Zheng Jie reflected on his own stupidity and quickly realized more possibilities.

Lu Xinyi’s scheme very likely had planned follow-ups:

If any of the remaining two people gave Zheng Jie a thumbs-up, then Zheng Jie couldn’t tell at all who had actually given it.

If he mistakenly thought Lu Xinyi had given it and sent another meeting invitation, perhaps another trap would be waiting for him.

And even if the current situation occurred, where Zheng Jie didn’t receive a single thumbs-up and Lu Xinyi’s fake thumbs-up was discovered, there would be no additional losses.

Because from the current game mechanisms, even if Zheng Jie was deceived, he had no way to convey this information to other players from Community 17.

"Forget it, she didn’t give me a thumbs-down, which was already merciful. It’s my fault for being too stupid. I should wait and see if there are any more honest and trustworthy female players I can partner up with."

Zheng Jie felt his brain wasn’t suited for playing these scheming games. While he was struggling with these 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 nameplate: [Community 9 - Zhang Xiaoxia].

"Hello, I’m Zheng Jie. This game is quite tiring, have some water."

Zheng Jie wasn’t particularly good at socializing or smooth-talking, so his words came out somewhat stiffly, not very polished.

But he thought that since his attitude was friendly, he was smiling, and he was actively offering a bottle of water, this shouldn’t be a big problem.

However, Zhang Xiaoxia frowned deeply, looking completely impatient, "Mineral water? You’re giving me this?"

Zheng Jie was stunned, completely confused by her words.

"What? I kindly offer you a bottle of water and you’re still not satisfied?"

Zhang Xiaoxia sat in her chair, arms crossed, scrutinizing Zheng Jie from head to toe.

"What are you pretending? What’s the point of pretending with such petty thoughts? You’re the third guy to give me something, and also the most shabby. Can’t you feel that you’re being completely insincere? Let me ask you, in this game, you men do nothing and get 30,000 minutes of visa time when leaving the game. Find a female player to mutually thumbs-up in the final meeting, and you get another 30,000. That’s 60,000 total, easily earned. Why? You give a bottle of water, nothing more than wanting to find some naive little girl and use this cheap gesture to trick her into mutually thumbs-upping in the final meeting, earning that extra 30,000. If you had actually calculated this properly, you wouldn’t have the nerve to give just one bottle of water, would you?"

Zheng Jie was dumbfounded. He felt the game’s version was changing too fast, and he couldn’t keep up at all.

In the first meeting, they were still splitting the room fee, but by the fourth meeting, giving a bottle of mineral water worth 50 minutes of visa time was being scorned.

"Then what should I give?"

Zhang Xiaoxia’s face darkened, "The last guy said he was willing to give me a 10,000-minute visa time exchange voucher and wanted to mutually thumbs-up in the final meeting. But I’m just considering it, I haven’t agreed yet."

Zheng Jie’s eyes widened, "Ten thousand minutes?"

Zhang Xiaoxia got angry, "What’s wrong? You men can earn 30,000 by doing nothing, and when you want to earn another 30,000, you can’t bear to give away 10,000?"

Zheng Jie felt something was off but couldn’t figure out how to refute it for the moment.

Zhang Xiaoxia waved her hand, "Alright, stop wasting words. There’s nothing to talk about with someone like you."

With that, she slammed down [You Pay].

Zheng Jie got even angrier. If there hadn’t been the previous argument, he wouldn’t have minded paying these 200 minutes of visa time, but now he changed his mind.

He still pressed [Split].

When the options didn’t match, both were simultaneously deducted 200 minutes of visa time.

Zhang Xiaoxia pointed at Zheng Jie in shock, "You... do you have some serious problem? Just wait, I’m definitely giving you a thumbs-down!"

Zheng Jie was also angry, "Whatever, at worst we’ll give each other thumbs-downs!"

...

Ten minutes later, both stormed out of the meeting room angrily.

Without question, they both gave each other “Dislikes” at the end.

Zheng Jie was furious. Originally, giving a bottle of water was just out of politeness. A normal person, even if they didn’t need it, should say thank you, but she actually complained about it.

During the meeting, he simply opened the mineral water and drank it himself.

It was just right since the game had been going for over an hour, and he was somewhat thirsty.

At this point, the talent show had begun again. What surprised Zheng Jie was that this time’s performer No. 1 was a handsome guy, very handsome.

[Community 1 - Gao Jialiang].

He had sharp eyebrows and bright eyes, his hairstyle was well-groomed, and his fashion sense was impeccable. He belonged to the type who would naturally attract many second glances walking down the street.

Performer No. 2 was an aunt who looked to be in her forties, with kind eyebrows and eyes, except there seemed to be some water stains on the chest of her clothes, probably accidentally spilled while drinking.

[Community 12 - Zhou Guifen].

The handsome guy Gao Jialiang’s performance was singing plus dancing, while Aunt Zhou Guifen also sang, but with semi-professional bel canto technique.

This time, no one was voted too many "Boring" votes to cause an early end to the talent show. They both performed for about three minutes.

[Performer No. 1 received 34 ’Interesting’ votes, earning 3 additional ’Likes.’]

[Performer No. 2 received 32 ’Interesting’ votes, earning 3 additional ’Likes.’]

The talent show ended with both performers’ thank-you gestures.

Zheng Jie couldn’t help but sigh, "Everyone’s so talented? Come on, buddy, you’re this handsome but started the talent show before me, is that reasonable?"

So far, all four players who participated in the talent show chose to sing.

Because singing was a cultural skill most people possessed, and this simple talent show stage had no accompaniment, so pure dancing might be very awkward.

A cappella singing was relatively the easiest way to win favor.

Or if you really had the ability, you could sing and dance like this handsome guy, which was better than just singing or just dancing, but it required good looks and skill.

This guy was indeed very handsome, so handsome that Zheng Jie almost wanted to deliberately vote "Boring."

But after all, his singing and dancing were indeed good, and there was nothing else to do while waiting for the next meeting, so Zheng Jie still chose to listen to the end.

From this talent show’s participants, Zheng Jie also roughly guessed some of the game’s selection rules.

Obviously, there were many players who hadn’t received even 1 like, and even this handsome guy hadn’t gotten any.

This was normal because each player could only get one like per hour. If the people this handsome guy was matched with had already given theirs away, then even if they wanted to give one, they couldn’t.

Since everyone had 0 likes, the game could only randomly select. Zheng Jie also had 0 likes but wasn’t chosen.

But this didn’t matter because players who had already participated in talent shows definitely wouldn’t be selected again in the short term. If Zheng Jie continued to be unlucky and didn’t get any "Likes," he would eventually get on stage.

Rather than worrying about why he wasn’t selected, he should think about what kind of talent he could perform when the time came.

During the talent show, the big screen also frequently interspersed several new broadcasts.