Chapter 16: Black Granny

Here’s a joke: looking at a boundary marker can supposedly tell you where you are.

The broadcast died immediately after announcing the exam information, leaving the bus completely silent.

Secret weapon? Stabilizing anchor?

In front of “Gypsy,” all of that became a joke.

Everyone sat there in a daze for a moment before collapsing weakly into their seats.

The minibus instantly transformed into a hearse carrying several half-dead souls.

Being woken up while sleeping was already annoying enough.

Being woken up by this kind of terrible news made it even worse.

Qi Yang was just about to sit up when he caught sight of someone walking toward him through half-open eyes.

He immediately closed his eyes again and pretended to be deeply asleep.

The minibus drove as smoothly as though it were gliding through clouds.

Footsteps stopped beside him. The seatback supporting the back of his head sank slightly.

Then someone tugged lightly on his earphone wire a few times.

“…”

Qi Yang kept his cold face and continued pretending to sleep.

The wire was tugged again, causing even his earlobe and earring to move slightly.

“…”

Qi Yang continued playing dead.

“There’s no signal at all, so what exactly are you listening to? Stop pretending.”

That familiar, lazy, drawn-out voice sounded above him.

“…”

Qi Yang truly couldn’t continue pretending anymore.

He half-opened his eyes, his gaze sweeping sideways from the corner of his eye toward the hand gripping his earphone wire.

“What?”

Only after asking that did he raise his eyes toward the standing figure.

From expression to tone, every part of him perfectly conveyed the message:

If you’ve got something to say, say it. Otherwise get lost.

Qin Jiu withdrew the hand tugging the earphone wire and rested it against the seat in front.

He gestured lazily toward the seat beside Qi Yang and said with a half-smile, “Your backpack? Ask it to move over.”

“It doesn’t want to.”

Qi Yang replied expressionlessly, shoved the earphones back in, and closed his eyes again.

Less than two seconds later, that irritating hand returned and directly removed his earphones.

The fingers brushing across his ear and earlobe made him itch slightly.

Qi Yang raised a hand to grip his earring and opened his eyes with a frown. “What now?”

“If it truly refuses to move, then I’ll just have to do it myself.”

Qin Jiu smiled as he lifted the black backpack, weighing it casually in his hand before placing it onto the luggage rack above Qi Yang’s head.

Qi Yang stared at him. “Can’t you pick another empty seat?”

Qin Jiu replied, “Afraid not. There are only nine seats on the entire bus, and your group already occupies seven of them. If I don’t sit here, I’ll have to go tie myself to the driver.”

“You might not care, but the others probably wouldn’t appreciate that.”

Qi Yang: “…”

When he boarded earlier, he hadn’t bothered counting the seats. Who would’ve guessed this broken bus had such limited space?

Qin Jiu sat down beside him.

Wearing the overcoat, he looked tall and lean, but at close range it became obvious that his build was actually powerful and straight-backed. Even through the fabric, you could sense the firmness of his arms and the warmth of his body.

Fortunately, the bus had very few seats, leaving a large amount of legroom between rows.

Otherwise, neither of them would’ve had anywhere to put their legs.

Even so, their knees inevitably brushed together.

Qi Yang wanted to stretch his legs straight out, but doing that would kick the seat ahead.

And in situations like this, whoever moved first somehow seemed to lose.

After thinking about it, Qi Yang simply gave up and firmly pressed his knee against Qin Jiu’s instead.

He pulled his collar higher, preparing to go back to sleep, when he suddenly heard Qin Jiu mutter softly:

“Gypsy. Impressive.”

Qi Yang’s anger instantly returned. “Wasn’t this your chosen subject?”

Qin Jiu glanced sideways at him and lazily held two fingers close together. “If you put it that way, I’m a little wronged.”

Wronged my ass.

Qi Yang stared at him coldly.

“Take a look at the person your group picked.” Qin Jiu pointed toward where Mike sat. “As far as I know, that candidate’s background is pretty colorful. American, French, Russian, Spanish blood all mixed together, and somehow he still turned out like this.”

Qi Yang: “…”

“Sorry. Accidentally sounded a bit insulting.” Qin Jiu didn’t look remotely apologetic.

Qi Yang asked, “You have access to candidate information?”

“You guess.” Qin Jiu’s voice was deep. Even with that lazy drawl, it still sounded pleasant.

Qi Yang gave a cold snort.

Since this system could drag people into this hellhole, it probably possessed complete information about everyone.

But how much did the proctors know?

Thinking back on their previous behavior, Qi Yang felt the answer was: probably not much.

The proctors were also restricted by rules.

Perhaps… if they wanted detailed information about candidates, they needed to go through some sort of authorization process?

And that process was likely complicated.

Otherwise, 001, 154, and 922 would’ve investigated him immediately.

Qin Jiu rested his chin on one hand and watched him quietly for a while with dark eyes.

“Relax. Generally speaking, I’m not very interested in candidate information.”

Qi Yang gave a perfunctory “Oh.”

“In any case, with such a treasure on your team, getting assigned somewhere bizarre like this isn’t surprising.” Qin Jiu said.

Qi Yang didn’t know what exactly existed behind this so-called examination system, but it clearly had an extremely twisted personality.

In order to avoid every possible “native language” in their group, the system had gone through ridiculous lengths to produce “Gypsy” instead.

Honestly, that seemed perfectly believable.

Now that he understood the reason, he stopped blaming Qin Jiu for it.

And maybe it was just his imagination, but ever since boarding the bus, Qin Jiu had seemed slightly unhappy.

Qi Yang looked at the proctor sitting there silently lost in thought…

Perhaps the snow outside reflected too much light.

His eyes began aching again, making him uncomfortable.

He rubbed them carelessly twice, shoved his earphones back in, and resumed sleeping silently.

…

…

Ten minutes later, the bus suddenly jolted violently at the roadside.

The depressed candidates were shaken back to awareness and finally realized the scenery outside had changed completely.

The endless snow and fog had vanished.

Ahead stretched a winding mountain road.

The condition of the road was terrible. Once the bus climbed onto it, the entire vehicle rattled nonstop over hardened mud and sharp rocks.

The road itself was also extremely narrow. If two vehicles passed each other, both would probably need to crawl forward in first gear inch by inch.

Dense vegetation covered the mountainside below. One glance downward revealed terrifying depth.

If the bus rolled off the edge, there probably wouldn’t even be bodies left.

Even so, this broken minibus drove recklessly fast.

Midway through the journey, the driver released one hand from the steering wheel to adjust the radio.

The broadcast crackled briefly before switching frequencies.

An old song began playing.

Occasionally, traffic reports interrupted the music, warning that certain sections of mountain road had become impassable due to landslides.

And sure enough, not long later, a warning sign appeared ahead.

Beyond it sat a massive fallen boulder and several collapsed trees blocking the road entirely.

No normal vehicle could possibly pass through.

Yet the driver completely ignored the warning sign.

The battered bus lurched violently twice.

Everyone screamed in alarm.

By the time they slammed heavily back into their seats, the bus had already passed through the landslide zone and continued deeper into the mountains.

…

The deeper they traveled, the darker the sky became.

Even though the bus heater still worked, everyone instinctively shivered.

When the road finally curved out from the mountainside, an old road sign appeared nearby displaying a route number.

Old Yu wrapped his coat tightly around himself and muttered while staring at the sign:

“This road seems close to the border…”

“We’re seriously leaving the country?” Yu Wen’s eyes widened.

Old Yu said, “No idea.”

Yu Wen shrank into his coat and nervously stared outside. “Can you even casually cross borders like this?!”

While he spoke, the minibus suddenly made a sharp turn and plunged into roadside woods.

Everyone became completely confused by the bizarre route. They wanted to ask questions, but the driver was supposedly mute.

Another ten minutes passed.

The bus finally burst out of the forest and screeched to a halt beside a muddy road.

…

“Bro, wake up. We’re here.” Yu Wen knelt on one leg atop his seat and leaned over the backrest to shake Qi Yang awake.

He genuinely admired his brother’s nerves. Qi Yang had actually slept that deeply.

Qi Yang brushed his hair back and half-opened his eyes, glancing beside him.

The seat next to him was already empty.

With the lower half of his face still buried inside his collar, he muttered, “Where’s everyone?”

“Huh?” Yu Wen didn’t hear him clearly.

Qi Yang shook his head and fully woke up.

He stood up and stomped his numb feet before looking outside through the window.

“Where are we?”

This time Yu Wen heard him clearly. “No clue. The driver parked here and ran off.”

“What do you mean he ran off?”

Yu Wen pointed outside. “There’s only this muddy road. He just ran down it.”

They seemed to have stopped at the entrance of some village. Through tangled branches, rooftops of varying heights were barely visible.

Other than the narrow road leading toward the village, there were no other paths.

They were completely surrounded by endless forest.

Yu Wen followed Qi Yang off the bus.

The candidates stood outside the bus doors, staring at one another helplessly.

Meanwhile, Qin Jiu stood farther away among the trees, one hand resting against a trunk as he looked upward at something unknown.

“Old Yu said earlier that road was near the border. Could we actually be somewhere in the real world?” Yu Wen asked Qi Yang.

The newly joined Chen Bin interrupted, “Based on my experience, probably not. But you do see reflections of reality here. Sometimes you even recognize certain things from the real world.”

Yu Wen asked, “If this place isn’t real, then does dying here count as actual death?”

Chen Bin smiled bitterly. “No idea. You’d only know by testing it yourself. But who’d dare test something like that?”

Yu Wen drooped miserably. “True…”

Qi Yang didn’t bother dwelling on such topics.

After getting off the bus, he wandered around the muddy roadside for a while.

Not long later, he nudged something with his foot.

“There’s a boundary marker here.”

“I was looking for one too. So it’s over there.” Chen Bin, being experienced, had also been searching for useful information after leaving the bus.

He walked over and crouched beside the marker, pushing aside the weeds covering it.

“There should be a place name on it. Might not be very useful, but at least knowing where we are is comforting…”

Everyone gathered around after hearing that.

Only to discover several bizarre symbols carved onto the crumbling stone marker.

“What’s this supposed to be?”

“Letters maybe…”

Chen Bin pulled tissues from his bag and wiped away the mud while everyone struggled to decipher the text.

Yu Wen squinted. “K… is this an A?”

Chen Bin said, “Lo… what the hell is this thing?”

“Probably a P.” Yu Yao tilted her head while supporting her belly. “That one looks like H… U… V.”

Ignoring all the random markings that may or may not have mattered, the place name on the marker looked like this:

kalo phuv

Everyone: “…”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

So much for the joke about boundary markers telling you where you are.

…

Just as everyone was mentally collapsing, the driver who had disappeared without a word suddenly returned.

His shoes were covered in black mud, and beside him walked a middle-aged man wearing a military coat and fur hat.

Judging by his face, he seemed Chinese.

The driver said, “There. That’s all of them.”

Old Yu froze. “You can talk?!”

The driver glanced at him and said hoarsely, “He’ll take you to that house. Remember this—don’t enter the forest.”

After saying that, he waved toward the fur-hat man, turned around, climbed back into the minibus, and drove away.

The vehicle twisted crookedly through the forest before disappearing behind overlapping branches.

Even the sounds of the engine and tires vanished completely.

The forest became eerily silent.

Everyone’s hair stood on end.

…

“What are we here to do?” Qi Yang asked the man in the fur hat.

The man blinked blankly. “Huh? Didn’t they say you came to find Black Granny? What, you don’t even know yourselves?”

“Black Granny? Who’s that?” Chen Bin walked over and asked.

For some reason, the fur-hat man visibly shrank back.

He tightened the collar around his hat and lowered his eyes while speaking in a muffled voice.

“An old woman. Back during the war, she came here with the Russians. Supposedly she was some kind of Gypsy or something, anyway…”

He wrapped his coat tighter around himself and whispered:

“I’ll take you there. Just be careful. Ever since she arrived, our entire village has been wrong somehow.”

“I seriously don’t understand what you people were thinking… coming here to stay for ten days?”

Everyone wanted to cry.

As if they actually wanted to stay here.