Chapter 23: Reading Comprehension

Qi Yang suddenly felt that something was missing from Proctor 001.

Yu Wen was taking pictures of the tombstones while Qi Yang held up the torch for light.

Suddenly, he felt someone lightly step on his right foot.

Annoyed, he asked Qin Jiu, “Why are you stepping on me?”

Qin Jiu: “?”

He looked down.

A few fresh specks of dirt had indeed appeared on the tip of Qi Yang’s shoe, exactly like someone had stepped on it.

Qin Jiu raised his eyes. “Do I really look that bored?”

“Who knows,” Qi Yang replied.

Everyone else stood several steps away.

Only Qin Jiu stood shoulder to shoulder with him—one slight turn of the foot and he could easily reach him.

Besides, out of this whole group, who would have the guts to pull something like that?

Just as Proctor 001 was being saddled with blame, Yu Wen suddenly yelped too.

“Who kicked me? The photo came out blurry!”

Old Yu hurried to clear himself. “Wasn’t me!”

Yu Yao waved both hands. “Not me either.”

Yu Wen muttered, “If it wasn’t either of you, then who else could it be?”

…

Everyone fell silent for two seconds.

Then, all at once, they looked down at the ground.

Qi Yang swept the torchlight across the area and realized the surroundings had changed somehow.

Several patches of earth had bulged upward slightly, the dead branches and leaves covering them pushed aside—

As if, in those brief ten seconds, something had crawled beneath the soil.

Everyone froze in place, exchanging horrified looks.

The firelight made everyone’s faces look deathly pale.

Yu Wen’s lips trembled as he was about to speak, but Qi Yang raised a finger to his lips.

In the silence, rustling crawling noises began sounding one after another throughout the forest.

Mountain valleys naturally echoed sounds, layering distant and nearby noises together until it was impossible to tell where they came from.

Some sounded so close they seemed right beside their feet…

Mike and the others instantly lost all feeling in their legs, too terrified to move.

Qi Yang turned and shone the torch toward a nearby bush.

Right before everyone’s eyes, several pale white things flashed past and vanished in an instant.

Judging from the movement, they seemed to be heading toward the village.

…

Chen Bin and Liang Yuanhao shared a room.

They thought wandering into the forest at night was unwise.

Wandering around the village was unwise too.

The safest approach was obviously to hide indoors and sleep until morning.

Standing by the window, Chen Bin said uneasily:

“We’re really not going after them? Isn’t that kind of bad…?”

“You’ve taken several exams already. How are you still this indecisive?” Liang Yuanhao leaned against the bathroom sink, splashing water onto his face.

“This exam uses team scoring. As long as the questions are answered correctly, everyone gets points.”

“So why does everyone need to rush to the front?”

“If they find clues and answers, great. We won’t owe them anything—we can repay them later somehow.”

Chen Bin said, “But what if they don’t find anything? What if something happens?”

Liang Yuanhao paused, grabbed a towel, and rubbed his face.

“Then… that’s because they’re too reckless.”

“People warned them already, didn’t they?”

“The driver who brought us here, the villagers—they all said not to enter the forest carelessly.”

“They knowingly ignored the warnings. They don’t value their own lives enough.”

Chen Bin still looked gloomy.

Liang Yuanhao continued:

“To be honest with you, after three exams, the biggest lesson I’ve learned is this word.”

“We need to value our lives.”

“Not everyone can charge forward recklessly together. You can’t put all your eggs in one basket—even children understand that.”

“This is preserving a fallback plan.”

“If someone gets into trouble, the rest of us can still step up.”

He stared blankly for a moment before adding quietly:

“That gives us the highest chance of survival.”

Chen Bin looked at him and said:

“The way you calculate survival probabilities… you’re like a human calculator.”

Liang Yuanhao scratched his buzzcut irritably.

“Enough. I’m going to sleep. You should too.”

…

Each of them wrapped themselves tightly in blankets.

Neither dared waste time, forcing themselves to sleep.

They originally thought they’d toss and turn for hours.

But the incense in the room had an incredible sleep-inducing effect.

Very soon, snoring filled the room.

Suddenly, knocking sounds echoed from the neighboring room.

Very soft.

But in the dead of night, terrifyingly clear.

Chen Bin turned over.

Liang Yuanhao continued snoring, completely unaware.

The knocking spread from room to room, gradually getting closer…

Several minutes later, the knocking finally reached their room too.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Chen Bin turned over again. His eyelids twitched twice.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound came again.

Chen Bin jerked awake in terror.

He didn’t dare open his eyes.

He lay stiffly in bed, listening carefully to the direction of the sound.

Then cold sweat instantly poured down his back.

Because the knocking came from directly beneath the bed.

Right beneath him.

Knocking against the wooden boards under his back.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Whatever it was seemed to know he was awake now.

After another three knocks, a floating voice suddenly whispered:

“I’m looking for disobedient guests.”

“Did you sew the doll today?”

Chen Bin nearly pissed himself on the spot.

He squeezed his eyes shut desperately, pretending to still be asleep.

But the voice refused to let him go.

“Tell me…”

“Did you sew the doll today?”

Beside him, Liang Yuanhao’s leg twitched violently.

He seemed awake too.

The voice drifted closer and closer until it practically whispered beside their ears:

“I’ll ask one last time.”

“Did you sew the doll today?”

The room fell deathly silent.

The voice sighed softly.

“Ah…”

Liang Yuanhao suddenly screamed:

“I did! I did! We both did!”

“Oh…” the voice said regretfully. “Such obedient guests.”

“Then I suppose you’ll have to stay alive.”

Liang Yuanhao and Chen Bin remained frozen in terror.

Only after two seconds did they fully process what the voice meant.

A wave of relief instantly washed over them.

Then the voice asked:

“Who sewed more?”

Liang Yuanhao immediately shouted:

“Me! Me! I sewed two legs! He only sewed half an arm!”

Chen Bin was utterly stunned.

“That’s wonderful,” the voice said.

Liang Yuanhao finally relaxed slightly and cautiously opened his eyes a sliver.

Then—

A flash of cold light.

The final thing he ever saw was a pale white hand raising a bone cleaver high overhead and chopping straight down toward his legs.

At that moment, he inexplicably remembered the female villager chopping ice beside the river.

He thought:

That motion really looks alike…

…

Qi Yang and the others spent almost the entire night inside the forest.

Even after searching everywhere, they never found those crawling things again.

The traces of disturbed earth vanished almost immediately. Dead leaves and branches once again lay perfectly still, as if nothing had ever moved.

Only when the sky began faintly brightening did they finally emerge from the woods.

“Doesn’t seem that scary after all?” Old Yu muttered. “Everyone kept saying not to enter the forest, but we stayed in there all night and nothing happened.”

Yu Wen looked emotionally dead.

“Being scared nearly killed me…”

“But we’re still alive, right? None of us got hurt.”

“That’s true.”

Yet remembering the sounds from the night before, they still felt things weren’t so simple.

Those pale things crawling through the forest…

It was more like they’d found another target and temporarily spared them.

…

Morning came quickly.

Yet the villagers’ houses remained dark.

The windows looked old and broken, some doors even covered in cobwebs.

At first glance, they resembled abandoned ruins.

Qi Yang suddenly stopped in front of one particular house.

Everyone froze before remembering—

This was the crazy villager’s house.

“You’re looking for that villager?” Yu Wen asked. “You believe what he said yesterday?”

He knew Qi Yang had memory loss, so he assumed the topic would affect him deeply.

After all, someone suddenly claiming they’d met him before—

Even if it sounded unreliable, maybe his brother’s curiosity got triggered?

But Qi Yang simply said:

“No.”

Yesterday, he’d observed carefully.

The crazy man’s gaze had been scattered and unfocused when looking at him.

But when he looked at Qin Jiu, something lit up briefly in his eyes.

Especially when he’d said, “You know me.”

That expression had been serious.

If there was any truth in the madman’s ramblings, then the parts involving Qin Jiu were probably more genuine.

Unfortunately, Qin Jiu’s view had been blocked at the time, so he’d neither noticed nor reacted.

Besides—

Whether Proctor 001 knew some NPC or ignored them entirely…

What the hell did that have to do with him?

Qi Yang thought.

He’d only come because crazy people blurted out things without restraint, making them easiest to extract information from.

…

They knocked for five full minutes without receiving any response.

“Maybe he’s too scared to come out? Or still asleep? Didn’t the village chief say all the villagers fear whatever appears at night, so they try to sleep deeply and wake late?”

“Let’s come back this evening.”

Remembering the village chief’s words, nobody waited around any longer.

Collection time was getting closer.

They hurried back across the frozen river and gathered outside Black Granny’s door.

The listening exam questions from yesterday remained clearly visible on the door.

The answer area was still blank.

Thanks to previous experience, they quickly found the answer-writing tool this time—

An actual pen.

Except it had been carved from white bone.

Yu Wen held it with a numb scalp.

Question (1): What is Black Granny’s name?

He pulled out the photos of the tombstones and copied a long string of ghostly symbols into the answer area exactly as written, not even missing punctuation.

Just as he was about to copy the second question too, Qi Yang stopped him.

“Don’t.”

“Why?” Yu Wen said. “Black Granny’s family names should also be on the tombstones. That means we’ve basically found answers for two questions.”

Qi Yang looked at him with an expression that practically screamed idiot.

“Can you save one question for tomorrow?”

Yu Wen: “…Yes.”

…

The fully grown candidates crowded around the door, eagerly waiting for the results.

Qi Yang hadn’t slept all night.

Leaning against the wall in the morning light, he drifted drowsily toward sleep.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Qin Jiu standing farther away, one hand in his pocket while casually playing with the help card in the other.

From this angle and distance, Qi Yang couldn’t clearly see his expression.

But for some reason, he suddenly felt—

Something was missing from Proctor 001.

Exactly what it was, he couldn’t say.

After all, he’d only known Qin Jiu for a few days.

…

Nobody knew how long they waited before Old Yu suddenly said:

“Huh?”

Confused, he added:

“It’s almost collection time. Why are Chen Bin and… what’s his name… Liang Yuanhao still not awake?”

“No idea. The crow already gave one reminder earlier. They should be up by now, right?”

Old Yu said, “You guys wait for the door to open. I’ll go wake them.”

As he spoke, he turned and walked toward Chen Bin and Liang Yuanhao’s room.

The knocking on the door and the crow’s cry sounded almost simultaneously.

The first collection time had arrived.

On Black Granny’s door, two words within the dense tombstone inscription were suddenly circled.

Floure Jaroka

+5 points.

Everyone let out long sighs of relief and instantly became excited.

A golden thigh was truly a golden thigh.

Then, new text gradually appeared on the lower half of the door.

Reading Comprehension:

The annual Witchcraft Festival of Chasu Village has arrived. Black Granny prepared gifts for the villagers long ago.

That’s right—carefully sewn dolls.

She wrote a long prayer letter, offering blessings to each villager within it.

Read the prayer letter and, according to the information in the letter, help Black Granny deliver the dolls to the correct villagers.

Under the gaze of the God of Witchcraft, careless people will always be punished.

As for careful people, the villagers will point them toward the road home.

Where the forest does not exist, there lies the road home.

Can you find it?