God's Imitator

The last person to follow Lu Bingjun into the community lobby was a young man with disheveled hair. He looked as though he had not quite woken up yet and seemed a little unclear on the current situation.

However, after his gaze swept across the people in the lobby, he suddenly broke into an expression of delighted surprise and said, ”Hey? Qin Cheng! What are you doing here?”

Everyone followed his gaze and saw a slender young man wearing narrow-framed glasses, who also looked somewhat surprised. He had been chatting with another player by the window and now stood up to come over.

”Shengjie, long time no see. It’s been about five or six years since high school graduation, right?”

The other man nodded and said, ”It has! Time flies, five or six years just like that.”

Lu Bingjun was a little taken aback and said, ”Oh? You two know each other? Perfect timing, let’s all do a round of self-introductions and get to know one another.”

Everyone took their seats around the long table.

Lin Sizhi did a quick scan of the room and confirmed that the number of people in the community had indeed changed to 14, which was why the number of chairs around the long table had also changed.

The two young men who had greeted each other and were clearly already acquainted naturally sat down together.

Lu Bingjun took a seat at the head of the long table and continued to lead the conversation.”This time, Community 2 is welcoming 5 new members, both new and veteran players. On behalf of Community 2, allow me to extend a warm welcome to everyone!

”Some of the new players may know nothing about the New World yet, but that’s alright. I’ll arrange for veteran members to guide and brief each of you individually and in detail a little later.

”The first order of business right now is to get to know each other, because starting today, we are all comrades who will be entrusting our lives to one another in the Gallery.

”Let me start by introducing the veteran members of Community 2.”

The situation at this moment was somewhat different from when Lin Sizhi had first entered Community 17.

Everyone in Community 17 had been entering the New World for the first time and knew nothing about each other, so they had each introduced themselves in order of their player numbers.

But the 9 players in Community 2 were all survivors of the First Stage, who were already familiar with one another, and Lu Bingjun was clearly a figure in the community similar to a leader.

So the introductions for the veteran members were handled entirely by Lu Bingjun.

Lin Sizhi mentally noted down the basic information about these players.

Player No. 2, Yao Yuan, male, 28, company employee.

Player No. 3, Deng Xiao, male, 31, fitness trainer.

Player No. 4, Wen Wan, female, 27, e-commerce.

Player No. 5, Lu Bingjun, male, 42, company executive.

Player No. 6, Geng Yuxia, female, 59, self-employed.

Player No. 7, He Qinyun, female, 30, product manager.

Player No. 8, Ye Lin, female, 34, blogger.

Player No. 10, Zheng Chunhua, male, 44, middle school teacher.

Player No. 11, Zhou Wanlin, female, 35, administrative director.

These were the players who had already been in this community during the First Stage.

In addition, there were five newly joined players.

Player No. 1, Qin Cheng, male, 25, medical student, entering the New World for the first time.

Player No. 9, Shen Bowen, female, 29, mechanical engineer.

Player No. 12, Lin Sizhi.

Player No. 13, Lu Qi, female, 23, university student, entering the New World for the first time.

Player No. 14, Huang Shengjie, male, 25, unemployed, entering the New World for the first time.

Among the five newcomers, both Lin Sizhi and Shen Bowen had gone through the First Stage games, and it was only because their original communities had been dissolved and restructured that they were joining the current community as outsiders.

Qin Cheng, Lu Qi, and Huang Shengjie, on the other hand, were entirely new players, at least judging by their behavior.

Huang Shengjie and Qin Cheng had been high school classmates and knew each other in real life. Based on what they described, however, they had gone off to study in different cities after graduating from high school and lost touch after that.

Now reuniting as new players, it was hard to say whether that was fortunate or unfortunate.

After listening to the five new players introduce themselves, Lu Bingjun looked at Qin Cheng with a pleasantly surprised expression and said, ”You’re a medical student?”

Qin Cheng nodded.

Huang Shengjie jumped in and said, ”Qin Cheng was the top student in our entire high school! I’ve always thought going into medicine was a waste of his talent. Someone like him should be out there building airplanes and rockets.”

Lu Bingjun gave Qin Cheng an approving nod and said, ”Doctors are a rare commodity around here. Work hard and do your best.”

He then turned to look at Lin Sizhi and Shen Bowen, the two veteran players from the First Stage, who clearly did not know any of the current community’s players and had never met them before.

”Is there anything the two of you would like to ask? Feel free to speak openly.”

It was clear that the three new players, Qin Cheng, Lu Qi, and Huang Shengjie, had only just entered the New World. While they were full of questions, those questions were all of a general, informational nature and easy to answer.

They would not have any real impact on the community’s existing dynamics.

Lin Sizhi and Shen Bowen, however, were veteran players who would inevitably have developed their own habits and understanding of community building and Gallery games, which made them the ones who needed to be given particular attention.

Once an ”experienced outsider” failed to integrate smoothly into the community, the disruption they could cause would be far greater than that of a new player.

Lin Sizhi thought for a moment, then asked, ”What type of game did you go through as your first game, and what was it called?”

Lu Bingjun replied, ”A distribution-type game with full participation, ’Flower Tile Poker.’”

Lin Sizhi then looked over at Shen Bowen. She had introduced herself as a mechanical engineer, and she did carry a certain quality distinctly characteristic of women in technical fields.

Shen Bowen said, ”Also a distribution-type game with full participation, ’Jigsaw Poker.’”

Lin Sizhi nodded and said, ”The game I participated in was ’Blood Poker.’”

Everyone quickly grasped the implication behind this.

Shen Bowen said, looking thoughtful, ”That means we come from at least three different ’regions.’”

During the first distribution-type game, the Gallery had described it as having ”full participation,” and the ”full participants” at that time had included all players from Communities 1 through 20.

But it was now clear that there was more than one ”region” made up of Communities 1 through 20.

So each region had participated in a different first distribution-type game.

Lu Bingjun looked toward the large screen and said, ”Pull up the game rules for ’Flower Tile Poker.’”

However, the large screen did not display the corresponding rules as expected. Only a single line of text appeared.

[No matching game found.]

Lu Bingjun paused, then said, ”Look up all game rules.”

Under normal circumstances, a special page resembling an encyclopedia website should have appeared at this point, with game names listed on the left and the specific rules for each game on the right.

That page should have compiled every game that had appeared up to that point.

But the page was completely empty, containing only one line of text.

[No relevant records found.]

Lu Bingjun paused for a moment, but quickly realized the reason.

”After entering the Second Stage, all game records from the First Stage have been wiped?

”...Well, that’s fine too. Let’s just treat it as letting go of the past and starting fresh.”