God's Imitator

Lu Bingjun quietly let out a long breath, ”It was worse than that.

”The rounds that followed were fairly uneventful in terms of the game itself. What genuinely shocked us was the crimes they chose to reveal.

”Let me tell you everything all three of them confessed in one go.

”The real Imitator within the community was not Wei Changfeng. It was Gao Teng.

”At some point after one of the earlier games, Gao Teng had privately told Wei Changfeng about his identity as the Imitator.

”Gao Teng had originally intended to reveal his identity to the entire community, but Wei Changfeng stopped him, told him to keep it secret, and asked that the information be shared with him alone.

”Wei Changfeng didn’t ask for everything, only that after being selected for a game, Gao Teng would share certain core rules or details in advance.

”But even that limited amount of information was enough to give Wei Changfeng an enormous advantage in the games.”

Shen Bowen considered this for a moment, ”Was it because sharing everything might shorten an Imitator’s life? It seems like Wei Changfeng and Gao Teng had already worked that out early on.

”They knew far more about the Imitator situation than the rest of you.”Qin Cheng’s brow furrowed slightly, ”That being said, Wei Changfeng may have had his own interests at heart, but he did still treat Gao Teng as a genuine brother.”

Lu Bingjun was quiet for a moment, ”That’s hard to say.

”Because looking at the confession content that came later, what Wei Changfeng did didn’t seem to come from any real care for Gao Teng as a person. It looked more like he treated Gao Teng as something too valuable to let go of.

”Wei Changfeng was simply afraid that if Gao Teng died too soon, he would never find another Imitator who would listen to him unconditionally and pass along key rules.”

Huang Shengjie looked as though he couldn’t quite accept this conclusion, ”Is that just your interpretation? Isn’t that a bit too harsh a reading?”

Lu Bingjun let out another sigh, ”Let me finish.

”This isn’t my personal reading of the situation. It’s the content of the confessions made by all three of them during the game, recorded clearly in the game logs.

”Because of the nature of the game, and in order to make the most of their material, they revealed everything gradually, moving from lighter to heavier, and reusing what they could.

”I’ve only adjusted the order slightly to make it easier to follow, but I haven’t added or embellished anything.

”Every veteran member present can vouch for that.

”In Wei Changfeng’s own confessions, he stated that he had been using a particular method to maintain control over Gao Teng all along.

”Gao Teng had always carried a particular feeling toward Xu Yili. He saw her as an older sister, or a mother figure, with a strong sense of emotional attachment.

”His feelings toward Wei Changfeng were far more complicated. On one hand, Wei Changfeng had shown him a great deal of care and he had come to see Wei Changfeng as a dependable older brother. On the other hand, the relationship between Wei Changfeng and Xu Yili gave rise to a particular kind of jealousy in him.

”He knew, of course, that he should get his feelings in order and keep his mistaken thoughts suppressed, but the effort of suppressing them only made his suffering worse over time.

”He had already grown tired of the Gallery long before any of this, and one could even say that from the moment he first entered it, he had been prepared to die in any game at any time.

”It was only Wei Changfeng and Xu Yili who had pulled him back, again and again.

”Wei Changfeng had known about this state of mind from the very beginning.

”And if anything, deep down, his predominant feeling toward Gao Teng was one of distaste.

”But he couldn’t afford to let Gao Teng go.

”Wei Changfeng’s performance in earlier games was clearly a step above mine and Ye Lin’s, but the extra information Gao Teng passed along had played a significant role in that.

”And in many of those games, it was actually Gao Teng who had found the breakthrough, only for Gao Teng to voluntarily hand all the credit to Wei Changfeng when they debriefed back at the community.

”Wei Changfeng admitted himself that without Gao Teng, he would most likely be unable to maintain that level of performance. Not only would his position as a core game player be under threat, but his standing as community leader would probably not survive either.

”He had even discussed this privately with Xu Yili.

”Xu Yili was fully aware of how Gao Teng felt about her, and found it deeply troubling, but at Wei Changfeng’s insistence, she had no choice but to keep playing the role Gao Teng had built around her in his mind.

”This arrangement could have continued for a long time. Wei Changfeng and Xu Yili weren’t especially convincing performers, but Gao Teng would talk himself out of his doubts and force himself not to dwell on them.

”But in this game, everything was stripped bare.”

Huang Shengjie was struck dumb by the sudden flood of information. Without much ceremony, he cut in.

”Hold on.

”That’s an enormous amount to take in. Brother Lu, give me a moment to process this.

”Is all of that really what the three of them confessed during the game?”

Lu Bingjun gave a somewhat reluctant nod, ”Yes.

”Your reaction is completely understandable, because it was exactly this part that left us struggling to believe what we were reading when we first went through the game records.

”As I said, they revealed everything gradually during the confessions, moving from lighter to heavier and splitting things carefully, making sure each piece continued to shock the other side.

”So the part about Wei Changfeng and Xu Yili’s true feelings toward Gao Teng was only brought out at the very end.

”By that point, the game was approaching its final rounds.”

Shen Bowen had already begun to feel a sense of dread, ”That information must have been devastating for Gao Teng.

”To find out that the older brother and sister he had always respected had, from the very beginning, seen him as nothing more than a useful tool, and that every kindness and gesture of care had been a performance.

”Even more than that, Wei Changfeng and Xu Yili had been deliberately exploiting his distorted emotional state to maintain control over him.

”His mental state was already extremely fragile, and then this kind of extreme shock in the middle of a Judgment Game. Whatever he did next, it wouldn’t be surprising.”

Lu Bingjun quietly let out another long breath, ”It played out exactly as you’d expect.

”Up to that point, both sides had been consciously distributing the penalty counts to avoid losing anyone first.

”But that had also pushed the game, unavoidably, toward something far more brutal.

”Zheng Qingyun had apparently made a deliberate effort to expose more of the domestic abuser’s crimes, and as a result, the domestic abuser was the first to die, in Round 28.

”Round 29 began, and Gao Teng was the first to take a hit.

”At that point, the player to Zheng Qingyun’s left had devices activated up to the waist. Two more penalty counts and he would die.

”Zheng Qingyun, Wei Changfeng, Gao Teng, and Xu Yili all had devices activated up to the chest. One more penalty count and any of them would die.

”None of them had probably imagined the other side would prove so hard to break, that it would come all the way down to a single round deciding everything.

”By any reasonable judgment, none of the players still in the game should have been taking hits, because no one could survive another penalty count.

”The game seemed to have circled back to where it started, with the winner to be decided by the initial two cards alone.

”But Gao Teng chose to take a hit and confess.

”He took two cards.”