God's Imitator

Huang Shengjie was stunned, finding it somewhat difficult to comprehend for a moment.

"How is this possible?

"How could the first batch of medicine be fake?

"Are these audience members lying?

"They deliberately claim these medicines are ineffective to trick players from other communities not to buy them, then they buy up all the remaining medicine themselves?

"But that can’t be, the players from other communities have already bought the medicine, they can easily verify it themselves.

"If the medicine is effective, the words from Community 7 and Community 22 would be completely meaningless.

"But if the medicine is ineffective... how could that be?

"How did it only get discovered now?"

Huang Shengjie asked several questions in a row but received no response.

He turned his head to look and saw Ye Lin’s eyes wide open, also showing a shocked expression.

But she clearly realized something, looked at the big screen in disbelief, her body slightly trembling.

...

Inside the court, Zeng Yiming (the store manager) no longer had his previous calm, looking somewhat disheveled and upset.

"How could the medicine be ineffective?

"Impossible, it must be these two Audience Communities spreading fake news!

"All five of us absolutely voted with genuine coins!

"Isn’t that right?

"I’m asking you! Answer me!"

Zeng Yiming’s angry gaze swept across the faces of the other players, but except for Liang Guicheng, the other three players all averted their eyes, not daring to respond.

Zeng Yiming seemed to realize something.

He forcibly suppressed his anger and approached He Qing (the installer): "Do we really have to do it this way? Must you ensure that we’re all doomed with no burial place to satisfy you?

"Your pharmacy room is indeed dangerous, extreme cold or heat can cause hypothermia or heatstroke. From this perspective, I can understand your desire to be sly, but why would you gamble with all our lives!"

The other players also looked at He Qing in unison.

Clearly, if a problem arose from among these five players, He Qing was the most suspicious one.

Because He Qing’s pharmacy room is the most dangerous and also directly determines the good rate of the medicine.

Or rather, the good rate is jointly decided by He Qing and Zhao Xiuying.

He Qing can choose between two extreme environments, extreme cold or heat, both of which could threaten his health.

The longer he persists in such an environment, the more time Zhao Xiuying has to process the materials.

Only if both He Qing and Zhao Xiuying persist for the maximum time can they ensure the medicine has the highest good rate.

But conversely, if He Qing chooses to use fake coins, even if everything seems normal on the surface, the medicine’s good rate will crash, becoming zero.

All the medicines will become defective, and the other processes will naturally become meaningless.

He Qing shouted angrily: "Are you out of your mind? Why is it when there’s a problem, you come to me first?

"Don’t you want to think about why I would do this?

"I can see the situation with Liang Guicheng’s voting! He used fake coins right from the start!

"So whatever I vote with doesn’t matter, the medicine was already ruined! That’s why I voted with fake coins, got it?

"And, you think the two of them are innocent?"

He Qing pointed at Zhao Xiuying and Wen Wan: "This lady can see my voting too, but she didn’t expose me, why? She must have used fake coins too!

"So, is this my fault?

"It was Liang Guicheng who voted with fake coins first, so what can the three of us do? We can only follow suit and vote with fake coins!

"Because voting with genuine coins doesn’t make any sense anymore!"

Everyone turned to look at Liang Guicheng again.

Liang Guicheng (the Fruit Farmer) looked pale: "Bu-but, Zeng Yiming voted with fake coins! I saw it clearly!

"If he hadn’t voted first, how would I dare to?

"His section affects the medicine’s efficacy. He used fake coins, so the medicine was already ineffective, no matter what I did!"

Zhao Xiuying stepped forward, angrily shrieking: "Oh, you learned fast, parroting others?

"Do you think you can keep shirking responsibility and stay safe? Trying to fish in troubled waters?

"Do you think we would believe this nonsense?

"You’re the first one who voted with fake coins!"

He Qing’s face turned ashen: "Liang, don’t think we don’t know about your calculated scheme.

"You know, as long as you use fake coins, the entire medicine chain is ruined, and we’re afraid to expose you, so the only option is to collude with you.

"That’s indeed the case. I saw you use fake coins, and in a moment of weakness, I didn’t expose you. I wanted to see the reaction from the audience.

"But I forgot that if there’s a problem with this batch of medicine, the efficacy issue is the first to be discovered, so I and this lady became your scapegoats. Well played!

"You truly deserve hell!"

The five players inside were already engaged in a heated argument.

The chaotic broadcast kept going off.

[Liang Guicheng had 1 sympathy vote retracted.]

[Liang Guicheng had 1 sympathy vote retracted.]

[He Qing had 1 sympathy vote retracted.]

[Zeng Yiming received 1 sympathy vote.]

It’s apparent that tracing back to where the problem started has become a mess, but the objective fact is that these medicines have been verified to have no efficacy.

In this situation, the audience will redistribute sympathy votes based on their level of hatred toward the inner court players.

...

Huang Shengjie was somewhat puzzled. He returned to the console.

"How are they retracting sympathy votes?"

When he clicked ’retract sympathy votes’ again, the cover next to the console clicked open, but it was still empty inside.

But this time, Huang Shengjie quickly figured it out.

"This place... is where the medicine is deposited."

The game rules vaguely said that ’a significant cost is required to retract sympathy votes,’ but it never specified what the cost would be.

Now Huang Shengjie finally understood: players deposit the purchased medicine here and can retract some of the sympathy votes they cast.

A lot of medicines are required, equivalent to a considerable amount of visa time, which indeed fits the description of ’a significant cost.’

But medicine and visa time are not the same.

If visa time must be used to retract sympathy votes, most players would be reluctant.

Perhaps they would just choose to accept this silently.

But if the cost is paid by depositing medicine... then many of the audience members would not hesitate at all.

...

The broadcast continued, with more and more sympathy votes being retracted and reassigned to others.

But only Zeng Yiming hadn’t had any sympathy votes retracted.

Those who purchased the medicine were in an extremely angry and irrational state, but even so, they clearly recognized that among the five sinners, Zeng Yiming was the least likely to have used fake coins, and the only one qualified to survive in this elimination game.