God's Imitator

Huang Shengjie had been about to push the Lounge door open, but the strange sensation gradually intensified, making it difficult to move at all.

The more he tried to endure it, the stronger the awful feeling became.

Not only that, all the negative emotions inside him seemed to be continuously amplifying, and the hunger that had nearly faded after taking the Type O tablet came surging back.

Without quite realising it, Huang Shengjie sank to the floor and curled up there, trembling, and it was a long time before he came back to himself.

Because he had not taken any medication to suppress the pain, by the time he recovered, the window for opening the door had already passed.

Fortunately, he had enough medication on hand, and missing one round in the Lounge was not a critical problem.

The awful sensation eased slightly, but the hunger he had been holding back came roaring back in full force.

”I’m so hungry.

”Maybe I should eat just a little something to tide myself over.

”Eating something can’t hurt.”Huang Shengjie forced himself to his feet and went to the vending machine to look.

As a general rule, even in longer games, most players did not buy much food.

Partly because it was expensive, and partly out of concern that too many carbohydrates would slow their reactions and dull their thinking.

After all, even the longest games only ran four or five hours. A little hunger was manageable.

But this game was different.

The food and drinks in this game were very affordable, even cheaper than in the community, and perhaps because of the effort of enduring pain, energy was draining from players unusually fast.

So the impulse to eat something light, restore a little energy, and take one’s mind off things was a natural one.

”Just a small amount.”

After some deliberation, Huang Shengjie passed on the substantial-looking dishes and rice bowls and other proper meal options.

He ordered a small cup of instant noodles and a small piece of cream bread to tide himself over.

Before long, a steaming cup of noodles appeared in the vending machine’s dispensing slot, filling the room with a wonderful aroma.

He had not thought he was particularly hungry before, but now he could hold back no longer. He grabbed the chopsticks that came with it and began eating in large, rapid mouthfuls.

The noodles and the bread were both gone in short order.

But Huang Shengjie’s hunger not only failed to subside, it grew stronger.

Strictly speaking, this hunger did not feel like it was coming from his stomach. It felt more like it was coming from somewhere much deeper inside him.

Like a gaping void that nothing could fill no matter how hard one tried.

Huang Shengjie felt profoundly unhappy. He had been stuck in this awful place for so long, enduring so much suffering. Was a small cup of instant noodles really all he was entitled to?

Was he not even allowed to enjoy some proper food?

Everything on the menu was cheaper than it was in the community.

You could not take too much medication, but food was different. The food itself could not possibly have any side effects. The game rules had not mentioned any, and there was no way the Imitator could violate the Gallery’s underlying rules by poisoning the food or setting some kind of trap in it.

The time for meeting with other players had long since passed anyway. The ten minutes of this round could only be spent in the room, so he might as well forget everything for a while and have a proper meal.

Driven almost entirely by instinct, Huang Shengjie bought a portion of fried chicken from the vending machine, along with an alcoholic drink.

He did not even bother putting on the disposable gloves that came with the order, simply grabbing the chicken and tearing into it in large bites.

And so the round passed.

Without noticing, the awful sensation had disappeared, but Huang Shengjie kept eating.

By the time he came back to himself, all he felt was a painfully bloated stomach, as though his gut was about to burst, with everything he had eaten seeming to be pushed all the way up to his throat, threatening to spill over at any moment.

Only then did he realise he had eaten himself completely full.

He looked at the side table. The various items of food had been very nearly demolished, and the amount gave even himself a start.

Without quite noticing, he had eaten a great deal.

And then, the pain hit again.

This time it was Standard Pain, which was not normally a serious problem.

Huang Shengjie was about to reach for a Type I tablet, but under the influence of the pain, his stomach suddenly lurched and heaved, and he rushed to the bathroom and vomited.

Pain. Hunger. Despair. All the negative emotions came flooding back.

All Huang Shengjie could do was reach on pure instinct for a Type I tablet, force it into his mouth and swallow it, then clamp his hand over his mouth and will himself not to bring it back up.

Fortunately the medication took effect quickly. Huang Shengjie sat against the bathroom wall on the floor, gasping for breath.

But before long, the crawling, ant-like sensation returned through his whole body, and his mood plummeted once again to the lowest point it had reached.

He forced down the urge to take another Type O tablet, struggled to his feet, pressed the flush handle, then went to the sink and washed his face, scrubbing it hard.

Then he looked at himself in the mirror with a somewhat bewildered expression and felt a rush of regret for everything he had just done.

”That was wrong. I should not have eaten like that.

”Was my appetite being amplified somehow?

”Or did the pain weaken my willpower to the point where I could no longer suppress the urge?”

It was clear that bingeing had done nothing to fill that hollow feeling. If anything, it had only made things worse.

Huang Shengjie pushed open the door and went into the Lounge, where the other players were also filing in one by one.

He noticed that Zhou Xiaoying also had an uncomfortable expression on her face.

The difference from Huang Shengjie was that Zhou Xiaoying had not chosen to endure it. She had immediately tipped another tablet out of her bottle and swallowed it.

The bottle was empty after that last tablet.

Rather than throwing the empty bottle away, she put it back in her pocket, since it might still come in useful as a container if medication ended up being traded tablet by tablet later.

But it also meant Zhou Xiaoying had in fact taken more Type O than Huang Shengjie had.

Zhou Xiaoying noticed something was off about Huang Shengjie too.

He had not appeared in the Lounge last round, and now he was pale, shaking all over, cold sweat seeping steadily from his forehead.

The reaction was even more pronounced than what someone might show after just enduring Special Pain.

Because Special Pain disappeared completely at the start of a new round. However bad it had been in the moment, players could recover gradually once it passed.

But Huang Shengjie was in the middle of genuine, ongoing suffering right now.

Zhou Xiaoying stepped forward with a look of concern and asked, ”What happened? Were you selected as an Infected player again? Don’t you still have Special Medication?

”Take the medication. Don’t try to tough it out.”

Seeing Zhou Xiaoying’s own state, Huang Shengjie was now completely certain the problem lay with the Type O.

The crawling, ant-like sensation was absolutely not the ’Standard Pain’ or ’Special Pain’ imposed by the game’s rules.

It was a side effect of the Type O medication.

More precisely, it fit the definition of ’drug dependence’ exactly. It was withdrawal pain.

”Stop taking the medication.

”Haven’t you realised? Type O is addictive.

”The pain mechanisms in the game rules are only Standard Pain and Special Pain, which is the pain that hits randomly for one minute during the final two minutes of each round.

”Anything beyond that, any pain or discomfort you feel outside of that window, is not a game mechanic. It’s a side effect of the medication.

”Taking more medication can temporarily resolve the problem, but it only makes the withdrawal pain worse each time, because what you’re feeling is not actually pain. It’s the effect of drug addiction.”

Zhou Xiaoying froze. It was clear she had not thought about it this way before, and had instinctively treated the crawling sensation as some kind of extension of the game’s pain mechanics, dealing with it the straightforward way by taking another tablet.

After all, one tablet was not expensive, and once swallowed it immediately eliminated all the pain, even lifting her mood and sharpening her thinking.

Both of them turned to look at Qian Li at the same time.

Qian Li’s expression was perfectly composed. She showed no reaction whatsoever.

”Why are you both looking at me? I’m an Infected player too. I took the medication as well.”