Chapter 574: The Accusation

Everyone fell into their own thoughts, and for a long time no one spoke.

Before long, the round was nearly over.

Lin Sizhi stood and prepared to return to his room.

Huang Shengjie quickly fell into step behind him.

"Lawyer Lin!

"Zone A can't hold out much longer. And the Type M you have on you must be running low, isn't it?

"Do you actually have a suspicion about who the Imitator is?

"We're running out of time!"

Huang Shengjie had a growing sense that Lin Sizhi had already narrowed down the Imitator to someone, but had not made an accusation.

And that only made him more anxious.

Lin Sizhi looked at him and said, "You feel the situation is urgent, don't you?

"But even in a situation this urgent, you're still placing all your hope in someone else?"

Huang Shengjie paused and said, "But, I have absolutely no leads at all."

Lin Sizhi tapped his own temple and said, "Think carefully.

"The information we have right now is already more than enough.

"And there's one clue that's sitting with one of the players right here in this Lounge."

Huang Shengjie paused, but his mind remained blank.

Lin Sizhi turned and pushed the door open, "Before the game ends, I'll make the accusation.

"But if you want to save more people sooner, put that mind to work yourself."

At the same time, in her room, Ye Lin had been listening to the accusation against Shen Qingyun.

In the very last round, she had handed over the Type M medication to Shen Qingyun. By now it should have been passed to the Doctor, and by the next round it could be distributed to patients.

The accusation against Shen Qingyun had appeared at just this moment with a certain dark comic timing.

"I hope it's true, as you said, that you're used to it."

Ye Lin let out a quiet sigh, poured herself a small glass of red wine, and settled back on the sofa.

Four rounds left. Then it would all be over.

As Sales, Ye Lin had nothing left to do except wait.

But at that moment, the vending machine gave two beeps.

A little surprised, she went over and pressed the answer button.

Huang Shengjie's voice came through, sounding a little anxious.

"Ye Lin!

"Quickly, tell me in detail what happened every time you met with the Reviewers. This is important!"

Ye Lin was caught off guard, "Why are you asking me about that too?"

Huang Shengjie paused, "What do you mean, too? Has someone else already asked you this?"

Ye Lin said, "Yes. About an hour ago, Lin Sizhi asked the same thing."

Huang Shengjie pressed quickly, "Did he ask any follow-up questions?"

Ye Lin thought about it, "No."

Huang Shengjie's voice became urgent, "Then that's it. Quickly, tell me everything you told Lawyer Lin."

Ye Lin did not ask further and simply recounted it all.

"Alright, let me think. Thank you, Ye Lin!"

Ye Lin was about to ask something further, but Huang Shengjie had already ended the call.

The twenty-first round had begun.

Chen Guangming stood in front of the vending machine, thought for a moment, and pressed the Monitor button.

He then selected the rightmost VIP Patient room in Zone C on the layout diagram.

When the player in the room came into view on the screen, Chen Guangming instinctively adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses.

He had been thinking that this game was almost too straightforward.

As a Sales player, Chen Guangming had succeeded in convincing Zone C's Reviewer at their very first meeting, secured a stable channel for selling medication, and had been in an unassailable position from the start.

Zone D had offered a degree of resistance, but had ultimately been overcome without too much difficulty.

The game had four zones and four Sales players.

Securing one zone was considered a success for a Sales player, and taking two zones simultaneously almost guaranteed maximum earnings from the game.

But as the game progressed, Chen Guangming had suddenly noticed that Zone C, which had been the quickest to fall, was now showing some strange signs.

Medication had stopped moving.

In this game, medication could only be passed down one link at a time, so there was always a degree of lag.

Chen Guangming estimated that the problem in Zone C had started about four or five rounds ago.

But Zone C's Reviewer could not work out what was happening and only reported that the two patients who had been helping to distribute medication seemed to have switched sides at the same time, and were no longer following the original plan.

All six patients in Zone C appeared to have reached some kind of agreement, sharing medication among themselves and no longer purchasing large quantities of Type O or Type F from the Doctor.

After a brief analysis, Chen Guangming quickly identified the VIP Patient room as the source of the anomaly.

By rights, the Doctor in Zone C's right half should have met with the occupant of that room at some point, but had continued insisting otherwise, which meant Chen Guangming still did not know who was inside.

So he decided to use the Monitor function to check.

The Monitor perspective was positioned at a diagonal overhead angle, similar to a typical surveillance camera. It was possible to make out a player's appearance reasonably well and to hear conversation at a normal speaking volume, but not quite enough to read the name badge on a player's chest.

For Chen Guangming, though, the name badge turned out to be unnecessary. He already knew this player from before.

At that moment, the system broadcast came on again.

[A player has chosen to spend all Medical Points to accuse an Imitator.]

[Accusation begins.]

As more and more players in the game had fallen into despair, accusations had been coming with increasing frequency.

After all, for those whose Medical Points and even all of their visa time had been drained dry, there was nothing left to lose in this game.

Using whatever small amount of Medical Points remained to try and drag the Imitator down with them was a perfectly rational move.

But after a string of failed accusations, the players' patience was nearly exhausted.

Of all the accusations so far, only the one targeting Shen Qingyun had made it to the system's verification stage.

Because the mechanism itself was quite demanding.

The initial accusation window was only one minute, and it would only extend if the reasoning was persuasive enough to get some players to spend Medical Points, up to a maximum of five minutes.

Even when Qin Cheng had called on everyone to cast as many verification votes as possible as a means of sharing information, the number who actually responded had been small.

This latest accuser sounded somewhat nervous, and somewhat agitated.

And the accused was not the player Chen Guangming was currently monitoring.

So at first he had not paid much attention.

But as more details came through, he began to sense that this accusation was different.

"Please listen carefully, everyone!

"I've found sufficient evidence. Xu Yiheng is the Imitator who designed this game!

"Time is limited. I can't explain where all this information came from. Please listen carefully and compare it against your own experience.

"First, there is one thing we must be certain of. This is the first game of the Second Stage, and the Imitator who won the bid to design it is absolutely not an ordinary player. They are extraordinarily strong and confident.

"Just as the players who were selected as Sales would never accept earning only a tiny profit, this Imitator would never accept earning only the minimum returns from this game.

"They would, openly or covertly, be steering the game toward the script they had already written.

"So the Imitator would definitely have chosen an identity with sufficient control and the flexibility to advance or retreat.

"Only by thinking this through clearly can you follow the vine to its root and find the true Imitator."