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Chapter 34
You Seem Delicious
Chapter 34: Yu Yao
When they got off the car, they stood around dumbly.
Before them was a street. There were high-rise buildings on both sides.
The high-rise buildings were a bit old, like department stores from a century ago. The shop windows were grey and dusty, and the lights in the corners formed a ring of light around them.
It was like a forgotten old city street.
âThis is a rest stop?â Everyone grabbed onto the driver and didnât let him get back into the car.
âWhy are you grabbing me?â The driver wasnât happy. He pried off their hands: âThis is a rest stop. Canât you see that hotel over there?â
The dilapidated minivan indeed stopped right before a hotel.
The hotel had the typical look most common stores had. It was located at the corner of the street and appeared completely desolated.
âŚâŚ.Actually, it wasnât just that one. It was the same for the entire street.
âRest stops can change?â Everyone was surprised.
âWhat about the small inn? Boss Chu? We only just managed to get acquainted with her.â
âBoss Chu? Chu Yue?â It may have been because of the lighting but the driversâ dark face appeared to turn a little red. He then quickly restored his expression: âYou met her? She must still be in that small inn. There are five rest stops in total in the country and are often rotated.â
You Huo: âIn the country? This examination also happens overseas?â
The driver pursed his lips.
He didnât seem to want to speak any further but, for Chu Yueâs sake, he finally said: âOf course. Donât you have a foreigner standing there? Also, if there is a subject called foreign language, then there would naturally be examination centres overseas.â
The examinees who had just left the village stared wordlessly at him.
Driver: ââŚâŚâŚ.â
âYour situation was a rare case.â He added.
¡
You Huo looked around. Those high-rise buildings were brightly lit. It was as if it was filled with people.
âCan you choose the rest stop?â He asked.
The driver said: âItâs generally random. Each of the five rest stops have their own special featuresâââ
You Huo recalled the earlier rest stop and said expressionlessly: âEspecially run-down?â
Driver: ââŚ..Chu Yueâs one is indeed a bitââââ
You Huoâs expression was cold.
Driver: ââŚâŚâŚespecially run-down.â
âThat rest stop may be the only one without any merits.â The driver frowned and mumbled: âOtherwise, she wouldnât be sent there as punishmentâŚâŚâŚâ
âBut the others have their own advantages. Chu Yueâs one is rest stop 1. Rest stop 2 is like a military base with all kinds of weapons. Whatever weapon you can think of, they will have it there. For some examinees, it is heaven.â
âThe major feature at rest stop 3 is its casino. If you are lucky, you can give it a try. You may even get your hands on a guaranteed pass card. Rest stop 4 allows you to eat and play as much as you wanted to. Staying there for a few days would allow you to temporarily forget about the exams. And this place here is rest stop 5.â
You Huo frowned. He had a bad feeling: âAnd the advantage of this place?â
Driver: âThe market is cheaper.â
Everyone: âHow cheap?â
â10-40% off.â
ââŚâŚâŚâŚ..â
Chen Bin couldnât help but say: âIn all honesty, I canât even deduct 0.1 points right now.â
Driver: âWhat a coincidence. Most examinees are just like you so coming here would be considered bad luckâŚâŚâŚ..â
The lucky king You Huo turned his head and walked away.
¡
Anyway, this rest stop was better than the previous one.
They didnât want to use the adjective âprosperityâ because it sounded rather ironic.
In any case, even the management of the hotel was stricter.
A scanner was installed on the automatic glass door and a red light swept across the examinees.
With the principle of allowing the old, sick and frail to go first, You Huo leaned against the door and waited.
He waited until everyone entered before following behind.
The moment he stepped through, the alarm went off.
The woman at the front desk shot up. She stretched her neck out: âWhat have you brought?â
You Huo stopped his steps: âWhat do you mean?â
Everyone didnât understand what was going on, and they were worried about You Huo. They all stared at the front desk vigilantly.
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The woman at the front desk beckoned him over: âIâll have to trouble you to come this way. I need to check.â
You Huo threw the black bag onto the table and unzipped it. He raised his thin eyelid and said: âCheck what? Go ahead.â
That face of his was more impactful when seen up close.
The woman went red from her neck to her face. She explained: âUhâŚ..You can do it yourself. Please try and recall for a moment. Did you bring back anything from the examination centre?â
Everyone was confused.
Yu Wen said: âThatâs impossible. There wasnât anything normal in that damned examination centre. Who in the right mind would take something from there? Itâs not like itâs a souvenir.â
The woman at the front desk was amused by this: âBut I canât rule out the possibility of something trying to slip out together with the examinees. Iâve had it happen before, and it almost killed someone in the rest stop. It could be considered a reminder for us to reinforce security.â
Everyone internally commented: The previous rest stop didnât do these checks.
But now that the alarm had gone off, they could only comply. Everyone just nodded and no longer made things hard for the front desk.
That woman saw that they were easy to talk to and turned to You Huo while blushing: âI know you didnât do it intentionally. How could a normal person do something like that? Itâs just a quick check to see if anything dangerous has secretly snucââ-â
You Huo didnât even go through his belongings. He reached into the side pocket of his backpack and pulled something out: âThis?â
ââŚâŚâŚâŚâ
The woman at the front desk could no longer finish the word âsnuck inâ.
The speed at which he pulled that out clearly meant that this handsome guy had done it himself.
You Huo glanced at Yu Wen.
Yu Wen panicked.
No way! Just half a minute ago he was calling his brother ânot in the right mindâ.
âBrother, youâŚâŚ.why did you bring back the black widowâs doll?â He mumbled in a quiet voice.
You Huo: âBy chance.â
Yu Wen: ââŚâŚâŚ.â
What do you mean by chance?
¡
In You Huoâs hand was the black widowâs doll.
It wasnât the one he sewed himself, but a doll that was originally sitting on the bottom of the wooden frame. It was the doll with the bellflower pattern on its feet.
Everyone had been tortured by these dolls for the past few days, so they felt traumatised when the saw the doll.
Yu Yao and Chen Bin especially were ghostly pale.
Who would have thought that the great master would take a walk around the examination centre and come back with a souvenir?
You Huo asked the front desk: âNot allowed to take them?â
Front desk: âItâs mainly because we are concerned about examinees being faced with danger in the rest stop. If you really want it, you can keep it.â
You Huo took the doll back again.
Front desk: ââŚâŚâŚâ
Alright. Youâre the best.
This woman no longer blushed. She tapped the keyboard and quickly pulled out a stack of cards which were then issued to each of them: âThe rest time this time is five days. The room number is marked on the card. Please make sure you donât go to the wrong one to avoid disrupting the other examinees. The uppermost floor is the restaurant which is open 24 hours. Other daily necessities or examination required items can be purchased at the store. Five days later, which is the last day of your resting period, the store will have a big discount from 7-10am. Try not to miss it.â
You Huo took the card and turned it over.
Sure enough, the format was the same as last time.
Name: You Huo
Examination Ticket Number: 860451-10062231-000A
Completed subjects: Physics, Foreign Language (2/5)
Total points: 27
Yu Wen held his card and stood on the side scratching his head: âThere is a problem with the scoring in these exams. You clearly answered the most questions and earned the most points, but in the end everyone got the same points.â
And You Huo also bought some things before. After going through the same two exams together, his total score was the lowest amongst them.
âDoesnât matter.â You Huo didnât look at it for long and just stuffed the card into his pocket.
Chen Bin interjected: âItâs not like this for every exam. At least one of the five exams will be scored separately. Whoever answers it will get the points. Iâve experienced it before.â
Yu Wen: âAnd then? How many did you get?â
Chen Bin answered grimly: â3 points.â
Everyone was frightened by the news. No one spoke until they entered the elevator.
¡
Their rooms were just below the restaurant upstairs, so it was very convenient.
When everyone looked for their rooms, Old Yu suddenly said: âWait, this isnât right.â
âWhatâs not right?â
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âThe dolls were given out to the villagers. If you brought one back, doesnât that mean that a villager didnât get their doll? Then why did we get full marks for that question?â
You Huo said: âExtra one.â
âHuh?â
You Huo raised the doll in his hand and said: âThis one doesnât match with any of the villagers.â
Everyone was stunned. They then noticed the pattern on the dollâs leg.
âWhen we were trying to figure out the differences between the dolls, this wasnât there. If it was, we would have noticed it immediately.â
You Huo said: âI didnât put this one in.â
âThen does that mean that this was something the black widow made?â
You Huo: âYeah.â
âThatâs weird! There is a total of eighteen households. If you include the village chiefâs daughter, itâs a total of nineteen people. The black widow gave us twenty dolls? She canât count? Or did she do it deliberately to confuse us?â
You Huo pinched the dolls leg and said: âMaybe itâs because the person the doll matched with was overlooked.â
As soon as he said those words, everyone stopped.
What do you mean overlooked? All eighteen households in the villagers were given their doll. Did someone not come out?
Impossible. Even the exam deemed them as correctly completing the task.
How could anyone be overlooked in the examination centre?
Everyone thought about this for a moment.
Suddenly, their expressions turned greenâââ
Of course they could. There were also examinees.
Yu Wen shuddered: âBrother, please donât tell ghost stories so late at night.â
With this scare, everyone couldnât help but glance at each other.
It was as if anyone here could be a ghost.
They then noticed that You Huo was looking at someone on the right.
The person being looked at was Yu Yao.
She was the first to find her room and was currently swiping her card to open the door.
The hotel had plenty of heating, so she had taken off Mikeâs large jacket.
Like this, her torn clothes were naturally exposed. The clothes were torn both at her shoulder and at her pant legs.
On her right exposed ankle, there was a small bellflower pattern. The lights in the corridor was bright enough to allow the others to clearly see it. It was exactly the same as the pattern on the dollâs leg.
Yu Yao stood in place with a ghostly pale expression.
The expressions of the others were even more pale.
ââŚâŚâŚ.Sister?â Yu Wenâs voice shook, âYouâŚâŚ.whatâs going on with you?â
Yu Yao lowered her eyes. Her shoulders shook.
After a long time, she lifted her head and looked at You Huo. With a pair of red-rimmed eyes that made her look like she had just cried, she asked: âYouâŚâŚ.when did you find out?â
Even at this moment, her voice was very gentle.
You Huo remained calm. He still retained his usual lazy and sleepy look: âMe? I noticed something in the first exam and I only confirmed it just now.â
Yu Wen was terrified: âFirst exam? What was wrong with the first exam?â
You Huo: âThe question mentioned that there are thirteen people dining. Try and count how many people there are.â
Yu Wen quietly counted: âItâs thirteen!â
As soon as he said that, he realised something: âNo. There are thirteen examinees, but the people dining also include the hunter so that would be fourteenâŚâŚ.Was one of us not human?â
Everyone looked at Yu Yao. Their faced turned from white to green.
âSisterâŚâŚâŚ.Whatââââ
Yu Wen wanted to say âWhat the hell are youâ but just as those words were about to be said, the young boy relented and changed his words: âWho the hell are you?â
Yu Yao gripped tightly onto the door handle and exhaled softly: âCome in. Iâll tell you everything. Itâs not convenient standing in the corridor.â
Who would dare enter?
While the others hesitated, You Huo nodded his head.
¡
Soon afterwards, everyone crowded inside Yu Yaoâs room.
Yu Yao stared at the doll for a long time and finally spoke: âWhen I said that it was my first examâŚâŚâŚIt was actually a lie.â
âI am indeed an examinee, but that was years ago. At that time, I was very unlucky. The first exam I got was the one we just finished. We were tested on Gypsy and IâŚâŚâŚ was in the same group as Zhao Wentu.â
âŚâŚ..
She knew a little Gypsy so she helped make simple translations for her teammates.
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Like this, she became the girl constantly mentioned in Zhao Wentuâs diary.
But at that time, she didnât know of this diaryâs existence.
âŚâŚâŚâŚ
After Zhao Wentu was gone, there were only two examinees left.
Only Yu Yao and a middle-aged man remained.
That night, as usual the ghost arm came.
It originally came for the middle-aged man but amidst the panic he pushed her over and sent her to her death.
âI still clearly remember his final words. Kill her, donât kill me. I beg you. The ghost arm didnât aim accurately, and the knife fell several times. It probablyâŚâŚ.was not a good sight.â Yu Yao shrank in her seat as she recalled her memories.
The group couldnât bear hearing this: âThen youâŚâŚâŚ..â
âI shouldâve met the same fate as the other examinees and be buried in the woods and become another one of the villagers?â Yu Yao said: âI also thought that, but maybe I was lucky.â
She had cried for Zhao Wentu all day, and even went into the woods trying to find blood stains left behind by him to try and find his body.
If the worst comes to the worstâŚâŚShe could at least set up a grave for him.
In the end, after searching around all night she didnât find any traces of Zhao Wentu and instead she found a card.
âWhat card?â You Huo asked.
Yu Yao said: âRetake the exam.â
âAfter I wasâŚâŚ.cut, that card took effect but because it was something I picked up, it only worked halfway.â
Everyone asked blankly: âHalfway? What does that mean?â
âI didnât become monsters like the other examinees, but I also wasnât completely resurrected to retake the exam.â Yu Yao said: âI drifted down the river in the village and was picked up by the black widow.â
You Huo suddenly remembered the village chief once mentioning that the black widow specialised in dealing with the dead and had once picked up a girl from the river.
âI was clearly an examinee, but I also seemed to have become a part of the examination centre.â
As part of the exam, the black widow used witchcraft on Yu Yao and it worked on her.
She sewed a doll that resembled Yu Yao from her daughterâs hair and then Yu Yao, like the villagers, came back to life.
âWhen I woke up, I was like this with a big belly. The black widow said she had hidden her daughter inside me.â
Everyoneâs hair rose.
They then noticed another problem: âYou can understand the black widow?â
âAs part of the exam, I could understand her.â Yu Yao said: âBut after I left, I was no longer able to understand it anymore. Even the Gypsy I knew in the past was forgotten.â
âLeft?â You Huo: âThe driver said he never picked up anyone.â
Yu Yao: âAm I still considered human? Even I donât know myself.â
She was like a bug that had appeared by accident. She stood somewhere in between an examinee and an NPC.
She didnât leave the examination centre by the intercity bus. Instead, she walked on her own for a very long time. After walking through numerous unknown places, she just happened to run into a group of examinees about to enter an exam.
Perhaps it was something the system did deliberately, or perhaps it was because of other factors.
Her memory got worse and worse. She could no longer remember the things that happened before the exam nor could she remember the people who had harmed her or protected her.
âI didnât know what I was supposed to do so I thought I could help out the examinees.â Yu Yao said, âThis continued until a certain exam where I once again saw the man who hurt me.â
Yu Wen heard this and couldnât help but swear: âFuck! Heâs still not dead?â
âI later learned that he had an exam exemption card that he won through the casino.â Yu Yao said: âHe had wanted to try and pass that foreign language exam without using the card, but he later found it too difficult and used the card up.â
âThen did you find him?â
Yu Yao didnât speak. You Huo instead spoke up: âYou found him. In the first exam.â
Everyone froze.
Yu Yao was silent for a moment before she finally nodded.
âWho?â
You Huo: âThe one who turned into the hunter.â
Everyone was stunned.
After a long time, Yu Yao sighed softly: âI have always wanted to apologise to you. I have been overlooked by the system a lot and that violation that timeâŚâŚ.they probably overlooked me. You were stained by the ink, so the system wrongly punished you. I have been trying to find a chance all along to compensate you.â
You Huo: âDoesnât matter.â
Even if he was punished a few more times, he didnât lose anything.
âBut you.â You Huo said: âWhy didnât you say anything when you saw Zhao Wentu?â
Yu Yao was silent for a long time. She smiled bitterly and said in a quiet voice: âI have already become like this. My face is also different now. Probably because of the black widowâs daughterâs influence, I now look like a young woman who had just come of age so he couldnât recognise me. Also, I donât even know if Iâm a human or a ghost soâŚâŚâŚ..I didnât want to disappoint him.â
If they didnât meet thenâŚâŚ.the Zhao Wentu who managed to remember his own name would at the very least be satisfied during his final moment in life.
As for his regrets, it would remain inside his diary.
He himself wouldnât be distressed about it anymore, only the ones who read it would know.
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KK has something to say:
OMG the black widow actually hid her daughter inside her. WTFFFFFFFF