Yu Xinming thought for a moment: "That means...
"You will trade with many players, buy a lot of matches, accumulate a large amount of gold sand, and then take them to auction or trade?
"But aren’t you afraid of the Anti-Smuggling Team? A fat sheep like you should be targeted by many people."
Lin Sizhi did not respond directly: "Since I dare to collect, I certainly have another plan to exchange them. You don’t need to worry about that."
Yu Xinming somewhat understood, the role Lin Sizhi was playing now was essentially the ’middleman’ in this game, assuming a function similar to insurance.
Through massive acquisition of matches from other players, spreading out the risk, earning the price difference in between.
Although he could roughly figure out this principle, this is indeed not something everyone can do.
Because acting as a ’middleman’ has a high threshold.
First, there is a need for sufficient financial resources and enough visa time to buy a large number of matches from other players to spread the risk.
If one does not carry a lot of visa time, does not buy many matches, slight probability fluctuations could lead to bankruptcy.
Secondly, there must be a sufficiently safe and reliable channel to liquidate, converting illegal gold sand into legal Gold Coins or visa time; otherwise, one would become a fat sheep in the eyes of the Anti-Smuggling Team.
Once targeted and fully understood, one could very likely lose everything.
After considering for a long time, Yu Xinming made up his mind: "Okay, I’ll sell to you."
Yu Xinming was a player who had just come to Zone B recently. Before this, he had already roughly understood the rules of the auction platform and the trading area, knowing very well that it is actually not easy to liquidate illegal gold sand.
If a match could steadily yield about 3,500 in profits, then considering the current time, estimating based on the players’ match time including fatigue and rest time, at least 2 matches can be played every 30 minutes, and 16 matches can be played over a total of 4 hours.
In that case, one could also earn 56,000 minutes of visa time without having to worry about the risk at all.
For players with insufficient ability, this still counts as a lucrative deal.
Yu Xinming pressed the ’resell match’ button and entered the resale price: 3,500 minutes of visa time.
Lin Sizhi stepped forward and completed the transaction.
[Current match has been sold, price: 3,500 minutes of visa time.]
[Visa time has been settled, ’fatigue time’ will be borne by the selling player.]
Yu Xinming stood up and gave the compartment to Lin Sizhi.
Lin Sizhi didn’t perform any extra actions, he chose to directly buy a certain piece of land.
The glass of the compartment rose, separating the two.
Soon, Lin Sizhi came out, still holding that golden small briefcase, as for how much gold sand he specifically harvested from this match, it was unknown.
"Let’s continue, if you want to sell matches again later, feel free to call me."
Lin Sizhi left with the briefcase, presumably to continue searching for and purchasing other matches.
Yu Xinming was somewhat curious; he really wanted to know the yield Lin Sizhi had achieved so far, and couldn’t help but wonder if the amount of gold sand in his hands, if detected by the Anti-Smuggling Team, would be a staggering astronomical figure?
But Yu Xinming quickly dismissed this thought and continued with the game.
...
Lin Sizhi continued wandering in Zone B, checking the conditions of other matches, and later arrived at the turnstiles at the boundary between Zone B and the resting area.
On the other side of the turnstile, a player leaned over, with a name tag on his chest that read [Zhang Yuan].
"Am I the only one doing the Anti-Smuggling Team, is that really okay?
"In this game... organizing enough players should increase the odds of winning, right?
"Or should I go find some players and try to recruit and organize them?"
Zhang Yuan’s expression was somewhat hesitant, but he couldn’t help opening his mouth to ask.
As a player from Phase One’s Community 1, he knew very well about Lin Sizhi’s capabilities. Having encountered him once in the ’Pain Game’ before, now meeting again, he naturally went forward decisively to seek cooperation.
Originally, Zhang Yuan was a bit concerned that Lin Sizhi might not choose him, after all, for a strong player capable of building a team framework, it didn’t matter who they took; compared to others, Zhang Yuan had no additional competitive edge.
But unexpectedly, Lin Sizhi straightforwardly agreed, and thus the cooperation between the two was established.
The surprise for Zhang Yuan was that Lin Sizhi didn’t seem to have any intention of recruiting others.
He was only active in Gold Rush Area B, buying the matches of other players, not doing anything else at all.
As for Zhang Yuan, the task Lin Sizhi assigned him was to become the Anti-Smuggling Team, creating ’Exemption from Inspection’ for Lin Sizhi.
Through this method, Lin Sizhi had already visited the trading area to liquidate gold sand once, and was now waiting to collect enough gold sand for a second liquidation.
Lin Sizhi shook his head: "You don’t need to worry about those things, you just do as I say, and you can ensure the final profit."
Zhang Yuan said nothing more and instead reported the situation outside.
"Currently, it seems players Tang Qing, Lu Bingjun, and Cheng Yu are very active, with Tang Qing’s main target likely Zone A, Cheng Yu’s main target likely Zone C. As for Lu Bingjun, he hasn’t directly participated in organizing but should have some contact with Tang Qing and the others.
"As for specific information, it’s hard to probe, as their communication is quite cautious."
Lin Sizhi nodded: "That’s enough.
"Later, Wang Yan may also go to trade gold sand, you should create an ’Exemption from Inspection’ for him as well, as I mentioned."
Zhang Yuan nodded: "Understood."
At the start of the game, players from the same Community were evenly dispersed in the resting area, with varying distances from the three Gold Panning Areas, hence Lin Sizhi and Wang Yan were closer to Zone B.
After establishing cooperation with Zhang Yuan, Lin Sizhi did not have him become the Anti-Smuggling Team immediately, but first had him find Wang Yan, and reminded him of the basic strategy of ’gold panning’.
Lin Sizhi did not have Wang Yan use the method of acquiring matches, because this method could generate tremendous revenue fluctuations, needing sufficient visa time to counteract the risk, and Wang Yan, as a new player, did not have such conditions.
However, even just mastering basic gold panning strategy was sufficient for Wang Yan to obtain pretty decent yields.
Zhang Yuan roughly guessed that Wang Yan should be a new player, hence why he received special attention from Lin Sizhi.
But what puzzled him was that Lin Sizhi seemingly had no intention of catering to other players, not even having confirmed which specific subdivided zones they belonged to.
Furthermore, Lin Sizhi did not attempt to organize players from other Communities, appearing quite passive during the early stage of the game.
In this game, being passive early on could very likely lead to falling behind step by step, consequently being at a tremendous disadvantage later.
But Zhang Yuan didn’t ask too much, he could only wait in silence.
...
Soon, Huang Shengjie completed two more Gold Rush Games.
He chose to execute the strategy he had thought of earlier: only observing 4 plots of land, and then using the values of these four plots to speculate the location of larger plots under the ’Enrichment Effect,’ and spent the remaining budget on refining.
The first plot of land bought was 2,000, which slightly disappointed Huang Shengjie, as it was lower than the profits from the previous two games.
But on second thoughts, even 2,000 was already the fourth-largest number among these plots, so this result was not bad, still within the range of luck fluctuation.
The second plot of land bought was 10,000, which was the second-largest number.
After adding an extra 30% earnings from refining, the total amount of gold sand was 15,600, plus the remaining 230 gold sand from before, the amount in Huang Shengjie’s briefcase was now 15,830.