God's Imitator

The sudden broadcast hit Zhao Xiuying like a bolt of lightning. She stared at the other offenders in disbelief, frozen in place for a moment.

A moment later, the broadcast sounded again.

[The results of the First Trial vote for Zhao Xiuying (Stall Owner) are as follows:]

[Guilty: 18]

[Not Guilty: 9]

[Charge established in the First Trial. The offender will receive the Instant Death Penalty.]

Zhao Xiuying cried out almost instinctively, ”Pre-borrow the Death Exemption Ticket! Pre-borrow it now!”

A moment later, she glanced anxiously at her own bracelet, touching her wrist repeatedly to confirm nothing unusual was happening, that it hadn’t broken her skin to inject anything lethal.

That meant the pre-borrow had gone through successfully.

Relief washed over her face, the look of someone who had narrowly escaped death. But that meant she was only safe for now, and once the initial calm passed, a deeper fear set in.

Compared to Zeng Yiming’s vote tally of 15 to 12, Zhao Xiuying’s was far worse. It meant she would need to secure a great many Sympathy Votes to clear herself.

She looked toward the large screen. ”But I’ve already been tried for this. I already served my time in prison.

”I should have already paid for it. My debt should already be cleared.”

She clearly couldn’t accept a vote tally like this.

But the game floor remained silent. No response came.

The other offenders simply walked back into their own Production Rooms.

Zhao Xiuying stood frozen for a moment before she, too, walked numbly into Room 4, waiting in silence.

Having heard Zhao Xiuying’s protest, Huang Shengjie felt a pang of something like resignation.

”Gambling on getting lucky really does come back to bite you.”

He checked the current state of the Sympathy Votes. For now, they were still concentrated heavily on Zeng Yiming and Wen Wan. Only a handful had gone to the other three.

In terms of the nature of her crime, Zhao Xiuying’s was genuinely severe. It showed clear deliberate intent and involved food safety directly, making the potential harm significant.

But there was one unusual factor in her favour: she had already faced legal consequences in the real world, having served over five years, which was no light sentence at all.

If Zhao Xiuying had confessed to the audience earlier, embellishing her account with the hardships of her life, perhaps citing the need to support a child’s education or some other justification for her choice, and speaking about genuine remorse during her time in prison, the number of Guilty votes would likely have come out lower.

But Zhao Xiuying had clearly been banking on luck, assuming the other offenders might give up trying to guess her number, or perhaps cover for one another. Even if someone did try, she assumed it wouldn’t happen quickly.

So she had kept delaying, and delaying, until it caught up with her, leaving her completely unprepared.

Ye Lin considered for a moment, ”There’s still a chance for Zhao Xiuying. If she can find a way to appeal for sympathy now, she might still pick up a few more Sympathy Votes.

”Either way, having some is better than none.

”What concerns me more, though, is what Liang Guicheng plans to do.

”He’s a fruit farmer. At this point, his crime isn’t hard to guess. It almost certainly involves excessive pesticide use.

”A crime at that level, once exposed, could bring in even more Guilty votes than Zhao Xiuying received.

”And those Guilty votes might be nearly impossible to offset with Sympathy Votes, since out of all five offenders, he comes across as the least sympathetic and least likely to earn goodwill from any angle.

”So, once his crime is exposed, the entire medication production process might grind to a halt.

”Even though every offender can pre-borrow a Death Exemption Ticket and avoid immediate death, if he already knows he’s certain to die by the game’s end, what reason would he have to keep working hard in the Production Room?

”If he deliberately starts cutting corners, there’ll be a serious gap in the production chain, and there’s no way Type M medication could still come out of it.”

Just then, Zeng Yiming, having just finished his own production cycle, turned toward the large screen and spoke again.

”Esteemed audience members, I have a request to make.

”I’m hoping you might direct more of your Sympathy Votes toward the other players. Would that be possible?

”I understand that, under the rules, Sympathy Votes are a limited resource, and casting them according to your genuine feelings is entirely reasonable, beyond reproach.

”But if an offender’s crime is exposed and they realise there’s no escaping death by the end of the game, what reason would they have left to keep working hard in the Production Room?

”Under the rules, any failure at any stage of production causes the whole process to collapse, and an important property of the medication is lost entirely.

”It could lose its potency, or fail to remove its side effects, or see its yield rate drop sharply. None of these are outcomes any of us want to see.

”Type M medication is extraordinarily valuable, and this game may well be the only opportunity in the near future to obtain it in any real quantity. If a batch turns out defective midway through because one offender gave up, that loss would fall on all of us, and it simply isn’t worth it.

”I know the five of us are all guilty of something, but none of our crimes rise to the level that demands death, and the rules don’t mention any sincerity mechanism applying to Sympathy Votes, so they should be free to distribute however you see fit.

”So I’m asking, please, be generous, and spread your Sympathy Votes among the others, to make sure this game runs smoothly through to a peaceful conclusion.

”That would be the best possible outcome for every one of us.

”And to my fellow offenders on the floor, I want to make one appeal: please, stop trying to guess each other’s numbers. Please, stop.

”Coming through this brutal Elimination-type game together, all of us surviving, that’s the best outcome we could ask for.”

When Zeng Yiming finished, the remaining four offenders continued their production work while waiting anxiously.

A moment later, expressions of relief spread across all their faces.

More broadcasts began coming in one after another.

[Zeng Yiming has received 1 Sympathy Vote.]

[Wen Wan has received 1 Sympathy Vote.]

[Zhao Xiuying has received 2 Sympathy Votes.]

[Liang Guicheng has received 1 Sympathy Vote.]

[He Qing has received 1 Sympathy Vote.]

The three who had received little or no support until now were overjoyed, bowing toward the large screen in gratitude while throwing themselves back into production with renewed effort.

Zhao Xiuying in particular was moved to tears.

Based on the outcome of her First Trial vote, her Guilty votes had outnumbered her Not Guilty votes by a full 9, meaning she would need at least 90 Sympathy Votes just to survive.

That was an extraordinarily steep number. And since some cast votes could potentially be withdrawn, she would need a comfortable buffer beyond that, perhaps 100 votes to feel truly secure.

Without Zeng Yiming’s appeal, reaching that number would have been almost impossible.

But now she had found renewed motivation to keep working hard.

As for Zeng Yiming, his own position was now the most favourable of anyone on the floor.

His First Trial tally had come out at 15 to 12, meaning he only needed 30 Sympathy Votes to guarantee his safety.

He had already accumulated 55, giving him a comfortable margin, which was exactly why he had chosen this moment to ask the audience to redirect their support toward the others.

Even so, a small number of players continued casting votes in his favour.