The game continued, reaching round 16.
[Current Total Wealth: 1,285,000 minutes of visa time]
Since there was no need to consider distribution ratio issues, Civilian players had maximized all work income and most investment returns. Though they hadn’t reached the theoretical perfect limit, it wasn’t far off.
Total wealth grew rapidly.
Additionally, the over 100,000 visa time that Qin Yao, Cai Zhiyuan, and Zhou Guifen had "conjured" from unknown sources had long been included in total wealth.
Although total wealth was growing, Han Mengying and Qi Fan, the two players who held the majority of wealth among Conglomerates, had their assets completely cleared.
Because the management room had arranged 100% inheritance tax for Conglomerate players, even transferring some assets through investment couldn’t transfer too much.
The other two players, due to the Conglomerates’ special age structure, hadn’t died yet, so they retained their original wealth values.
One was Sun De, currently ‘‘Old Age’,’ with remaining visa time of over 110,000. He had entered management in rounds 13 and 14, receiving Han Mengying’s inheritance tax when she died.
The other player was ’‘Adult’,’ with remaining visa time of over 40,000.This ’‘Adult’’ player was the fourth person in the Conglomerate community besides Han Mengying, Qi Fan, and Sun De, the most special existence in the age structure: he had no peers.
Initially, the person with this special identity was Fan Zehui, but after the Conglomerate family changed, it transferred to him.
When round 11 began and Qin Yao and others seized management, he had just completed rebirth, giving his inheritance to Han Mengying.
So from round 11, when Civilians maximized all Conglomerate tax rates, his wealth value had always been 0.
This situation improved in round 15: because he had no peers, once he reached ‘Adult’ or ‘Old Age’ he would inevitably enter management, so he successfully received Qi Fan’s inheritance tax.
At this time in management, there was only him as an ‘Adult’ player and one ‘Old Age’ player Lin Sizhi, so he got half, about 40,000.
As for Sun De, he had just entered ‘Old Age’, so hadn’t yet been harvested by inheritance tax.
Although other Civilian players very much wanted to divide his visa time, unfortunately, under this game mechanism there was no way to do it, they could only wait for his death.
Of course, this game had another special rule: departure.
As long as wealth exceeded 100,000, one could choose to leave the country, no longer subject to any game rule restrictions but Lin Sizhi naturally couldn’t let Sun De exploit such loopholes, having long ago maximized Conglomerate players’ departure tax to 100%.
So Sun De couldn’t leave the country and couldn’t do anything, only wait.
As for Civilian players’ wealth composition, it was much more complex.
Cai Zhiyuan, Qin Yao, and Zhou Guifen, the three players who were direct beneficiaries of the strategy, already had over 80,000 visa time in round 10, and had been in management for a long time, naturally receiving considerable tax revenue.
These three also consciously transferred wealth to Lin Sizhi through investment and other means.
Additionally, these four people firmly occupied the main work income and investment returns.
Not only did the 4 invest in each other, they also required other Civilian players to invest in them and equally divide returns.
So at this time, these four people had the highest wealth values, ranging from 190,000 to 230,000.
As for the other four Civilian players, Fan Zehui, Zhou Rong, Luo Wei, and He Ming, each had wealth values around 50,000 visa time.
They dared not have any dissatisfaction about this. Lin Sizhi not pursuing their previous betrayals was already very face-saving, how could they dare compete for returns.
Although everyone was Civilian, no one dared challenge Lin Sizhi’s authority within game rules, because no one dared gamble on whether Lin Sizhi had other backup plans.
If Lin Sizhi chose to change Conglomerate identity or cooperate with Community 4, they couldn’t even keep this little wealth.
Moreover, Lin Sizhi had promised these four people that the final 4 rounds’ investment returns would all be left for them to maximize, which was also a large sum of money.
Now, the final 4 game rounds were about to arrive, and Fan Zehui and others were also expecting to maximize these 4 rounds’ investment return limits.
...
As for Han Mengying, she had given up hope but still unwillingly recalled all rules in her mind, comparing them one by one, thinking hard.
She still wanted to know what that 100,000 conjured from thin air was about.
Actually, she had vaguely realized it could only be an ’expired investment voucher’ issue but even thinking of this, the entire plan still had too many suspicious points.
Finally, Han Mengying figured out most of the details and the most crucial link of this plan.
"Making Zhou Guifen the finance officer... was actually part of this plan too!"
...
This plan had to start with investment rules.
Players had to obtain investment returns after 2 game rounds. Once expired, it would cause serious losses.
So almost all players frequently checked each investment voucher’s time and collected investment returns at appropriate times.
They would also avoid collision times with other players’ investments as much as possible.
Occasionally appearing expired vouchers would cause heartache.
They could only exchange them back for 2000 at the first opportunity when the next round began but in this rule, there was also a word trap buried.
[After investment vouchers expire, they become ’recovery vouchers,’ which can only ’recover’ 2000 minutes of visa time]
Because this voucher became a recovery voucher and obtained visa time through recovery, it wasn’t investment income and wasn’t subject to investment rule restrictions.
It could break through each game round’s investment return limit, with no exchange restrictions, and more importantly, it wouldn’t be subject to ’investment tax’ restrictions.
In round 4, the three communities reached preliminary consensus, determining total wealth distribution ratios.
From that time, Lin Sizhi and Cai Zhiyuan had already begun planning and scheming.
Simply put, they squeezed visa time from reliable players as much as possible, purchased investment vouchers, and let them expire deliberately.
These expired investment vouchers were all hidden away, to be recovered all at once at the appropriate time and seize management.
...
But thinking to this point, Han Mengying didn’t instantly see the light, but had even more doubts.
"Hiding investment vouchers seems like a good strategy, but the problem is, wouldn’t this cause various data abnormalities?
"Total wealth would decrease, the three communities’ wealth ratios would become imbalanced.
"Each hidden investment voucher would cause a loss of 1000 minutes of visa time.
"If only Community 17 was hiding investment vouchers, then Community 17’s total wealth would always be lower than Community 12’s.
"But such abnormal situations never appeared before. Community 17 and Community 12’s total wealth values were always similar.
"Then there’s only one explanation: Community 12 was also hiding together, so the two Civilian communities’ wealth ratios didn’t become imbalanced.
"But the problem is, from everyone’s reactions, Fan Zehui, Zhou Rong, He Ming, and Luo Wei, these four obviously didn’t know about this plan.
"Once this plan leaked, it would completely fail. Lin Sizhi inevitably wouldn’t tell all Civilians, only telling a few trustworthy people.
"Cai Zhiyuan, Qin Yao, and... Zhou Guifen!
"That means... Zhou Guifen participated in this plan from the beginning?
"And the premise for Zhou Guifen to hide so many vouchers without Fan Zehui discovering was her becoming ’Finance.’
"That means... Cai Zhiyuan’s initiative to have Lin Sizhi serve as finance was actually to reverse-select Zhou Guifen??"
Han Mengying completely hadn’t expected that was also a trap.
This also meant Lin Sizhi and Cai Zhiyuan’s planning time was even earlier than round 4.