Kelsie's eyes widened in surprise as she shifted her attention back to Laura, wondering what nonsense she was about to say this time.
"I've heard about that, but can people really do that?" Someone on another team asked, his voice laced with disbelief.
Laura stepped forward and went ahead to recount in a loud voice.
"Back when we were growing up, Kelsie was a student of this psychology doctor who lived across from us."
"One faithful morning, he suddenly packed up and disappeared without a trace. It wasn't until six years after he disappeared that we learnt he had been using hypnotic suggestions on his patients to do things they didn't want to."
"And the reason he suddenly packed up and left was because he had been caught by one of his very wealthy and influential patients whom he was trying to hypnotize into giving him his entire fortune."
"So knowing that the man would definitely come for him, he feared he would spend the rest of his life in prison and decided to run away."
The person who questioned her was even more surprised, as this was his first time of hearing such a thing.
"You mean a simple hypnotic suggestion can really make one give away his entire fortune?"
Laura nodded calmly and continued, "Kelsie spent a lot of years with that doctor and by the time he disappeared, we were sure she had picked up a handful of things from him."
"It's obvious the hypnotic suggestion she just used on the two inspectors is one of the many things she learned during her time with him."
As soon as she finished speaking, someone suddenly yawned loudly, attracting the attention of everyone.
Kelsie wasn't in a hurry to end her yawn and even yawned a second time, covering her open mouth with a handkerchief.
While it was said that such a thing did happen, it was only a rumor. It was never confirmed by the wealthy man in question and hundreds of the doctor's patients actually stepped forward to say the doctor had only used hypnosis on them to help them relieve their stress.
As for Laura, she was just bitter the doctor had refused to take her in as his student and chose the weird sister instead.
She acted like she didn't care about it when her then friends asked her about it, but Kelsie knew she was nursing a grudge in her heart towards the doctor.
Spreading the rumors even further was what she used in consoling herself. She also added things that weren't true to make the story interesting.
After a quick reminiscence to the past she had almost forgotten, Kelsie raised her eyes to look at Laura and shook her head understandingly, "I have long given up on hearing you say anything intelligent whenever you open your mouth to speak."
Those on Laura's group were instantly infuriated hearing her.
"What did you just say? How dare you say something so reckless about another person? Who do you think you are!"
But how could Kelsie's teammates, who just passed this difficult task because of her, allow some random person to say shitty things about their peaceful teamleader.
They hadn't said anything before the results of the task was announced because they felt they were going to fail the task.
They thought; what was the use of fighting with other teams when they were saying the truth about their?
But now, they really had a reason to fight them. Hence, the third girl on the team yelled back at the person in disdain, "Hey, is she talking to you? Or are you just offended because you also never say intelligent things?!"
The second teammate standing by Kelsie's side was a tall and muscular man. He was wearing a loose black t-shirt.
But even though the rest of his body was covered, all it took for his arm muscles to tighten against the short sleeves was a simple movement.
When he heard his female teammate, he chuckled and placed his palms on the desk, chiming in, "You don't look too bright, so in case you don't understand a word she just said, she means you're as dumb as this Laura Sutton you won't stop licking her feet!"
The third teammate, who was also a man, shook his head slightly and corrected, "Ass licker. I think the correct term is ass licker not feet licker."
The tall and muscular man hummed in agreement, going ahead to rephrase his sentence, "Right, right. Ass lickers. You're all a bunch of stupid ass lickers!"
Hearing them repeatedly mention the word 'ass lickers' made the faces of those on Laura's team to grow ashen by the second, until one of them, unable to contain his anger, rushed forward.
"What did you say?"
"What? Are you deaf now?" The second guy on the team hissed.
While the tall and muscular man stood his ground and glowered at him, "You may beat me in computing, but if you step an inch closer to me, I'll beat you until you're unable to move your finger!"
The person being threatened naturally halted and checked out his opponent.
Suddenly realizing his opponent was a tall men with bulging muscles, he gulped down and pointed a shaky finger at him.
"Just you wait, your insignificant team will be thrown out for cheating!"
The third female member of Kelsie's team crossed her arm across her chest and huffed, "That's for my team to worry about. You don't have to make it so obvious that our insignificant team scares you."
The man clenched his jaw tightly, saying through gritted teeth, "Scares me? Don't get ahead of yourself!"
Then his waved his arms at the inspectors impatiently, "Inspector, hurry and check out what's happening to the other two inspectors! If they've been hypnotized, we need to get them help."
The words had just rolled off his tongue when the inspectors in question turned to him and said at once, "We've not been hypnotized. We're perfectly fine."
The fact they said the exact same words at the same time was indeed worrying. A few seconds later, the announcer walked out from behind the stage to confirm they were fine.
After making sure there was nothing wrong with them, he walked back inside.
Laura was astounded.
There was really nothing wrong with them? Then what did they mean by the program on Kelsie's computer passed?
Were they seeing things or did they say that by mistake?
It must've been a mistake. Such a thing could never happen.
She couldn't even finish the task because the time given to them was too short compared to how long it really needed.
And given the disgruntled look on Serbian's face when he heard the timer stop earlier, she figured he also didn't have enough time to round up.
If they and a few others who actually knew what they were doing couldn't finish the task in one hour, how possible was it that someone who knew little about programming and coding not only finished the task, but was also being showered praises by these renowned inspectors for the new method she used?
Right in front of their eyes, the third inspector finally checked the code and just like the first two, what he saw made him freeze in shock.
"Th-this…she's the only one who finished the task. Although using a different and entirely new method, she executed it perfectly!" Just like the first two, he too was so astounded he began mumbling underneath his breath.
However, unlike them, he didn't let his excitement show too much and just raised his blank eyes to look at Zoe and Kelsie.
"Which one of you owns this computer?"
At the same, Laura didn't know when she blurted out, "I wasn't sure that method would be accepted, but I just came up with it a few days ago while trying to reverse engineer something similar to this task."