Don’t Close Your Eyes At Me
Chapter 63: Twin Tower
Invigilator’s district. Red Harbour Wharf.
The signal light flashed in the dark night. On the electronic screen nearby, 9:03pm was displayed.
Gentle splashes could be heard as the white ship docked safely at the wharf.
A rope ladder was thrown down and several figures disembarked one after another.
The system’s familiar voice sounded in thin air:
【Welcome back.】
Fuck.
Chen Fei who was climbing down the ladder slipped and almost stepped onto Huang Rui’s head.
“You can’t even get off a ship?”
922 quickly grabbed him to prevent the two from falling into a heap.
Chen Fei looked around in shock: “Why is there another examination broadcast?”
“This is the base camp. The system is everywhere. I suggest you adapt to it.” Qin Jiu said casually.
Base camp?
You Huo took this in and looked into the distance.
Just as Qin Jiu described, this place looked like an ordinary coastal city.
Lights from the tall buildings shone down and crossed with each other to form colourful patterns.
Standing there, he could even feel the city’s liveliness.
922 was still counting for the examinees: “Parking, stopping at traffic lights, swiping your card, ringing the doorbell…….In any case, it’s everywhere. You’d better be prepared for it. It would be a pain having you trip every time.”
Chen Fei and Huang Rui glanced at each other. They were utterly petrified.
021 also came down in her high heels.
As soon as she stepped down onto the wharf, the system’s voice sounded again:
【December 30th 21:05pm. The outdoor temperature is -4 ℃. Invigilator’s equipment no. 09271 was docked at Pier 13.】
Chen Fei and Huang Rui still felt their scalp go numb when they heard it, but this time they managed to remain standing.
“It’s already past 9. If nothing happened along the way, we could have actually returned during the day.” 078 couldn’t help but mutter.
It took them two hours to repair the ship.
After finally picking up the examinees and making their way back to the invigilator’s district, 021 had lost her invigilator’s card so they had to turn back to pick it up. This return trip alone took another four hours.
078 was a strange man with very low EQ.
He originally only wanted to complain about the repairing of the ship with the intention to make the rule violating examinees feel a little guilty. Afterall, attacking an invigilator was too much and almost unheard of.
But in the end, the examinees were unmoved, and he had instead provoked 021.
“Are you trying to say that I’m scatterbrained?”
“No, no, of course not! I was just commenting that it’s already past nine. I had no other intention.” 078 immediately explained.
As this young lady was easily provoked, his body had already developed a reflex to apologise as soon as he could.
Apologise first. There was nothing wrong with calming the situation down.
021 naturally wasn’t someone scatterbrained. She would never lose anything important.
The reason why she would lose her card on the island and only notice two hours later was because she wanted to drag it out into the night.
The invigilator’s district was a place where all invigilators lived.
This includes the later ones, and also the original early invigilators.
There weren’t many of the initial invigilators, only a dozen. English letters alone were enough for their code names. Later, because there were more problems that needed to be addressed, the system selected several powerful figures from amongst the examinees to add to the original group of invigilators.
After the first supplementation, the invigilators totalled 50 people.
These newly added invigilators quickly took up the remaining letters and were allocated based on chronological order of joining. The rest of them started with English letter combinations. It was a little like English names.
Qin Jiu was one of them.
And this group of invigilators have worked with A.
021 later quietly calculated——–
During all these years, one of the 50 early invigilators was demoted to a rest stop very early on. Unless it was due to special circumstances, an invigilator would not go to the rest stop, so she had never seen that invigilator in person, and only saw their picture.
13 were injured due to various official activities and were recovering in the rehabilitation centres. They were heavily guarded there so, for the time being, they will not be able to leave the hospital.
26 had been dispatched abroad. As each examination wasn’t short, and they didn’t have great masters like You Huo or Qin Jiu guiding them, it was unlikely for the exam to end early and for them to run back here.
In other words, apart from You Huo who had a problem with his mind and Qin Jiu who also had a problem with his mind, there are 8 early invigilators in this invigilator’s district.
They. All. Know. A.
That was too scary.
021 didn’t know what You Huo was planning. She suspected that this Big Invigilator himself probably didn’t know either.
But she felt that having people recognise You Huo early on may not help this invigilator with what he wanted to do.
And so, she could only try her best to keep You Huo away from those eight invigilators. The further away, the better.
After changing into letter combinations, the code names for the invigilators later became numbers. The early invigilators were usually ranked relatively high.
Based on Miss 021’s observations, the four invigilators 016, 025, 033 and 058 were frequently spotted in this part of the district.
Straight ahead down the lively Baihua Street was 016 and 025’s current place of residence.
025 in particular liked to sit by the window to smoke.
And there was a bar there that 058 would visit almost every night.
Sometimes 058 would return at 9 o’clock, sometimes at 11 o’clock.
If 021 walked down this street ten times, eight times out of ten she would run into one of them. It was unavoidable.
With this frequency, she was determined to steer away from this street.
***
“You two don’t need to be punished but you will need to stay in the waiting sector.” 078 called Chen Fei and Huang Rui over, “That place is composed of apartments. In a while, I’ll take you over to get some simple paperwork sorted.”
“Where’s the waiting sector?”
“Over there.” 078 pointed.
Chen Fei and Huang Rui stuck their necks out and looked over.
Behind the street near the wharf, one could vaguely make out the outline of two tall twin towers.
Symmetrically, the two towers shot up into the sky. Many windows were lit up.
“You’re looking at the wrong one. The twin tower is the punishment sector. You’re going to those small buildings next to it.” 078 pointed at You Huo and Qin Jiu and explained to the other two examinees: “As for these two gentlemen, the punishment will last three days. During these three days, you will wait in the waiting sector. Once they’re done with their punishment, we will arrange a new examination for you all.”
He started making his way over: “Let’s go through Baihua Street.”
As he said that, someone appeared outside the Baihua Street Bar.
Those familiar with him could recognise him at first glance. It was the early Invigilator 058.
Qin Jiu saw him and immediately turned around, “Not going.”
078: “?”
021 still had the word “no” on the tip of her tongue. She quietly swallowed it back down.
Did 001 take the wrong medicine? Why was he standing on the same side as me?
078 was at a loss: “What’s wrong with Baihua Street?”
Qin Jiu glanced at You Huo from his peripheral vision and started talking nonsense, “The bar’s filled with smoke. I’ve been annoyed by it for a long time.”
078: “?”
What smoke? Do you realise that bar prohibits smoking?
You can’t just tarnish the bar’s reputation just because someone came out from it……
078 didn’t dare retort and could only ask pathetically: “Then where should we go?”
Qin Jiu randomly pointed down a small alley furthest away from Baihua Street: “There.”
078: “…….Are you sure?”
Qin Jiu grunted and proceeded walk down that small alley.
154 and 922 were originally his subordinates so they immediately followed after him.
Even 021 had no objections. Wearing her high heels, she turned around and followed.
078 watched them with confusion. He wondered if he really wasn’t going mad.
Rather than going down the brightly lit street, they opted to go down a small, dark alley……
What’s going on? Were there ghosts waiting to attack you on Baihua street?
Regardless of whether there really were ghosts, they all turned into the quiet alley.
The drunk 058 seemed to have ran into someone and was laughing loudly.
Because it was quiet, his laughter travelled all the way over to them before gradually getting further and further away.
021 quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
You Huo didn’t seem to have noticed 058. He continued to look down and fiddle with his phone.
Very soon, they passed through the small alley. Just as two of them hoped, they didn’t run into any acquaintances.
***
The twin towers stood in the middle of the prosperous city. It had a stone wall separating the prosperous city from the tower.
“I will take them to the waiting sector. Do you want to go up first?”
078 stopped below the twin towers and pointed to the small building next to it.
For once, 021 said cooperatively: “We’ll just wait for you here. It’s just a few minutes.”
078 grinned and quickly took the examinees away.
You Huo watched the three of them disappear into the night and then looked up at the twin towers.
The exterior of the tall towers reflected dark blue light. It gave it an unapproachable and cold impression. Through the large glass windows, lights inside it shone out like stars.
For a moment, You Huo found this scene familiar. It was an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
It as if he had once similarly looked up at the towers like this.
You Huo removed his gaze and subconsciously glanced around.
He suddenly stopped and pointed at an area with villas to the east of the towers: “What’s that there?”
Qin Jiu glanced at where he was pointing: “I live there.”
You Huo’s expression turned strange for a moment: “You live there?”
“Correct.” He then turned around and looked at You Huo with a raised eyebrow: “Since we’re on this topic, why don’t we take a look while we have time to spare?”
No.
No time.
Nothing to spare.
021’s lips twitched.
But in the end, You Huo nodded.
021 silently turned around. Looking up at the night sky, she gave it a massive eyeroll——
Some people……Once there’s something wrong with their mind, they would nod at anything!
KK has something to say:
HAHAHA Feeling bad for 021
