Invigilator | "You don't... know them, do you?" "Forgot" (continued)

The bedroom doors on the first floor were all locked. Their locks were covered in rust and oddly constructed.

Stranger still, a rooster hung from one door and a hen from another.

The two chickens had been drained of blood, but their feathers were neatly combed. Their heads had been twisted to face the same direction, giving them an eerily frightening appearance.

When Yu Wen came over, You Huo was standing in the shadows beside a door.

He was scarier than the chickens.

"Bro, what's that thing you're touching?" Yu Wen rubbed the goosebumps on his arms.

"Never seen an axe before?" You Huo lazily raised his eyes.

"I have..."

That's exactly why I'm freaking out, Yu Wen thought. Why are you carrying an axe around for no reason?

Carrying it was one thing, but You Huo held the small hand axe loosely, his other thumb running carelessly along the blade.

"After looking around the house, did you come up with any clues?" he asked without looking up.

"Huh?" Yu Wen looked a little lost. "What was I supposed to come up with?"

You Huo looked at him.

He was tall and always looked at people with his eyes half-lowered. His eyes were a clear, light brown, and his eyelids were thin. He was handsome, but when his face was expressionless, he had a cold, unfeeling air of detachment.

Whatever else could be said, there was certainly no sense of familial warmth.

Yu Wen lost his nerve. "Give me an example."

You Huo said, "What questions are related to snowy mountains?"

Yu Wen said, "...I don't really know."

You Huo said, "Didn't you go to school?"

Yu Wen said, "I did..."

You Huo said, "Did you feed your schooling to the dogs?"

Yu Wen said, "I learned some techniques... If three answers are long and one is short, pick the shortest. If three are short and one is long, pick the longest. If two are long and two are short, pick B. If they're all different lengths, pick C. That's basically how I got through physics."

You Huo said, "..."

Yu Wen said, "There's one more crucial thing."

You Huo said, "..."

Yu Wen said, "Learn to give up."

You Huo said, "Get lost."

Yu Wen suspected that if he kept talking, the axe would end up embedded in his forehead, so he sheepishly shut his mouth.

His dear older cousin finally looked away, too lazy to spare him another glance.

After a while, Yu Wen couldn't help himself and squeezed out another question. "Bro, what are you doing with that?"

"Looking for a pen." After saying that, You Huo gave a faintly disdainful snort and tossed the palm-sized hand axe into a discarded bucket.

Yu Wen stared at the axe. "Looking for what???"

You Huo said, "A pen."

Yu Wen thought that one of them, either him or You Huo, had to be crazy.

But You Huo paid him little more attention. After speaking, he climbed the wooden ladder to the attic.

As they picked through things, time passed remarkably quickly.

The red-painted number on the wall kept changing when no one was paying attention, from 6 to 5, then to 4.

The first paper collection was drawing ever closer, and everyone was growing more and more anxious. They had no idea where to start, no clues, and something hanging there that rivaled a countdown to the college entrance exam.

Under intense pressure, someone was bound to try anything in desperation.

When You Huo came down from the attic, the heavily pregnant Yu Yao was dipping her finger into a small black bottle, about to write something on the answer wall.

A strong, sour stench wafted from the bottle. It smelled like cheap ink that had been left sitting too long, but its color was slightly different from ink.

Perhaps because of the dim yellow light, it had a rusty brown tinge.

"I... Is it really okay for me to write this...?" Yu Yao looked uneasy and sounded panicked, apparently seeking confirmation from the others again. "It doesn't have much to do with physics..."

"The question doesn't give us a damn thing. Who knows what'll earn points?!" a short, balding middle-aged man cursed, his face dark. "I don't think there's a fucking correct answer at all! It's blank now, and when the six hours are up, it'll still be blank. Either way, someone's going to die."

He glared at Yu Yao. "Do you have the guts to write it? If you don't, I will!"

Yu Yao flinched, but still pressed her wet finger to the wall.

She made two strokes, only to find that the liquid on her fingertip left no trace on the wood-and-stone wall. The strokes vanished the instant she wrote them.

They were accompanied by an extremely faint sound of water.

It was as if the answer wall had... swallowed them.

"I-I can't write on it..." Yu Yao panicked.

"How is that possible? Not enough ink?" The balding man strode over, dipped a finger deep into the ink bottle, and drew forcefully on the answer wall.

The result was exactly the same as before.

Before he could finish the long downward stroke, it had already vanished.

That faint sound of water came and went again.

The balding man stood there stunned for a while, then suddenly lost control. "No... how could it not work? There must not be enough ink... not enough ink... right..."

He reached for the ink bottle.

Just as he was about to splash the entire bottle onto the wall, someone suddenly pinned his hand down.

He turned and saw You Huo looking down at him. His face was cold as he barked impatiently, "Stop going crazy. There's something wrong with the wall!"

The balding man instinctively struggled a few times, his face turning red, but he couldn't pull his hand free.

"Yu Wen." You Huo turned his head. "Give me the hemp rope by the wall."

The balding man strained against him, his face and neck red. "What are you doing?!"

You Huo deftly made a knot with one hand, looped it around him, and pulled... binding his arms and hands together.

Student Yu Wen was stunned. "Bro... what did you do before? How are you so good at tying people up?"

You Huo's light-colored eyes swept toward him.

Only then did Yu Wen remember... his cousin might not know himself.

The balding man was thrown onto the battered sofa, and You Huo put the lid back on the bottle of "ink," whatever the stuff actually was.

The moment he tightened the cap, everyone in the room heard a soft sigh.

"Who was that?!"

The hair on everyone's bodies stood on end.

After the last stain disappeared from the answer wall, a line of words suddenly appeared in the previously blank space: