God's Imitator

Tang Qing looked at her with some puzzlement, ”What are you talking about? This is extremely obscure information. Someone who has never tried to quit smoking would almost certainly never know about it. I don’t smoke.

”And besides, what would I gain from hiding it?”

Bai Zhilan smiled with a knowing expression, ”Oh? Just a moment ago, you told me that all three of us are intelligent people and there’s no need to pretend otherwise with any of these low-effort disguises.”

She paused briefly and continued, ”In the first two puzzles, you were the one controlling the pace of the discussion, always rushing to answer first.

”Based on your performance up to now, as someone who enjoys mystery fiction, your general knowledge is also quite broad.

”So it’s not impossible that you would know about something as niche as nicotine replacement gum.

”Of course, the real point is your reaction when you were being tested.

”It’s quite clear that this Lawyer Lin knew the correct answer, which is nicotine replacement gum, from the very beginning. He deliberately pretended not to, suggested quickly skipping the puzzle, and was using that as a test of the two of us.

”My reaction would have been the normal reaction. Even if I genuinely didn’t know, I would have spent more time thinking before giving up.

”After all, in this game, all three of us have community members involved, and it’s a Judgment Game. The information we extract could determine life and death.”But you agreed to skip it quickly and cleanly. That wasn’t quite normal.

”Perhaps you did consider putting on the same kind of act I would have in order to blend in, but at the same time you were worried: what if we kept discussing it and suddenly one of us had a flash of inspiration and hit on the right answer?

”And this Lawyer Lin’s performance was genuinely convincing, which instinctively lowered your guard.

”So in the end you decided to get the puzzle skipped quickly and leave it unresolved.

”For you, it was very important that we not have access to that piece of information, wasn’t it?”

Tang Qing held his teacup suspended in the air for a moment before resuming the motion.

”Ha. It seems the games I’ve been playing lately have been too easy. I’ve unknowingly gotten sloppy.

”Fine. You guessed correctly.”

Lin Sizhi pressed his button last. The sentence on the large screen received a ’√’ and gradually faded.

The screen did not display any new text. Instead, it switched to a live feed of another room.

Six players were locked into iron chairs, seated in a circle.

Lin Sizhi quickly spotted Lu Bingjun and Deng Xiao among them.

Tang Qing and Bai Zhilan also fell silent and looked intently at the large screen.

The ’Offender Room’ where Lu Bingjun and Deng Xiao were had many similarities with the Audience Room. It was also a pure white space with no extraneous decoration.

To ensure all players could see, large screens covered all four walls, though this also created a suffocating sense of being confined in a cage.

At the centre of the room was a wide circular platform, divided into six different sectors, each corresponding to one player.

The six players were restrained in iron chairs, seated in a circle around the platform.

On the side of the platform facing each player was a bright red timer.

And above the platform, six sharp blades were suspended in the air.

These blades appeared to have no visible support, hovering in place as though magnetically levitated, and on close observation they could be seen to tremble faintly.

As for the six players, their mouths were sealed shut by some mechanism so they could not speak, and their waists, legs, and feet were all locked in place, leaving them unable to move.

Their hands alone were free, though the only thing they could do with them was pick up a special board and a specially made marker placed in front of each of them.

They had not just woken up. They had been watching the proceedings in the Audience Room on the large screen the whole time.

Which meant they had had ample opportunity to confirm each other’s names and examine the equipment within their reach.

Deng Xiao had already carefully inspected the special board.

It was wide and heavy. On the back was a relief carving in the shape of a heart, with three thick vessels branching from it.

These vessels emitted a red glow, vivid and eye-catching. When a finger was placed against them, you could even feel a heartbeat pulsing rhythmically through them, as though they were alive.

Not only that, the pulsing rate of the heart carving on the back of the board was perfectly in sync with Deng Xiao’s own heartbeat. This perhaps also hinted at the extreme level of danger this game carried.

All six players had name badges on their chests, and they had already confirmed each other’s identities.

[Community 2 - Lu Bingjun]

[Community 7 - Li Hui]

[Community 11 - Wei Hongbing (Female)]

[Community 2 - Deng Xiao]

[Community 7 - Shi Guoliang]

[Community 11 - Xu Guangxin]

Communities 2, 7, and 11 each had two players, seated in alternating order. This meant Deng Xiao and Lu Bingjun were sitting directly across from each other.

The other players were all unfamiliar faces.

The large screens on all four walls began simultaneously displaying the game rules.

[From this point forward, players in the ’Offender Room’ will no longer be able to hear discussions from the ’Audience Room.’]

[The subsequent game will proceed over a number of rounds, each lasting 15 minutes, divided as follows: 2 minutes ’Writing Time,’ 12 minutes ’Speaking Time,’ 1 minute ’Voting Time.’]

[1. Writing Time]

[During Writing Time, two sentences will appear on your board.]

[These are related to your ’offence’ and your ’health’ respectively.]

[You may choose to copy either sentence onto your board, or you may choose not to copy either.]

[The wording may not be altered or freely embellished. Any modifications will cause the text to appear blank.]

[After writing is complete, a ’lie detection’ check will be applied. If what you have written fails the lie detection, it will be displayed in red text. Otherwise, it will be displayed in black text.]

[2. Speaking Time]

[In the first round, players speak in a randomly determined order.]

[From the second round onward, one player will be selected as the moderator and will determine the order in which all players speak.]

[All players except the moderator must keep their speaking time to within 2 minutes.]

[3. Voting Time]

[During the ’Voting Time’ of each round, players may press the name button of the corresponding player on their board to cast a ’Sudden Death Vote’ for that player.]

[Casting a ’Sudden Death Vote’ must meet at least one of the following two criteria.]

[1. ’Offence’: the player believes this individual bears significant responsibility for the relevant death, or has the most severe offence.]

[2. ’Health’: the player believes this individual’s health is extremely poor, or they carry the highest risk of sudden death.]

[Voting is subject to the lie detection mechanism. Players cannot cast votes that contradict their genuine beliefs. However, a small margin of ambiguity exists: when two players are judged to be close in severity, you may vote for either one.]

[The player who receives a ’Sudden Death Vote’ will face a penalty.]

[4. Community Assistance]

[During the Writing Time of each round, a player may press the ’Help’ button on their board to request that their community’s player in the Audience Room speak on their behalf.]

[If assistance is requested, all originally scheduled activities for that round will be cancelled. All of the free Speaking Time (12 minutes) will be used by the audience player, and the audience player may compel all players to vote according to either the ’Offence’ or ’Health’ criterion only.]

[Each community has only 1 Help opportunity. Only one community may use Help in any given round.]

[5. The Impostor]

[This game contains one ’Impostor.’]

[The Impostor will receive special system notifications, giving them access to more information than ordinary players.]

[The Impostor may bypass all lie detection mechanisms in the game and can view other players’ votes in real time.]

[The game will end immediately and proceed to settlement when either of the following two conditions occurs.]

[Condition 1: The Impostor dies.]

[Condition 2: Any other player in the inner room dies, and the Impostor chooses to end the game.]

[Under all other circumstances, the game will continue.]

[When the game ends, all surviving inner-room players will have their hearts healed and will equally share ’300% of the visa time carried by any deceased players’ as a reward.]

[6. Confession]

[Please look at the board in your hands. On it, the specific offence attributed to each of you is clearly written.]

[The next 10 minutes will be ’Confession Time.’]

[You may choose to confess immediately and receive an instant-death penalty.]

[If even one player confesses, this game will end immediately. In addition to settling under the original rules, every player will also receive an additional 5,000 minutes of visa time.]

[If no player confesses, the game will officially begin after 10 minutes.]

[Please make your choice!]