Chapter 15: Foreign Language
You Huo: "Yu Wen."
"Huh?" Suddenly being called, Yu Wen responded immediately: "What's wrong?"
You Huo: "Do you see someone at the end of the roads?"
Yu Wen looked around blankly: "Someone? Who?"
You Huo's eyes looked into the distance: "For example, a particularly clingy invigilator."
Yu Wen: ".....Don't say something so scary!"
They haven't even selected their subject yet so why would an invigilator be here??
The others heard You Huo's words and also looked around. Apart from the signs at the four ends, it was completely empty.
"Forget it. It's nothing." You Huo said, "I only see Foreign Language from my end, so I don't have any other options. You sure you're coming with me?"
Yu Wen said: "Actually, Foreign Language is my weakness."
You Huo glanced at him.
Yu Wen then said: "But after thinking about it, it seems like all of them are my weaknesses."
You Huo: "...."
Yu Wen placed his hands together and worshipped his great master: "Brother, I'll go whereever you go! I'll do whatever you want me to so please bless me and help me pass. I wish you longevity."
You Huo: "..."
The group of people all looked at him eagerly.
You Huo snorted and pulled the zipper of his jacket all the way up to cover his chin and lips before muttering lazily: "Troublesome."
"Brother, what did you say?" Yu Wen didn't hear clearly and moved closer.
You Huo's face was almost as cold as a block of ice: "I said, which direction is Foreign Language for you?"
Everyone pointed to the left.
You Huo lifted his feet and walked over.
Inside the pavilion, the small horn once again sounded.
[A friendly reminder that there are only 5 seconds left until selection time is over.]
Everyone was startled. They quickly started to run over.
The road labelled "Foreign Language" was no different from the other three roads and was covered in dense fog. No one knew what was waiting behind the fog.....
[4 seconds]
[3 seconds]
[2 seconds]
[1 second]
[Self-selection is over.]
As the countdown reached zero, the last of their group managed to step into the dense fog.
·
Qin Jiu wore a long black coat and he had a dove-grey cashmere scarf around his neck. With one hand in his coat pocket, he used his other hand to hold a black umbrella as he waited calmly for the others to arrive.
You Huo's tall figure passed through the dense fog.
His face was cold and his expression lazy. A black backpack hung loosely from his right shoulder.
Despite clearly being quite far away, Qin Jiu could still see everything in detail. The other party's light brown eyes always looked like it was covered by a layer of clear glass. Together with the earring on one side, it emitted a cold light.
Qin Jiu lifted the umbrella slightly and white snow slid off it while following its curves.
Seeing You Huo come closer, he politely moved his hand and brought You Huo under the umbrella. He dragged out his tone and said: "What a coincidence, we meet again. Did Mr. Humph sleep well the past few days?"
You Huo: "...."
Despite clearly knowing his name, he still addressing him using a dumb nickname. Is there something wrong with him?
He stared at Qin Jiu for a few seconds and said coldly: "Deprivation of choice means that you're going to be everywhere?"
Qin Jiu squinted his eyes and smiled: "That's not exactly the case. The so-called deprivation of choice means that the examinee – that is, you – would lose their right to choose their text examination subject. As for the subject that you will do, it will depend on the main invigilator – that is, me – and the exam that I'll be invigilating. Understand?"
You Huo: "...."
That tone of his sounded like he was explaining to a little kid.
It was an obvious case of deliberate provocation. You Huo who heard this was irritated and his expression was completely cold.
Qin Jiu saw his expression and smiled even more deeply: "As for the subject the invigilator supervises, in general we can choose but I'm a little lazy, so I always select it randomly. This time I randomly got Foreign Languages. However, it seems from your expression that you're not happy with it. Next time——–"
You Huo interrupted him with a bad expression: "There's still a fucking next time?"
Qin Jiu: "It's hard to say. After all, you have an extensive criminal record."
You Huo: "..."
Qin Jiu: "You can tell me in advance if there's a subject you want to do. If you perform well, I can consider it."
You Huo wanted to say: I want you to go die. Can you consider that?
But he thought about it. Considering how retarded the system is, it would probably even make him go die with him.
And so he just held back his belly filled with anger and maintained a dark expression as he waited next to the thick fog.
·
After a while, Yu Wen came out from the fog while dragging Old Yu. This was then followed by Yu Yao and Mike.
"Brother!" Yu Wen hurried over. As soon as he saw Qin Jiu, he came to a sudden stop: "You- Why are you here sir?"
His strong desire for survival made him change his way of addressing him but he couldn't hide his shocked expression.
Qin Jiu said slowly: "I'm accompanying your brother waiting for you."
Yu Wen looked even more horrified. He looked at You Huo with a terrified look.
You Huo: "..."
If glares could kill, Qin Jiu would already be long dead.
Yu Wen said bravely: "So the fulltime on-site monitoring carries over to this round too?"
Qin Jiu glanced at him.
Yu Wen: "Oh."
And so, in classmate Yu (very pathetic) Wen's eyes, this invigilator 001 was also another great master. Great masters are always arrogant and would only be interested in speaking with other amazing characters like his brother.
He knew himself very well and didn't dare continue to talk.
·
"Zhou Jin and the others aren't here?" Yu Yao and Mike came over.
Old Yu said: "They were right behind us. Let's wait a little longer."
In the end, they waited, and two strangers appeared.
One had a round face and despite not being very tall, muscles covered his entire body. He was carrying a sports bag.
The other was thinner and was tightly wrapped in his coat. Every now and then he would blow air onto his hands to warm it up.
"What's going on? There are others?" Yu Wen was surprised.
You Huo looked at Qin Jiu.
Qin Jiu tilted his head and asked You Huo: "Did anyone say that the examinees for each exam are always fixed?"
You Huo: ".....No."
Qin Jiu said: "Selecting the same exam doesn't mean that you would be divided into the same examination centre. For example, invigilators 922 and 152 was also randomly selected to supervise Foreign Language but they are not in this one. What do you think it means?"
You Huo: "It means that they also don't want to see you."
"..."
Yu Wen glanced at Qin Jiu. He was afraid of his brother angering the invigilator.
But he was surprised to see Qin Jiu just squinting his eyes and smiling: "Wrong. It means that there is a smaller number of people in this exam and only one invigilator is required."
"Smaller number?"
You Huo frowned.
·
Sure enough, after waiting for another five minutes next to the thick fog, no one else arrived.
Turns out, Zhou Jin and the others were assigned to another examination centre.
Although the original group consisted of the five poisons; old, weak, sick, disabled and pregnant, they got along well and at least knew a little about each other.
With two new strangers, they once again needed to get to know each other.
You cannot tell if this would be a good or bad thing.
"Fortunately, Old Yu wasn't lost." Yu Wen said in fear.
·
The two strangers weren't surprised when they saw their new companions.
The round-faced man had his brows furrowed into a frown and he looked a little scary. He nodded at everyone and didn't speak.
The lean and thin one was a little more enthusiastic: "I'm called Chen Bin. I'm from Chongqing. His name is Liang Yuanhao and he's from Hebei. Isn't that right?"
He turned to ask Liang Yuanhao who glanced at the group and hummed in response.
"Chongqing? I went there for a few years a long time ago when I was just a rookie soldier so we can be considered as fellow townsmen." The socially apt Old Yu once again tried to befriend another 'fellow townsmen" and he quickly became familiar with Chen Bin.
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"Liang Yuanhao and I were from the same examination centre and we're once again together in this one. This can be considered as fate. This is my already my third exam." Chen Bin said this dejectedly, "I was lucky enough to survive through the first two, but my points are scarily low. The possibility of passing is slim."
Old Yu wanted to comfort him but You Huo suddenly interjected: "Do you know how many points are required to pass?"
Chen Bin was surprised: "It's 60. You guys didn't know?"
Old Yu shook his head: "Don't know. The perfect score for our last exam seemed to be.....24? There were also some additional points and deductions that I couldn't make sense of. In any case, it wasn't a round number, and I didn't know what the scores were like for the other subjects so I couldn't calculate it."
Chen Bin asked: "You guys haven't met any experienced players?"
Old Yu: "No. In the last exam, everyone was the same. It was our first time."
Chen Bin: "Oh, that makes sense then. I just happened to meet a brother with experience, and he said that the total scores for each exam will be slightly different but with the five subjects added up, it would be exactly 100 points. If that's the case, it would be fine getting a total score just over 60."
"60...." Old Yu counted with his fingers with a sullen expression.
Chen Bin was even more sullen: "I only got 10 points from two subjects. What am I going to do for the remaining three?!"
Liang Yuanhao's expression was stiff. He walked away a little irritably.
Chen Bin explained to the others: "He's actually not a bad person. It's just that the total scores from three exams was too abysmal and he's a little anxious....."
Afterall, this was something that involved life and death. It wasn't unusual having a bad temper.
The others expressed their understanding.
Yu Wen pointed to Mike in reassurance: "Don't worry! Look, we have a secret weapon here! This exam is Foreign Languages and we have a foreigner Mike here!"
Chen Bin said tactfully: "We saw. We noticed it the moment we arrived. But I just noticed that this friend here doesn't seem to be able to speak Chinese? It would be no different to conversing with a duck...."
Yu Wen then pointed at You Huo: "Don't worry, my brother stayed abroad for a while so he can do it too. But....he doesn't like talking much."
Chen Bin suddenly came back to life: "That's okay. It's good enough to be able to understand!"
Even Liang Yuanhao appeared to have become a little livelier.
Mike and You Huo were like calming pills. In an instant, the team relaxed.
·
"So.....Where are we going now?" The people who were chatting finally started to face the current situation at hand.
You Huo expressionlessly pointed to the left.
The others only now noticed the bus stop sign standing about three metres away.
It was a very simple sign that was supported by a metal pole.
Fortunately, the words on it were Chinese. It read "Intercity Bus" and below it was the English translation.
As for where this bus was going and where it would be passing, it was a complete mystery. There was no information about this.
Just as everyone was confused, a loud horn was heard coming through the snow.
A car drove out of the thick fog and it shuddered to a stop at the bus sign.
The car was covered in a thick layer of dust. It was so thick, it was difficult making out it's original colour. The wheels of it were covered in mud. It would be too generous calling it a "bus". It was more like one of those minivans from the 1990s that shook heavily as it drove.
This car?
Foreign Language exam?
Everyone felt weird and confused.
Even the invigilator Qin Jiu's expression wasn't very good.
Seeing that 001 was unhappy, You Huo was relieved. He carried his backpack and got onto the car first.
The inside wasn't very worn, and the seats were quite neat and tidy.
You Huo sat down in the seat by the window in the last row.
Seeing Qin Jiu also getting on, he pulled out his phone, fiddled with it and then proceeded to plug white earphones into his ears. He leaned against the window and got ready to sleep.
The driver was a dark middle-aged man. He didn't speak the entire time and they didn't know whether or not he was a mute.
When he saw that they were all on board, he stepped onto the accelerator and set off.
·
When You Huo was just about to fall asleep, there was an announcement inside the car.
[It is currently 6:30am Beijing Time.]
[There are still thirty minutes until the exam officially starts. Please read the exam rules below.]
The familiar examination rules were repeated one by one.
With the life-saving cheats Mike and You Huo present, everyone's mood was rather stable. They didn't tremble as terribly as they did the first time.
[If rule violations are made during the exam, you will be kicked out from the examination centre.]
[The other examination rules are as per the standard.]
Like it was teasing them, the announcement stopped for a moment. When it allowed the listeners digest this information, it slowly spat out the rest of its words.
[Because of special circumstances, the exam details will be revealed in advance.]
[Examination time: 10 days.]
[Subject examined: Foreign Language.]
[Foreign language being examined: Gypsy*.]
[I wish you all the best.]
Everyone: "...."
I beg your pardon???
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