quiet as she explained. "First, the method of advancing is different from Monopoly. The biggest difference is that it is determined by one’s opponent. Therefore, it must be a key point." She paused and then slowly continued, "This must be what you have in mind, right?"
[Wasn’t this right?] Aside from the four members, B.Rabbit was also confounded by what she said. He tried recalling every detail in the game.
"If you think that way, you’ve been deceived. That rule where a contestant decides his or her opponent’s steps was made to cover-up a crucial element. That is, both players will move forward at the same time." Lin Sanjiu looked at the confused faces around her and said softly, "That means that when one of the contestants is just one step from winning, the other contestant will still be able to move one step forward — just like what happened at the end."
Just as described, Lin Sanjiu could still take a step forward when the contestant from the white team reached the finishing point. In a normal game of Monopoly, the Red Team would have stopped and admitted their loss once the White Team reached the finishing point…
"Even if that was the case, what does it impact?" Zhong Junkai couldn’t help asking as he seemed to finally have an inkling of what Lin Sanjiu was hinting at.
"This will lead to the second crucial point, the prizes and penalties in each square," Lin Sanjiu turned to look at the White Team as she said this. The young man was also surrounded by his teammates who were also trying to find out more about the situation. However, the young man did not look as collected as Lin Sanjiu; instead, he looked crestfallen.
"At first, we suffered seven consecutive losses with each step, so I began to find it strange. If both teams lost all the prizes and chances, chalking up a massive negative score, then the whole game would become pointless. Wouldn’t it be faster if the outcome was determined by an immediate duel?
"By logic, I deduced that there should be squares with rewards since there were squares with penalties… If the first half of the route were all ‘unlucky’ squares, it would naturally mean that there was a high chance that the squares in the second half of the route were all ‘lucky’ squares. Based on this deduction, I did a little experiment.
"I got permission from Mr. Dot to speak to the contestant and was ‘fooled’ by him once — as you’ve witnessed. But since we both received rewards for that turn, it confirmed my suspicion. The second half of the route was all squares with rewards.
"There was another reason why I let the other contestant move two squares ahead of me. I was afraid that he would also realize this secret and needed to distract him. What better way for me to do this than to raise his hopes that he was winning? As expected, the contestant from the White Team failed to see through the ruse.
"The first point I brought up was the reason why I didn’t want the other contestant to find out the secret about the route.
"The person who understood these two points first would gain the option to let their opponent take a few more steps and reach the finishing point first. There are no rewards at the finishing point, whereas, the contestant from the losing team could still get one more reward as they could step into a square within the route.
"Now, do you understand? The point of this game is to lose the game after gaining a slight advantage…
"On top of that, I think I was lucky because we still have a ‘PASS’... When I made the second request, I already confirmed with Mr. Dot that the White Team will be stuck in the same square for the particular turn when I use it. He would gain nothing for that turn, and I would get another reward when I moved forward. In addition to that, he couldn’t even use the same method against me.
"This leads to the current situation. Even though I lost the game, I received two more chances of getting a reward. You can look at the score."
End game stats:
Red Team: 0 prizes, 4 points, a chance to "PASS", a chance to "Take a 5-minutes break mid-game", Contestant Lin Sanjiu received 4 individual prizes.
White Team: 5 prizes, 3 points, a chance to "Undo 1 move", a chance to "get external assistance", White Team Contestant received 1 individual prize.
"Oh, it’s true…" Zhong Junkai mumbled, "We lost the game, but our score is higher."
After hearing this complicated explanation, Chen Fan hesitated for a moment before he exchanged a glance with Old Wang. The latter nodded, so he immediately slapped his thigh and shouted, "What’s the use of having a higher score? That is intangible… We have lost all the five items that we offered for this game!"
"Who says so?" Lin Sanjiu smiled faintly, "Didn’t I get back four items?"
Old Wang’s eyes lit, but he quickly hid his expression and flashed her a shrewd smile, "Aren’t those four items your individual prizes? Even though they were our things, they now belong to yo—"
At that precise moment, Mr. Dot’s voice rang out loudly, interrupting Old Wang. "Could both contestants from each team come up to receive your individual prizes now!"
Under the sudden scathing gaze of the other four members, Lin Sanjiu turned and walked into the white fog calmly. The rabbit on her shoulder had been holding back his words, and now he finally found his chance. He asked quickly, "Hey, are you planning to return the prizes to them? Did you know that during the game, they…"
"Don’t worry. I left out a detail." Lin Sanjiu rubbed the rabbit’s wet forehead, "I mentioned that the point of the game was to ‘lose after gaining a slight advantage’, right? That’s only half true. Because, the situation is definitely advantageous to me, but an absolute loss for them."
"Within this entire challenge, there exist multiple areas of contention between members of the same team; since I can’t trust them wholly, yet I can’t constantly guard against them… this was something troubling to me. In the end, I decided that I could use these items to at least keep them on my side."
After she brought up this topic, she crooked her head and thought through it once more. She nodded affirmatively when she felt that there shouldn’t be any problems with her plan.
B. Rabbit looked at her carefully, then he smacked his lips, "Ha. I didn’t know that you actually had some sense."
Lin Sanjiu only knew instinctively that she could use those four items to her advantage, but she didn’t think too deeply about it, so she looked back at the rabbit blankly. Just then, she reached the white fog. She placed B.Rabbit down and walked into the depths of the fog. Like her previous experience, she saw a normal wooden chest sitting silently in front of her.