God's Imitator

After entering the Lounge, Huang Shengjie instinctively scanned the faces of all the players.

Nothing seemed particularly different from before.

”As expected. Still no way to tell if there’s a new Infected player in here.”

Huang Shengjie gave up on the attempt.

This was the thirteenth round, which meant the game had passed its halfway point. With the third hour now underway, a new Infected player had probably already appeared.

But all the players coming into the Lounge looked perfectly normal.

And of course, Sales, Doctor, and Reviewer players could also be selected as Infected.

So after his fruitless attempt to identify anyone, Huang Shengjie let it go. The odds of finding anything useful were low.

The other VIP Patient room door was still shut, and Zhang Yuan was still being shunned by everyone.

The players went through the motions again, each taking a folding chair and sitting down.Huang Shengjie stood and went over to the vending machine, falling into thought.

With Special Medication now in circulation, the limited-quantity Type I Painkiller available from the Lounge was no longer as precious as it had once been.

The purchase limit was still in place, but players were no longer scrambling for it the way they had before, and there were often bottles left over.

Huang Shengjie had been using Type I to manage his Standard Pain all along, and at this point had only one tablet remaining.

By rights, he should have bought more immediately, but he found himself hesitating.

”Should I actually buy it?”

The Type I medication in the Lounge came in bottles of two tablets at 800 Medical Points each, which worked out to 400 per tablet.

According to the rules, the Doctor also carried Type I medication, and while the rules did not specify the price, logic suggested it would be cheaper than the Lounge.

The problem was that Huang Shengjie had not been able to see the Doctor at all this whole time, so there was no way for him to buy Type I at a lower price.

Which meant the question of whether the price was worth it could not be avoided.

After all, the Type O he had bought from Qian Li was 500 per bottle, which worked out to only 100 per tablet.

Type I cost four times as much.

And since one Type O tablet was enough to fully suppress even Special Pain, it would certainly have no trouble handling Standard Pain.

By any measure, continuing to buy Type I from the Lounge felt like throwing money away.

But after thinking it over carefully, Huang Shengjie made up his mind and bought another bottle of Type I anyway.

Meanwhile, Zhou Xiaoying went over to Qian Li on her own initiative and said, ”Qian Li, could you sell me two more bottles of Type O?”

Qian Li nodded and said, ”Of course. How many do you want?”

Zhou Xiaoying said, ”Two bottles, at the same price as before?”

Qian Li nodded and said, ”1,000 points total.

”I already told all of you before, this price already includes a profit margin. This medication is naturally quite cheap to stock.

”I could ask for more, but there’s no need. After all, we’re all players, and in a life-or-death game like this, none of us has it easy. We should be helping each other.”

Zhou Xiaoying looked genuinely touched, ”Alright, thank you so much!”

The two of them went to the trading machine and completed the transaction.

Qian Li appeared to have stocked up quite well on Type O. Even after selling to Zhou Xiaoying, she seemed to still have supply left over.

As for Zhang Yuan, he had by this point largely stopped engaging with the others in the Lounge, and was also no longer buying from Qian Li.

He had obtained Special Medication from the Doctor on his own, and while Qian Li had claimed his Type F came with stronger side effects, that had not been verified.

His Special Pain had presumably been cured, though whether it had been cured using Type F or something else was impossible to judge.

Watching Zhou Xiaoying finish her purchase, Du Peng seemed to consider doing the same, but in the end said nothing and remained quiet.

Qian Li glanced over at him, ”Do you need to buy any?”

Du Peng shook his head and said, ”Thank you, but not for now.”

Qian Li said nothing more and returned to her seat.

Huang Shengjie looked at Du Peng with a trace of envy, ”You’ve really been lucky. Not Infected once the whole time.

”Neither passed it by another player, nor picked by the system.”

He could not be entirely certain of this, since it was possible Du Peng had been Infected and quietly cured himself using the Type O he had bought earlier without anyone noticing.

But the more likely scenario was that Du Peng had not been Infected at all.

Because Du Peng had only bought one bottle of Type O from Qian Li, and if he had been Infected, he would have used three tablets already and would almost certainly have restocked by now.

Since he had not restocked, that suggested Du Peng’s tablets were still untouched.

Du Peng’s overall approach to the game had also been more conservative and cautious than the others. Whenever he needed Type I medication, he would try to get into the Lounge as early as possible and grab a bottle from the vending machine first, which kept his risk of infection to a minimum.

But it was clear that with Standard Pain continuing to worsen, a conversion to Special Pain was only a matter of time.

Once Qian Li had returned to her seat, Huang Shengjie quickly pulled Zhou Xiaoying aside.

”Were you planning to use Type O instead of Type I to deal with the Standard Pain?

”But aren’t you worried about the side effects?

”Type I may be expensive, but as the basic medication it should be the safest option.”

Zhou Xiaoying lowered her voice and explained, ”That’s true, but we still need to stockpile a bit in case of emergencies.

”Right now Qian Li seems generous enough and the prices she’s offering are reasonable, but who knows what happens down the line?

”If we get Infected again and desperately need medication, what if Qian Li suddenly turns on us? What if she raises the price tenfold? Would we buy it or not?

”Buying now is like buying an umbrella on a sunny day, so that if we’re Infected again later, we’ll definitely have something to save us.

”Of course, it’s also possible Qian Li keeps the price at this level the whole time and is content with the current margin, but why gamble on that?

”Either way, this medication is almost certainly not going to get cheaper down the line. It’ll only get more expensive.

”As for side effects, we don’t actually know what the real-world counterpart of this medication is, so there’s no way to verify whether there are any side effects or not.

”All I can say is that my body feels fine so far.

”One tablet at a time, as long as I don’t take too many, there shouldn’t be any major problem.

”And if you’re really worried, you can always alternate between this and Type I.”

Huang Shengjie thought it over and found that Zhou Xiaoying’s reasoning made some sense.

The supply of Type O was still firmly in Qian Li’s hands. The fact that she had not raised prices yet did not mean she never would.

A few rounds from now, she might say stocks were running low and use that as a reason to charge more.

By artificially creating a sense of scarcity, she could easily drive up the price, and by that point there would be no alternative but to pay it.

Right now, with no Infected players currently in the Lounge and everyone in relatively good health, there was no opportune moment for Qian Li to raise prices even if she wanted to. Doing so would arouse suspicion.

So buying from her at this point, she would almost certainly keep to the existing price to avoid raising eyebrows.

Stockpiling two bottles of Type O in advance the way Zhou Xiaoying was doing was genuinely a way of hedging against risk.

If they became Infected again later, they would have the medication ready to save themselves.

And even if they did not get Infected, it was not as though the medication would be useless. It could also be used to fully eliminate Standard Pain and spare them some suffering.

Without the relevant professional knowledge, the very concrete issue of price was a more pressing concern than the vague possibility of side effects.

With that thought, Huang Shengjie went over to Qian Li as well, ”Hello. I’d like to buy one more bottle.”

He did not feel he needed to stockpile as aggressively as Zhou Xiaoying had. He still had two tablets left in his current bottle, and buying one more would give him seven tablets in total, which would be enough to cure Special Pain twice over.

Qian Li said nothing, simply nodded, and completed the transaction with Huang Shengjie quickly.