Chapter 61: A Game Theory Model |
When Qi Si was sixteen, his uncle, who had grudgingly become his guardian—likely due to his strange behavior and the simple inconvenience of an extra mouth to feed—finally reached his breaking point and sent him to a summer camp.
The camp was tucked away deep in the mountains, run with military-style discipline, and constantly preached a doctrine of "absolute fairness and universal harmony." The word "cult" might as well have been written on its face.
It was at this cult base, disguised as a summer camp, that Qi Si and Jin Yusheng first met.
Hundreds of children, with an average age of around ten, were locked away in dozens of iron huts. Only three of them were sixteen: Qi Si, Jin Yusheng, and a tough-looking girl, all bundled into the same room.
The children were only let out for meals and prayer, forbidden from speaking to one another or doing anything outside the "rules."
What those "rules" were, Qi Si never figured out. He only knew that many children were dragged out for corporal punishment for breaking them.
The cultists claimed this, too, was a form of sacrifice. Everyone was a sinner, they said, and their god wanted humanity to writhe in the agony of its original sin.
They forced the children to trace meaningless triangles on their chests, perform rituals, and pray to a god whose name they didn't even know.
They prayed with a near-frenzied desperation for their god's response, proclaiming that when the deity descended once more, the weird and the mystical would reign supreme, shattering all unjust rules and orders of the world.
Until... his tough-girl roommate died, inexplicably.
Her death was bizarre. She was lying right there in the room, yet her body suddenly turned black and charred, crumbling into ash as if consumed by an invisible fire.
Qi Si watched her scream and die, feeling not so much grief as a sharp, instinctive sense of danger—the kind one feels when seeing a member of their own kind fall.
He realized that if he were in the same situation, his chances of survival were far lower than the girl who could pin him to the ground with one hand.
So, he had to escape. He had to live, had to avoid dying in this godforsaken hole.
His memory of what followed is hazy, a blur thanks to his mind's self-preservation mechanisms. He only remembered that, through a series of calculated actions, he earned the cultists' trust and was granted freedom of movement.
He found the right moment to start a fire. Deciding the scene wasn't chaotic enough, he then picked the locks on a dozen rooms, letting the children scatter and run wild through the mountains.
Rescuing Jin Yusheng was merely an afterthought.
He wasn't worried about being caught. Even rounding up a few hundred pigs would take time. The smartest thing for the cultists to do was pack up and flee before the authorities arrived.
What he needed to worry about was his life afterward. He certainly couldn't go back to his uncle's house. He needed to find a new host, someone easy to fool.
—And his reasons for choosing Jin Yusheng were more or less what he had already explained.
...
Not long after Jin Yusheng left the observation room, a nurse entered and undid all the restraints on Qi Si's body.
Immediately after, the red light on the ceiling's security camera went out, clearly shut off remotely.
Without a doubt, Jin Yusheng had made his choice.
The man was still timid as a mouse, only daring to give his tacit approval instead of leaving behind a proper weapon, but for Qi Si, it was enough.
He stood up, stretched his limbs, and systematically searched the entire observation room.
He had to admit, the place was impeccably clean. Not a speck of dust on the floor, let alone any sharp objects. A mouse would probably have to bring its own peanuts.
The walls were regrettably smooth, with the security camera serving as the only decoration. Both it and the light fixtures were embedded in the ceiling, eliminating any possibility of prying them loose.
The washroom was equally devoid of useful tools. It had a squat toilet, so there was no detachable seat. The faucet was too sturdy for Qi Si to pull off, and he couldn't smash the acrylic countertop without injuring himself. “You really do know me, don’t you? You knew if I got my hands on a weapon, you’d be the first one I’d use it on...” Qi Si murmured, lying back on the bed with his eyes half-closed.
The things he'd told Jin Yusheng were half-truth, half-bluff. While he was hardly a model citizen with a healthy moral compass, he wasn't some psycho obsessed with killing. There was no reason for him to murder the man's family or kill him just because he knew too much.
But Jin Yusheng had believed him. Or rather, he had taken the excuse Qi Si offered him.
When you've poured vast amounts of money and energy into a project with no results for a long time, the sunk costs make it difficult to give up. You carry on, driven by something close to self-delusion—unless you're given a compelling reason to stop.
As a clone, Qi Si was happy to give Jin Yusheng a reason to abandon the original. After all, the original 'Qi Si' had deceived Jin Yusheng plenty. It was a classic 'boy who cried wolf' scenario; no amount of slander would be too much.
It sounded plausible, logically sound. Just because he hadn't done it yet didn't mean he wouldn't in the future.
Besides, the original 'Qi Si' would be the one taking the blame. What did that have to do with him, Clone Number 9?
"But something's not right," Qi Si mused. "Persuading Jin Yusheng to allow a clone to kill the original shouldn't be that difficult. The logic is clear, practically the only option. If the first eight clones had my memories, they couldn't have missed this..."
Qi Si raised a finger and tapped his chin, his gaze narrowing. "They were all destroyed, so they must have failed. Why did they fail? Is there... some crucial detail I've overlooked?"
There was too little information, only enough to construct the most basic game theory model.
He knew there were eight failed predecessors. The worst-case scenario was that each had tried a different, unworkable strategy, revealing all their cards in the process.
To break the cycle, he would have to devise a ninth plan, and do so without knowing anything about the first eight.
Qi Si considered himself a selfish person and assumed he wouldn't leave any openings for his successors. He trusted the first eight clones were the same. Therefore, they would have each chosen the plan with the highest probability of success available to them.
This meant that for him to do something unexpected, he would have to choose the ninth-best plan.
But there were only so many possible plans to begin with. The success rate of the ninth-ranked plan would be abysmal. It would be better to just try one of the old plans again and hope for a lucky break.
He believed his predecessors would have thought the same. After calculating the equilibrium point, they would have abandoned the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth plans and instead repeated the earlier ones.
Assuming every clone is a rational actor, Number 5 would inevitably repeat Plan One, the most successful option. After being used twice, its success rate would drop, forcing Number 6 to choose Plan Two, and so on...
As Number 9, Qi Si was now facing four plans that had each been attempted twice. His optimal choice would be to execute the previously untouched Plan Five, which had a moderate, if uninspired, success rate.
But life is full of surprises. It was impossible to be certain that every clone had deduced all of this information.
Remove one key piece of information, and the entire game theory model collapses. Clones 5 through 8 could have chosen any plan, meaning all of the first eight plans had to be considered as potentially used.
As 'Number 9,' Qi Si was left with only two paths: either pick one of the first eight plans at random and leave the outcome to fate, or, out of desperation, choose the ninth plan, which was almost guaranteed to fail.
No matter which he chose, it would be an irrational decision. For 'Number 9,' the problem was inherently unsolvable.
Two sentences echoed in his memory:
'None of your predecessors made this request.'
'Your intelligence test results are higher than the previous clones.'
It was like a spark igniting in his mind. Qi Si smiled, a slow, pleased expression. "This was never a balanced game. All I have to do is choose the best plan I can think of."
The hint in Jin Yusheng's words had been crystal clear.
A new factor had been introduced into the game theory model: 'Number 9' was superior to the first eight clones. In game theory terms, this simply meant he could 'devise a better plan.'
His probability of success was inherently higher than that of his eight unlucky predecessors.
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