You Seem Delicious
Chapter 36: Zero Points
The cashier hurriedly counted the items.
After Qin Jiu was done speaking to You Huo, he turned around and pointed to the shelf: “That’s right, please give me………”
He suddenly stopped. It was as if he had forgotten what he wanted to say.
The cashier waited for the rest of his words but was met with silence. He tried to name a few items to help jog his memory: “What is it? Cigarettes? Lighters? Alcohol?”
Qin Jiu gently let out an ‘ah’ and said in a joking tone as he lowered his hand: “A habit. I keep thinking that I should also buy something else, but I can’t remember now. Don’t worry about it.”
The cashier nodded and reported the total price: “In total…..19 points.”
The examinees standing around were extremely fascinated: The total points amongst them probably don’t even add up to 20 yet this person here spent 19 in one go.
And the most annoying thing was, that person actually said to the cashier after hearing the total: “Just give me something from the shelf behind you to round it up.”
Cashier: “…………..”
Rounding it up. Listen to those crazy words of his.
The cashier was also a reserve invigilator who was sent over here to be a cashier as punishment, so he had met many invigilators before and naturally has heard of invigilator 001.
But when he was working, Qin Jiu was recuperating and someone like invigilator 001 wouldn’t randomly appear in a place like this.
So the cashier didn’t recognise him.
The young man earnestly tried to persuade him: “Sir, it’s like this. You just happen to be the twelfth customer today so you would have a lucky draw chance. With this, you may be able to get even more discounts so….Even if you round it up now, it’s useless. It might not be a round number after the discount.”
“There was something like this?” Qin Jiu said.
“Yes. It says so on the banner.” The cashier pointed above him, “The twelfth and thirteenth customer are the lucky ones today but the two of you will need to check out first and then go and exchange for it together.”
“Oh.” Qin Jiu glanced up at the banner. He then looked over at You Huo with a sly smile: “Lucky one, come and check out.”
You Huo: “……………”
With that mouth of his, he didn’t know if 001 had ever been beaten up by someone before but he sure as hell hoped he did.
You Huo pushed his shopping card over and proceeded to place his items onto the counter.
The cashiers face turned green again.
What’s going on today? A gathering of shopaholics?
He muttered this internally as he counted You Huo’s items one by one: “Two jackets………..”
“Two cops of instant noodles, two cans of meat.”
“A watch.”
Huh….
It sounded a little familiar.
The cashier secretly glanced at the two of them, but he didn’t dare to speak.
He helped You Huo pack his items up and then he reported the total price: “Total of 5 points.”
He was afraid that You Huo would also say “round it up for me” so he quickly bent down and took a wooden box out from under the counter.
“Here, the lottery box.” The cashier introduced: “There are a total of 100 lottery tickets in here. The best one is 90% off. There is only a total of five of those but that’s okay, there are also fifteen 70% off tickets, thirty 50% off tickets and forty 20% off tickets. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. IF you find a second place like this, you can cut my head off.”
You Huo didn’t care about these, nor did he care about his head.
He asked: “What are the rest?”
The cashier said: “Uh…..five 10% off tickets, three 5% off tickets and two original price tickets.”
“But just think about it. The 10% off ones may seem abysmal but the probability of drawing that one is the same as drawing a 90% off ticket. It’s very hard to draw. And there are only three of the 5% off ones and 2 of the original price tickets.” He quickly added: “What does that mean? It means that there are less of them than the 90% off tickets! Trust me. I’ve been here for a long time and I have only seen people draw the 90% off tickets and never the 5% ones or the original price tickets. Afterall, the purpose of this activity is to reduce the burden on everyone and help you save even a little bit. Points are after all a matter of life and death.”
You Huo said: “So I just draw?”
“………….”
The cashier was almost blinded by his enthusiasm.
He glumly turned the lottery box around so that the side with writing faced You Huo and Qin Jiu: “Here. In order to strengthen the bond between examines, there is a special rule for this and that is, mutual draw. The ticket you draw will be his while the ticket he draws will be yours. This rule is actually quite famous, so you probably have heard about it already.”
Qin Jiu: “I have heard of it. The general consensus is that your boss doesn’t like to do things the humane way and wants to start a fight amongst examinees.”
“……….It’s a big discount after all so how could it be so easy?”
“Here, I love this moment the most. It’s so exciting! It basically determines the relationship between the two and whether or not they can be friends in the future.” The cashier shook the box and gestured for them to go ahead and draw.
Five seconds later.
Qin Jiu gave You Huo a 5% off ticket while You Huo in turn gave him an original price ticket.
Qin Jiu: “……………….”
Cashier: “……………”
There is something called mutual harm.
There was also something called not letting the other party off.
Everyone managed to witness this today.
In the end, Qin Jiu still asked the cashier to help him round the numbers up.
You Huo saw him pull out his card and found it strange: “Where did you get the points?”
“The system gifted it.” Qin Jiu said.
You Huo was a little surprised.
You are gifted points even though you’re getting punished? What kind of punishment is this?
Qin Jiu: “Do you know what this means?”
You Huo: “What?”
Qin Jiu: “Many exam centres have a threshold for examinees. For example, examinees who are taking their first exam would be grouped together while those who have passed two exams would be grouped together in a different exam centre. The difficulty will also be different. With the system gifting me points, it means that the third subject that you will be choosing this time would have a threshold. The more subjects you clear, the more difficult the upcoming exams will be. It gifted me those starting points firstly to allow me to meet that criteria and be able to enter the same exam as you and secondly to ensure the exam difficulty so that I would not be divided into a group of examinees with zero experience.”
When Qin Jiu was asked questions about the system last time, he would always receive a warning.
Now that he had been punished and demoted to an examinee, he was no longer restricted by those rules.
You Huo asked: “How much did it give?”
“It is said that it was calculated based on the lowest score earned in a subject when I was an examinee. It is difficult to tell whether or not that is the truth.”
You Huo internally thought: ‘You don’t even know what your own scores are? You should be able to tell in one glance whether or not that is true.’
Qin Jiu held up his card and turned it over to show You Huo.
The demoted invigilator 001 held a card that resembled the ones the examinees possessed. It had his basic information written on the back:
Name: Qin Jiu
Examination Ticket Number: 86010-06141729-GI
Completed subjects: 2
Total points: 20
Unlike the examinees whose examination numbers end with numbers, his one ended with two letters of unknown meaning.
Seeing You Huo staring at the letters ‘GI’, he said: “It’s something unique to invigilators who have violated the rules. It works the same way as an examinee’s number.”
The English letters at the end of the ticket number was assigned by the system in order to differentiate the invigilators from the examinees.
Qin Jiu’s one was supposed to be GIN but the card left out one the last letter, so it became GI.
This was something he should already know, but he had forgotten about it when his memory suffered some damage.
It was unknown whether the invigilator responsible for writing it at the time genuinely made a mistake or if it was deliberately done as a joke. (KKnotes: Qin Jiu is also a homophone for 琴酒 (Qin Jiu) which means Gin (the alcohol))
The cashier looked at Qin Jiu as if he was looking at a madman. In an instant, Qin Jiu had used up all his points.
“Do you have a grudge against yourself?” The cashier couldn’t help but ask.
Qin Jiu laughed. He left You Huo with a “see you at night” and then left the rest stop.
At night, they all proceeded to check out from the hotel.
A sign had appeared at some unknown point in time on the street, so everyone followed it down to an intersection.
As expected, there was a T-shaped intersection.
When they reached the centre of the intersection, the scenery behind them became blurred. Very quickly, everything was obscured by the thick fog and dark night.
Three street signs stood at the end of each road:
Chinese
Mathematics
History
At the very centre was a familiar looking pavilion.
Less than a second after the speaker inside the pavilion sounded, Qin Jiu appeared from within the dense fog………pulling along his suitcase.
“It’s my first time seeing an examinee so damned laidback…..” Yu Wen quietly whispered to his brother.
After speaking, he fell silent for a few seconds before adding: “Oh, that’s not right. There’s one right here in front of me. Never mind. Take it as if I didn’t say anything.”
Qin Jiu stopped beside the group.
The speaker finally finished blaring. It paused for a moment and finally went straight to the point:
【Sudden examination reformation applies to this round. The current examination system has been changed to grades. All examinees would be divided according to their rankings into grades A, B, C or D. The top 10% will be Grade A. Grade B will consist of the top 50% excluding Grade A. Following that the top 75% will be Grade C and the rest is D.】
“Fuck………..”
Yu Wen who had been plagued with exam reformations for the past three years responded to this news with a plethora of curses.
And the announcement didn’t end here.
【The points will now be regarded as grades. The grades will be reassigned at the end of every exam.】
【Elimination style system has been adopted henceforth. After each examination, examinees with a grade of D will be directly eliminated. Examinees with a grade of C will be under review and will need to retake the exam.】
【The re-examination questions will be based on the original exam and the sub questions will appropriately modified.】
【Examinees of grade B or above can freely continue onto their next exam while examinees of grade C will need to take the exam again. Examinees of grade D will be eliminated.】
【Now updating results……..】
In a blink of an eye, the LCD screen outside the pavilion suddenly turned on. Several lines appeared.
It was reporting the grade conversion results of the examinees present.
Yu Wen: A
Yu Yi Guo: A
Mike Rogen: A
Thanks to You Huo’s blessing and the fact that they didn’t mess around with their points, they currently held the highest grade.
Chen Bin: B
You Huo: B
The former was able to achieve this thanks to a golden thigh while the latter dropped in rank because he bought too many things.
Shu Xue: C
She may forever be C.
Qin Jiu: D
“…………….” Those 0 points was something he had brought about himself.
No comment.
KK has something to say:
Friggen hell Qin Jiu ??
