Chapter 2 The Golden Mean

"It turned out to be the blame word." The boy beside him finally spoke.

An Wu Jiu turned his face and caught a small expression of satisfied curiosity on his too cold face. His name was also suspended, Wu You.

"Ah, I'm also curious about this." The beautiful woman on the right also spoke, with the words [Zhong Yirou] floating in front of her. She rested her chin with her palm and tapped her fingernails on her cheek, "This name doesn't look like a poor man who will come to the competition at all."

She wears berry-colored lipstick, her eyes are big and beautiful, "Your neck..." Zhong Yirou stretched out her finger and pointed to the side of An Wujiu's neck, then moved closer, "Is this flower tattooed on?"

"Flower?" An Wu Jiu lowered his head. Seeing that he couldn't see, Zhong Yirou spread out her left palm and placed it in front of An Wujiu, with a small round mirror embedded in her palm, "Here, this white one is pretty good looking."

From the reflected mirror, An Wujiu found a large cluster of flowers around his neck, the snow-white slender edge outlines the blooming shape, the petals are complex, layer upon layer, from the left collarbone upwards, winding all the way to the right ear back.

But he doesn't seem to have any of these flowers in his memory.

"I don't remember either." An Wu Jiu put his fingers on it, rubbed the skin red, but couldn't get it off.

Is it really a tattoo?

"Peony." Wu You on the side interjected, but quickly added in a low voice, "It seems so."

Zhong Yirou was very surprised, "Peony? Have you ever seen a peony flower? Now this ornamental flower is almost extinct."

In this world of land and water pollution, there is not much soil available for food crops, let alone ornamental vegetation.

Wu You pursed his lips, "My mother..." He seemed to think he had said something wrong, stopped, and explained perfunctorily, "My family has a collection..."

When Zhong Yirou heard it, she felt even more strange, "What kind of rich and noble family are you?"

"Fake." Wu You pressed the brim of his hat, lying on the table with his hands folded, "artificial."

"That's it." The doubts on Zhong Yirou's face did not disappear completely, she put away her small mirror, observed the skin on An Wujiu's neck again, and said to herself, "It doesn't look like a tattoo... It doesn't seem to be artificial leather."

An Wu Jiu didn't think about the strange peony pattern on his body anymore, after all, he has lost his memory now, so thinking about it is useless.

He bowed his head slightly, and caught a glimpse of Zhong Yirou's cheongsam, revealing the straps on her legs. The skin on her left calf is not the same as the other parts. It should be a whole piece of artificial grafted skin, made of shark cartilage polysaccharide, which is eerily smooth.

In addition, she carried a roll-shaped bag diagonally behind her. The index and middle fingers of both hands had thin calluses, and there were slight knife wounds on the sides of the fingers, which are slender shapes that can only be caused by very sharp knives. The nails are very short and red nail polish is applied, and there is a little black stuff on the end of the little finger.

Oil?

The voice sounded again, An Wu Jiu stopped observing.

"This warm-up game is called, and the rules are very simple."

A holographic projection is projected on the desktop, which is a display screen with eight numbers constantly rotating.

"Among the 100 natural numbers from 1 to 100, each of you needs to take one of them and write it with your finger on the handwriting screen in front of you."

The rotation on the eight displays stopped, and eight numbers appeared at random. Then, a new number appeared above the eight displays. "Sum these eight numbers and divide by 8 to get an average."

"The one with the number closest to 1/2 of the real average is the winner of the warm-up game, and has the advantage of the official game and the right to decide the format."

"Give everyone five minutes to think and write down your answers in five minutes."

"Then, the timer begins."

The countdown number appeared on the round table, and it instantly became 4 minutes and 59 seconds, and it continued to decrease. The noise that had just subsided appeared again, An Wu Jiu's forehead was soaked with cold sweat, and his hands began to tremble again. He took his hand under the table and tried to clench it tightly, only to hear a brawny man on the opposite side say, "I actually got a math problem for Lao Tzu."

An Wu Jiu stared at the strong man who just spoke, his name was Liu Chengwei, he looked quite old, at least 30 years old, but he was dressed like a socialist, there were many tiny pinholes on his arms, two fists They are all covered with metal exoskeletons, but the material is general.

"Fuck, what I hate the most is counting." Liu Chengwei had an old scar on his face, sloping down from the middle of the brow bone to the cheekbone, the entire eye was injured, and the eyeball in the orbital bone was a little atrophied. is grey.

Wu You was still playing the Rubik's Cube in his hand, lowered his head and didn't lift his eyelids, "Have you never even learned arithmetic?"

These words were not good, and Liu Chengwei was immediately irritated by him, "Can you talk, kid?" He glanced at Wu You's ill-fitting old clothes, "You think you look like you've been to school. people?"

The world is entirely run by capital.

The capitalists, who account for nearly 90% of the world's wealth, enjoy and waste excess resources, including education. The essence of class solidification is to master the cognitive ability of the lower class, so the compulsory education system for all has long since disappeared. Basic mathematics education is expensive, and a complete system of basic subject education has discouraged many poor people, not to mention physics, astronomy or artificial intelligence.

Want to know the nature of the world?

Just have money.

Wu You rolled his eyes, "At least I'm not illiterate."

"Well, I'm sorry to interrupt everyone..." A boy who looked dull, wore glasses and had freckles couldn't help but persuade him, "Just guessing the numbers, it's not a difficult question, everyone. Don't argue."

The name floating in front of him is [Ueno Taisei], a Japanese. Judging by the mouth shape, it seems that he speaks Japanese, but what An Wujiu hears is Chinese.

Ueno's words did not let Liu Chengwei relieve his anger, but the other party poured his anger on him, "What are you talking about as a poor bastard who can't even afford implantable glasses!"

"I...I'm sorry." Ueno swallowed his words again, and pushed his old glasses on the bridge of his nose embarrassedly.

"What he said is not wrong. It's not difficult. Shengyin said it just now, and finally compare it with the average 1/2 of the sum of everyone's numbers." Zhong Yirou smiled charmingly, pointing to the table one by one. People, "You choose 10, you choose 20, and so on..." She turned to look at An Wujiu, her slender fingers pointed at him, "Finally, if you choose 80, eight people, The final average is 45, take one-half, that is, the people who choose 22 and 23 are the closest."

After speaking, Zhong Yirou smiled, "It's not difficult to calculate, but who can guess which number each other will choose?"

"That's right." The middle-aged man Yang Ming, who had been targeting An Wujiu, said, "This warm-up game is also strange, it's all based on luck."

An Wu Jiu stared at his face, this person can hide his tone when he speaks, but the subtle expressions on his face are not hidden well enough.

"What work does Mr. Yang do?" Zhong Yirou smiled and turned the topic to an irrelevant direction, but it coincided with what An Wujiu had in mind, "I feel like you are wearing a tie and a shirt, compared to the rest of us. , a lot of seriousness."

Her tone was teasing and teasing, and it didn't sound very serious.

This is an excellent observation point. An Wu Jiu silently watched everyone in his sight, Wu You didn't react much, he still played the Rubik's cube, Liu Chengwei looked like he was watching a play, he was very interested in the hints of beautiful women, the old man held a pen in his hand, he didn't seem to care too much This sentence, just thinking for himself, the freckled man with glasses glanced at Zhong Yirou timidly.

An Wu Jiu's observation eyes fell on the face of the mechanical Guanyin directly opposite him, but found that the other person was holding the Guanyin statue facing him, motionless, and seemed to be staring at him.

The beauty opened her mouth to flatter. Although Yang Ming, who was sitting opposite, was cautious, he subconsciously adjusted his tie knot, "It's not an important job, it's just an ordinary office worker."

"It's good for an office worker." Zhong Yirou smiled brightly, "We want to be an office worker in this society, but I don't know how highly educated you need to be. There is so much competition." She seemed to feel hot and deliberately unbuttoned the top one of her cheongsam. Meipankou, "When I saw you, I thought you looked like a white-collar worker, the kind... of the financial industry."

An Wu Jiu stared at Yang Ming, his alert was obviously lowered, the corners of his mouth that had been tensed up slightly, his thin cheeks seemed to have become full and moist because of these flattering remarks, "It's okay, it's okay , not so exaggerated."

He did not deny Zhong Yirou's guess.

Realizing this, An Wujiu tilted his head in thought, but when he came back to his senses, he found the masked guy sitting directly opposite him staring at him.

Wu You, who was beside him, didn't stop playing the Rubik's Cube, and only mumbled, "Who will come to the altar if you mix well..."

On the left of Wu You sat an old man who had been silent for a long time. His white-blond hair was like haggard. He looked at least sixty years old, but his physique was still strong. An Wujiu didn't notice him until he opened his mouth.

"There are only three and a half minutes left in five minutes, won't you talk more about games?" He has a western face, and his mouth seems to be French, but like Ueno, they can hear Chinese directly.

The name projected in front of him is the word [Lao Yu], and there is no foreign name.

"What are we talking about?" Yang Ming's tie was crooked, and he glanced at Lao Yu, "Could it be that you want us to report all the numbers to be filled in, and then write them down after you have calculated them?"

"Is it okay?" Liu Chengwei smiled.

Yang Ming's expression is very

easy

, put his hands on the table, "Actually, this is just a warm-up game. As long as the winner is not An Wujiao, it doesn't matter who. As long as he has the advantage of the game, we are in danger."

An Wujiu was silent.

"I agree." Liu Chengwei broke his fist and suggested, "Or let's tie this kid up and keep him from answering the questions, so that he won't get the advantage."

The noise in my head became extremely severe.

Lao Yu hesitated, "This...isn't it a foul?"

Zhong Yirou raised her eyebrows, "The person who committed the foul will either die, just like the guy just now, or be pushed into the punishment stack ①, be careful, few people can come out of that ghost place in a normal way. but……"

She shrugged, "If it can really eliminate a dangerous element directly, I have no problem."

These competitors were brazenly discussing their "handling methods", but An Wugui didn't pay any attention to it. There was a beeping sound like a countdown in his mind.

The last sound stopped, and after a moment of silence, a shrill noise made him lower his head involuntarily. The next second, he heard an unreal electronic analog female voice with incomplete content, only a few intermittent sentences.

[You still have time……]

[Trust me, you will find all your memories. ]

[… must survive, come to see me alive. ]

[You need companions, never alone. ]

The sound came to an abrupt end, like a terminated ECG monitor, leaving only the single sound of long sleep.

Is this the last voice my mother left behind?

Where are the memory chips?

An Wu Jiu held his head with his hands and gasped for breath, but that voice never appeared again.

On his severely injured hand, a digital imprint appeared on the back of the hand, like the number - 99.

His amnesia was indeed artificial.

Wu You saw that something was wrong with him, "What's wrong with you?"

"Leave him alone." Yang Ming sneered, "He has started acting again."

He smiled and rolled up the cuffs of his shirt, "The game is about to start, it's a chance anyway, so don't worry about it."

Yeah? An Wujiu raised his head.

This game is not about luck at all.

but intelligence.

Not only did he know this, he believed that Yang Ming also knew it.

Just listening to the rules, this guessing game looks like who can happen to beat the range of the average, but it's essentially a battle of intelligence and prediction.

if he remembers

system

The other parts of the game are not too biased. This game is born out of the "beauty pageant game" model in economics.

The process of choosing an average is like betting on the winner of a beauty contest. The most important thing is not whether she is really the most beautiful in their hearts, but the most beautiful in most people's hearts. The bet is not the game itself, but It is the psychology of other contestants.

Under Zhong Yirou's flattery attack, Yang Ming did not deny his identity in the financial industry, and has always exaggerated the element of luck. He has at least an 80% chance of knowing this theory.

An Wu Jiu didn't have much expression on his face, staring at the blank handwriting screen in front of him.

"The last thirty seconds, the countdown begins."

"30—"

He is very aware of his current situation. If what Yang Ming said before is true, according to his description of the previous game, it seems that he is not the type to fight alone. If this is the case, even if he can win the warm-up match and gain a certain advantage, he will become the target of public criticism in the official game. With such a serious injury, it may not last long.

"29—"

On the basis of the unknown competition system, he cannot guarantee that he will survive as a public target.

There's no benefit to being sharp-edged.

"28—"

It's hard to dispel the fears of others.

The best way is to deflect the fear.

The author has something to say:

① A stack is a data structure, a linear structure that inserts and deletes data at the same end. First push the data in, and then pop it out.

②Beauty contest game, also known as "US number guessing", put forward by economist Keynes in "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money", "Professional investment can be compared to a competition held by a newspaper, where a hundred photos are published in the newspaper. , the contestants are asked to choose the most beautiful six among them, whoever chooses the result similar to the average preference of all the contestants may win the prize. In this case, each contestant does not choose the most beautiful one he thinks. Six, and pick the six that others think are the most beautiful. Use your intellect to speculate on what the average person thinks is the most beautiful."