Crossroads | You Huo sneered, his face turning green with anger. (continued)

Old Yu: "..."

"If you're buying something, hurry up. If not, leave." As Zhao spoke, he flicked out another cigarette and lit it.

The first floor of the store was wreathed in smoke. Zhou Jin, sick as he was, nearly coughed up a lung, but he still wouldn't pass up the chance to shop.

The store had far more than they'd imagined.

It was more like a huge department store with a rundown exterior. Clothes, pants, quilts, pillows, pots, bowls, pans, basins, cups, spoons, chopsticks, medicines for injuries, both topical and oral—it had everything a supermarket did, and even things a supermarket might not. The little three-story building was packed to the brim.

Several shopping carts stood on each floor, coated in dust.

Everyone took one, gave it a quick wipe, and started sweeping goods off the shelves like devils raiding a village.

"Wait, none of this stuff has a price tag!" Yu Wen suddenly cried.

Zhou Jin picked up several bottles of cough syrup and a pile of anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers. "I noticed that already, cough, cough... It's just like a tourist attraction. The prices are bound to be doubled."

"Everyone's afraid of dying, so of course they're going to gouge us while they can. That's perfectly normal," the others chimed in.

Everyone knew that, but nobody took any less.

When money could save your life, it no longer hurt to spend it.

Yu Wen still felt something was off. He pushed his cart around looking for his cousin and found You Huo in a corner on the third floor.

To his surprise, You Huo was stocking up too.

"You're pushing a cart too, Ge?" Yu Wen followed him over.

You Huo glanced at him, his expression seeming to say, What kind of bullshit are you spouting?

Yu Wen waved awkwardly. "It's nothing. I'm just looking..."

Since even his cousin was buying things, there probably wasn't a problem.

Yu Wen immediately felt reassured and looked through You Huo's cart.

He'd expected to see a pile of emergency supplies, like flashlights, batteries, rope, knives...

Instead...

The big shot had picked out a change of clothes and a black backpack.

That was it.

"Uh... Ge, are you getting anything else?" Yu Wen asked.

You Huo sorted through the clothes on a rack, then tossed a black down jacket into the cart. "That's about it."

Yu Wen suddenly felt that, with his pile of glow sticks, flashlights, and batteries... he looked like a concert ticket scalper.

By the time they returned to the first floor, everyone had pretty much finished choosing. People and carts crowded around the checkout counter.

You Huo didn't like crowds, so he stayed away and waited by the wall, bored out of his mind.

The old lady at the front asked the shopkeeper, "That's all. Can you add it up?"

With who knew how many cigarettes he'd smoked by now, Zhao looked through the haze at the carts full of all sorts of goods and let out an inscrutable chuckle. "I can tell at a glance it's your first time."

Nobody understood what he meant.

Zhao said, "Most people who come here dare to pick out this many items at most."

He held up two fingers.

"What do you mean, brother? Two items?" Old Yu asked.

Zhao said, "Yeah. That's the most generous I've ever seen anyone be."

How fucking expensive could it be?

Everyone silently glanced at their shopping carts piled high as mountains. Zhou Jin finally couldn't help asking, "...Can we pay with WeChat or Alipay? A card would work too. I didn't bring much cash."

Yu Wen chimed in, "I haven't withdrawn cash in a whole year."

Zhao said, "No WeChat, Alipay, or cards."

Zhou Jin and Yu Wen were the first to lose heart.

Zhao added, "No cash either."

Yu Wen said, "Huh? Then what do we use?"

Zhao pulled a card from beneath the glass countertop. It looked exactly like the little hotel room cards they each had.

"You all have one of these, right? Use this." Zhao flicked the surface of the card, as though he'd saved up all the enthusiasm he hadn't shown before for this moment. Smiling, he said, "The back of the room card is your exam admission ticket, isn't it? Your cumulative score is on there, right? Everything here has to be bought with points."

"It's not expensive, either. Daily necessities, including clothes, are 0.5 points each. Food and medicine are 1 point each. As for things like knives, with a sharpened edge that can be used as weapons, those are 2 points each. Very easy to remember. Why don't you add up the prices yourselves first?"

Everyone froze on the spot, their faces deathly pale.

Their packed shopping carts alone were enough to send their scores into the negatives.

Zhou Jin looked at his cart full of medicine and immediately sucked in a breath of cold air, coughing his lungs out.

No wonder...

No wonder the shopping carts were covered in dust. No wonder the most generous person had only taken two items.

They'd earned the points they had by risking their lives in fear and trepidation. No one could say how they'd do on the next exam.

If they bought one or two extra things here and ended up just one point short of passing when the scores were tallied, they'd probably want to disembowel themselves.

Zhao was used to scenes like this.

Having finished provoking them, he returned to his lukewarm, mournful manner. "Come on, let's check out."

As soon as he said it, the people around the counter all stepped back two paces.

"None of you are buying anything?" You Huo, waiting by the wall, suddenly asked.

Everyone, including the shopkeeper, turned to look at him.

He straightened up, pushed his cart to the counter, and pulled his room card from his jeans pocket, handing it to Zhao. "Check me out."

Zhao: "..."

He stared open-mouthed at You Huo's shopping cart, his cigarette butt falling onto his shoe.

You Huo held the card between his fingers and waited a while, growing slightly impatient.

Zhao abruptly came to his senses. He hurriedly lifted a foot and ground out the cigarette butt. "Let me add it up-"

The underwear and outerwear, plus the jeans, black backpack, and down jacket, came to 3 points in total.

You Huo nodded when he heard the total.

He seemed to think there was still room in his budget. His gaze swept over the cabinet behind the shopkeeper, and he added, "A pack of cigarettes and a lighter too."

Zhao: "..."

Yu Wen couldn't hold back. "Ge, you don't even smoke. Why are you buying those?"

You Huo put the clothes into the black backpack and said without looking up, "Just in case."

Two minutes later, when You Huo headed back to his room with the backpack slung over one shoulder, the cumulative score on his exam admission ticket had already dropped to 15. It had plummeted at the speed of someone jumping off a building, becoming the lowest score in the group.