Looking at Fang Wencong’s mineral water, Zheng Jie asked, "Buddy, your water doesn’t seem to be for your blind date partner, you’re drinking it yourself?"

Fang Wencong subconsciously moved his mineral water closer to himself, "Oh, this? This bottle is for me to drink, but I am indeed considering whether to buy some for the female players I meet."

Zheng Jie looked at the mineral water in his own hands, "Do we really have to buy it? Doesn’t that mean each meeting would cost an extra 50 minutes of visa time? Add the room fee, that’s 250 total. Over 20 meetings, that would be 5,000 minutes of visa time!"

Zheng Jie was also thirsty and wanted to drink water.

Fang Wencong sighed, "What you’re saying... what else can we do? It’s hard to imagine you’d ask such a question after playing ’Blood Poker.’ In multiplayer games, you have to actively compete, otherwise your gains will definitely be at the bottom. Everyone’s giving gifts, if you don’t, you can forget about getting any likes, you won’t get any. Although the game hasn’t said what likes are specifically for, they must be good things, right? "

"Even if they can’t directly exchange for visa time, they can probably indirectly exchange for it. As long as they can exchange for anything, spending these 50 minutes of visa time would be worth it. Besides, if you can find a suitable female player and mutually thumbs-up in the final meeting, you can get an additional 30,000 minutes of visa time. You can’t wait until the final meeting to try cramming, right? Don’t you need to find suitable candidates early and cultivate some feelings?"

Zheng Jie nodded, "Ah, that’s true. Actually, I know this logic too, I just feel somewhat reluctant."

Fang Wencong shifted to a more comfortable position in his chair, "Being reluctant is useless, these are the game rules! Speaking of which, I don’t know what the female players you’ve met are like, but the two I met both had terrible tempers. "

"I just asked if we could split the bill and they wanted to give me thumbs-downs. It took a lot of coaxing to calm them down, I don’t even know if they gave me thumbs-ups in the end. So I’m being more careful, it’s just one game. No need to argue with women, just give in a bit. We’ll earn more than them in the end anyway."

...

The ten minutes passed quickly, and Zheng Jie still felt like he hadn’t talked enough.

Especially since the two had privately complained about the weird female players they’d each encountered, which felt strangely satisfying.

Zheng Jie said honestly, "Bro, thanks for telling me so much, but if we’re exchanging thumbs-ups, I really don’t have any left. I already gave mine to someone else."

Fang Wencong waved dismissively, "No problem. Besides, you shouldn’t exchange thumbs-ups with other men."

Zheng Jie was somewhat puzzled, "If two men trust each other, wouldn’t exchanging thumbs-ups be more reliable?"

Fang Wencong looked somewhat helpless, "It would indeed be more reliable, but what’s the point? In the final meeting, men giving each other thumbs-ups doesn’t give extra visa time! You definitely need to exchange thumbs-ups with female players early and accumulate mutual trust and goodwill. If you exchange all your likes with men, even if you want to exchange with female players in the final round, they won’t trust you."

Zheng Jie had an epiphany, "Ah, that makes sense too. Alright, see you later, bro."

...

Returning to the waiting room, Zheng Jie had just sat down in the rest area when he saw images appear on the big screen.

The talent show activity had begun.

The huge screen was split in half. On one side was a slightly overweight girl who looked somewhat nervous, and on the other side was a disheveled, dark-skinned middle-aged man.

From the scenes around them, they appeared to be in waiting rooms identical to Zheng Jie’s, standing in that empty space with additional lighting.

At this moment, all the lights were on, really giving it the feel of a stage.

The overweight girl’s name appeared on screen: [Community 1 - Zhong Yuanyuan].

"Hello everyone, I, I’ll sing a song for you..."

The overweight girl began singing. Of course, it was unaccompanied singing, and her voice wasn’t particularly beautiful, but her gentle tone still made people feel cheerful.

Zheng Jie listened while continuing to think about the game rules.

The overweight girl sang for about three minutes, then shyly bowed to the camera and pressed the button to end her performance.

Each player could perform for a maximum of five minutes but could also end early.

The big screen’s audio system switched to the other side, and the disheveled middle-aged man also began his performance.

[Community 8 - Jiao Hongtao].

He didn’t have any special talents either and also chose to sing.

Zheng Jie noticed that next to the chairs in the best viewing position for the big screen, there were also two sets of buttons. Each set had ’Interesting’ and ’Boring,’ corresponding to the two people participating in the talent show on the big screen.

Beside them was a reminder message emphasizing again: [No matter how you choose in talent show activities, no existing resources will be consumed.]

That meant during each talent show, these two buttons could be pressed freely without any restrictions.

But for the same person’s performance, you could only choose between ’Interesting’ and ’Boring.’

"Such a cute girl, just slightly overweight, and she didn’t get any likes? This game is too realistic."

Without thinking much, Zheng Jie directly clicked ’Interesting’ for the overweight girl who had finished her performance.

Because according to the rules, anyone who made it to the talent show stage was at the bottom in terms of likes.

In that case, casually giving a like didn’t matter.

As for this skinny thirty-something brother...

His singing was really quite unpleasant. Zheng Jie wanted to mute the big screen, but unfortunately, there was no such option.

Zheng Jie hesitated. Logically, this brother was also a poor person without likes, and giving him a like would just be a casual gesture, but...

While he was hesitating, the big screen’s audio system had already been cut off. Although the image remained, new notification information appeared above.

[Performer No. 2 has received over 20 ’Boring’ votes, performance forcibly terminated.]

[Performer No. 1 has received 31 ’Interesting’ votes, earning 3 additional ’Likes.’]

[Performer No. 2 has received 2 ’Interesting’ votes, earning 0 additional ’Likes.’]

On screen, the overweight girl Zhong Yuanyuan was busy expressing thanks to the audience in front of the screen. Although no sound could be heard, her joy could still be felt through her body language.

The talent show screen on the big screen was cut off and returned to basic game rule reminders.

Zheng Jie felt somewhat melancholic. Although these two players had both received talent show opportunities, their outcomes were worlds apart.

Suddenly, he remembered something and got up again to go to the query machine.

An hour had passed, and he could finally check the specific number of likes and dislikes on himself.

[Community 17 - Zheng Jie]

[Current ’Thumbs-ups’ owned: 1]

[Current ’Thumbs-downs’ owned: 2]

[Current ’Likes’ received: 0]

[Current ’Dislikes’ received: 0]

"This..."

Although Zheng Jie had somewhat prepared himself mentally, seeing this result was still very disappointing.

Since it was a new hour, the game had issued him a new ’thumbs-up’ and ’thumbs-down.’

But the likes and dislikes other players had given him were both zero.

That meant...

Lu Xinyi hadn’t given him a thumbs-up.

"I’m so stupid, what was I even expecting..."

Zheng Jie wanted to slap himself twice. He had actually been fantasizing that someone like Lu Xinyi would keep her promise and exchange a like with him.

Obviously, Lu Xinyi had made a fake motion of pressing the button but hadn’t actually given a thumbs-up.

First, she really pressed the Split button, then during the subsequent chat gradually made Zheng Jie lower his guard, and finally, before leaving, a casual fake motion, a perfectly natural performance, completely fooled this naive guy Zheng Jie.

Previously, Zheng Jie had somewhat held onto false hope, thinking that since Lu Xinyi knew he was a player from Community 17, perhaps she would give Lawyer Lin some face?

In an unclear game situation, they could mutually thumbs-up to form a good relationship? Was it necessary to deceive people from the start?

Now it seemed he was on the second level while Lu Xinyi was on the third level.

For Lu Xinyi, this was probably the easiest like to deceive in the entire game.