D03 analyzed for a little while:
"Reporting to you, Officer, Zone C has the most hp resources. But the fewest reserve points. As of now, our reserve points, as well as our average points, are enough to handle a disaster."
"Before Zone C is defeated, I don’t think Zone A will attack us. Strategically, they should try other means first, then wipe out one team."
"I reasonably believe that after Zone B’s annihilation, Zone A received rewards. The game is currently encouraging certain extreme tendencies."
"Just like your inclination for fine-calculation has brought us extra buffs."
"Before Zone B was wiped out, Zone A’s tendency was full-team internal competition, insane overtime, score-ism above all else. They’ve already unlocked the corresponding resources."
"After Zone B’s annihilation, Zone A gained a new tendency—warfare."
"If they can destroy the relatively easiest-to-destroy Zone C, I think they’ll definitely choose to destroy Zone C."
D03’s analysis was on point.
In Lorenzo’s view, the only reason Zone A could hold back for a whole day without attacking any zone was that the newly unlocked authority—was massively powerful.
It was like how, in a turn-based game, different Profound Meanings need a different number of turns to activate.
You could imagine the storm was coming.
But if the storm landed on someone else’s head, Lorenzo didn’t particularly mind.
"Your analysis is good. I just don’t know if Zone C can hold out. Honestly, in my mind, Zone C is the hardest to fight."
"But Zone C’s tendencies currently don’t seem to have produced any practical benefits."
"I’m very curious—if the result is going to appear tonight... what will Zone C do?"
...
...
a.m. the next day.
The score tallies for Day 4’s showdown finally came out.
On this day, Lorenzo of Zone D was sure Zone A would take action, and that made him quite eager to see it.
Lorenzo looked at his left and right hands—his two think tanks, "Internal" and "External," and said:
"The boss of Zone C is called Wen Xishu, right."
"In theory, anything we can analyze, it’s impossible they don’t have even one person over there who can analyze it."
"Take a guess—will his score still be thirty points today?"
D03 thought that was unlikely.
"Reporting to you, Officer, I find it unlikely. Zone C’s boss Wen Xishu has a system evaluation: Trait—Good at cheating."
"I see that as a strength. People who like to break rules, that cheating mindset is often useful. Someone like that naturally won’t sit there waiting to die."
"He’ll definitely work insane overtime today and hoard a huge amount of points, because... Life Value is a hidden score."
This disagreement was quickly resolved.
At 2 a.m., the three teams’ points were posted.
Zone A: total of 88 points; after deducting population expenses and military-strategy expenses, 21 points remain (4-day cumulative total: 69 points).
Zone C: total of 30 points; after deducting population expenses, 1 point remains (4-day cumulative total: 9.6 points).
Zone D: total of 38 points; after deducting population expenses, 8 points remain (4-day cumulative total: 39 points).
Seeing this, Lorenzo’s brows furrowed slightly:
"D02."
D02 immediately raised his hand:
"Here, Officer!"
Lorenzo said:
"Our score seems a bit low?"
D02 said:
"Reporting to you, Officer, two people’s dr values fluctuated drastically, showing a greater-than-expected drop, so I stopped those two from working overtime."
Lorenzo’s frown deepened:
"Different from what your predictive model said?"
D02 replied:
"Unless we use stimulants... otherwise the early-stage dr boost brought by overtime lasts about three days before it starts to decay."
Lorenzo nodded:
"Alright, keep monitoring the data."
D02: "Yes, sir!"
Lorenzo was a bit surprised—dr was already starting to fall? He hadn’t even really started exploiting the employees yet.
Although each time the score exceeded thirty, and there was overtime each time, Lorenzo knew very well he’d been calculating carefully and hadn’t pushed employees’ hp to the limit.
Obviously, Zone A was different.
With Zone A’s score-ism above all, there had to already be people working overtime to the absolute limit.
"Excessive overtime will definitely lead to a double drop in hp and dr."
"How exactly is Zone A keeping their dr from dropping?"
The question didn’t stay in Lorenzo’s mind for long.
With 39 reserve points, that was enough to handle one round of crisis; even if the team did absolutely nothing that day, they could still survive.
But Wen Xishu’s side really surprised Lorenzo.
"D03, you misread him."
D03 was puzzled too:
"Yes, I overestimated Wen Xishu."
"Wen Xishu’s approach doesn’t make sense to me. After wiping out Zone B, Zone A obviously purchased some extremely expensive item."
"Zone A’s tendency toward external warfare is right there... Since they weren’t hit yesterday, it’s very likely they were busy integrating Zone B’s population assets."
"Zone A breaking their previous high score must be because the dozen or so people who transferred over from Zone B are doing extreme levels of overtime."
"All of this is preparing Zone A for a more powerful expedition..."
"I don’t understand how Zone C can still be so unguarded, not making people work overtime... 9.6 points is probably not enough to handle the coming crisis."
"Even though I still don’t know what that crisis actually is."
Since the electronic screen had clearly shown that Zone A had made a military-strategy expenditure, then next, Zone A was bound to strike at one team.
Sure enough, D03’s analysis was correct. After a brief pause, the electronic screen displayed the following information.
[Zone A has launched an expedition against Zone C. Expedition check: success. This expedition has two attributes. One is public information—all Zone C employees will be unable to gain normal work points tomorrow; they can only gain points through overtime.]
[The second attribute is hidden information. It is not available to Zone C or Zone D.]
[Zone A has initiated a diplomatic action toward Zone C. If Zone C employees are dissatisfied with their current boss, they may transfer to Zone A. Zone A is willing to accept you.]