Alex tried to put Melissa out of his mind as he made his way into the exam building. It was a large auditorium that could hold two or three thousand people.
There were more than a thousand sets of desks and chairs in the auditorium, already prepared with exam papers, and dozens of cameras to monitor the participants.
Alex looked around and realized he was one of more than a thousand people looking for their seats.
He turned and quickly found his place—seat number seven hundred.
To his surprise, Melissa and her friends were right in front of him.
Melissa shook her head again, still convinced that Alex was after her.
"Alex, are you still trying to say you're not here for me?" she joked. "Look at how close your seat is to mine. You must have spent a lot of money and used all your connections to arrange this."
"I'm just here for the exam," he said calmly.
"Take the exam, then," Melissa said, smirking. "Do you know anything about medicine? In this test, there are one hundred questions and one hundred and fifty points. If you manage to get fifty points, I'll consider giving you a second chance. Otherwise, you need to leave me alone. Do we have a deal?"
Alex frowned and said, "No deal. I'm not interested."
A middle-aged man appeared on the stage. He picked up the microphone and signaled for the audience to be quiet.
"Please be quiet," he said. "Turn off your phones, hand in your books, and get ready for the exam. You will have three hours, after which the scores will be ranked from high to low. The top one hundred candidates will progress to the next round."
He took a deep breath and continued to deliver his prepared remarks. "Don't whisper or cheat in the examination, or you'll be disqualified and banned from taking the exam again for five years. Invigilation and examination of papers are all carried out by the state medical board. Medical examiners are responsible for invigilating, reviewing, distributing, and publishing the examination papers. Wayne Shannon will serve as the inspector responsible for re-inspection, notarization, and complaints."
As he spoke, more than a dozen men and women appeared behind him on the stage to greet the candidates. Wayne Shannon, the chairman of the Baltimore state medical board, was the most important figure among them.
More than a thousand people sat in silence, waiting for the exam to start.
Melissa didn't bother with Alex anymore. She leaned forward in her chair and began to fill in her details.
Alex calmed himself and picked up his pencil.
Wayne and his colleagues soon left the examination room, but five or six people stayed behind.
They looked around with their hands behind their backs, and they were clearly the examiners in charge.
Alex felt a pair of eyes on him, and he looked up to meet their gaze.
It was Dr. Troy Wilkinson!
Alex hadn't expected to run into him here.
Troy had almost killed Maryann with his incompetence at the Hell World amusement park. After Melvin had told him to leave, Alex had assumed he would never see Troy again.
But here he was in charge of the exam.
Alex quietly cursed how small the world could be sometimes. He caught the resentment on Troy's face and the cunning look in his eyes.
However, he tried not to pay too much attention to him. Troy couldn't cause him any trouble in such a crowded room under such controlled conditions.
"You may begin," Troy said.
The candidates opened their papers to be faced with one hundred questions on diagnosis, types of medicine, prescriptions, and many other medical categories. The questions were densely packed on each page.
Out of the thousand people present, only one hundred would make it through. It seemed like a lot, but it was still a ten-to-one chance, and the questions were challenging.
Melissa and her friends frowned when they opened their papers and skimmed through the questions.
Alex took up his pen and began to write.
For those who had studied properly, all the medical knowledge was within their grasp. It was just a matter of applying it.
The examiners were very relaxed, as there were cameras all over the auditorium. The paper was a hard one, and the nature of the questions meant cheating would have been almost impossible.
So after walking around for a while, they also picked up pencils to see how many points they could get.
Alex finished the three-hour paper in less than an hour. After that, he checked it and handed it in.
Everyone was surprised. Alex was the first person to hand in their paper.
Melissa and her friends had only made it about halfway through. Alex left the room, looking very relaxed, while they watched him with disdainful looks on their faces.
They assumed Alex hadn't been able to answer any of the questions, so he had handed in his paper early. And, by handing in the paper in advance, he knew he would attract Melissa's attention.
Melissa was very disappointed. How childish of him, she thought. And what a waste of the entrance fee.
Troy also watched Alex, believing he had handed in his paper early because he knew he would be unable to pass the exam. He swept it up off the desk and prepared to throw it into the marking pile.
At the same time, he took a good look at it for the first time, and he was stunned.
It wasn't a blank paper. It was all done.
What shocked him most was that the answers he saw were all right.
The only mistakes he could find were the ones Alex had corrected when he had checked his own paper at the end.
How is this possible? Troy thought.
The preparations for the exam had been extremely efficient. Not only had they arranged for enough staff to supervise, but they had also arranged for many doctors to participate in the marking process.
Therefore, after the exam in the morning, the results would be ready for release later the same day.
**
At five in the afternoon, Troy and the other invigilators were back on the stage of the auditorium, handing out the papers and revealing each candidate's score.
Compared with the tension Melissa and the others were feeling, Alex was incredibly calm.
The first two hundred people had only scored between seventy and eight points and had been ranked in the hundreds. Without any suspense, they were eliminated.
The atmosphere became more oppressive.
"Luke Pimm, one hundred seven points, ranked ninety-seventh," the announcer said.
There was a murmur from the crowd. Although the score wasn't great, the rest of the candidates now knew the score they had to beat.
Luke cheered.
"Bill Wynan, one hundred thirteen points, ranked seventy-eighth."
"Lucy Richards, one hundred eight points, ranked ninety-third."
As the students with good grades were read out, there were more cries of joy, which made the atmosphere a bit more celebratory.
"Melissa Kennedy, one hundred thirty points, ranked first."
When her score was read out, the audience was shocked, and they stared at her.
She swaggered up to the stage to get her test paper as she glanced at Alex with unspeakable contempt.
It took an hour for the test papers to be distributed. Finally, everyone had their results back, except for Alex, who was left empty-handed.
He stood up and said, "Excuse me, I haven't been given my paper. What was my score?"
The eyes of the room were all on him.
Melissa sneered and said, "Your score was probably too low. Maybe the examiner is too embarrassed to give it to you. It's probably better if they don't announce it to the room. You'll only make more of a fool of yourself."
A few of her friends and some of the nearby candidates laughed.
Troy seemed to have been expecting Alex to speak up. His expression turned cold, and he asked, "Alex, do you really not have any idea why your paper hasn't been returned to you?"
Alex replied, "I have no idea. I just know that I took the exam, handed in my paper, and now I don't have a score."
"You haven't had your paper back," Troy explained, "because the exam team suspects you were cheating."