God's Imitator

It was Huang Shengjie’s first day in the New World. After learning the basics of how things worked here, he had naturally felt some anxiety about the death games that lay ahead, but that anxiety still felt relatively distant.

According to what everyone had said, the first game should not begin until about a week later, leaving some time to prepare beforehand.

Lu Bingjun had also promised to do his best to arrange for capable veteran players to guide the newcomers through the games and ensure their safety.

The warm and cheerful atmosphere of the previous evening’s gathering had allowed Huang Shengjie to set aside his worries for the time being. On his first day in the New World, emotions like fear, curiosity, and tension had all clashed against one another inside him, and under the influence of alcohol, he had pushed all of it to the back of his mind, telling himself that at least for the first night, all he needed to do was rest.

He never could have anticipated that a sudden surge of excruciating pain would yank him back to reality from his sleep.

Huang Shengjie wanted to tidy up the room, which was now in complete disarray, but the pain from before had nearly drained every last bit of strength from his body.

He lay back down on the bed, still unable to make sense of what had happened.

Before entering the New World, he had been in good health and had never experienced anything like this before.

And based on what the other players had described, the veteran players should not have encountered anything like this either, otherwise they would have brought it up in advance to warn Huang Shengjie and prepare him for it.

Had it been mentioned somewhere in the rules, and he simply hadn’t paid attention?Or had he developed some kind of illness after entering the New World, due to one reason or another?

Huang Shengjie was not a particularly sharp-minded player, and his thoughts had been dulled further by the lingering aftershocks of the pain. The alcohol and his desperate struggle had sapped every ounce of his strength, and once the adrenaline faded, he eventually drifted back into a heavy sleep without having reached any conclusions.

...

The following morning.

Huang Shengjie jolted awake and sat bolt upright in bed.

At the sight of the signs of struggle scattered across the room, he confirmed that the agonizing pain in the dead of night had not been a nightmare, but something that had genuinely happened.

The pain had only come once. Huang Shengjie was not certain exactly how long it had lasted, and he had not experienced it again during the rest of his sleep.

But unlike a nightmare that fades quickly upon waking, the vividly real sensation of pain seemed to have embedded itself deep in his subconscious, almost at the genetic level, impossible to ignore.

Huang Shengjie checked the time. It was just past nine in the morning.

He had not slept well, of course, but going back to sleep at this point was no longer realistic.

He had no choice but to wash up and head downstairs to the community’s lobby.

Unlike the warm and cheerful atmosphere of the previous evening’s gathering, the eight or nine players already gathered in the lobby were in a noticeably subdued and heavy mood.

Some of them might simply have been players with regular schedules who woke up early, but there were surely others who had gone through the same ordeal as Huang Shengjie.

At the very least, Huang Shengjie noticed that fitness trainer Deng Xiao looked to be in poor shape, his face dark and pallid, as though he were sitting on a belly full of rage with nowhere to direct it.

Qin Cheng was holding a bowl of porridge in both hands, drinking it very, very slowly, though a faint trembling was visible.

”Did you get woken up by pain last night too?” Qin Cheng looked up and asked when he saw Huang Shengjie walk into the lobby.

Huang Shengjie nodded and said, ”It nearly killed me! What, did it happen to you too?”

He looked around at everyone and asked, ”What on earth is going on?”

Lu Bingjun’s expression was somewhat grave. He let out a quiet sigh and said, ”It’s probably connected to the new rule that appeared in the Second Stage.

”The three players who were struck by sudden, severe pain in the middle of the night are you, Qin Cheng, and Deng Xiao.

”They also happen to be the players in the community with the least visa time.”

It was clear that before Huang Shengjie had come downstairs, the other players had already gathered to discuss the issue and had reached a preliminary conclusion.

[A single specific ”Negative Status” exists in this stage.]

[Every three days, three players will be randomly selected from the half of the community’s players with less personal visa time to bear this ”Negative Status.”]

[As the game progresses, the interval, the number of players selected, the selection criteria, and other factors are all subject to change.]

Everyone had already seen this rule the day before, but at the time, no one had known what the so-called ”Negative Status” actually was, so there had been nothing more to discuss.

But now everything was clear: the Negative Status was unbearable, excruciating pain.

Qin Cheng had already finished his porridge and said, ”I noted the approximate timing.

”The pain began at around 1:46 AM and ended at 2:07 AM.

”That’s a total duration of about 21 minutes.”

Lu Bingjun nodded and said, ”That doesn’t seem to be a fixed timeframe. Deng Xiao’s pain ended a few minutes later than that.

”He didn’t note the start time, otherwise we could have made a more detailed comparison.”

Deng Xiao’s expression was pained, and he said, ”Note the start time? I was in so much agony I wasn’t sure I’d make it to this morning!”

Before long, the other players gradually made their way downstairs one by one.

Everyone gathered around the long table and briefly shared their experiences from the previous night, arriving at a more definitive conclusion.

...

Lu Bingjun did not directly ask all players to go to the vending machine and check their remaining visa time, but the players with less remaining visa time compared notes with one another and quickly confirmed the list of the ”7 players with the least visa time.”

Player No. 1, Qin Cheng.

Player No. 3, Deng Xiao.

Player No. 4, Wen Wan.

Player No. 6, Geng Yuxia.

Player No. 10, Zheng Chunhua.

Player No. 13, Lu Qi.

Player No. 14, Huang Shengjie.

The three new players, Qin Cheng, Lu Qi, and Huang Shengjie, went without saying. They had all just entered the New World, had not participated in any games, and had only the most basic amount of visa time.

They were undoubtedly at the bottom.

Among the original members of Community 2, fitness trainer Deng Xiao, e-commerce worker Wen Wan, the older Geng Yuxia, and middle-aged teacher Zheng Chunhua were the ones with comparatively less visa time.

Of course, the reasons for having less visa time may have differed from player to player. Some might have earned less, while others might have donated more.

Since they had not actually gone through any games together yet, the new players had no clear picture of how capable these veteran members were in games.

According to the rules, Qin Cheng, Huang Shengjie, and Deng Xiao had been randomly selected and became the unlucky ones on the first night.

The timing of the pain each of the three players experienced was not entirely identical, but it had occurred generally between 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM and lasted around 15 minutes.

As for the pain itself, all three players described it with the same four words: a living nightmare.

Of course, the extreme pain only lasted for those fifteen or so minutes, after which it subsided completely, with no effect whatsoever on daily life.

The only thing it would leave behind was a permanent shadow on the mind.

After pooling together all the information gathered so far, everyone fell into silence.

Many lowered their heads, clearly already turning things over in their minds, but no one spoke up for the time being.

Lu Bingjun thought it over carefully for a moment, then looked toward Qin Cheng and said, ”Dr. Qin, from a medical professional’s perspective, do you have any thoughts?”

Qin Cheng was one of the players who had endured the agonizing pain, though his condition looked slightly better than the others.

Qin Cheng took out two small bottles and placed them on the table.

”I’ve already looked through the community’s medical kit. The contents are fairly well stocked.

”There are painkillers, antihistamines, antibiotics, and other medicines.

”The painkillers are these two types.

”I checked the main active ingredients. They are essentially aspirin and ibuprofen.

”These are both very common medications in the real world as well.

”If the goal is purely pain relief, my recommendation is to use only ibuprofen.

”It is more effective, longer lasting, and has fewer side effects.

”Technically speaking, all painkillers should be avoided for long-term use, but given the level of pain from last night, I imagine most people have already stopped worrying about side effects.

”The biggest issue, however, is that it is difficult to determine by what mechanism this ’severe pain’ is being produced. Is it a genuine physiological reaction of some kind occurring in reality? Or is it some kind of supernatural force acting directly on the mind?

”So I cannot say for certain whether these painkillers will actually be effective.

”That said, everyone can make some preparations in advance. Two days from now, the 7 players with the least remaining visa time can each take a bottle of painkillers back to their rooms and take the medication around midnight. That should roughly ensure the medication is at its peak effect when the pain strikes.

”It may provide some degree of relief.”