Zheng Jie reflected on his own foolishness and soon realized even more possibilities.
Lu Xinyi's scheme likely had a follow-up plan:
If either of the remaining two people had given Zheng Jie a like, then Zheng Jie would have had no way of knowing who it was.
If he mistakenly thought it was Lu Xinyi and sent another meeting invitation, perhaps another trap would be waiting for him.
And even in the current situation, where Zheng Jie received no likes and Lu Xinyi's fake like was discovered, she wouldn't suffer any additional losses.
Because based on the current game mechanics, even if Zheng Jie was deceived, he had no way to convey this information to the other players in Community 17.
"Forget it, she was already showing mercy by not giving me a dislike, it's my fault for being too stupid.
"I should just wait and see if there's a more honest and trustworthy female player, maybe we can form a regular pair."
Zheng Jie felt his brain was not suited for this kind of scheming game, and as he was struggling with his thoughts, the meeting room opened again.
...
This time, a tall woman with long, golden hair walked into the meeting room.
Zheng Jie immediately looked at her name tag: [Community 9 - Zhang Xiaoxia].
"Hello, my name is Zheng Jie. This game is pretty tough, have some water."
Zheng Jie himself wasn't a particularly sociable or smooth person, so his words came out a bit stiff and not so polished.
But he figured that since his attitude was friendly, he was smiling, and he proactively offered a bottle of water, it shouldn't be a big problem.
However, Zhang Xiaoxia frowned, her face full of impatience: "Mineral water? This is all you're giving?"
Zheng Jie was stunned, completely baffled by her words.
"Wait, I'm kindly offering you a bottle of water, how can you be dissatisfied?"
Zhang Xiaoxia sat down in the chair, crossed her arms, and looked Zheng Jie up and down with a scrutinizing attitude.
"What are you pretending for? What's there to hide about those little schemes of yours?
"You're the third guy to give me something, and you're the one who gave the most meager gift, don't you feel that you're very insincere?
"Let me ask you, in this game, you men do nothing and get 30,000 minutes of visa time when you leave the game.
"Find a female player to exchange likes with in the final meeting, and you get another 30,000.
"Sixty thousand, you can earn it so easily, on what grounds?
"You offer a bottle of water, you're just trying to find a simple-minded little girl, using this cheap gesture to trick her into exchanging likes with you in the final meeting, so you can earn that extra 30,000.
"If you had actually done the math, you wouldn't have the nerve to offer just a bottle of water, would you?"
Zheng Jie was dumbfounded, he felt the game's meta was changing too fast for him to keep up.
In the first meeting, they were splitting the room fee, and now in the fourth meeting, a bottle of mineral water worth 50 minutes of visa time was being looked down upon.
"Then what should I have given?"
Zhang Xiaoxia's face darkened: "The last guy said he was willing to give me a 10,000-minute visa time voucher, wanting to exchange likes with me in the final meeting. But I'm just considering it, I haven't agreed to it yet."
Zheng Jie's eyes widened: "Ten thousand minutes?"
Zhang Xiaoxia got a little angry: "What's wrong? You men can lie down and earn 30,000 for doing nothing, and when you want to earn another 30,000, you're not even willing to part with 10,000?"
Zheng Jie felt something was off, but for a moment he didn't know how to refute it.
Zhang Xiaoxia waved her hand: "Alright, cut the crap, there's nothing to talk about with someone like you."
After speaking, she slapped the [You Pay] button.
Zheng Jie was even angrier, if it weren't for the previous argument, he wouldn't have minded paying the 200 minutes of visa time, but now he had changed his mind.
He pressed [Split].
As their choices were inconsistent, both of them had 200 minutes of visa time deducted.
Zhang Xiaoxia pointed at Zheng Jie in shock: "You... are you out of your mind? Just you wait, I'm definitely giving you a dislike!"
Zheng Jie was also very angry: "Whatever, we can just give each other dislikes then!"
...
Ten minutes later, the two of them left the meeting room in a huff.
Undoubtedly, they both gave each other a 'Dislike' in the end.
Zheng Jie was fuming, he had only offered the water out of politeness, a normal person would have said thank you even if they didn't need it, but she, on the other hand, looked down on it.
During the meeting, he simply twisted open the mineral water and drank it himself.
The game had been going on for over an hour, and he was a bit thirsty anyway.
At this time, the talent show had started again, and to Zheng Jie's surprise, the No. 1 performer this time was a handsome guy, a very handsome one.
[Community 1 - Gao Jialiang].
He had sharp eyebrows and bright eyes, his hairstyle was well-groomed, and his fashion sense was impeccable, the type that would naturally turn many heads on the street.
The No. 2 performer was an auntie who looked to be in her forties, with a kind and gentle face, but there seemed to be some water stains on the chest of her clothes, perhaps spilled accidentally while drinking water.
[Community 12 - Zhou Guifen].
The handsome guy Gao Jialiang's performance was singing and dancing, while Auntie Zhou Guifen also sang, but in a semi-professional bel canto style.
This time, no one was voted 'Boring' too many times, causing the show to end early, they both performed for about three minutes.
[Performer No. 1 received a total of 34 'Interesting' votes, and an additional 3 'Likes'.]
[Performer No. 2 received a total of 32 'Interesting' votes, and an additional 3 'Likes'.]
The talent show ended with the two performers' thank-you gestures.
Zheng Jie couldn't help but sigh: "Everyone is so talented?
"No, buddy, you're so handsome, yet you started the talent show before me, is that reasonable?"
So far, all four players who participated in the talent show had chosen to sing.
Because singing is an artistic skill that most people have, and this simple talent show stage had no accompaniment, so just performing a dance might be very awkward.
Singing a cappella, on the other hand, was relatively the easiest way to win favor.
Or if you were truly capable, you could sing and dance like this handsome guy, which was better than just singing or dancing, but it was more demanding on the character model and controls.
This guy was indeed very handsome, so handsome that Zheng Jie was almost tempted to deliberately vote 'Boring'.
But since his singing and dancing were indeed good, and there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next meeting, Zheng Jie chose to listen to the end.
From the selection of performers in this talent show, Zheng Jie also roughly figured out some of the game's selection rules.
Obviously, there were many players who hadn't received a single like yet, even this handsome guy hadn't gotten one.
This was also normal, because each player only gets one like per hour, if the people this handsome guy was matched with had already used theirs, then they couldn't give him one even if they wanted to.
Since everyone had 0 likes, the game could only randomly select performers, Zheng Jie also had 0 likes, but he wasn't chosen.
But that didn't matter, because players who had already participated in the talent show would definitely not be chosen again for a short period, if Zheng Jie was still so unlucky later and didn't get any 'Likes', he would get on stage sooner or later.
Instead of dwelling on why he wasn't chosen, he might as well quickly think about what kind of talent he could perform when the time comes.
During the talent show, the big screen also frequently interspersed a few new broadcasts.