Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 518 - 501: Spectators Fanning the Flames

Chapter 518: Chapter 501: Spectators Fanning the Flames

"Alright, Mouth King just snapped up another mine, and from what I understand of him, his smelting plant should be built right here.

"But the problem, as anyone can see, is the hefty distance he has to cover with a conveyor belt to reach the warehouse over there.

"If it were me, I might place two manufacturing centers here to cycle through, slightly altering the function of this industrial zone. But I bet Mouth King will probably just bullheadedly draw a straight line across.

"Look, what did I tell you? Bracing for the next question mark in the saga of Urbanization."

Li Wenhao even got up to pour himself a cup of coffee from the machine, sipping it with relish as he provided commentary.

Indeed, the conflict between "Mouth King" and "Urbanization" kept escalating.

But overall, their game continued with begrudging cooperation, mostly because Mouth King was the one making compromises most of the time.

When Mouth King forcefully dragged a very long conveyor belt, Urbanization would throw question marks into the public chat, directing from afar.

If it were Li Wenhao playing as the Chancellor, Mouth King would have long since started duking it out with him in text battles, but with a different Chancellor, Mouth King showed remarkable restraint.

He even genuinely dismantled and rebuilt parts of his own flawed plans several times.

Li Wenhao was, of course, speechless. If you’d played like this earlier, would I have even needed to erect a monument for you in the snowy wilderness?

But he also didn’t care, for now, he was just a cold-hearted spectator.

Li Wenhao’s predictions came true numerous times, keeping his live stream’s popularity quite high.

Originally Li Wenhao had been worried. Not playing himself, just watching others might sound boring—wouldn’t the viewers up and leave?

Now it seemed, they quite enjoyed watching.

So, he started giving some serious, professional commentary.

After all, Li Wenhao was a seasoned gamer. His analysis was on point, especially when pointing out both the correct and incorrect aspects of Mouth King’s and Urbanization’s planning and execution.

Of course, everyone has their own strategies, and not everything Li Wenhao said was necessarily right, but in his stream, his words won the most trust from the audience.

And this naturally brought his viewers a certain sense of superiority—as if they were commanding generals—and the pure joy of observing from a god-like perspective.

"Oh? Good, we’ve entered the under-reporting phase.

"Let’s see if Mouth King will choose to under-report this time.

"Eh? He actually didn’t choose to under-report?

"C’mon, dude, why the hell not!"

Now Li Wenhao was genuinely feeling off-balance.

Up until now, he had been dealing with unfair treatment on the smaller scale of implementation specifics, which Li Wenhao could rationalize away internally.

But now, Mouth King had even foregone under-reporting, seemingly determined to serve as a faithful and diligent executive officer to Urbanization, which Li Wenhao found hard to swallow.

Of course, as a bystander, Li Wenhao could not directly see Mouth King’s gameplay or know the real numbers.

He, like the Chancellor, could only see the data that was publicly displayed.

But having played two rounds of the game, Li Wenhao had a very accurate sense of the production and reserves of various resources, so even without the actual backend data, he could make an educated guess.

And as for Mouth King’s acts of "loyalty," Urbanization had no clue whatsoever.

Clearly, Urbanization hadn’t played the game long and didn’t understand the sneaky maneuvers an official could pull, so he was totally unaware of his fortunate situation.

"Why the hell not, I’m not okay with this!"

Li Wenhao grumbled resentfully.

And at that moment, the chat was alive with people enjoying the drama, each making their comments.

"Why spill your feathers in the chat room, just go type in the public chat and broadcast it!"

Reminded by this, Li Wenhao had a sudden spark of inspiration: "Right, that makes sense!"

He knew this kind of behavior could be seen as fanning the flames, was aware of the saying, "A true gentleman watches the game without making comments," and knew he shouldn’t be bossy about someone else’s game.

But... so what?

If the game’s mechanics allowed it, who cares!

And at that moment, Mouth King had just acquired the latest model of a manufacturing plant.

Buildings in the game also ranked at different levels, with higher-level factories requiring better resources and offering higher production efficiency.

Therefore, the placement of the first high-level factory was crucial to maximize resource allocation.

But Mouth King had been, as before, rather hasty in placing his buildings.

Now, it’s not like there was a big mistake with this location, but Urbanization felt something wasn’t quite right. However, he hadn’t thought of a better spot either and didn’t have the heart to make Mouth King demolish it.

But Li Wenhao saw an opportunity.

He marked a spot on the map: "The first high-level factory clearly should be built right here.

"This area’s mineral resources are piling up unused, the surplus being about half of a low-level factory’s capacity.

"Fitting in another low-level factory wouldn’t max out production, not cost-effective. But this high-level factory could utilize resources from these two areas, paired with a mid-level factory, it’d be just the right amount to split."

Seeing this comment, Mouth King’s first reaction was, of course, anger.

He immediately threw a question mark into the public chat.

"What the hell are you talking about? It’s basic manners not to backseat game others, didn’t anyone teach you that?"

But obviously, Urbanization didn’t feel the same.

"Hey, your points are biased.

"It’s noble not to comment during a game, but turning a blind eye to someone failing is despicable!"

"I’ve noticed that since this brother came in, he has kept quiet and restrained. This time, he speaks out compelled only by seeing problems and wanting the best for us.

"Praise for good deeds, correction for misdeeds, right?

"As a governor, can you no longer hear a rational voice? I think what this brother said makes a lot of sense."

Mouth King didn’t speak, but Li Wenhao could barely hold back his laughter, because he could imagine the expression on Mouth King’s face behind the screen.

It must have been an attempt to refrain from losing his cool, teetering on the brink.

"So what should we do, demolish it?" Mouth King clearly didn’t want to cooperate but had no choice but to say this.

Urbanization: "Forget it, demolishing it would be too costly. Just give it more thought next time you lay down these key constructions. You’re the governor; you need to plan properly."

Mouth King: "Okay."

Although in reality nothing had changed, Li Wenhao knew he had quietly planted a seed.

It brought him great satisfaction.

As the game continued, Li Wenhao kept looking for Mouth King’s weaknesses.

And Mouth King’s style of gameplay guaranteed that there would be plenty of weaknesses.

Of course, to be fair, this chaotic planning did have an influence on the game, but it wasn’t that significant.

Most players felt the production line was awkward to manage mostly because of a psychological effect.

But once the issue was pointed out, the psychological factor was not to be underestimated.

"This area isn’t suitable for three mines right now, since it’s too far from the main industrial zone, and the mineral resources near the main industrial zone haven’t even been depleted yet.

"Actually, one would have been enough. But now that three have been placed, we might as well build one less power station, so they don’t run at full capacity, saving some resources and power for construction.

"Later, when the industrial area expands this way, we can let them operate at full capacity."

Seizing the moment, Li Wenhao made his move again.

This time, Mouth King had his eye on a remote rich ore vein; the resources there were indeed abundant, but to transport them to the current main industrial area would require a very long transport line.

Moreover, to guarantee power supply and basic heating, significant additional investments were needed.

This was clearly cost-inefficient.

This was a more serious issue than the previous factory location planning, so Li Wenhao pointed it out first.

Before Mouth King could spend a lot of resources on long-distance transportation by laying conveyor belts, Li Wenhao had already blocked this possibility.

Naturally, Mouth King was even angrier.

"What’s wrong with using these resources now?

"We can just change the transportation route once the industrial area is extended over here!"

It was clear that Mouth King was starting to lose control of himself.

Originally, Mouth King had been trying hard to suppress his anger when he was collaborating with Urbanization.

All these energies had nowhere to be vented.

For Li Wenhao, Mouth King was affected by a triple buff: first, the old enemy buff; second, the annoyance of being nitpicked during the game; third, the buff of Urbanization seeming to side with him.

Mouth King’s reason told him that he shouldn’t argue with Li Wenhao now because even if a dispute arose, Urbanization would likely take Li Wenhao’s side.

But under the influence of these three buffs, he simply couldn’t control himself.

Sure enough, as soon as he opened his mouth, it only made Urbanization side more with Li Wenhao.

"?

"What’s wrong, I think this brother’s viewpoint is very reasonable.

"You’re blindly setting up a resource line from such a distant place—it’s haphazard, and even chaos has its limits, right?

"Besides, this guy has given you a ready-to-use construction plan. Just maintaining the minimum power and reducing resource output efficiency is the best remedy.

"Just follow it and be done. What are you arguing about?"

Mouth King was quiet for a long time again.

Clearly, he was working hard to control himself because if he started bickering with Urbanization, that would be like giving Li Wenhao a great show to watch.

Mouth King couldn’t accept that.

But to have him bow his head and admit his mistake was also difficult; so he tried to endure and stayed silent for the moment.

Urbanization: "? Come on, don’t just stand there."

But just then, a pop-up suddenly appeared on the screen.

A pop-up asking whether to remove Li Wenhao, the observer, from the game and not allow him to enter this game again.

Li Wenhao subconsciously wanted to click ’no,’ but soon he realized he didn’t have the power to do so.

On the pop-up he saw, the button was gray; he simply couldn’t click it.

Only the two players could vote to kick out an observer.

Obviously, Mouth King had had it with Li Wenhao and wanted to kick him out to peacefully continue the game.

But the next second, the vote ended with a 1/1 result.

Urbanization, of course, cast the opposing vote.

And according to the game mechanics, both the governor and the head of state need to agree unanimously in order to kick someone out.

Li Wenhao really wanted to laugh out loud—do you feel stupid now?

Now, who’s the minority?