God's Imitator

The nineteenth round was about to begin.

Ye Lin waited in her room, her eyes drifting instinctively to the door leading to Zone A.

On the Zone B side, she had established a reasonably stable working relationship with Xu Yiheng. All she needed to do was bring medication over whenever he sent a request.

But Zone A had shown no progress whatsoever.

Reviewer Shen Qingyun had not opened the door for her again since their last meeting.

The good news was that the other Sales player seemed to have reached the same unspoken understanding and had also refrained from selling Type O and Type F into Zone A.

As the game went on, the pressure bearing down on Zone A would only keep building.

Ye Lin still firmly believed that Shen Qingyun, having held out this long, must be at the very limit of her resistance and could give way at any moment.

And then finally, the indicator light in the Zone A Review Room lit up.

This meant Shen Qingyun had at last accepted her request.Ye Lin quickly stood, took her medications with her, and pushed open the door.

”You’ve changed your mind?” Ye Lin sat down across from Shen Qingyun.

Shen Qingyun shook her head, ”No.”

Ye Lin paused, that was not the answer she had expected.

”Then you asked me here to...”

Shen Qingyun’s expression remained largely unchanged, ”I still only want Type M.

”Of course, you’re still free to refuse. In that case, this would be our last meeting in this game.”

Ye Lin finally found it difficult to keep her expression under control, ”So you’d rather let every player in Zone A die than abandon a pointless principle?

”Why?

”There are only six rounds left. Even if you opened up Type O and Type F right now, distributing them to patients alone would take two rounds. There wouldn’t even be enough time for any serious side effects to...”

Shen Qingyun cut her off, ”I’m not here for small talk.

”All you need to answer is yes or no.”

Ye Lin was silent for a long time, and in the end let out a helpless sigh, reached into her pocket, and placed three bottles of Type M on the table.

”This is all I have. Take them.”

Shen Qingyun nodded, ”Transaction.”

Up until this point, both Ye Lin and Bai Zhilan had been trying to sell Type O and Type F into Zone A, with Type M only available as part of a bundle. Given Shen Qingyun’s insistence on Type M alone, the two Sales players had reached an unspoken agreement to impose a blockade.

For a long stretch of time, Zone A had received no medication at all.

Shen Qingyun had stretched the initial few bottles of Type M she had obtained from Ye Lin and Bai Zhilan all the way to this point.

In this prolonged standoff, it was ultimately Ye Lin, as the Sales player, who had blinked first.

Because she had come to realise that with Shen Qingyun showing absolutely no sign of yielding, it was Ye Lin who had become the passive party.

Every player in Zone A dying would also be of no benefit to the Sales players.

Selling Type M at the recommended retail price meant very little profit, but it was better than walking away with nothing.

The two Sales players had a degree of unspoken coordination, but Ye Lin also knew that at the last moment, the other Sales player, Bai Zhilan, could just as easily abandon the arrangement and defect.

In that case, Ye Lin would be the one walking away with nothing.

Ye Lin quietly let out a sigh, ”So how exactly did you manage it?”

Now that she had the Type M in hand, Shen Qingyun’s mood seemed slightly improved. She gave a very brief reply, ”I forced all the players to endure it together.

”The time it takes for Standard Pain to convert into Special Pain is actually much longer than most players assume.

”With medication in extremely limited supply, even a malicious Infected player wouldn’t dare spread the fatal pain to others recklessly.

”No machine trading for medication, to avoid cross-infection.”

Ye Lin let out a slow breath, ”Impressive.

”Your performance in this game was that of the strongest Reviewer here.”

Shen Qingyun shook her head, ”I’m not particularly strong. I just happened to have a certain professional habit.”

The transaction was completed quickly.

Ye Lin was quiet for a moment, then asked, ”If the two of us as Sales players had ultimately decided not to sell you Type M, would you really have watched the players in Zone A die?”

Shen Qingyun looked at her and gave no definitive answer.

”If I said yes, would you believe me?

”Either way, I won.”

Ye Lin nodded and said, ”Yes, you won.

”But the players in Zone A may not thank you for it.”

Shen Qingyun said simply, ”It doesn’t matter. I’m used to it.”

At the same time, Huang Shengjie was in his room staring at the layout diagram on the wall, trying to recall the information Lin Sizhi had shared with him.

As agreed, this round everyone was staying in their rooms to think through the strategy and make calls to other players to collect information. They would reconvene in the Lounge the following round.

”Qin Cheng is in Zone D as a Doctor. Ye Lin is the Sales player for Zones A and B, which means the room in this upper-right corner...

”Such bad luck. If our community’s players had all ended up in the same zone, this game would have been so much simpler.

”Sales, Reviewer, Doctor, Patient, all our own people. We could have played it however we liked.

”Hmm? Wait. The Imitator would have thought of that when designing the game, wouldn’t they?

”If the forty players were assigned identities in a purely random way, that kind of situation could easily arise, and that would be completely unacceptable to the Imitator.

”So there must be a hidden rule that either puts community members in different zones, or limits how many can be in the same zone to two at most.

”Which means the Imitator’s community of five players would also be scattered across the zones.

”Maybe the Imitator asked the other four players to stir things up separately? In other words, tried to run black-shop operations the way Qian Li and Zhang Yuan mentioned?

”But Lawyer Lin said he hadn’t spotted any obvious signs of a black-shop operation.

”Right, because if that were the case, four players simultaneously stirring things up across four zones would be far too conspicuous. The Imitator themselves would also risk being exposed.

”So the Imitator is probably a lone wolf.

”Still completely without a clue though. If I had to pick, I’d honestly just go for Chen Guangming, because he seems the most suspicious.

”But he’s already been accused once, and that vote failed badly.

”Without new evidence, accusing him again would produce the same result.”

At that moment, another system broadcast came through.

[A player has chosen to spend all Medical Points to accuse an Imitator.]

[Accusation begins.]

”Even though the last accusation ended in disappointment, there are still players out there trying, same as us.

”That makes sense. At this point, plenty of players have had their Medical Points and even their visa time drained dry. For them, it makes no difference whether they get deducted or not.

”When your Medical Points are already gone, not using this opportunity to accuse someone would be the real waste.

”But this probably isn’t going to lead anywhere.

”Even with all the information Lawyer Lin shared with us, we still couldn’t work it out. Other players would have even less to go on.”

But when the next part of the broadcast came through, Huang Shengjie could not help pausing.

Because he heard a familiar name.

”I am Qin Cheng, a Doctor in Zone D. The player I am accusing is the other Doctor in Zone D, Feng Yuguang.”