The Invigilator | "You don't... know them, do you?" "Forgot."

He wiped it off casually, then picked through the things on the windowsill, grabbed a rusty tin can, and tossed it out the window.

Before everyone's eyes, the can instantly disintegrated into powder and scattered with the snow.

When they looked at the "requirements for this question" on the wall again, everyone's eyes were full of horror.

By the wall.

You Huo shut the window again and swept his gaze over their backs one by one.

The only one with any connection to exams was Yu Wen... and he knew him better than anyone.

This student had spent his three years of high school juggling underage romance, getting beaten up in a group, climbing over walls to go online, and being publicly denounced beneath the national flag. Despite his busy schedule, he still had to find time to deal with frequent, sudden bouts of chuunibyou, and had yet to clear the danger period.

Physics?

They'd be better off counting on a dog.

As for the others...

The old, the weak, the sick, the pregnant, and a little thug.

The whole poisonous lot.

They'd started off with a killer question.

Chapter 2: The Invigilator | "You don't... know them, do you?" "Forgot."

You Huo kicked the aluminum basin of charcoal out of the corner. Old Yu carefully lit a fire, filling the stove with an orange-red glow.

Yu Wen crouched beside it, dejectedly tossing in twigs.

The firelight flickered. He watched it glumly for a while, feeling that he ought to find someone to talk to about how he felt before he died. But when he looked up, he saw his older cousin standing beside him, warming his hands with a cool, disinterested expression.

Yu Wen considered it for two seconds and decided to die quietly instead.

"Hey, um." Old Yu suddenly spoke up.

You Huo glanced over.

"I don't know what to call you." Old Yu patted the heavily pregnant woman on the shoulder. "You're pregnant. How can you just sit here in the cold? That won't do at all. Go warm yourself up. Don't catch a chill and end up hurting both yourself and the baby."

The heavily pregnant woman stared blankly for a moment, then tears began pattering down her face.

Old Yu jumped. "What? What's wrong?"

The woman sobbed quietly. "I don't even know if I'll live long enough to give birth..."

Even so, she moved her chair over to the stove.

The woman cried for a while before finally stopping. In a heavily nasal voice, she said to Old Yu, "Oh, right. Just call me Yu Yao."

Old Yu forced out a couple of chuckles and comforted her. "Fancy that, we've got the same surname. I'd say you're about the same age as my nep-"

He caught You Huo watching him out of the corner of his eye and changed course. "...son. What a coincidence. Once we're out of this godforsaken place, we'll give you a big red envelope to chase away the bad luck and make sure you and your baby are safe."

The tattooed man muttered darkly, "At a fucking time like this, you're still in the mood to chat... fuck!"

Everyone's expressions stiffened. They scattered and began searching around the room.

The others, however, were looking for things related to the question, while the tattooed man was after hunting equipment he could use for self-defense.

You Huo stayed where he was. After warming his hands, he lightly brushed the wall bearing the question a few times, then lowered his head and sifted through the clutter on the stove.

There were several bottles and jars, a pile of blackened coins, a few oddly shaped pebbles, scattered chicken feathers, and even a moldy pacifier left over from who knew what century.

Seeing that You Huo hadn't left, Yu Wen didn't dare move around either.

He remembered what his teacher had told him before the college entrance exam: when they had no idea what to do, they should read the question a few more times. So he stood in front of the wall, muttering it over and over.

"A group of tourists came to a snowy mountain..."

"Tourists..."

"Snowy mountain..."

"Hiss..."

When he finished and came back to his senses, he found the room unusually quiet. Everyone was watching him with bated breath.

Yu Wen: "...I was just reading it."

Old Yu had the same flaw as traditional parents everywhere: when other people were around, he wanted his child to perform like a trained monkey. "Did you think of something? Let's hear it."

Yu Wen rolled his eyes. "No."

Everyone looked disappointed and went back to rummaging through the room.

Only the tattooed man refused to let it go. He eyed Yu Wen suspiciously. "Really? You're not hiding something you figured out, are you?"

Yu Wen: "Why would I hide it?"

The tattooed man stared into his eyes for a while, making him very uncomfortable.

"All right, then. You'd better not be."

The little thug was probably used to threatening people; everything he said rubbed people the wrong way. After speaking, he turned back to rummage through the hunting equipment.

Yu Wen silently raised his middle finger. Fucking idiot.

This student had only just come of age before the college entrance exam and was at the height of his narcissism. He thought everyone under the sun was a fucking idiot, not even sparing his own father. The sole exception was You Huo.

In fact, he had only gotten to know You Huo well in the past two years. Old Yu said You Huo had previously been abroad recuperating, and later came back to China from time to time. Whenever he did, he would stay at their home for a couple of days.

A couple of days at a time didn't add up to much.

But with a spirit of inquiry he had never applied to his studies, Yu Wen had still managed to learn a few things.

For instance, there was something wrong with You Huo's memory. He had no recollection of the things that had happened or the people he had met over several years. That was also why he had been recuperating abroad.

For another, several of the older members of the family were a little afraid of him.

Yu Wen couldn't make sense of that no matter how hard he tried. He had asked Old Yu about it a few times, but Old Yu said he spent all day thinking nonsense instead of doing anything useful.

As time went on, he came to think it was perfectly normal.

After all, even the little thug who had only just met You Huo in this room was a little afraid of him.

With his older cousin nearby, Yu Wen had been planning to stand up to the tattooed thug and piss him off a couple of times. But when he turned around, You Huo was already nowhere to be seen.

Yu Wen: "...Where'd he go?"

The heavily pregnant Yu Yao asked, "Who are you looking for?"

It was difficult for her to move around often, so she couldn't search the whole room.

Yu Wen: "My cousin."

Yu Yao: "He went that way."

She pointed with her lips toward the other end of the room.

The place wasn't actually small. The ground floor had three rooms, including the living room, and an old wooden ladder stood in the shadows at the edge, leading up to a small attic.

It only seemed dark and cramped because so much stuff was piled up inside, and so many people were crammed in.