Chapter 538: Lounge |
A short while earlier.
In Zone C, Huang Shengjie had waited in vain for the door to the 'Treatment Room' to open, and with some disappointment made his way to the 'Lounge' instead.
The Lounge was furnished even more sparsely than a regular patient's room. It contained nothing but six extremely basic folding chairs, placed around the room without any particular arrangement.
Along one wall were six different doors. The two at either end were noticeably more ornately decorated than the rest and were labelled 'VIP Patient,' while the four in the middle all looked perfectly ordinary.
The other three walls were bare.
In the corners of the room were four special pieces of equipment, two of each of two different types.
Huang Shengjie went over immediately to take a quick look.
Two of them were vending machines, each carrying only a single item.
[Type I Painkiller]
[Price: 800 Medical Points.]
[Limit of 2 bottles per machine per round, limit of 1 bottle per player.]
The other type of machine also came in a pair. Each had two screens and two card-swiping areas, with the screens displaying transaction amount dialogue boxes and similar content, which clearly indicated they were for completing trades. Qin Cheng's Treatment Room had contained the same kind of machine, though Huang Shengjie had not been inside yet, so this was the first time he was seeing one.
Before long, three more players had trickled into the Lounge, bringing the total including Huang Shengjie to four.
They kept a cautious social distance from one another, while each drifted closer or further to inspect the two pieces of equipment.
No one had yet taken a seat on the folding chairs. Everyone was still thinking.
Huang Shengjie suspected they were all thinking about the same thing he was.
Whether to buy medication.
"The game rules already make it clear that players can buy the same 'Basic Medication' as the Doctor in the Lounge, but at a much steeper price than what the Doctor pays.
"Going by the community's pricing, 800 Medical Points is the equivalent of 800 minutes of visa time, and 1 minute of visa time has roughly the purchasing power of one yuan. Given that visa time is essentially life itself, it's actually worth considerably more than that.
"In other words, I'm being asked to pay the equivalent of 800 yuan for two painkiller tablets, and there's a good chance I could buy them from the Doctor at a much lower price.
"If the Doctor jacks up the price maliciously, or refuses to sell to me, then the Lounge would be my only option, and I might not have any other choice at that point.
"But if the Doctor is willing to sell at a reasonable price, then buying here right now would definitely end up being a loss.
"On top of that, the game rules also mentioned that sharing any piece of equipment with an 'Infected' player could lead to infection."
Huang Shengjie's mind was working quickly. Standing in front of the vending machine, he could already feel the burning stares of the other players on him.
At that moment, a female player stepped up to the other vending machine and purchased a bottle of painkiller first.
Huang Shengjie made his decision quickly as well, swiping his Medical Card at his own machine and purchasing a bottle of Type I Painkiller.
The two players who had been standing behind them immediately completed their own purchases right after.
The remaining four bottles between the two machines were sold out in an instant.
The player who had been last to leave their room was standing furthest back and had not managed to buy any medication.
Huang Shengjie tucked his medication away carefully, while quickly scanning the name badges the other players were wearing.
The female player who had decided to buy before him was [Community 11 - Qian Li].
The two players who had been queuing behind him were one man and one woman, [Community 8 - Du Peng] and [Community 23 - Zhou Xiaoying] respectively.
The player who had not managed to buy any medication was [Community 14 - Zhang Yuan].
As the only one to walk away empty-handed, he was probably feeling quite regretful right now, though from his expression he did not appear especially panicked. He seemed to have a fairly steady head on his shoulders.
Violence was prohibited in the game, after all, so there was nothing to be done about it now. Better to simply accept the situation calmly.
On the brighter side, patients had more than one way of obtaining medication. Buying it in the Lounge in the first round might turn out to be an early advantage, or it might turn out to be a complete waste of money.
So no one said anything further. They each took a folding chair and sat down to pass the time, waiting for the round to end.
Everyone was quietly observing the name badges on each other's chests, but it was evident that they all came from different communities and did not know one another, so for the time being no one spoke, and a polite social distance was maintained.
One player instinctively shifted their folding chair back a little further.
Huang Shengjie looked at the white bottle in his hand and felt a small wave of relief.
"Good, at least I've secured one bottle. A bit expensive, but it's a safety net.
"According to the rules, a random 'Infected' player appears every hour. Equally, if standard pain goes without effective relief as time passes, it may also escalate into 'Special Pain,' meaning that player becomes Infected.
"From that rule, it follows that only in the first round can we be certain no one in the game is Infected yet. Buying medication right now is completely safe.
"So either way, buying now shouldn't be a loss."
After a period of quiet, one of the players spoke up.
Huang Shengjie glanced at the name badge on her chest. [Community 11 - Qian Li.]
As far as he could recall, she was the one who had come out of the leftmost 'VIP Patient' room. No one had emerged from the rightmost VIP Patient room.
She was also the one who had been the first to buy medication from the vending machine.
"The Imitator who designed this game has specifically set up a 'Lounge' that all patients can enter. Clearly, the intention is for us to have something to talk about.
"If no one else has any ideas, I'll say a few things to get us started.
"Veteran Gallery players all know that the game rules directly determine the optimal strategy.
"And from these rules, there are three kinds of player we need to be wary of.
"The first is 'Doctors.'
"The second is 'Infected' players.
"The third is any player who hasn't shown up in the Lounge in the first round or two.
"Outside of those three types, the other patients, meaning those of us meeting here in the Lounge right now, are natural allies with shared interests. Sticking together and working in cooperation is the only optimal approach in this game."
Huang Shengjie was somewhat lost, and could not quite follow how Qian Li had arrived at that conclusion.
He instinctively wanted to ask why, but held himself back, because no one else had said a word.
If he simply blurted out a question, he might give away the fact that he was a new player who had no idea what was going on.
So like the others, he simply listened in silence.
Qian Li continued, "I don't know whether anyone here is a new player who only just entered in the Second Stage. But I completed the entire First Stage, so I have some sense of what the Imitator is going for.
"Let me explain why all three of these types of player need to be treated with caution and not trusted.
"First of all, the Advantage Identities in this game are essentially bought. In other words, the more visa time you submitted before entering, the better your identity, and the further inward the room you're assigned.
"The highest contributors are, without question, the Sales, Reviewer, and Doctor players.
"After them come the VIP Patients, and after that the Regular Patients.
"My guess is that everyone here submitted somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 minutes of visa time?"
No one replied, but most of them had already tacitly confirmed it with their silence.
Qian Li said, with apparent candour, "I submitted 15,000 minutes and was assigned a VIP Patient room.
"That's how I worked out that the rest of you submitted less than 10,000.
"By the same logic, the Doctor, Reviewer, and Sales players, the three Advantage Identities, would have submitted even more, possibly 20,000 or even 30,000."
She paused briefly and went on, "There is one rule that states that the visa time submitted before entering the game can only be converted into Basic Medical Points.
"When the game ends, these simply disappear and cannot be converted back into visa time.
"A player must engage in trading activity within the game, such as buying and selling medication, to convert them into Special Medical Points, which can then be exchanged for visa time at a 1:1 ratio upon leaving.
"In other words, all players with 'Advantage Identities' are effectively carrying the burden of a sales quota.
"They need to find a way to sell medication at all costs if they want to recover their losses.
"Say a player submitted 30,000 before entering. They need to sell at least 30,000 worth of medication in the game. For every 10,000 short of that, they leave the game with 10,000 fewer minutes of visa time.
"The question is, where does the money they earn come from?
"It can only come from us patients."