The rules on the big screen continued to display, along with the round numbers and countdown.

Huang Shengjie tried hard to keep up with the reading of the rules, but in the end, not only did he fail to understand all the rules, he ended up confusing himself.

At this moment, he tried to sort out his thoughts again.

"Earlier everyone mentioned that a 40-player game might have particularly complex rules. Hearing their descriptions didn’t feel like much, but now it seems that listening to others and seeing for yourself are indeed different..."

Although the big screen provided corresponding illustrations for better understanding, the players’ mindset could greatly impact their comprehension.

While listening to other players explain the rules of the previous games in the community, Huang Shengjie understood quickly, even subconsciously thinking, "What’s so difficult about this?"

But truly being in the game scene himself, under extreme tension, made his brain easily freeze, missing one rule would completely throw him off pace.

Moreover, every single rule could hide a textual trap, and any slight oversight could lead to complete failure. Most players find it hard to prioritize and understand these rules in a short period.

As a novice, Huang Shengjie could only force himself to think hard.

"This game doesn’t have a clear passing goal, but if I become an ’Infected’ and I am not cured, I will die. So the main goal is to never become infected, or if infected, to quickly find a way to use drugs for treatment.

"Obviously, ’drugs’ are the most important resource in this game, and I must find ways to acquire them.

"The rules state that doctors and salespeople can buy drugs from their vending machines, whereas normal patients can only buy drugs from the lounge.

"So, does that mean there are no drugs in my vending machine?"

With that thought, Huang Shengjie rushed to the vending machine to confirm.

The machine had three main function pages:

The first was the normal goods purchase page;

The second was the ’Medical Card’ related function page;

The third was a special page for calls, surveillance, and voting.

In the regular goods list, there were many different kinds of food and drinks, but no drugs.

On the ’Medical Card’ page, it displayed the current balance of the medical card and a few different recharge methods.

In the lower right corner, there was a ’Card Creation’ button, which Huang Shengjie pressed, and soon, a black card was ejected from the vending machine, with several special raised dots and the name ’Huang Shengjie’ on it.

Its appearance was similar to a bank card, only lacking the long string of account numbers and a magnetic strip.

Before entering the game, Huang Shengjie chose to deposit 5000 minutes of visa time, so currently, his medical card had 5000 basic medical points.

As a new player, his visa time was scarce, and even though he obtained a loan from the community, it needed to be repaid.

Thus, before entering the game, Huang Shengjie ultimately decided to submit 5000.

What he currently had were ’basic medical points’, which had to be converted to ’special medical points’ through transactions within the game, in order to be exchanged for visa time at a 1:1 ratio at the end of the game.

If he could not successfully convert them, it would be like the 5000 minutes of visa time going down the drain.

The prices of the items in the vending machine were even cheaper compared to those in the community, which surprised Huang Shengjie.

He had heard from Yao Yuan while learning about the related rules that in some games designed by imitators, it’s quite common for the prices of goods in the game to even be double those in the community, or even several times more.

Such discounted sales seemed to be quite rare.

Huang Shengjie put the medical card in his pocket and then looked at the two doors in the room.

"What can I actually do now? It seems like I can’t do anything except choose to open one of these two doors."

He looked at the two doors separately; the door leading to the ’Lounge’ seemed to have no mechanism and could be opened directly.

Meanwhile, beside the door to the ’Clinic’, there was a small screen with a special ’Request’ button and a numeric keypad on it.

According to the rule description, Huang Shengjie could request a meeting with the doctor in the clinic, but the doctor may not agree.

Conversely, in each round of the game, only one door can be opened, so if he first opened the door to the lounge, then even if the doctor in the clinic proactively sent a request to see him, there would be no way for Huang Shengjie to open the door again.

"Judging from the room layout, the doctor can choose to see four people, namely ’Auditor’, ’VIP Patient’ and two ’Normal Patients’.

"The priority for the doctor to meet should be Auditor ＞ VIP Patient ＞ Normal Patient.

"Giving the doctor money could increase the likelihood of him seeing me, but... Is it necessary to do this in the first round of the game?

"According to the game rules, the doctor only has basic medicine, and the salespeople have special medicine.

"The salesperson has to see the auditor first, then the doctor, which means at least two more rounds of the game before the doctor can acquire special medicine.

"It’s only by the third round of the game that I might possibly obtain special medicine. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"Even if I see the doctor now, the medicine I could buy would only be the most basic kind, just like the ones in the lounge.

"My points are limited, so I’ll just give some symbolically. If the doctor opens the door, that’s great. If not, then I’ll go to the lounge."

Of course, for Huang Shengjie, there’s another option, which is not to go anywhere but stay in the room.

The advantage of doing so is that he can spend 2000 points to monitor any situation in the rooms.

However, since the game has just started, this action would be quite costly, and the odds of seeing any useful information are very low. So after some consideration, Huang Shengjie gave up on this idea.

While he was deep in thought, time flew by quickly.

The first round of the game was about to begin.

Huang Shengjie immediately pressed the ’Request’ button on the screen beside the ’Clinic’ and attached ’500 Medical Points’, then waited quietly.

...

Meanwhile, Qin Cheng had also finished reading the rules and was observing the environment of the room he was in.

He was in Zone D and had been assigned the default identity of ’Doctor’.

According to the floor plan on the wall, the room for the doctor, the ’Clinic’, was twice the size of the typical patient room, and it had four doors.

They led to the ’Audit Room’, ’VIP Patient Room’, and two ’Patient Rooms’.

Not only that, between the doors leading to the audit room and the VIP patient room, there was a large floor-to-ceiling window.

Through the window, he could see a vast atrium.

This atrium was surrounded by seven floor-to-ceiling windows.

Six of these windows were slightly narrower and corresponded to the ’Auditor’, ’Doctor’, and ’VIP Patient’ in the two adjacent zones.

There was also a largest corner floor-to-ceiling window, corresponding to the room where ’Sales’ was located.

The setup in the doctor’s room was also very different from that of regular patients, more closely resembling a clinic indeed.

A special area was marked beside each door leading to the three patients, somewhat like a bank counter, with a heavy glass partition above, leaving only a small window.

At the window, there was a special machine with two screens facing different players, as well as a place to swipe a medical card, presumably for drug transactions.

The area leading to the ’VIP Patient’ looked more comfortable and luxurious, but the structure was the same.

Based on the current rules, the ’Doctor’ is a special role, but the only clearly defined privilege in the rules is the ability to purchase a ’basic painkiller’ from the vending machine.

This painkiller, patients could also purchase from the lounge, but it was more expensive and limited in quantity compared to when bought by a doctor.

The ’Sales’ handled four types of ’special painkillers’, but according to the game rules, it would take at least 3 rounds for them to reach normal players.

Qin Cheng went to the vending machine to check what the so-called ’basic painkiller’ was.

[Type I Painkiller]

[Each bottle contains 5 tablets.]

[Price: 300 points of medical funds.]

[Recommended retail range: 600-2000 points of medical funds.]

Before entering the game, Qin Cheng chose to deposit 10,000 minutes of visa time, so he now had 10,000 points of medical funds.

He first spent 300 points to purchase a bottle of the drug.

Shortly after, a small white plastic bottle fell into the vending machine’s pickup area, accompanied by the clinking sound of pills colliding inside.

Qin Cheng picked up the small white bottle to examine it, finding that it bore no information, just a simple label reading ’Type I Painkiller’.

Upon unscrewing the cap, he found it sealed like a typical medication.

After some thought, Qin Cheng peeled off the seal and poured out one pill into his palm for a closer look.

These pills were completely white and very small, with a diameter of about 5 millimeters.

Having five such small pills in one bottle, even if he sold them to other players at the lowest recommended retail price, Qin Cheng could still earn at least 300 points and then directly exchange them for 300 minutes of visa time upon leaving the game.

"The medication’s ingredients aren’t listed."

This detail did surprise Qin Cheng somewhat.