God's Imitator

The two painkillers available from the medical kit in the community both had very clearly listed ingredient information on their bottles.

The painkillers in the game had none, which was an obvious deliberate choice on the part of the God’s Imitator who had designed it.

Even so, Qin Cheng did not simply let the matter go. He held the tablet in his palm and studied it carefully, then furrowed his brow and fell into thought.

Before long, the game was about to officially begin.

Qin Cheng noticed that of the four doors in the room, the three leading to the ’Patients’ had all lit up with indicator lights.

This meant that the players on the other side of those doors had sent meeting requests.

As long as Qin Cheng accepted, the two of them could open the door and meet during the current round.

The door to the ’Review Room,’ however, had not lit up.

Qin Cheng thought it over and decided to send a request to the ’Review Room’ first.

No response came.The player in the Review Room had clearly chosen to go to a different room.

The three rooms that had sent Qin Cheng requests were the ’VIP Patient’ and two ’Regular Patients,’ with attached Medical Points of 800, 300, and 0 respectively.

After considering the options, Qin Cheng used the remaining time to accept the request from the ’Regular Patient’ who had attached no Medical Points at all.

Before the acceptance went through, a special notice appeared on the small screen beside the door.

[Once you accept this request, no other doors may be opened for the remainder of this round. Confirm?]

Qin Cheng pressed the [Confirm] button. The small screen gave two short beeps, and the door unlocked with a click.

A player pushed the door open somewhat hesitantly and stepped in, his expression carrying a trace of disbelief.

He clearly knew that Qin Cheng, as the Doctor, had many options available to him, and that even without being able to see the ’Reviewer,’ he would most likely have prioritised the ’VIP Patient’ over an ordinary patient like himself.

A VIP Patient, after all, had more Medical Points to offer.

”Hello.”

Qin Cheng glanced at the nameplate beside the Regular Patient’s door.

[Community 8 - Li Haoqiang.]

He was an unremarkable-looking male player, apparently in his thirties, with no distinguishing features other than a simple close-cropped haircut.

”Dr. Qin! Hello!”

Li Haoqiang’s manner was quite deferential. He likely did not know that Qin Cheng was a genuine medical student in real life and was simply addressing him by his in-game identity.

Qin Cheng did not say much. He had a brief exchange with Li Haoqiang about the current rules and confirmed what the situation looked like on the regular patient’s side of things.

Li Haoqiang was not the most articulate person, but he gave a simple account of it all the same.

After a moment’s thought, Qin Cheng took out one of the bottles of Type I Painkiller that he had been able to purchase directly from the vending machine as the Doctor, and set it on the table.

He had already opened one bottle earlier. This was a second bottle, newly purchased and still sealed.

”This is the only painkiller I can buy from my vending machine as the Doctor.

”The minimum permitted selling price under the game rules is 600 Medical Points per bottle, and each bottle contains five tablets.

”According to the rules, every player may be subjected to pain each round. No one has been through the first round of pain yet, so it’s not clear exactly how severe it will be.

”If you feel you need it, I’ll sell it to you at the minimum price of 600 per bottle.”

Li Haoqiang hesitated briefly, then nodded and said, ”Alright, since you put it that way, I’ll take one.

”Honestly, I didn’t expect you to open the door for me in the first place. I was already prepared to tough it out.

”But you didn’t open the door for the VIP Patient first, you opened it for me, an ordinary patient. I trust your judgement.”

Both players took out their Medical Cards and completed the transaction.

Li Haoqiang took the small white bottle and looked it over carefully, seeming somewhat uncertain whether the medication would actually provide adequate pain relief.

”Doctor, how should I take this?”

He was not sure whether Qin Cheng was a real doctor, which made the question come out a little tentatively.

Qin Cheng said, ”As a general rule, take no more than one tablet per round. Even if the pain is still unbearable, it would be best not to increase the dose on your own.”

Li Haoqiang nodded and said, ”Got it, Doctor. Thank you!”

The meeting time for this round was nearly up, and Li Haoqiang left with a great many expressions of gratitude and returned to his room.

...

A short while earlier, in one of the ’Sales’ rooms.

Ye Lin had just finished listening to the rules read out on the large screen and was standing in front of the layout diagram, confirming her room’s position in the facility.

The four Sales rooms were located at the very centre of the entire venue, roughly arranged in a grid formation.

Each Sales room connected to two different ’Review Rooms,’ which in turn led into two different zones.

Ye Lin’s Sales room connected to Zone A and Zone B, and on the layout diagram it sat in roughly the upper-right corner of the grid.

Compared to all the other rooms, the ’Sales’ room was the most lavish.

The décor of the entire room could only be described as extravagant: high-end leather sofas, an exquisite side table that could have passed for a piece of art, a bar lined with many fine spirits, and even a great number of purely ornamental decorations with no practical purpose whatsoever.

The room had only two doors, leading respectively to the ’Reviewer’ rooms for Zone A and Zone B.

There was no door connecting one Sales room to another.

Between the two doors was a large corner floor-to-ceiling window that jutted out into the courtyard, offering a clear view of the rooms surrounding it.

”Was it because I submitted 30,000 minutes of visa time before entering that I was assigned this special ’Sales’ identity?”

Ye Lin walked over to the vending machine to check exactly which Special Medications she could purchase.

[Type C Painkiller]

[5 tablets per bottle.]

[Price: 300 Medical Points.]

[Recommended Retail Range: 500 to 2,000 Medical Points.]

[Type M Painkiller]

[5 tablets per bottle.]

[Price: 1,000 Medical Points.]

[Recommended Retail Range: 1,200 to 1,500 Medical Points.]

[Type O Painkiller]

[5 tablets per bottle.]

[Price: 100 Medical Points.]

[Recommended Retail Range: 50 to 3,000 Medical Points.]

[Type F Painkiller]

[5 tablets per bottle.]

[Price: 200 Medical Points.]

[Recommended Retail Range: 200 to 5,000 Medical Points.]

The descriptions of these four different medications made Ye Lin’s brow furrow.

The item listings only showed differences in purchase price and recommended retail range. Nothing else could be determined from them.

The differences in recommended retail range were especially striking. Some medications had a minimum permitted selling price as low as 50 Medical Points, while others could be sold for as much as 5,000.

The question was, would anyone actually pay 5,000 points for five tablets?

The recommended retail range represented the minimum and maximum selling prices permitted under the game rules, but setting a price high meant nothing if no one was willing to buy.

After a brief moment of thought, Ye Lin purchased one bottle of each of the four different painkillers from the vending machine.

She then stood looking at the four nearly identical white bottles sitting in the dispensing slot, and fell into thought.