Hunter A┃I'm a Little Hungry, Waiting for Dinner (continued)

He had apparently been scared out of his mind.

The sight of the bald man reminded You Huo of the confinement room, and he felt a sudden wave of nausea.

"Has he been like this the whole time?"

"Yeah. It's been three hours, and he hasn't recovered at all." Yu Wen shuddered, then added quietly, "He's been muttering nonstop, hasn't he? I even squatted down and listened for a while."

"What did he say?"

Yu Wen shook his head. "All I caught was 'bad luck.' Oh, and I think he said something about 'burning paper money.' I couldn't make out the rest."

You Huo gave a brief acknowledgment and said nothing more.

"You were punished one more time than he was, so how come you seem okay?" Yu Wen was curious.

You Huo couldn't be bothered to explain, so he gave a perfunctory answer. "The punishments were different."

Yu Wen: "So what punishments did you get?"

Leaving out the details, You Huo said, "I took a nap and delivered a bucket of blood to an invigilator."

Yu Wen: "???"

"Why did you deliver blood to an invigilator?"

You Huo sneered coldly. "Who knows? Maybe he likes it."

Yu Wen keenly noticed that his cousin had said "he," not "they."

"Which one? He likes that stuff? Is he a pervert?"

You Huo: "001."

Yu Wen: "Ew..."

You Huo and the invigilator couldn't stand each other, and he didn't want to say more about it.

He looked around and frowned at Yu Wen. "You've just been sprawled out here for three hours?"

"Of course not." Yu Wen pointed at the answer wall. "Your solution inspired me, so I went and wrote a few words."

You Huo looked at the answer wall.

It was covered from top to bottom in Yu Wen's chicken scratch.

You Huo: "..."

Yu Wen said, "Our teacher told us to write down whatever comes to mind. Even if we don't know the answer, writing out our thought process might get us a few points."

You Huo: "So you wrote an essay?"

He strained to decipher the chicken scratch and pointed at one line. "What does this say?"

Yu Wen squinted even harder than he did. "I think it says... 'Given that there are thirteen of us in total and twelve sets of tableware.'"

You Huo: "...Why did you copy the question?"

Yu Wen: "...When I've run out of things to write on an exam, I usually emphasize the key points of the question to add a few more words."

You Huo: "..."

The fucking key points of the question.

He pointed to another cluster of scribbles. "What's this?"

Yu Wen: "G = mg, g = 9.8 N/kg..."

You Huo: "What does that have to do with optics?"

Yu Wen: "Well... I don't know what tableware has to do with optics either."

You Huo: "..."

Afraid his cousin would die of anger, Yu Wen added, "There's optics in there too."

You Huo couldn't be bothered reading the lengthy nonsense. He asked directly, "Where?"

Yu Wen said sheepishly, "Here. I wrote down refractive index, parallel light, spherical surface, lens, focal length, image formation... Those are all optics terms, right? I also drew a couple of simple diagrams of mirror image formation."

You Huo's face was expressionless. After a moment's thought, Yu Wen pulled his cousin away from the answer wall and changed the subject. "Let's not talk about unpleasant things. Besides answering the question, we did a few other things."

In fact, after the answer wall updated, they had searched the cabin from top to bottom.

The question said: This is Hunter A's cabin. He has thirteen sets of tableware, but only enough food for twelve people.

But they had searched the attic, the cupboards, and every jar and container. They had found neither Hunter A nor a single set of tableware, and as for food...

They could only dream of it.

"We searched for over two hours," Yu Wen said dejectedly. "This little rundown cabin took us two hours! You can imagine how thoroughly we searched it. There's nothing here. What a bullshit question."

You Huo asked, "Are you sure you searched everywhere?"

"Actually, not quite." A stick-thin man in hospital clothes coughed a few times and cut in. "There are two places we didn't touch."

He raised a bony finger and pointed at the two locked rooms.

A hen hung on one door and a rooster on the other. Their necks were twisted, and their black eyes stared motionlessly out the window.

Perhaps because the two chickens looked so eerie, and every time they called out, someone either broke a rule or an exam was collected, no one dared touch them.

"We looked for the keys, but couldn't find them."

You Huo nodded, walked over to examine the two padlocks, then turned and scanned the walls.

Terrified that his cousin would grab an axe and chop down the doors, Yu Wen hurriedly said, "I've played more games than anyone here. With locked doors like these, it's best not to force them."

You Huo asked coolly, "Do I look like an idiot?"

Yu Wen shrank back and didn't dare speak.

After a moment, he said sheepishly, "Then why were you looking at the walls?"

"Who's touched the hunting gear?" You Huo asked.

At that, everyone turned to look at the tattooed man.

"Fuck, what the hell are you looking at me for?" Their stares irritated the tattooed man. "You falsely accused me of hiding a knife before. What are you going to accuse me of this time?"

"Falsely accused?" You Huo frowned.

"With so many people rolling around together, who the fuck knows where the knife fell from?" The tattooed man swore a few more times, then said irritably, "For fuck's sake, there's no explaining anything to you idiots!"

You Huo looked at him coolly.

Tattooed man: "..."

After two seconds of silence, the tattooed man said, "Fine, fine. You fu... What do you want to know? Ask!"

You Huo jerked his chin toward the wall. "Hang the hunting gear you took down back where it was. I want to check the positions."

The tattooed man glared at him. "Am I sick in the head? Why would I take it down just to hang it back up?"

Three minutes later, the tattooed man carried an armful of hunting gear and hung each piece back where it belonged.

You Huo followed behind him with his hands in his pockets.

"I'm not a fucking dog. Could you stop acting like you're taking me for a walk?!"

The tattooed man cursed in protest, but obediently put the last item back anyway. Then he spat in the air and walked away.