On this day, there were a lot of new notices on the invigilator's big screen.
After surviving through the first half, many examinees had relaxed their vigilance resulting in their unfortunate deaths.
Most of the notices appeared in the middle of the night. No one except for the invigilators who were on duty saw it.
922 and 154 was responsible for the second half of the night.
They went downstairs at 4am, picked up some hot food for breakfast and sat down by a table by the window.
"Morning."
There were already two other invigilators sitting there.
They drank coffee to keep themselves awake as they stared intently at the screen.
"There was a bunch just before you came." One of the invigilators said, "A couple dozen of them were declared dead. It made me lose my appetite."
922 let out a sound of regret. Holding the fork which held a mouthful of cake he could neither eat it nor not eat it.
154 however was calm. He continued to slowly eat his oatmeal.
They were not very familiar with those two invigilators because they were in charge of different locations and would not normally see each other but it was too awkward for the four of them to sit there in silence, so they soon started to chat.
"Did you take the exam very early on?" The invigilator who had lost his appetite asked 922. He was a little older, so he had unconsciously regarded 922 as a junior.
"Yes." 922 nodded, "I took it very early. It was the same time as our boss 001."
With 001 mentioned, that invigilator let out an 'oh' before muttering with a complicated mood, "001….Haaa. Back when 001 was an examinee everyone in the invigilators district knew about him. It was chaos. The system even added many rules because of him."
"....."
922 looked at him silently with his fork hanging in mid-air.
The invigilator quickly changed his words, "But when I think about it now, he was indeed quite amazing."
In fact, it wasn't very easy getting one of the early invigilators to say something good about 001.
922 who saw his constipated-like expression had the urge to laugh, "Of course he's amazing. How else could he get the 001 rank?"
"He wasn't 001 in the beginning and had actually used the code name Gin. I still remember it well—–" That invigilator became more spirited now that he was speaking about the past, "After you two converted into an invigilator, were you given a examinee card?"
Before 922 could react, 154 had already pulled out a room card-like card and placed it on the table before continuing to eat with his usual 'no talking while eating' attitude.
"Oh, you mean this?" 922 pointed at the card. "It's not usually used anyway. It's only used when you violate a rule and want to go to the rest stop to check your points."
"Yes, that's the one." The invigilator said, "In the beginning, there was no such thing. After converting into an invigilator, the examination ticket number is rendered useless."
It was 922's first time hearing of this, "Oh?"
"It was just because 001 still continued to violate rules even after becoming an invigilator that the system added the punishment rule for invigilators. After that, every one of us was given a temporary examinee card to use specially for punishments."
922: "It's actually like this? I've seen boss's card before. The last letter was missing, and it was Gi."
"Is that so?" That invigilator mused, "The first batch of cards were personally made by A. He is very careful so he wouldn't normally make a mistak——"
Just as he wanted to say that he wouldn't make a mistake like this, he remembered that the other party was 001 and no longer felt very certain.
Was it intentional provocation?
It must've been.
He recalled the scene back then and then he thought of the current A and 001. He felt that it really was terrible to lose one's memory.
He was deep in thought for a moment before returning to his senses and asking 922, "Then you should be pretty good too. All the people who took part in the exam back then were all carefully selected."
922 quickly waved his hand, "A fluke, a fluke. I just happened to run into a few teammates who were very strong, but I wasn't lucky and only 001 successfully passed in the end. Anyway, I'm no good. It's just that my luck is pretty good, so I managed to last until now."
"You two are not examinees from the same time?" The invigilator indicated at 154 with his chin, "Your relationship seemed quite good, so I thought you two had been partners since then."
154 swallowed his food before finally speaking, "No, I was later than him."
922 nodded, "Yeah, he was an examinee later than me, but he became an invigilator earlier than me. I got severely injured when I passed the exam and spent a lot of time recuperating in the rest stop."
As they spoke, the large screen again sounded. It was another wave of deaths.
Everyone stopped talking and immediately fell silent.
This time the notices appeared on the screen like crazy. For two whole minutes, the screen moved up without stopping.
The 'ding dong' sounds of the notices sounded one after another with each time representing a life being extinguished.
No matter how many times they encountered this, very few people could remain indifferent.
In a blink of an eye, almost a hundred examinees had appeared causing the other three invigilators to have a rather poor expression.
922 had placed down his fork and no longer ate. Only 154 was an exception.
He stared at the screen in silence for a while before lowering his head back down to continue eating.
The other two examinees now looked at 154 in a new light.
They now felt that 154 was rather cold-blooded.
Strangers would always have this kind of first impression of 154 —— Expressionless face, stern, doing everything by the book. In the past, 922 couldn't stand seeing his friend misunderstood and would always find a chance to help speak for 154.
He would often say, "If you saw 154's confinement room, you definitely won't think this."
Other people's confinement rooms would always be about themselves but 154's was different.
His confinement room would repeatedly replay scenes of various examinees dying during an exam.
Familiar ones, unfamiliar ones, those he had spoken to, those he hadn't spoken to….They were all examinees he had met before.
Other invigilators would sigh and feel bad and then slowly forget, but he who never mentioned it remembered it all.
A long time ago, 922 had ridiculed 154 asking him why he was so scared of the confinement room even after becoming an invigilator.
But ever since he saw that, he no longer made such a joke.
...…
The death announcements continued all night like a final encore.
At 8 o'clock in the morning, the dark and gloomy clouds had dispersed, and a sun appeared in the sky. Fresh, light morning wind blew past.
Countless examinees awoken from their slumber only to find the building completely empty apart from themselves.
The system sounded in all the buildings.
[After a close relative of Shirley's parents learned of their deaths and the strange rumours surrounding this small town, they felt that it was an inappropriate place to let the children stay. The close relative had already arrived early in the morning to pick up this pair of unfortunate brother and sister…]
The even more unfortunate examinees raised their middle finger at the speaker tied to the streetlight outside.
The system paused for a moment. In order to be more accurate in its reports, it reluctantly added a sentence.
[With the exception of a certain exam centre.]
That 'certain'....
All the examinees knew that it was referring to the 197th exam centre.
[The Shirley siblings let behind a lovely note before they left for the guests. It can be considered an early gift.]
[With this, the first stage is officially over. A total of 1427 examinees remain in this exam.]
[Congratulations to the 1427 examinees. You have demonstrated talent and extraordinary courage, allowing you to successfully pass this stage.]
[From now, you are given 4 hours of rest time which you can use to sleep, eat, organise personal items etc. Please do as you please and enjoy this free time.]
[Four hours later at 12 noon, the second stage will officially start.]
When it made this announcement, the eight elders being punished in the invigilator's place didn't hear it at all.
Affected by the confinement room experience, the majority of them had not yet woken.
Amongst this group of people, You Huo had surprisingly woken up rather early.
When he opened his eyes, Qin Jiu's arm just happened to be reaching past him to pick something up.
"I woke you?" Qin Jiu asked.
You Huo remained silent for a moment to let his sleepiness fade first, "No, just happened to wake up. What time is it?"
Qin Jiu picked up the phone, "Just about to check. It's 8:30. Want to sleep some more?"
As soon as he asked this, You Huo had already closed his eyes again.
Qin Jiu lowered his head to look at him, "Really sleeping?"
You Huo's breathing was even. He answered hoarsely after a moment, "No, just resting my eyes."
Qin Jiu lowly chuckled.
You Huo grunted and seemed to have fallen back asleep.
After a long time, he spoke up again, "When does the second stage usually start?"
"There will usually be a break. Either at noon or in the afternoon." Qin Jiu answered.
"Find Old Yu to have a talk later." You Huo said.
Qin Jiu fiddled with his phone and suddenly remembered something.
He tugged You Huo's earlobe, "Big Invigilator."
You Huo snorted with his eyes closed. He seemed to be annoyed but he didn't make any attempt to avoid his touch, "Speak."
"I was just wondering...Have I met you in the past?" Qin Jiu asked.
You Huo: "...What nonsense are you talking about?"
"I'm not referring to the past in the system, I'm talking about when you were young." Qin Jiu fell into thought for a moment, "How old are you in Old Yu's confinement room? Twelve or thirteen?"
"Twelve." You Huo answered.
"It may be because of the angle but when I saw it, it looked a little familiar. I might have met you before." Qin Jiu continued, "Do you have other photos? From your childhood."
You Huo: "...…."
Seeing that he wasn't responding, Qin Jiu again started to fiddle with his earring.
The side of his neck became more and more red. Eventually You Huo reached out with his eyes still closed in search for his phone on the bedside table.
He shoved the phone in Qin Jiu's hands, "There should be one taken with Yu Wen from who knows what century. You look for it."
When Qin Jiu received it, the phone had already been unlocked using his fingerprint.
The entire phone was open for him to look through without any reservation.
But the contents of You Huo's phone was very clean and there were only a few photos in the album.
Qin Jiu very quickly found that photo from 'who knows what century'.
The Yu Wen in the photo was very young, young to the point that he had not yet learnt how to walk and was relying on the person behind him to stand up straight.
The one supporting him was a young boy with dark hair, thin body and handsome features.
The moment Qin Jiu saw him, he was stunned.
You Huo didn't need to open his eyes to sense this strangeness from him.
"What's wrong?" He finally opened his eyes and turned to look at Qin Jiu with a frown.
"This is you?"
Qin Jiu zoomed in on the boy's face to get You Huo to confirm.
"Otherwise? Have you seen anyone else look like this?" You Huo replied with annoyance.
Qin Jiu fell silent for a moment before saying, "I really have."
You Huo: "?"
Hearing this, he was no longer sleepy.
"What do you mean?"
"It was about two or three years ago. I saw someone's childhood photo. He showed me this same picture and said the same thing. He said it was a photo taken a long time ago with a relative."
"Who?" You Huo stared at Qin Jiu.
Qin Jiu said, ".....154."
You Huo was perplexed.
For a moment he almost wondered whether he himself had made a mistake and had accidentally used someone else's photo.
But that thought was clearly too ridiculous. Just the Yu father and son duo can prove who the photo belonged to.
Moreover, although the photo was from almost twenty years ago, the boy in the photo was still six parts similar to his current appearance.
The person in the photo was him. There was no doubt about that.
Then what about 154?
For what reason would he use someone else's childhood photos and claim it to be his own?
KK has something to say:
Dun dun dun! What is going on with 154?! (To those who know, please don't spoil haha)