Chapter 155: College Entrance Examination
For the second time.
Guo Guo’s mind went blank for a brief moment. Then she repeatedly wavered between saying she had gone to the wrong place and immediately running away. In the end, she resolutely chose to strike first:
“Teacher, why are you here?”
Xiao Hong subconsciously put down the chicken leg, her eyeballs rolling as she defended herself: "Th-this is where I'm supposed to be invigilating the exam. It's perfectly normal for me to eat... rest near the exam hall, isn't it?"
What’s more, she hadn’t even eaten it! Not a single bite!
As she spoke, a trace of grievance appeared on her round face: she had already run from the fifth floor to the first floor, how could she still be found?
“…Wait,” Xiao Hong recovered a bit of rationality and suddenly realized something was wrong. She grabbed Guo Guo, who had not yet slipped away: “Then why are you here?
“Isn’t your exam hall on the fifth floor? What are you doing running down to the first floor? Why didn’t the invigilator stop you?”
The face belonging to the female invigilator collapsed little by little, a trace of the eerie gloom unique to ghosts creeping over it: “Don’t tell me you deliberately ran down…”
Guo Guo: “That’s right, I deliberately came down to throw up, sorry!”
She interrupted Xiao Hong, lowered her head to admit fault, shoulders nervously shrinking into a ball: “The invigilator wouldn’t let me throw up, so I had no choice but to sneak out myself to find a place with no people to throw up, and because I couldn’t find the restroom, I accidentally came in here… urgh—”
Before her words even finished, an “urgh” came out, aimed exactly at the chicken leg on the floor.
Xiao Hong instantly changed her expression again, hurriedly bent down to pick up the chicken leg, flapping her arms like an old hen to drive people away: “Go go go, don’t throw up here with me, if you don’t leave I’ll call the invigilator over to catch you!”
Guo Guo dawdled back to the doorway, but her legs never truly stepped out. Both hands tightly grabbed the doorframe, her gaze flickering uncertainly.
Just now when Xiao Hong was speaking, she had glimpsed a row of cabinets on the innermost side of the room. The shape of the keyholes looked very much like the mini key…
Most importantly, if she went out now, she might never have another chance to come in—Xiao Hong had already started to grow suspicious.
Guo Guo knew clearly in her heart that there were only two reasons she could still retreat unscathed right now: first, for some reason Xiao Hong this time only wanted to gnaw on chicken legs and didn’t want to make things difficult for her. Second, information gap. What was isolated by the dungeon was not only the four people in dorm 606; the ghost invigilators probably also did not communicate with each other.
So Xiao Hong didn’t know they had already obtained the real admission tickets, didn’t know they had already figured out the true identities of the four main invigilators, and didn’t know that Guo Guo came here to look for the key props—and once she realized this point, the moment of tearing off the mask would arrive.
Guo Guo weighed her current combat power. Her face grew even paler.
Not leaving no matter what would definitely further arouse suspicion. Leaving meant the mission would fail. Forward or backward both meant death. What to do?
On the other end of the real-time communication, Zhang You and the others also seemed to have no ideas. Tang Xinjue’s voice had even disappeared directly for a long time, not knowing what had happened, with no news at all. Guo Guo didn’t dare to ask out loud. For a moment, the only thing she could hear in her ear was Zheng Wanqing’s irritable voice:
“Don’t care about the academic affairs stamp first, retreat first. When I drag out that Bing-something-Lan I’ll go find you!”
Guo Guo’s head was buzzing from the noise: “……”
Zhang You: “…Alright, don’t make Guo Guo even more panicked.”
She then said to Guo Guo: “But what Wanqing said also makes sense. You alone are no match for Xiao Hong. Safety is still the most important. When we reach the third cycle we can slowly plan again…”
“Bang!!!”
A loud crash suddenly erupted in the communication. Guo Guo was so startled that she burst out a short cry, both hands subconsciously hugging the doorframe, only then realizing she had shouted out loud.
Xiao Hong, who was tidying things up, was also startled, abruptly turning her head, and just happened to lock eyes with koala-mode Guo Guo.
The two of them: “……”
Guo Guo’s voice was as thin as a mosquito: “Actually, just now I accidentally sneezed.”
Xiao Hong: “Do I look like I’m deaf, or do I look like I’m stupid?”
This time she didn’t even bother packing up the chicken legs. She tossed the things aside and stood up to walk over. A completely unfamiliar chubby face slowly approached. However, those pitch-black, oversized pupils on her face still made Guo Guo recall certain familiar, unpleasant memories of being pressed face-to-face by bed curtains.
Guo Guo slowly loosened her grip and swallowed: “Te-teacher, I’m going back to take the exam.”
The other party did not answer. The dark eyeballs in front of her rolled up and down once, then she let out a cold laugh: “Out of so many, I picked you. I originally thought you were relatively stupid. Looks like the one being treated as stupid is me. Tell me honestly, have you already known—”
“Known what?”
A clear voice suddenly appeared from behind. Guo Guo abruptly froze. Her highly tense brain felt as if a string had suddenly been plucked apart, and her whole person went blank for a moment.
This was…
Xiao Hong also froze, her gaze moving to behind Guo Guo. At the same time, the half-closed door was pushed open by another force, revealing the figure behind the door.
Tang Xinjue, covered in blood, leaned against the other side of the doorframe. While skillfully wrapping bandages around her arm, she smiled and nodded to her: “Hello, teacher.”
Xiao Hong: “……”
Damn.
“Xinjue?!”
Even though she had already recognized the familiar voice, when she actually turned around and saw the person, Guo Guo still sucked in a sharp breath, her face full of disbelief: “How could you suddenly—weren’t you…”
Weren’t you still in another single-person space of the dungeon? How could you suddenly appear here??
Not only her—on the other end of the communicator, Zhang You and Wanqing were also directly stunned, taking several seconds before recovering.
“I didn’t see you in the exam hall, and then heard that you weren’t feeling well and wanted to throw up, so I came down to look for you.”
Tang Xinjue naturally continued the line, “Didn’t expect such a coincidence—came down and saw you chatting with the invigilator teacher.”
She leisurely turned her head: “What were you and Teacher just talking about? Something about stupid?”
Only to see the “invigilator teacher” inside the room silently take a step back. The corners of her mouth forced upward, pulling out a stiff smile:
“It was me. I’m the stupid one.”
Tang Xinjue shook her head: “Teacher, how can you say that about yourself? You invigilators work so hard, it’s only right to eat a bit of food and rest.”
She happened to finish wrapping one hand and began using the remaining bandage to wrap the other, saying slowly: “But you also saw it—my classmate is really uncomfortable during the exam, so she probably can only rest here temporarily. Will it disturb you?”
Xiao Hong shook her head even harder: “No no no, I’m the one disturbing you. I’ll leave right now. You two take your time throwing up, don’t rush.”
She rattled off this string of words as if her mouth were burning. Before the words even fell into the air, she had already swept up all the chicken-leg belongings like a whirlwind and hurriedly squeezed out between the two of them.
“Need help?”
“No need!!” Xiao Hong howled reflexively and shrank backward, as if Tang Xinjue were some kind of flood beast*. Her body almost squashed Guo Guo flat, yet she still frantically pushed them away:
“Don’t mind me, do whatever you like. If you don’t want to go back to take the exam and want to take it here, that’s also fine. I can help you apply for two-person separate invigilation, guarantee spacious, ventilated, good environment. It’s fine, it’s fine, this is what a teacher should do.”
*"洪水猛兽" literally, it refers to floods and ferocious wild beasts, used metaphorically to describe immense calamities.
At the instant she finally squeezed out the door, her voice had not yet disappeared, but her figure had already slipped away without a trace.
Guo Guo: …Why did it feel like Xiao Hong ran even faster after seeing Xinjue than she herself ran after seeing ghosts?
But no matter what, for now it was finally temporarily safe.
Seeing Tang Xinjue close the door, Guo Guo also followed with a long sigh of relief. But in the next second, when her gaze turned to Tang Xinjue’s body, this breath got stuck back in her throat:
“Why are you so badly injured???”
Everywhere her eyes could reach, there wasn’t a single piece of Tang Xinjue’s clothing that wasn’t soaked with blood!
When she tore off her coat, the wounds on her shoulder blades and abdomen revealed beneath were even more ghastly and terrifying, not to mention the arm that had just been wrapped with bandages… Guo Guo’s vision went dark, her eye sockets almost unable to hold back tears.
Guo Guo only knew that Tang Xinjue had a chase battle on the other side, but she didn’t know the situation was actually this terrible—because she had never heard Tang Xinjue cry out in pain even once, only the occasional calm dialogue.
So when Tang Xinjue’s voice finally disappeared, Guo Guo and the other two all thought she was just temporarily unable to speak. They never expected her to directly drop in with a big move?
“Xinjue, did you just clear your own dungeon?” Zhang You hurriedly asked.
Forcibly entering another exam hall in the middle of the exam had only one possibility: like Zheng Wanqing, violently defeating the main invigilator and forcibly damaging the exam hall.
Then in that case, the huge crash that had suddenly erupted in the communication just now…
“Oh, that was the sound of a wall collapsing.”
Tang Xinjue casually tossed her coat aside and explained to Guo Guo in a relaxed tone: “It was my incomplete consideration. I overlooked the situation of you having to come alone to look for important props, so I temporarily changed the plan.”
“But berserk ghost is indeed a bit hard to deal with, so I thought of a way to collapse the wall and bury her inside.”
Guo Guo: “……”
Is it appropriate to say this kind of thing in such a light tone!
She knew Tang Xinjue didn’t have the habit of complaining, brushing past all the injuries she suffered and the battle process. But thinking that the other party had taken the risk to come over because of herself, her nose started to feel sour again, choking up into her throat.
Tang Xinjue was startled: “Do you really want to throw up?”
Guo Guo took off her coat to wipe the blood for her, muttering in a low voice: “No. I just feel useless, making you get so badly hurt.”
If only she could become stronger, stronger still.
Tang Xinjue was silent for two seconds, then helplessly said:
“Stop wiping. They’re all superficial wounds that just look scary. If you keep wiping, they’ll heal.”
Guo Guo: “……”
There was no time to say more. The two of them quickly returned to the main task and searched the room for props.
Just as Guo Guo had previously observed and estimated, the middle drawer section of the bookcase in the corner of the room was indeed locked. The size of the keyhole was almost no different from the mini key.
After trying one by one a few times, the key quickly found the lock that fit it.
The moment it was inserted, Tang Xinjue did not rush to turn it, but instead let it stay quietly there. She turned her head to Guo Guo and said: “How long until the last subject exam ends?”
Guo Guo didn’t understand why, raised her wrist to check: “Only the last five minutes are left.”
“Okay, then are you ready?”
“Re-ready for what?”
Tang Xinjue pointed downward: “If this cabinet is opened and there is an academic affairs office stamp inside, it means the last prop has been found by us. All NPCs and ghosts in the dungeon will very likely start rioting.”
“At that time, those examinees who are as ordinary and non-aggressive as normal people will not actively attack your invigilator, and some existences we haven’t even come into contact with may all become life-taking monsters. And what we need to do is, on the route from here to the school gate refresh point, survive.”
“Want to become stronger? The chance to break through has arrived.”
Guo Guo: “???”
Guo Guo’s pupils shook violently!
The author has something to say: -------
Guo Guo: Thanks for the invitation, I suddenly feel that hugging thighs is pretty good
*hugging thighs=clinging to someone's coattails
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