Li Ling knew that he wasn't going to win but he also knew that he was going to try his best to win and by doing that, he was going to win something far more important than just a game.
By trying his best, although he was going to lose the game, he was going to win Zhihao's trust and at this moment, that was all he really cared about.
Li Ling ran out and tried to understand what the system didn't want him to understand.
Li Ling was the gamemaster, and it was only natural that because of this, he was the one who knew the system the best.
If the other players could find the golden key, it was not very impossible to think that Li Ling could find one as well.
The man knew that the system would never give them a mission that was impossible to complete. The system had already given all the hints but it never said that the players had seen all the hints. This meant that there was something that they had been missing.