How many merchants among villagers?
You arrived at a village where you knew no one and was greeted by 9 villagers, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I. You knew beforehand that the villagers worked as farmer or merchant, but none of them worked as both. You also knew that farmers always said the truth while merchant could say the truths or lies according to what they wanted. You also knew that among the people who greeted you, there were more farmers than merchants. All the villagers knew each other's jobs. So you asked the 9 people:
You asked A: "Is B a merchant?"
His answer: Yes.
You asked B: "Is C a merchant?"
His answer: Yes.
You asked C: "Is D a merchant?"
His answer: Yes.
You asked D: "Is E a merchant?"
His answer: Yes.
You asked E: "Is F a merchant?"
His answer: No.
You asked F: "Is G a merchant?"
His answer: Yes.
You asked G: "Is H a merchant?"
His answer: No.
You asked H: "Is I a merchant?"
His answer: Yes.
You asked I: "Is A a merchant?"
His answer: No.
How many merchant/merchants were among them?
The answer is 4.
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1 solution
Obviously A is a merchant, since they gave different answers for the same questions.
Now, if a villager N calls a villager M a merchant, there is at least one merchant in the pair: if villager N is a farmer, then villager M is a merchant, otherwise we have villager N as a merchant. We have:
Villager B calling villager C a merchant
Villager D calling villager E a merchant
Villager F calling villager G a merchant
Villager H calling villager I a merchant
So, we have 4 pairs each having at least one merchant. That makes 4 merchant + villager A, so the answer really should be more than 5 but since there are only 9 villagers and we know that there were more farmers than merchants, there is no valid answer (so somehow the answer is 4)