Some female players, upon seeing he only brought a bottle of mineral water, immediately gave him a look of disdain, and that was the end of it.
Some female players passed the first round of screening, expressing thanks after accepting the mineral water, but their true colors were revealed shortly after.
When Zheng Jie proposed they had to exchange a 'Like' first before he could give them the voucher, he was almost immediately met with scorn and ridicule.
"What do you mean we have to exchange a 'Like' first? Are you saying you don't trust me?"
"Heh, so where's your sincerity then?"
"Are you really treating a worthless voucher like a family heirloom? If you don't give it, plenty of others will. You can keep it for yourself, I'll just wait and see if you can even give it away by the end."
Zheng Jie heard words like these several times.
Not only that, but Zheng Jie could also clearly feel that in the later stages of the game, the female players he was matched with would hint in various ways that he should give them the voucher.
Zheng Jie hesitated, but ultimately wasn't fooled.
Because of poverty.
As a player who had just arrived in the new world not long ago, he didn't have much visa time to begin with, so how could he easily redeem a 10,000-minute voucher and give it away indiscriminately.
Many meetings ended on bad terms, and in the end, he received 3 more 'Dislikes'.
Zheng Jie also used the 'Dislike' function on those female players with particularly bad attitudes, but he couldn't see what specific consequences this would trigger.
Of course, there was one piece of good news, Zheng Jie did get two 'Likes'.
One of them he obtained from the talent show event.
The other was given by another female player.
And judging from the attitudes of the other two female players within the same hour, it was very easy to figure out who had given him the 'Like':
The female player from Community 12, Zhou Rong.
Zhou Rong looked like a small, cute type of girl, and she was very polite throughout the entire meeting, being quite considerate of Zheng Jie's feelings.
As for the other two he met within the same hour... don't even mention them, they were worse than Lu Xinyi.
Lu Xinyi had only deceived Zheng Jie and not given him a 'Like'. Originally, Zheng Jie was a bit angry, but in comparison, he now felt that Lu Xinyi was actually quite decent.
At least Lu Xinyi split the room fee with him AA without a second word.
As for the other female players, if their attitudes were already terrible in the meeting room, there was absolutely no way they would give him a 'Like'.
Therefore, Zheng Jie logically determined that the female player who gave him a 'Like' was Zhou Rong.
This was already quite good. If even one of the other two female players within the same hour hadn't been so genuine and had instead tricked him into thinking she gave a 'Like', then Zheng Jie would have been truly unable to tell.
But what to do next? Zheng Jie was once again caught in a dilemma.
According to their previous agreement, as long as Zhou Rong exchanged a 'Like' with him, then after he confirmed it, he would have to invite Zhou Rong for another meeting in a subsequent session and give her the 10,000-minute visa time voucher.
This was equivalent to a deposit.
Once that was settled, during the final meeting, he would invite Zhou Rong again, and they would 'Like' each other to complete the 'Final Selection Vote', each receiving 30,000 minutes of visa time.
But now Zheng Jie was once again in a dilemma. He suddenly started to worry, what if the other party took the voucher and then rejected his invitation in the final round?
Could Zhou Rong be a scammer?
That player from Community 9 had previously shouted that a female player from Community 12 had scammed him. Could it be Zhou Rong?
But each community has 2 to 4 female players participating, and they can't contact each other. Just because one female player scammed someone doesn't mean Zhou Rong would too.
From the current situation, if he didn't choose Zhou Rong, Zheng Jie really had no one else to choose.
After 12 meetings, Zheng Jie had roughly figured out the game's matching mechanism:
The game defaults to avoiding matching players from the same community, so he hadn't encountered any players from Community 17 so far.
If he could meet players from his own community, things would be much easier. Mutual trust could be established smoothly, as anyone who lied would face social death back in the community, which was a strong deterrent.
But now he couldn't even talk to them, and had no idea what the status of the other three was.
The probability of matching with the same or opposite gender was about 1:3 or 1:4. In other words, there was only a small chance of being matched with a same-sex player.
'Liking' a same-sex player was pointless, as there was no extra benefit;
'Liking' an opposite-sex player, on the other hand, yielded no response at all.
For Zheng Jie, this game was as difficult as climbing to the heavens, completely unplayable.
Since Zheng Jie didn't have many 'Likes', he successfully made it onto the talent show once.
He used all the skills he had learned in his life to sing his best song, and then barely managed to get 12 'Interesting' votes, earning a precious 'Like'.
This was already very good.
Because many male players, after getting on stage, were voted 'Boring' enough times in less than two minutes and were then forcibly cut off.
So far, among the male players who participated in the talent show, only that handsome guy had successfully gotten 3 'Likes'.
But that kind of strategy was too dependent on one's character model, the conditions were very demanding.
Besides, some didn't even go on stage for the talent show.
Zheng Jie had seen the stage empty a couple of times after the talent show started. Obviously, for those male players who knew they had no talent and weren't good-looking, going on stage was just asking for humiliation. Since they couldn't earn 'Likes', why go and make a fool of themselves?
In such cases, they would usually be quickly voted 'Boring' enough and then forcibly cut off.
At this moment, a new round of the talent show was underway on the big screen.
A crying girl appeared on the left side of the screen.
[Community 9 - Xue Qi].
She had no distinguishing features, not particularly pretty, nor particularly ugly. Judging by the order she appeared on the talent show, she probably hadn't received many 'Likes'.
"I'm sorry everyone, I don't have any talents, nothing to perform, but can you all give me two minutes to finish what I have to say?
"I don't know what's going on, maybe it's just my bad luck, but after entering this game, the system determined that I would have an extra deduction of over 1000 minutes of visa time every hour. I've already been deducted nearly 4000 minutes of visa time...
"I don't know what to do, can everyone please give me a free 'Like'? Thank you all!"
Zheng Jie was stunned for a moment. Could that much really be deducted?
The game rules did state that all female players would have a random amount of visa time deducted in this game, but Zheng Jie had previously assumed it would only be a small number.
He never expected this girl to be so unlucky, losing over 1000 extra minutes per hour.
Was it real?
Zheng Jie was a little skeptical, but on second thought, voting 'Interesting' or 'Boring' here had no cost. Since that was the case, what was the harm in voting?
He still pressed 'Interesting', although using "interesting" to describe his current mood was a bit nonsensical.
As for the number 2 performer PK-ing against her, it was a male player from Community 8 who was a decent singer. Although he wasn't forcibly cut off and got to finish his song, the 'Likes' the two received were clearly on different levels.
Zheng Jie also gave him an 'Interesting' vote.
[Performer 1 has received a total of 31 'Interesting' votes, gaining an additional 3 'Likes'.]
[Performer 2 has received a total of 15 'Interesting' votes, gaining an additional 1 'Like'.]
"Thank you! Thank you, everyone!"
Although there was no sound from the big screen anymore, Zheng Jie could easily guess what Xue Qi was saying by reading her lips.
Seeing this result, Zheng Jie felt a bit regretful, and also a bit speechless.
What happened to performing talents?
Getting 3 'Likes' just by playing the victim made the others who sang seriously look like clowns!
If I had known she would get so many 'Likes', I wouldn't have voted.
But on second thought, his not voting 'Interesting' probably wouldn't have affected the final result. Forget it, let it be.
Zheng Jie walked to the small screen at the entrance of the meeting room corridor. He was considering whether to send an invitation to Zhou Rong, the only one who had 'Liked' him.
However, at this very moment, new information appeared on the big screen.
[From now on, the game enters the second stage, lasting for a total of 4 hours.]
[The following new rules will be added in the second stage:]
[1. Accusation and Murder]
[The operation panel in the meeting room will activate two new function buttons: 'Accuse' and 'Murder'.]
[After pressing 'Accuse', when your own 'Like' count is higher than the opponent's, you can consume 2 'Likes' to complete the accusation.]
[A player who is accused a total of three times will suffer an instant death penalty after 10 seconds.]
[After pressing 'Murder', when your own 'Dislike' count is higher than the opponent's, you can consume 5 'Dislikes' to complete the murder.]
[A murdered player will suffer an instant death penalty after 10 seconds.]
[After killing another player through any in-game rule, you will receive 1/10 of that player's remaining visa time as a personal reward.]
[When multiple people are involved in a player's death, the above reward will be divided equally.]
[2. Data Inquiry]
[All data previously queried by consuming 'Likes' can now also be queried by consuming 'Dislikes'.]
[3. Matching Rules]
[From now on, meeting invitations between players of the same gender will be prohibited. Players still have a certain probability of being matched with same-sex players, but only through the system's random matching.]
[4. Additional Penalty]
[After the final meeting ends, if a player still has unspent 'Likes' or 'Dislikes', an additional 10,000 minutes of visa time will be deducted for each.]