[R18] Global College Entrance Examination – “Global College Entrance Examination” Chapter 14 [English]

☆, Chapter 14 Crossroads

Humans are really extremely tolerant creatures.

On the second day, everyone got used to life in the candidates’ rest area.

Although this is not a town, it is much better than a hunter’s cabin.

You have food to eat, you have sleep, you won’t die when you go out, and there won’t be two chickens chasing you to remind you to wind up.

There is a room opposite the rest area, three stories high, with a heavy plastic curtain.The plastic has turned yellow and has long since become opaque, leaving only a faint circle of incandescent light.

There is a wooden sign hanging outside the house that says “Cangmai”.

“What is Cangmai?” the twin girls asked in unison.

Lao Yu was very patient with the child and explained: “It’s just a grocery store. They sell everything. Have you never seen it before?”

Not only the little girl, but also several people shook their heads and said, “We don’t call it that over there.”

“Really?” Old Yu muttered.

He was so thoughtful that when he went shopping with everyone, he dragged the shopkeeper into a forced conversation and found out that the other person was actually a fellow villager.

The owner of Cangmai shop is named Zhao, and he is a very unenthusiastic fellow.

“Brother, I will call you brother.” Lao Yu said without saying anything.

The owner, Zhao, must be in his forties at most, definitely younger than Lao Yu, with a strong build and a straight back.But he shamelessly recognized the word “brother” and said half-heartedly, holding a cigarette in his mouth: “Whatever.”

Lao Yu said: “I’ve been away from home for many years, right? My accent is gone. Even if my accent is light, yours is even lighter than mine. If I hadn’t seen the word Cangmai, I wouldn’t have dared to recognize it.”

Zhao puffed out smoke from his mouth: “Absolutely.”

“Have you been opening a store here?”

Zhao: “That’s right.”

Lao Yu said “Oh” and asked tentatively: “Brother, from the way you are standing, you must have been a soldier before, right? Why did you come to open a store here?”

Zhao finally glanced at he from the smoke and said a long sentence: “I have never been a soldier. But looking at your stance, you have really been a soldier before, right? Why are you so fat?”

Lao Yu: “…”

Zhao took a few big puffs and smoked the cigarette until only his butt was left. He rubbed the ashes and said, “Don’t get too close. The trick from my fellow villagers won’t work here. I’m still in tears today, but if it’s over, I might die tomorrow.”

Lao Yu: “…”

“If you want to buy something, hurry up. If you don’t want to buy something, leave.” Zhao said, popping out a new cigarette and lighting it.

•

The first floor of Cangmai was filled with smoke. Patient Zhou Jin coughed up his lungs, but he did not give up the opportunity to shop.

Because there are many more things in the store than they imagined.

It is more like a general supermarket with a shabby appearance. It has clothes, pants, quilts and pillows, pots, pans, cups, spoons and chopsticks, as well as internal and external medicines for injuries. It has everything that supermarkets have, but it also has some that supermarkets may not have, filling the three-story building to the brim.

There were several shopping carts on each floor, covered with a layer of dust.

Everyone had one, and as soon as they wiped it, they started frantically scanning the goods, just like the devil entering the village.

“Wait a minute, these things don’t have a price tag!” Yu Wen suddenly shouted.

Zhou Jin took a few bottles of cough syrup, wrapped a bunch of anti-inflammatory and painkillers, and said, “I discovered it earlier, cough cough… This is just like a tourist attraction, the price must be doubled.”

“It’s normal to rip off customers like crazy when everyone is afraid of death.” Everyone agreed.

Everyone knows this truth, but no one takes it less.

When money can change your life, you don’t feel bad anymore.

Yu Wen still felt something was wrong.He pushed the cart around to look for his brother and found Youhuo in the corner of the third floor.

To his surprise, Youhuo was also shopping.

“Brother, you actually pushed a car too?” Yu Wen followed.

Hearing this, Youhuo glanced at he, with an expression that said, “What kind of fart did you fart?”

Yu Wen waved his hands and said, “It’s okay, I’ll just take a look…”

Since even Brother He is buying things, there should be no problem.

Yu Wen immediately felt relieved and flipped through Youhuo’s shopping cart.

He originally expected to see a bunch of emergency equipment, such as flashlights, batteries, ropes, knives…

The result…

The boss took a change of clothes and a black backpack.

No more.

“Uh…brother, do you want anything else?” Yu Wen asked.

Youhuo lined up in the clothes rack, took a black down jacket and threw it into the shopping cart: “That’s about it.”

Yu Wen suddenly felt that with a bunch of fluorescent sticks, flashlights, and batteries… he looked like a concert scalper.

•

When we returned to the first floor, everyone had almost made their selections, and people and cars were surrounding the checkout counter.

Youhuo doesn’t like crowds, stays away from the crowd, and waits boredly by the wall.

The old lady at the head asked the shopkeeper: “That’s all, please calculate the money.”

Zhao held an unknown number of cigarettes in his mouth and glanced at the various shopping carts through the mist. He chuckled inexplicably and said, “This is the first time I’ve seen it.”

Everyone doesn’t know why.

Zhao: “When most people come here, they dare to pick only this number at most.”

he holds up two fingers.

“What do you mean, brother? Two different things?” Lao Yu asked.

Zhao: “Well, this is the most generous thing I have ever seen.”

How expensive is this he?

Everyone silently looked at their pile of shopping carts, and Zhou Jin finally couldn’t help but ask: “…Can I pay via WeChat and Alipay? You can also swipe a credit card. I don’t have much cash with me.”

Yu Wen echoed: “I haven’t withdrawn cash in a year.”

Zhao: “It doesn’t even work with WeChat, Alipay or credit cards.”

Zhou Jin and Yu Wenxian were discouraged.

Zhao added: “Cash is not acceptable either.”

Yu Wen: “Huh? What’s the use?”

Zhao took out a card from under the glass of the counter. It looked exactly like the hotel room card everyone had.

“You all have this, right? Brush this.” Zhao flicked the card, as if all the enthusiasm he had not shown before was accumulated in this moment.He smiled and said: “Isn’t there an admission ticket on the back of the room card? There are accumulated points on it, right? Everything I have here must be bought with points.”

“It’s not expensive either. Everyday necessities including clothing are 0.5 points each, food and medicine are 1 point each. As for knives that are sharpened and can be used as weapons, they are 2 points each. It’s very easy to remember. Why don’t you calculate the price yourself first?”

Everyone was stunned on the spot and turned pale.

Just those shopping carts full of them are enough to bring the score into negative.

Zhou Jin looked at the cart of medicines and immediately choked and coughed heartbreakingly.

No wonder…

No wonder those shopping carts were gathering dust, no wonder even the most generous people only took two items.

The scores in my hands were all earned with great effort, and no one dared to say how the next test would go.

If you buy one or two more items here, you will be just one point away from passing the check when you go back to settle the account, and you may have to commit seppuku.

Zhao was not surprised by this kind of scene.

After he stimulated the person, he returned to his lukewarm condolence and said, “Come on, let’s pay.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the people surrounding the counter all took two steps back.

“Don’t buy any?” You Huo, who was waiting by the wall, said suddenly.

Everyone, including the shopkeeper, turned their attention to him.

He straightened up, pushed the cart to the counter, took out the room card from his jeans pocket and handed it to Zhao: “Check out.”

Zhao: “…”

He opened his mouth and looked at Youhuo’s shopping cart, and the cigarette butt fell on his shoe.

Youhuo held the card between his fingers and waited for a while, feeling a little impatient.

Zhao suddenly came back to his senses, hurriedly jumped up with one foot, rubbed the butt of the cigarette and said: “Let me do the math——”

Including inner and outer clothing, jeans, black bags, and down jackets, a total of 3 points.

Youhuo nodded after hearing the result.

He seemed to feel that the budget was still sufficient. He glanced at the cabinet behind the boss and said, “Get another pack of cigarettes and a lighter.”

Zhao: “…”

Yu Wen couldn’t help it anymore: “Brother, you don’t smoke, why did you buy this?”

Youhuo put the clothes into the black bag and said without raising his head, “Just in case.”

Two minutes later, when Youhuo returned to his residence with a backpack on one shoulder, the cumulative score on his admission ticket had become 15.With the speed of jumping off the building, he got the lowest score in the group.

Yu Wen looked at the other party’s cold face and felt that Brother He was really tough.

•

The seven days in the test taker’s rest area passed by in the blink of an eye.

At 3:12 pm on the last day, everyone checked out automatically, and Boss Chu personally kicked them out of the door.

“Here, go straight ahead. There is a crossroads 200 meters away. Go ahead.” Chu Yue waved to them and said, “Don’t delay. If it’s too late, you won’t be able to use your choice. I hope this time is not goodbye forever.”

After she finished speaking, she closed the hotel door.

The light box that read “Accommodation, Heating, Catering” flashed twice and then suddenly went out.

Those few houses still stood in the snow and fog, but without a single light, they looked like dilapidated houses that had been abandoned for many years.

“Isn’t this really a haunted house?” Yu Wen shuddered.

Youhuo remembered what he had asked the invigilator before.

He asked if this was a supernatural event, and the invigilator replied that it was not.The other party wanted to add something at the time, but before he could say anything, he received a violation warning.

So…

What on earth is this?

Youhuo thought in his mind that when the next exam starts, he must find an opportunity to deceive the invigilator into telling the truth.

I hope the proctor drawn this time is honest and easy to deceive.

•

200 meters is not a long time.

Everyone quickly walked to the place Chu Yue said.

It was indeed an intersection, with a lone security booth standing in the middle of the intersection, and a figure leaning outside the booth.

The man saw them and struggled to stand up.

As everyone got closer, they saw clearly that it was the tattooed man who didn’t want to live in the rest area.

However, he had changed his appearance at this time, his body was covered in blood, his left arm was hanging lifelessly, and one leg was lame.

“How did you become like this?”

Although no one likes him very much, no one wants him to become disabled or die. After all, he is just a stranger and has no grievances.

The tattooed man said in a hoarse voice: “It’s good if you’re not crazy.”

“How long have you been here?” Everyone looked at the security booth.

The tattooed man said: “Two days.”

“Why don’t you go back to the candidates’ resting area?”

The tattooed man looked a little embarrassed and a little angry: “When I went back, my grandson, and… I turned around and couldn’t find the road. I went back the same way and couldn’t find those houses, only here.”

“Then why didn’t you keep walking?” Yu Wen asked.

The tattooed man glanced around, pointed at a few intersections and said, “Look at the road signs.”

After being reminded by he, everyone noticed that the intersection led to four directions, and there was a sign at each intersection.

Under normal circumstances, those signs will say xx Road or xx Street.

But not here.

There are four road signs in the southeast, northwest and northwest, each with four words written on them:

Chinese

foreign language

Mathematics

history

In the security booth, the small speaker suddenly sounded, and the familiar voice on the radio appeared here again.

[This round of examination system is 3+1+1. Congratulations on successfully completing one of them. There are currently four more to be tested.】

[Candidates have the right to choose and can arrange the order of examinations independently.】

[Please make your choice within 30 seconds.】

[Anyone who is late will be deprived of the opportunity to take the exam.】

Everyone: “…”

At this kind of crossroads, they would rather stand there until they die.

The dog-legged Yu Wen grabbed Youhuo and said, “Brother, I will choose whichever one you choose!”

Other people also looked at him.

Unexpectedly, Youhuo glanced around and said expressionlessly: “Do you have a choice? The four directions displayed here are all in foreign languages.”

Yu Wen: “What???”

What’s even more annoying is that in Youhuo’s sight, there is a figure at every intersection.

The man was very tall, standing with an umbrella in the snow, and seemed to be waiting for him.

Youhuo sneered and his face turned green with anger.