The dice landed on six, and the draft paper on the corner of the table was flipped over by the fan. Chen Hao stared at it, tapping the tabletop lightly with his fingers.
He didn't pick up the dice or say anything; he simply withdrew his hand, slapped his thigh, and stood up.
“Come on,” he said. “First round.”
Nana stood to the side, the camera slightly panning as if to check if everyone around her was ready. She didn't speak, but the projection lit up, blue lines drawing a flowchart in the air: card drawing, action, settlement, event triggering.
The three people sat around the table. They were all familiar faces who often met at the base. They didn't speak or smile, but just stared at the neatly stacked cards and bean tray.
"Don't be nervous," Chen Hao said, pushing the lottery tube towards the center. "This isn't an exam; you won't lose any food if you lose."
Someone laughed, and the atmosphere eased a little.
Chen Hao started distributing beans, five to each person, a mix of mung beans and black beans. Before anyone could even settle their hand on their tray, someone else reached out and fiddled with the compartments on their tray.
"Can this thing really tell the difference?" the man muttered.
“If you peek at someone else’s beans, I’ll draw a ‘Misfortune for Those Who Behave Unlucky’ card just to haunt you,” Chen Hao grinned. “I’ve even thought of a name for it.”
Another burst of laughter followed.
Nana initiated the first round of card drawing, with resource cards going first. Each of the three drew one card. Someone drew "Rainwater Collection," gaining three beans; someone else drew "Tool Damage," losing one bean and being unable to take action.
"Wait a minute." The one who drew the punishment frowned. "I didn't do anything, and you're punishing me right away?"
“The event cards are triggered randomly,” Nana explained. “Once per round, it’s determined by the dice.”
"But I didn't even get any resources." The man slammed his card on the table. "Isn't this like falling into a ditch as soon as I stepped out the door?"
Chen Hao didn't refute, but lowered his head and wrote in his notebook: "Negative cards are too damaging at the start and can easily discourage players from playing."
The second round begins, the action phase. One person spends two beans to fix the water pipe and receives a spare card upon success; the other person takes a risk and draws an event card, which results in a "sandstorm warning"—all resources are halved.
"Holy crap!" The person who drew the cards stood up abruptly. "This is only the second round, and they've already cut everything in half?"
"The rules are written there," the person next to him said, pointing to the back of the card. "When something unexpected happens, see how you handle it."
"Change my foot, there's no choice at all." The man shook his head. "This card is like a time bomb, drawing it is just bad luck."
Chen Hao made another note: Crisis-type cards lack response paths and are simply passively attacked.
The third round was even more chaotic. Some people drew the "water surge" twice in a row and accumulated twelve beans in one go, while others were still barely breaking even.
"This game is now about who has the best luck?" one person sneered. "Why don't we just roll the dice to decide the winner?"
No one responded, but their expressions were not good.
The settlement phase was even more protracted. Nana calculated contribution points based on three criteria—action efficiency, number of support missions, and emergency response—and then combined this with everyone's verbal evaluations to arrive at a final ranking.
It took a full ten minutes.
"It's too slow," someone complained. "Calculating scores is more tiring than doing the actual work."
“Besides, you said I helped Lao Wang, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. How do we judge this?” Another person pointed to the other side. “We can’t argue over such a small amount of beans.”
As Chen Hao listened, the tip of his pen drew a long line on the paper.
When the round ended, no one cheered. The group silently handed the beans back and got up to leave.
"Wait a minute," Chen Hao stopped them. "We've noted down the problem, we'll fix it."
"Didn't we agree on a trial run?" one of them turned around. "It's normal for there to be problems."
“Exactly,” another person laughed. “If you really created a perfect game, you would have won the Nobel Prize long ago.”
Amid laughter, people left one after another.
The workshop quieted down. The fan was still running, blowing the green, blue, and red stripes on the outside of the divination sticks, making them sway gently.
Chen Hao sat back down on the low stool, holding the "Sandstorm Warning" card in his hand, looking at it over and over again.
"Data compilation complete," Nana said. "A total of seven operational disputes and three points of mechanism imbalance were recorded, with an average pace delay of four minutes and seventeen seconds per round."
"Speak like a human being." Chen Hao looked up.
“The rules need to be adjusted,” she said. “There are three specific areas: card effects are too large, settlements rely on subjective judgment, and there is no buffer for negative events.”
Chen Hao nodded and wrote three points in his notebook:
1. Extreme returns halved
2. Add a countdown reminder to checkout.
3. A crisis card can be used to offset one instance.
"We can't let one card blow up the whole thing again," he said. "Otherwise, everyone might as well go to the raffle."
Nana updated the projected content and entered the new rules into the auxiliary interface. She brought up a comparison table; the left side was the original version, and the right side was the adjusted version.
“I suggest adding a restriction clause,” she said. “Each player can trigger a maximum of one negative card per round.”
“Okay.” Chen Hao used a thick pen to cross out the old entry on the back of the card and rewrote it: “One card per round, Bad Things Are Coming.”
He laughed as he read it aloud: "It sounds like a curse."
“But it’s easy to understand,” Nana said.
The two reorganized their decks, removing two high-value cards and replacing them with a combination of "minor buffs + extra options". For example, "Rain Collection" was changed from adding three points to adding two points, but with the added note "transferable to teammates".
"This way, we can cooperate without one company becoming too dominant," Chen Hao said.
They conducted another test, this time with only two participants—Chen Hao and Nana.
The first round went smoothly; no one became rich overnight, and no one went bankrupt. When an event card appears, players can choose to use one action to offset its impact.
"The pace is much faster." Chen Hao watched the settlement process. "The evaluation part has been shortened to within two minutes."
"Because the number of controversial items has decreased," Nana added, "the weight of subjective ratings has decreased, and the data share has increased to 70%."
“Then let’s keep this ratio.” Chen Hao closed his notebook. “Next week, we’ll find more people to try it out. Let’s get a few more people who don’t usually talk much together and see if they can get a word in edgewise.”
"I suggest distributing simplified rule cards in advance," Nana said. "One paper version for each person, to avoid confusion on-site."
“Right.” Chen Hao pulled out a stack of small pieces of paper. “Just print four sentences on them: We can only get a prize if we complete the task together; Whoever does more work gets a higher score; Unexpected things may happen along the way, so we’ll see how you handle them; In the end, everyone will evaluate who really gave it their all and who slacked off.”
He paused, then added, "Add a small line: This game prohibits stealing beans, hiding cards, and pretending to be unconscious to evade tasks."
Nana's camera flashed briefly.
"What are you laughing at?" Chen Hao glared at her.
“I didn’t laugh,” she said.
"You flashed the camera three times, and you still say you didn't laugh?"
“The system is functioning normally,” she replied calmly. “The flash is part of the heat dissipation regulation.”
"Oh." Chen Hao scoffed. "Then you can continue 'cooling down'."
He repacked the corrected cards, straightened the card holder, and cleaned and put the bean tray back in its place. Everything was in its original position, except the writing on the back of the cards had changed.
He leaned back in his chair, his arm resting on the edge of the table, his gaze fixed on the die.
It's still lying there, facing six o'clock.
"You know..." he suddenly began, "what if someone changed the rules while playing the game?"
Nana did not answer immediately.
Her camera slowly panned to the card box, projecting the title bar of the next draft revision.
Chen Hao's fingers slowly slid towards the bottom of the dice.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com