Bab 52: Ch.51: The extra terrifying checkpoint?!
"Huuuu…." Wen Jiexi fanned her mouth. The medium spicy soup base was a lot hotter than she thought but if she drank any water, then her stomach will be filled up! She can't fill her precious stomach space with water! Wen Jiexi could only take an extra breath of air every time and now her mouth was almost completely numb. She was sweating profusely but there was still half of a vegetable dish left, and the meat dishes almost completely finished. The seafood platter was basically done and now forty minutes have passed. Only Wen Jiexi and Wen Ting, who was called in to help, was still eating ferociously. Chu Heling and Huo Lin'er had died long ago and now could only blankly eat the fruit platter slowly while digging up bits of the ice cream.
Ten minutes later, Wen Jiexi swallowed the last of the meat dishes and put down her chopsticks as she exhaled slowly. She felt so full….it felt like something was rolling around in her throat…she felt like throwing up…..she doesn't even remember how much she ate anymore and only knew that she had to keep eating.
"Jiexi…..can you eat some of the fruit and ice cream…." Wen Ting asked weakly.
"No…I'm about to commit…." Wen Jixi shook her head very lightly as she felt that any movement she made right now was too strenuous.
"You ate almost half of the food, of course, you will feel uncomfortable." Chu Heling looked at Wen Jiexi worriedly.
"I think we're going to need to buy some digestive medicine."
"I'll go buy it!" Huo Lin'er stood up and ran to the nearby convenience store.
"Jiexi, why did you eat so much…even I didn't eat that much." Wen Ting stuffed the fruit and ice cream in her mouth.
"From the looks of it, we won't be able to do any vigorous exercises until after we finish digesting all the food." Chu Heling sighed and felt that their previous plans had all become useless. Although Wen Ting and Lin'er had performed a comedy sketch just now, the money they made was not as much as the first time. Unless a comedy sketch was very novel and funny, it was very difficult for a simple skit to attract an audience.
"Let's do some drawing then! See if I can make any money from that! We'll draw for an hour and then take the opportunity to digest our food during that time. Then there will be no problems! After 1 hour, we should no longer have any digestion problems!" Wen Ting finished the fruit platter and started to attack the rest of the ice cream.
"Then we'll follow your plan. I believe we have about 6,000 yuan in net worth right now. Based on this much, although it's not bad, it's still far from enough. We need more money. The best scenario is for each of us to have at least 10,000 yuan. That way, our lives will be more secure during this next week." Xhu Helign calculated.
"That's almost 40,000 yuan! We've still got a long way to go." Wen Jiexi smiled bitterly.
"Indeed." Chu Heling nodded.
"I'm finished!!!" Wen Ting swallowed the last bite and shouted.
"Ah, ah? Finished?!" The man ran out and looked at the large stacks of empty plates with shocked eyes. He stared at their bodies, wondering where they had actually hidden all that food and scratched his head sheepishly.
"You girls are amazing, you actually finished it all. That much food was worth the serving size of five or six grown men! They say that women only have stomachs as big as a bird, but today my eyes have been opened!" Saying this, he gave each of them a thumbs-up.
"So, what's the reward?" Wen Ting wiped her hands and went straight to the point.
"There are two kinds of rewards you can choose. One is a red envelope filled with 5,000 yuan. The other is a card with a number on it. Which one do you want?" The man held out two red envelopes.
The three glanced at each other. Although 5,000 yuan was tempting, they still had to look for clues! As long as they find all the clues and their guest stars, they can get basic accommodation and needs covered! They felt that was more important than a measly 5,000 yuan.
"Sorry for the inconvenience, we'll take the number please!" Wen Jiexi said after talking it over with the others.
"Ok!" The man handed the envelope to Wen Jiexi.
"Thanks." Wen Jiexi opened it and the card only had the number 6 on it."
"Is that it?" Wen Ting leaned curiously over Wen Jiexi's shoulder.
"Let's record it done first so we don't get confused or forget it if we lose the card." Chu Heling wrote the number in a little notebook they bought.
Wen Jiexi felt better after eating the digestive medicine and the group planned out their next movements. She and Huo Lin'er will move on to the next destination while Wen Ting and Chu Heling will sell drawings. While they rested for that one hour, Wen Jiexi watched as Wen Ting bought a pad of paper, a pencil, and an eraser. She had Chu Heling pose before she started to draw. Wen Jiexi watched as Wen Ting drew fast brush strokes and finished the drawing in less than twenty minutes. In that short amount of time, she had drawn a small and realistic portrait (to save time, the drawings were all on a size of paper that was only a little larger than a postcard).
"Alright! May Sister Heling sign your name here!" Wen Ting said with a grin.
"Wow…." Chu Heling accepted the small piece of paper with awe. Although there was a big difference between hand-drawn pictures and real pictures, Wen Ting's skills were really good. She truly reserved the title of a genius student in the art department. Chu Heling signed her name on it, and then returned the painting to Wen Ting.
"And next…." Wen Ting took out a cutting tool that flattened all four sides and cut off the extra white space of the paper.
"Alright! Like this, it won't be easily damaged!"
Wow, amazing~ The other three clapped while standing around Wen Ting with astonished expressions.
Thinking of the situation just now, Wen Jiexi felt like laughing.
"Where's the biggest bookstore around here!" Wen Jiexi said while rubbing her chin. They were searching for a bookstore since the second phone charm had a woman with a magazine next to her. It was reasonable to infer that a bookstore would probably be their next location.
"Yup, that's the one over there." Huu Lin'er said, pointing at a store diagonally across from them.
Following the route Huo Lin'er had marked, they had arrived at a very large bookstore. They walked in when…
"Whhhhhaaaaa!" A group of people jumped out of their hiding spots and made all kidneys of weird faces at them. If the people in front of them had exhibited any malicious intent, Wen Jiexi might've punched them with the heart attack they almost gave her.
"Are you guys part of the production crew?" Huo Lin'er hid behind Wen Jiexi and asked cautiously. She was afraid that these people would try to attack her and then she won't be able to stop herself from screaming.
"Of course we are, little beauty! No need to be so suspicious of us! I am the person in charge of this group!" A woman stood up and patted her chest with a smile. Suddenly, she approached Wen Jiexi and lowered her head to sniff.
"The smell of the spicy hot pot! It seems you have gone to challenge the spicy hot pot checkpoint! Did you succeed or fail? Though I gotta say, your body smells way too spicy! Only that man likes that stuff."
Sorry for the spicy smell... Wen Jiexi smiled bitterly and then answered the woman's question.
"We succeeded and we got a number."
"You succeeded?! Is this true? If I remember correctly, that man is very nasty! He must've ordered a sea of food for you!" The woman's eyes widened and then pinched Huo Lin'er's soft cheeks.
"Could it be that seeing you girls are so cute he let you pass only after eating one plate?"
"Of course not! We ate a lot!" Huo Lin'er pouted and then hid behind Wen Jiexi to avoid the woman's salty pig hands. She listed off the amount, the food types, and even the ingredients used.
Hey, didn't you come in half-way through? How come you know all of it? How are even clear as to what ingredients were used? There were more than a dozen kinds of seafood alone!
"What…you finished all that?" The woman pointed to Wen Jiexi and Huo Lin'er in disbelief, her face full of doubt. Was it possible that these two were hidden foodie kings? Was the amount prepared just for these two? If it was someone else….then that innocent person would've been wronged….
"We had two other people with us so there were a total of four people who finished the meal." Wen Jiexi looked at the woman and knew what she was thinking. She quickly told her all the details to avoid any misunderstandings.
"Four people….that's still really amazing…." While the woman muttered to herself, she was the expectant gaze of Wen Jiexi and Huo Lin'er. She suddenly remembered that she was the master of this checkpoint, why was she getting all flustered for! With a dry cough, she then began seriously,
"Please take out your token!"
After hearing the same opening remark again, Wen Jiexi immediately took out Chu Heling's mobile phone. Since they were at a bookstore, then her token was specifically the small magazine.
"En, token confirmed. I will now explain the rules of the challenge. First, our challenge is divided into three parts and each part must be cleared successfully. As for the order of these parts, this will depend on what you draw. Oh, I almost forgot to say, but every time you pass one part of the challenge, there will be a small reward~ We're much better than that stinky hot pot place, we will give you three small rewards and a grand prize." The woman patted her chest and then held out three scrolls tied with ribbons to them.
With uncertain eyes, she took the one on the far-right, unwrapped the ribbon, and rolled out the scroll. There was only one word on it… 'memorize'?? A very simple word. (T/N: The word 背 actually can mean many things such as the back, behind, betray, memorize, etc. depending on the context. In this case, it means to memorize.)
"Aiya~You guys are starting with this one first? Should I say you are lucky or not?" The woman smiled but no matter how one looked at it, she was clearly smiling at another's misfortune. She took out a hand-sized book that had about a dozen pages.
"Please finish memorizing this within half an hour. You have countless opportunities to take up this challenge, but once the thirty minutes are up, you can only recite it one more time. If you don't completely recite the whole thing, you will fail."
"The entire book?" Wen Jiexi asked.
The woman nodded.
"Not one word wrong?" Huo Lin'er asked hesitantly.
The woman nodded again.
"What is this testing exactly?" Wen Jiexi asked after a moment of silence.
"…the limit of an ordinary person's memory?" The woman thought about it before giving them a cryptic answer. She patted the shoulders of the two of them, trying to look comforting.
"Don't worry, you two can divide the work in half. It doesn't matter if you fail, just treat it like a fun game."
Is memorizing books a fun game? Wen Jiexi felt speechless but decided not to waste time as she accepted the book and held it open for Huo Lin'er to see. She opened it and flipped through it hastily. She saw that there were about 10,000 words. They had to memorize this in thirty minutes? That was going to be difficult.
"If you find it too difficult, you can give up~" The woman spoke leisurely from the side.
Wen Jiexi rolled her eyes at the woman and then just as she was about to offer that they both take half of the book with each person memorizing one half, Hu Lin'er took the book directly from her and then said with a slightly red face,
"Leave this to me."
Then under Wen Jiexi's surprised gaze, Huo Lin'er flipped through the book and started reading. How should Wen Jiexi describe it…that speed of turning the book was at the speed of ten lines a glance. [1] How was she going to memorize all of it at this speed?!
Ten minutes later, Huo Lin'er closed the book and then bluntly said,
"I'm ready!"
"Huh???" The woman who was lazily drinking water almost spat out her drink and looked at Huo Lin'er with doubt.
"You sure?"
"Yeah." Huo Lin'er nodded.
"Then….give it a go…" The woman scratched her head, but as she had said, they could challenge it multiple times. She grabbed the book from Huo Lin'er and then nodded.
"Alright, start."
"Ok. One day, when I was walking in the woods and admiring the singing of insects and birds…"
Wen Jiexi originally thought that Huo Lin'er would slowly and hesitantly recite the words but in reality, there was no pause at all. The sentences were spoken without a single break and she even portrayed the emotions of the text. The woman in charge turned to the third page without stopping, her mouth growing wider and wider as this continued. Wen Jiexi could then confirm that every word form Huo Lin'er was correct.
This..this…this…is this still a human? Wen Jiexi only had that one sentence in her heart.
For ten minutes without stopping, Huo Lin'er continued to talk before she finally finished. The woman then closed the book with a shocked expression. In fact, everyone was greatly shocked. Was this still a human's brain? Wasn't it more like a god's brain or something? Today, they seemed to have met some incredible people!
Feeling everyone's gaze on her, Huo Lin'er lowered her head shyly.
"I just have a better memory than most people….I memorize things faster, that's all. Don't look at me like that, my grades are actually really bad."
"Bad grades?" Wen Jiexi repeated in disbelief. Although this speed wasn't the best, it was still top-notch.
"I-it's true!" Huo Lin'er looked at the doubtful gazes around her and whispered nervously while clutching her clothes,
"I can only learn through pure memorization…things like math….I can memorize the entire content but it won't count for anything during the exam…."
Can math be memorized? I guess maybe the formulas….but this is the trade-off for having a good memory? Wen Jiexi didn't know whether to laugh or cry and then patted Huo Lin'er on the shoulder to comfort her.
"Don't be discouraged, everyone has their own strengths."
"Yeah!" Huo Lin'er nodded. Filled with confidence at Wen Jiexi's words, she held her hands against her hips and turned towards the women.
"So, did we pass?"
"Pass, you passed!" The woman waved her hand. The girl had said everything perfectly by heart, what else could she do? Force the girl to take an exam? That would only make it seem like she was being difficult on purpose. With a dry cough, she took out the other two scrolls,
"Come, onto the next part."
"Huh? Isn't there a reward?" Huo Lin'er asked suspiciously.
The reward will not be given until the end. Don't worry, we renege on our words." The woman patted Huo Lin'er on the head with a smile and then gestured at Wen Jiexi to choose a scroll. This time, the word on the scroll chosen was 'Guess.'
"Guess, huh? Well, I have ten riddles here and you only need to guess eight of them correctly to pass. Your time limit is thirty minutes." The woman took out a piece of paper and a ballpoint pen. There were ten questions on it and a horizontal line under each question for them to fill out the answer.
Bang!
A staff member dropped a pile of books on the counter beside them.
"These riddles are all written in reference to these books. So, good luck!" The woman smiled and patted the small pile of books, about forty books in total.
Wen Jiexi looked down at the ten questions. Beside each question was a bracket. Inside the bracket was usually one or two words that were supposed to be hints. Either an object, character, virtue, etc. It helped reduce the scope of the question to a few specific answers.
"Jiexi, you think about the question first, I'll read the books." Huo Lin'er picked up a book as she said that and maybe because she was under a time limit, she flipped through the books faster than before. To Wen Jiexi, it looked like the girl was only flipping the pages instead of reading it. After only five minutes, she put down two finished books. Will this work? Wen Jiexi smiled bitterly but they had no other choice but to go with this plan for now. She looked down at the question with a frown.
She suddenly felt that she was not as smart as she thought….she reluctantly wrote down four guesses for four questions. Now she can only rely on Huo Lin'er's memories and luck.
"Haaahhh….." Huo Lin'er put down another book when there were only five minutes left. Even if she worked desperately, she had only gone through half of the books. She rubbed her brows wearily and smiled bitterly at Wen Jiexi.
"I've read them hastily so I only remember them roughly. Let me see the questions."
Even if she only remembered it roughly, it was still an amazing feat!
Wen Jiexi obediently handed the questions over to Huo Lin'er. Huo Lin'er only looked at the questions for a few moments and then filled in five questions quickly. She didn't change Wen Jiexi's answers and only glanced past them before landing on the last question….with only a few seconds left, she gave a hesitant guess for the answer.
"Time's up!" The moment Huo Lin'er put down the pen, the woman yelled loudly and then cheerfully walked over. She was rather curious at what the two wrote when she stared at the sheet of paper with an incredulous expression.
She compared the answers to the sheet in her other hand and then exclaimed,
"Oooh! Nine of them are right!"
Except for the last one where Huo Lin'er had put down a random guess, all nine questions were correct. This….the correct answer rate…was just too high!
"You two….got the answers from the books?" The woman asked in surprise.
"I filled out four of them on my own." Wen Jiexi pointed at the four she wrote and then glanced at Huo Lin'er.
"How can they all be from the books? Two were written on my own, three were from the books and the last one was a pure guess."
Wha, so six of the questions were written without any references to the books? Should they review the content? Were the questions just too easy? The woman rubbed her nose, not knowing what to feel as she handed the last scroll of the two of them and then said dryly,
"This is the last one."
Huo Lin'er opened the scroll and there was one word inside, "Twist."
"The last part of this challenge is a tongue twister! The time limit is 30 minutes like the others. You may attempt it as many times as you want before the time limit is up. As long as you finish reading these hundred words correctly, you'll pass the checkpoint."
Wen Jiexi looked at the large print the woman handed to them. The words and sounds were very similar…
"This is a testing machine. If your pronunciation is wrong, it will be marked down. You need to have three mistakes or less to pass. Furthermore, you may not exceed more than three minutes per try. That means you must read the tongue twister in three minutes or less." The woman then handed them the machine as well.
"I'll…try it first…." Huo Lin'er went up first and started to read through the microphone. She was fine in the beginning but her words became a mess as she kept reading. Her cheeks were flushed and at the thirty work mark, she was out.
Wen Jiexi frowned….She could obviously see the staff members sigh in relief when Huo Lin'er didn't pass and then smiled at her as they looked over. They didn't want them to pass!
Twenty minutes later, Wen Jiexi and Huo Lin'er walked out with four envelopes while feeling both physically and mentally exhausted.
The also had accepted the bottles of water the production crew had 'kindly' offered them and quenched their dry mouths. Just thinking about the 'look at me, I'm a good person' expression on the staff member's faces made Wen Jiexi want to laugh and cry. Didn't they end up in this sorry state because of them?
They had spent a lot of time at this checkpoint and it was almost three in the afternoon. If the other challenges were going to be like this, then they will have to wave the white flag of surrender and retreat.
"Why are there so many people there!" Huo Lin'er pointed to a circle of people in the distance.
"That is…? Seems like Sister Heling and Wen Ting are over there?" Wen Jiexi said hesitantly. They weren't sure where the other two went and could only search for them by looking in places where it's the most crowded.
"Anyhow, shall we go and take a look first?"
"Ok." Huo Lin'er nodded obediently and then followed Wen Jiexi into the crowd. As soon as they approached they could hear shouting,
"Please! Sell it to me, I want this one!"
"Go away, I saw this one first! I'll buy it for 500!"
"I'll buy it for 600! Sell it to me!"
Were they at an auction? Wen Jiexi and Huo Lin'er looked at each other and then looked at the crowd. How were they going to get through?
"Excuse me, everyone! Please don't push!" Wen Ting's voice came from the center of the crowd, and the crowd around her gradually quieted down because of her voice before she then helplessly said.
"I'm sorry, everyone, but because these drawings are hand-drawn I'm very limited. Therefore, the number of people who can buy one is limited. At the same time, we don't accept any bids. For the sake of fairness, we only charge a flat price of 300 yuan.
And then Chu Heling's soft voice sounded out,
"I'm sorry for the disturbance, but can everyone please line up nicely? If you continue like this, we'll only be disturbing other pedestrians. We're going to be here for a while, so please don't get too worked up."
"Wuwuwu, this is the first time I've seen Goddess Chu so close! I'm so moved!"
"Sister Chu is indeed the most gentle!"
"Line up, line up! I want that drawing!"
Although there was a lot of chaos and turmoil, the crowd still began to line up and the noise died down a little. The people in the center of the circle were revealed. Wen Ting sat on a small plastic stool form who knows where while Chu Heling stood in front of her while posing.
Looking at her surroundings, Wen Ting naturally noticed the two of them standing to the side.
"Jiexi, Lin'er, you're back!"
"En, we're back." Wen Jiexi quickly walked over towards Wen Ting while dragging HUo Lin'er with her.
"Where did you get so many envelopes? DId you guys steal them?" Wen Ting, who was still drawing as she spoke, saw the envelopes and asked.
"How can that be. No, we got these from clearing the challenge that was split into three parts so naturally there were also three rewards." Wen Jiexi smiled bitterly.
"Oh, there are such things as small rewards?" Wen Ting raised her eyebrows in surprise, then raised her head and said,
"Sister Heling, please move a little to the right please!"
"Let's see what rewards we received.' Wen Jiexi said and then Huo Lin'er nodded and opened the envelopes. One had the number '2' written on a card and the other three envelopes had 1000 yuan each. That was a total of 3,000 yuan! Although the challenge was a headache, they felt everything was worth it after seeing the rewards.
Wen Jiexi hurriedly put the banknotes into her wallet carefully, but just as soon as she put them away, Wen Ting handed over a thick stack of 100 yuan bills.
"You earned all of this?" Wen Jeixi asked in astonishment.
"Yeah, we try to finish one in ten minutes, and like you just heard, one drawing is worth three hundred yuan. My hands are so sore now." Wen Ting answered Wen Jiexi's question without raising her head.
Wen Jiexi did the math, that was at least 4,000 yuan! That means the pictures Wen TIng had drawn in the hot pot restaurant and here on the street had all been sold! This business was really popular! It also showed how famous Chu Heling's reputation was.
"Although there were many who asked for drawings of the three of us, I don't have enough energy to draw three different people. I also can't do a self-portrait of myself." Wen Ting pointed at the long line in front of her.
"You can also see how short on manpower we are. I need to concentrate and draw quickly. Can someone stay and help me cut the drawings and collect the money? Otherwise, I'll really be way too busy."
Wen Jiexi and Huo Lin'er looked at each other.
"I'll stay since Jiexi can run faster than me. Looking at the time, I think we should finish this by six. We must seize every minute and second. We have to split up." Huo Lin'er said.
"I agree. At six o'clock, the production crew will probably come to receive us and brign us back to our lodgings." Wen Ting also echoed.
"Then…I'm leaving first!" Wen Jiexi said.
"Go, go.'
"I'll be waiting here for the good news!"
Wen Jiexi looked at the two people as they bowed their heads and began working earnestly. She then blanched at the posing Chu Heling and found that Chu Heling's eyes were smiling at her, probably encouraging her. The hesitating feeling in heart dissipated and she rushed out. Just like the other two said, the production crew might take them back soon and so that means every second counted.
T/N:
[1] ten lines at a glance (idiom): To read rapidly.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone