Down the Mountain ┃ Reward: Examinee You Huo gets two draws.

"That's not right. I was almost misled."

Zhou Jin turned in surprise and saw You Huo standing beside him. "It's not 11," You Huo said calmly. "It's 12."

At the Last Supper, the person ultimately crucified was Jesus. The person who sat in that seat was the cursed guest.

Judas was only the betrayer.

The number 12 was carved neatly into the answer wall.

As You Huo put down the knife, the radio, silent for a long time, suddenly crackled to life.

[Standard answer detected.]

[Examinees have submitted their answers early. This examination has concluded successfully.]

[Final penalties and rewards will be calculated shortly.]

They had submitted their answers 35 hours, 22 minutes, and 11 seconds early. Just let that sink in.

Chapter 12: Down the Mountain ┃ Reward: Examinee You Huo gets two draws.

This examination had four questions in total:

(1) Unknown (5 points)

(2) Unknown (5 points)

(3) Reduce the number of diners from 13 to 12 (6 points)

(4) Find the cursed cutlery (8 points)

Normally, this exam was worth 24 points in total. Under special circumstances, there were opportunities to gain or lose extra points.

New text appeared on the answer wall, and everyone began talking quietly.

"There were two unknown questions before that?"

"Yeah. We got the points for the third question right at the start, so we must have skipped the first two."

"No, the first points we got were clearly for the solution."

"..."

"Going by the order, the two points for 'solution' seem to have come from one of the unknown questions."

"The points Sister Yu Yao and I got for meeting a condition might count toward the unknown questions too."

"So the first two questions were just setup?"

"Could Hunter A have triggered them?"

"Maybe. Who knows? Anyway, I don't want to know."

Hunter A's accidental death had prevented two questions from appearing, leaving them permanently unknown.

Those two questions were worth ten points altogether, a substantial share of the total, but no one felt any regret.

If You Huo hadn't been there, someone would have died the first time their answers were collected, and what happened after that was even harder to say. Over 48 hours, five or six people might have died.

Under those circumstances, who cared about chances to answer questions? Fewer questions and less difficulty were what they wanted.

Just being alive was a blessing.

The answer wall was still calculating the score:

Two points for "solution," three points for meeting the refractive index condition, six points for question (3), two bonus points, minus two points from the paper, and eight points for question (4).

Total: 19 points, 11 points above the average score for this exam.

Total time: 12 hours, 37 minutes, and 49 seconds, saving 35 hours, 22 minutes, and 11 seconds compared with the average.

"Whoa," Yu Wen said to You Huo. "By that calculation, the average time is 48 hours?"

Invigilator 154 could hardly listen any longer. "48 hours is the normal time."

Could you show a little restraint and not get so full of yourselves?

But then he thought again. Of those mere 12 hours, he still had to subtract the three hours You Huo had spent sleeping and the three hours he had been forced to spend cleaning and dealing with that disgusting business...

In other words, if their time in confinement didn't count, these people—no, a certain examinee-could have finished the exam in under six hours?

Was he even human???

The inhuman You Huo received a corresponding reward.

A notification slowly appeared on the answer wall:

Reward: Examinee You Huo gets two draws.

"Draws?" You Huo frowned.

He didn't know what the exam was up to this time, but the answer wall had briefly gone dead. After saying "as encouragement," it fell silent again, without producing another word.

As he wondered about it, a ding-dong sounded in the room, like someone receiving a new message.

You Huo felt someone suddenly standing behind him. A hand reached past his cheek from behind, its long, slender fingers loosely holding a playing-card box and waving it in front of his eyes.

You Huo's face instantly went blank. "You again..."

"You knew it was me just from seeing my fingers?"

Invigilator 001 spoke with his usual nonchalance, making You Huo want to hit him.

Qin Jiu smiled and stepped back, moving just out of the way of You Huo's hand.

"Sneak attacks don't work on me." Qin Jiu opened the box and took out a deck of cards. "Draw first."

Everyone gathered around when they heard that.

But they were still afraid of Qin Jiu, always feeling that even when he smiled, it didn't mean he was friendly or approachable.

So they formed a circle four meters across, keeping their feet planted and only leaning their heads in.

The cards in Qin Jiu's hand all had identical backs, but different things were written on their faces. A few were very appealing. For example:

> Add 15 points to the total score (one person)

> Add 10 points to the total score (everyone)

> Exam exemption (one person, one exam; scored according to the average)

There were also some rather bizarre ones, such as:

> A cheat sheet

> Last-minute cramming

Everyone could tell what the names meant. But exactly how they worked, and how much help they would be on an exam, was hard to say.

Besides these obvious rewards, the deck also contained plenty of things that left people not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

At a glance, You Huo saw at least a dozen cards with similar messages:

> Outstanding examinee, keep up the good work.

> Model student, awarded as encouragement.

> Top of the class, hereby commended.

He simply couldn't understand what use a certificate of merit was in a godforsaken place like this.

Translated, they probably meant: Thanks for playing. Please try again.

You Huo pointed to a few of the most unusual cards. "What do the black cards mean? Penalties?"

The faces of those cards were completely black, without a single word on them. They didn't look like proper good cards.

Qin Jiu pulled one out and turned it over in front of You Huo, drawing out his words. "They don't count as penalties, but they are a little special. At least, they can't be considered ordinary rewards."

"One black card represents one reform to the examination system, effective that same day."

Several young people's faces turned green at once.