God's Imitator

Back in his room, Huang Shengjie sat down on the sofa, broke the seal on the medicine bottle, took out one tablet and held it in his hand, waiting in silence.

But after more than ten seconds, nothing seemed to happen.

Just as Huang Shengjie was beginning to relax a little, pain suddenly hit.

It felt as though his entire body had been pierced with needles all at once. His ears rang, and his mind went completely blank in an instant.

He instinctively hunched forward and curled in on himself.

Fortunately, Huang Shengjie came to his senses quickly and rushed to put the tablet he had been holding in his hand into his mouth and swallow it.

In an instant, a strange sensation spread through his whole body, and most of the pain vanished. Every part of him relaxed completely.

There was still a noticeable stinging and burning sensation, but it was well within bearable limits.

”That works this fast?”

Huang Shengjie was briefly stunned, and felt even more relieved that he had bought medication from the Lounge without hesitation in the previous round.

Though strictly speaking, this had not actually been that painful. It was nowhere near as bad as the episode back in the community.

Even without taking the medication, toughing it out for one minute would probably have been manageable.

Huang Shengjie began to think carefully about his situation.

”No wonder every edge and corner in this room has soft padding. It’s to stop players from injuring themselves during the pain.

”In terms of severity, this is definitely ’Standard Pain,’ which means I haven’t become an ’Infected’ player.

”Having that previous bout of agonising pain in the community as a reference point makes it easy to tell.

”But what about players who haven’t been through that pain in the community? Would they misjudge?

”Probably not this time around, but according to the game, if Standard Pain keeps going without being fully suppressed by medication over multiple rounds, it’ll get worse each round and eventually become ’Special Pain.’

”In the one or two rounds just before it crosses over into Special Pain, it would already be very severe. A player who has never been through the community pain might struggle to tell the difference clearly, and could easily misjudge.

”So in my case, having been through the pain in the community actually turned a bad thing into an advantage and gave me extra information?

”Now that’s what you’d call dark irony.

”There’s still one tablet left in the bottle, so the next round shouldn’t be a problem.

”After that, I’ll still need to find opportunities to get more medication wherever I can, whether from the Doctor or from the Lounge vending machines. Even just Standard Painkillers are useful enough.

”As long as I’m not unlucky enough to be picked as an ’Infected’ player, everything should be fine.”

The next round was about to begin. Huang Shengjie stood and went to the ’Treatment Room’ door, instinctively raising his hand to press the ’Request’ button.

But he thought it over and pulled his hand back.

Because during the Lounge discussion in the previous round, what Qian Li had said had already reached a degree of consensus among some of the players there.

Any player who met with the Doctor during the first two rounds was very likely to be excluded.

If the Doctor actually agreed to see Huang Shengjie this round, he would have no way of appearing in the Lounge.

And by the time he entered the Lounge in the third round, he might already have become the player everyone was shutting out.

In terms of the game mechanics, the Doctor currently only had Standard Medication anyway, exactly the same as what Huang Shengjie had bought from the Lounge vending machine.

The Special Medication was with the Sales player, and getting it to the Doctor required two rounds: Sales to Reviewer, then Reviewer to Doctor.

So the earliest he could possibly obtain Special Medication from the Doctor would be the third round.

But simply giving up a chance to meet with the Doctor felt like a loss too.

Huang Shengjie thought about it and decided to put in a token offer of 200 Medical Points, figuring he would try his luck.

No response came.

Strangely, Huang Shengjie found himself oddly at ease with that. He had no choice but to push open the Lounge door and head in.

At the same time, Ye Lin had just been through the pain herself.

Compared to Huang Shengjie, however, her situation was considerably more comfortable, because she had Special Medication on hand.

Reviewer Shen Qingyun had recommended she take either Type C or Type M, so after returning to her room, Ye Lin had purchased another bottle of Type M and broken the seal.

She then held one Type C tablet in one hand and one Type M tablet in the other.

When the pain arrived, she took the Type C tablet first.

The medication took effect almost immediately, suppressing every trace of pain throughout her body almost instantly. She could not feel even the faintest sting.

”This painkiller works even better than I expected.

”And Shen Qingyun said Type M should be even stronger than Type C.

”Which means Type C is probably enough to suppress Standard Pain, while Type M is enough to suppress Special Pain?

”As long as I have these two types, I shouldn’t have to suffer at all in this game.

”And as Sales, I can buy any medication at any time without worrying about supply chain disruptions. I suppose that counts as one of the perks of an Advantage Identity.”

Ye Lin suddenly felt a very definite sense of security. Going by the mechanics of this game, she genuinely had no risk of dying. From here, all she needed to focus on was how to earn back her visa time.

She walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window. From there, she could see through the courtyard into the rooms of two Reviewers, two Doctors, and two VIP Patients.

In the VIP Patient room in Zone B, a player was writhing on the floor in what appeared to be considerable agony.

An open white bottle sat on the side table in front of him, suggesting he had already taken medication, but it did not seem to have done much good.

Then, with trembling hands, he tipped the white bottle completely upside down before appearing to throw the remaining tablets into his mouth.

But it was clearly doing little more than taking the edge off. He was still curled up in a ball on the sofa, shaking with pain.

”He has medication, but it’s probably just Standard Medication.

”Because even under the most efficient circumstances, Special Medication takes three rounds to reach a patient.

”He’s taken it twice, and still can’t fully suppress the pain. That’s almost certainly ’Special Pain’ he’s dealing with.

”An Infected player has appeared this early already?

”Then again, that may not entirely be a bad thing. After going through that kind of agony, players will be much more willing to buy medication.

”And he’s the VIP Patient in Zone B. I can now pin down his location. That might be useful information for the players in Zone B.”

Ye Lin thought it over and decided to send her request to Shen Qingyun’s Treatment Room first.

According to the game rules, Shen Qingyun would most likely be meeting with a Doctor this round, but Ye Lin sent the request anyway, leaving the choice of whether to meet up to her.

No response came after a while, which was to be expected. Ye Lin turned instead and sent a request to the other Reviewer, the one in Zone B.

The response came quickly. The other party accepted, and Ye Lin took her medications with her and pushed open the door.

This Reviewer was a male player. He looked very young, no more than twenty years old or so, and was quite strikingly handsome, with sharp, defined brows, bright eyes, and a high nose bridge. Among all the players Ye Lin had encountered, his looks were genuinely notable.

Ye Lin instinctively glanced down at the name badge on his chest.

[Community 8 - Xu Yiheng.]