The gold sand looks like chunks ranging in size from rice grains to melon seeds, vaguely showing a golden sheen, but with plenty of impurities mixed in.
Inside, the suitcase is divided into five separate rectangular compartments, and each compartment has the number "10000" engraved on it.
The 11500 gold sand that Huang Shengjie obtained just fills one compartment, with a little left over.
"So this suitcase can hold up to 50,000 gold sand, which can be converted into 50,000 minutes of visa time. That’s a huge fortune.
"Most players probably won’t be able to fill it up.
"I can play one more round, and then I’ll enter a 20?minute fatigue period."
Huang Shengjie closed the suitcase again and locked it.
Then he tapped the screen to start a new round of the game. The glass partition that had just risen slowly descended again, returning to its initial state.
After Lu Bingjun left, other unfamiliar players queued up outside to wait.
They saw the small golden suitcase in Huang Shengjie’s hand but had no way of knowing the exact amount of gold sand inside.
Because any player who has played the game gets one.
Every time someone buys land, the partition glass rises again. After the player receives the gold sand, they can calmly load it into the suitcase. If the proceeds from multiple rounds are accumulated, the players outside have absolutely no way of judging how much gold sand is in the case.
In the second round, Huang Shengjie still used the same strategy as before. Compared with the first round, since he had already thought through his strategy in advance, he saved most of the thinking time and was flipping through different plots almost entirely on intuition, so he moved much faster.
This only made Huang Shengjie more certain that his idea was correct.
—Observing and judging according to the enrichment rules and narrowing down the plot range is the proper way to play this game and yields higher returns.
But the strategy of directly blind?picking plots isn’t completely wrong; it works under certain specific conditions: for example, when the number of cubicles is limited and players are forced to have three or even more share a single cubicle machine, using blind picks to increase turnover might become a particular strategy.
The second time, Huang Shengjie’s luck was average. After refining three times, his profit was 5750.
The total profit from two refinings was 17250, not enough to fill two compartments in the small golden suitcase.
Huang Shengjie tried to start a third round, but a prompt appeared on the screen.
[You have completed two "Gold Panning" sessions and are currently in a "Fatigue State." Continuing the game will subject you to sustained severe pain. Leave the cubicle and rest for 20 minutes to clear it.]
[Continue?]
Instinctively, Huang Shengjie reached for his pocket and touched the medication he had brought in.
Obviously, if he used the drugs he could grit his teeth through the pain and keep playing.
Maybe next time he’d dig up a 20,000 plot. Luck is something no one can predict.
But after thinking for a moment, Huang Shengjie still rose from his seat and chose not to use the drugs.
"No need. There must be other ways to win this game.
"Drugs have never been a must?pick option. I need to keep that firmly in mind."
He glanced around and didn’t spot any familiar players.
He Qinyun was also in Zone C, but the rules stated that players from the same Community are not allowed to rotate on the same machine.
So Huang Shengjie had no way to entrust this machine to someone he knew.
Seeing him stand up, the players queuing outside his cubicle hurriedly rushed forward to sit down, as if afraid he might change his mind.
Meanwhile, Huang Shengjie took a distant look at the countdown on the big screen above the auction platform in the rest area and noted the time.
Only after resting for 20 minutes could he pan for gold again. Huang Shengjie could decide how to use those 20 minutes.
He could leave the Gold Panning Area and try to complete a transaction to launder the gold sand; or stay in the Gold Panning Area or rest area and observe other players.
Just then, Huang Shengjie heard an exclamation not far away.
"Hey!!"
The voice sounded highly agitated.
Huang Shengjie followed the sound. It came from a cubicle up ahead on his right. At that moment, the glass of that cubicle was fully raised and sealed, so nothing inside was visible.
But that shout drew a lot of players’ attention.
Some players instinctively moved closer; others pretended nothing had happened and walked away.
Almost three minutes later, the cubicle finally opened. A young girl who looked just over twenty poked her head out cautiously, glancing around.
The other players were still busy with their own affairs. Some were focused on playing in the cubicles; the ones waiting outside were all looking at the screens in front of them. No one was paying attention to her.
Without a change in expression, Huang Shengjie cast a quick look at the name tag on the young girl’s chest: [Cheng Yu].
Then he acted like an uninvolved passerby, quietly picked up his suitcase, and followed her at a distance that was neither too close nor too far.
At the same time, two other players were leaving the Gold Panning Area with them. They were also Zone C players who had managed to grab machines in the first wave; their two rounds ended at roughly the same time.
There were five machines in total, so one player was missing. Huang Shengjie wasn’t sure whether that person had finished early and left or had chosen to take drugs and keep playing.
After all, the five machines were far apart, all in corners, and miscellaneous items blocked the view in between, making it hard to observe properly.
The four players each carried a small golden suitcase, keeping their distance from one another as they approached the turnstiles leading to the rest area.
Cheng Yu walked in front. She carefully scanned the area and, seeing nothing unusual in the rest zone, chose to pass quickly through the gate, crouching slightly and scampering toward the trading area.
Huang Shengjie and the other two players tacitly spread out, heading in different directions while also watching Cheng Yu’s movements.
Sure enough, Cheng Yu had barely gone far when two players popped out from the blind spot ahead.
These two players had been hiding in different places. They were clearly not working together but looked more like they were competing over the same Prey.
One male player in his thirties with a buzz cut had obviously faster hands and managed to press the button on his device at Cheng Yu first.
[Li Haoqiang].
"Li Haoqiang... I think he took part in the ’Pain Game’ before. That’s a player from Community 8, right?"
Huang Shengjie edged forward a bit and got a clear look at the name tag on the man’s chest.
He didn’t get too close; he kept out of the visual blind spot, making sure he could bolt the moment an Anti-Smuggling Team approached him. On that basis, he also wanted to watch how an Anti-Smuggling Team inspection actually worked, so he could better prepare in future games.
From his previous game experience, Li Haoqiang wasn’t a particularly strong player.
But under the current rules of this game, at least for now, a player’s overall strength and how threatening they are don’t directly correlate.
As long as someone becomes Anti-Smuggling Team, they pose a huge threat to any Gold Digger.
[Inspection begins. Please cooperate with the Anti-Smuggling Team to complete the inspection process; otherwise you will be directly judged as "Inspection Successful."]