God's Imitator

Each player’s board presented a different pair of sentences, connected to that person’s offence, professional background, and lifestyle habits.

For some players, both sentences carried risk, so they had to choose the lesser of two evils.

But Shi Guoliang was different. Both times, he had an absolutely safe option available.

The first round had been ’having a dedicated medical team,’ and this round was ’eating healthy vegetables from his own farm.’

Both passed the lie detection, which meant the other players had absolutely no grounds to cast a Sudden Death Vote against him.

Under these circumstances, saying more would only expose information and create vulnerabilities unnecessarily.

So Shi Guoliang simply repeated the content of his board and let it serve as a formality.

Because Shi Guoliang’s statement was so brief, Deng Xiao found his attention drifting slightly in the time that followed.

When his own mouth restraint unlocked, he realised with a start that he had been placed second in the speaking order.

He quickly raised his board a little higher, then began explaining.[To improve training results, I regularly consume large quantities of coffee and energy drinks. (Black)]

”I drink black coffee before my morning cardio sessions. That’s not unusual, is it?

”Black coffee promotes fat breakdown, preserves muscle glycogen, delays fatigue, and improves physical performance.

”Yes, it does briefly raise the heart rate, but that only poses any real risk for people with existing heart conditions.

”For a normally healthy person, it makes no difference.

”I mean, who hasn’t had a few cups of coffee? Don’t you all agree?”

The third player to speak was the permed, wavy-haired middle-aged woman, Wei Hongbing.

[Most of my tenants are fairly satisfied with me. (Red)]

”Oh goodness, you have no idea what it’s like dealing with tenants if you’ve never been a landlord. You wouldn’t believe the kind of bizarre people out there!

”I don’t own many properties, but they’re always showing up and making a nuisance of themselves. So I generally don’t visit unless something comes up. As long as they pay on time, that’s enough for me.

”But the young people nowadays are completely out of line!

”Take the tenant who moved out last week. I went to check the place and honestly, trash everywhere. Empty food containers, plastic bags, used tissues all over the floor, absolutely nowhere to put your foot. The fridge was stuffed with half-eaten food and expired fruit, all mouldy and stinking, and nobody thought to throw any of it out!

”And the television! Someone had moved it out to the balcony! Then they couldn’t turn it on, who knows whether it was from sun exposure or getting rained on.

”You tell me, how could I not be furious with tenants like that? How am I supposed to be satisfied with them? Hmm?

”And on top of all that, the electricity, water, gas, management fees, all left unpaid. I checked and it came to over 600 in total, and then they just vanished.

”I ask you, is that fair? Let me tell you about this situation...”

Wei Hongbing seemed to be speaking from raw feeling, growing more and more animated as she went. But speaking time had its limits, and her restraint clicked shut before she could continue, which brought her to silence.

Lu Bingjun’s mouth restraint unlocked, making him the fourth player to speak.

Deng Xiao frowned slightly. That was not a good sign.

It meant Li Hui and Xu Guangxin would be the last two to speak.

As moderator, Xu Guangxin had almost certainly placed himself last, which gave him the highest strategic freedom of all.

For Lu Bingjun, the situation was somewhat delicate.

If he did not continue targeting the blonde-streaked Li Hui, Li Hui might still attack him out of spite in a later round without Lu Bingjun being able to respond in time.

But if he kept pressing Li Hui, he would become Li Hui’s primary enemy, worse than Xu Guangxin in Li Hui’s eyes, which would effectively let Xu Guangxin off the hook.

Honestly considered, Deng Xiao thought that if he were in this situation himself, he would feel somewhat at a loss.

”What is Lu Bingjun going to do?”

What actually happened surprised Deng Xiao somewhat. Lu Bingjun neither defended himself passively nor continued his attack on the blonde-streaked Li Hui.

Instead, he looked toward Wei Hongbing, who had just finished speaking, with an expression that carried something difficult to read.

”My dear, you don’t appear to be entirely honest.”

Deng Xiao was a little startled. He instinctively glanced again at the board Lu Bingjun was holding up.

[I rarely take a genuine holiday where I can truly put all my work aside. (Black)]

Lu Bingjun continued, ”All of us see two sentences on our boards. I think everyone has noticed that the first relates to our offence and primarily involves our profession, while the second relates to our health and primarily involves physical condition and lifestyle habits.

”This lady is clearly a landlord. She also vented to us about some unusual tenants, which is perfectly understandable. But does it really explain why most of her tenants are dissatisfied with her?

”There will always be difficult tenants. But what proportion, exactly?

”I would think the majority of tenants are perfectly ordinary people. They’re naturally in a weaker position and generally prefer to avoid unnecessary trouble. Unless they’ve had a sizeable deposit withheld, most can’t be bothered to argue with a landlord.

”If most of this lady’s tenants are dissatisfied with her, is that the tenants’ fault, or hers?

”Clearly, all of us here are connected to a particular case of sudden death. The sentences the Imitator has designed for us all carry clear meaning.

”This lady is a landlord. Most of her tenants are dissatisfied with her. And she frequently gets into arguments with people.

”Intense emotional volatility is itself one of the key contributing factors to sudden cardiac death.

”She says she always wins her arguments. I believe her. But what about the people she’s been arguing with?

”There’s one more thing worth noting.

”I would expect this lady to be perfectly aware that her account has quite a few obvious gaps. So why choose this sentence?

”If the other sentence contains information about her physical condition, and she really is as healthy as she claims, she should have chosen that one instead. The risk would have been lower.

”Instead, she chose to take the gamble on this one, hoping to bluff her way through.

”Could it be that the other sentence, the one about her physical condition, is far more incriminating than simply having a habit of arguing with people? Enough to potentially decide the voting outcome for this round, which is why she felt compelled to do everything she could to conceal it?

”As for myself,

”To be honest, the work pressure at my level is not trivial. Even on holiday, I need to keep my phone on and be ready to handle unexpected situations at any time.

”But I think everyone also understands that senior management has far more day-to-day freedom than ordinary employees. There’s plenty of room to take it easy during the working day.

”So you can’t judge by the standard of a regular employee’s workload.”

This sudden escalation clearly caught Wei Hongbing entirely off guard. Her face flushed red as she glared at Lu Bingjun in fury.

But just as had happened to Li Hui in the previous round, the restraint kept her mouth shut and there was nothing she could do.

A click sounded, and the blonde-streaked Li Hui’s restraint unlocked, making him the fifth player to speak.

[My sleep schedule is extremely irregular. (Black)]

He looked at Lu Bingjun, then looked at the office worker Xu Guangxin who had not yet spoken.

Xu Guangxin’s board read: [I often move house or make long commutes due to changes in my work location. (Black)]

In the previous round, the fact of Li Hui’s disordered sleep schedule had been exposed, leading him to receive the most Sudden Death Votes.

But that also meant ’disordered sleep schedule’ had now become safe information. Even writing it out would not make things worse.

He could use this sentence as cover to shield other information he was not willing to have exposed.

In this round, however, he also needed to fight back and persuade enough players to genuinely vote for someone else.