Chapter 4: The Exam That Never Ends

“Choose A or D… Why can’t I figure this out… What is the answer!?”

The old ceiling fan in the middle of the classroom whirred as it spun.

Directly beneath it, a round-faced boy with thick, bottle-bottom glasses sat at his desk.

His face was pale, his brows tightly furrowed.

One hand gripped his ear so hard that his earlobe had turned purple from lack of circulation.

The other hand clutched a pen so tightly that his fingernails had nearly torn through the black rubber grip.

His eyes were locked onto the exam paper on his desk, and his muttering grew louder and louder.

There were twenty-nine other students sitting around him.

Two invigilators stood at the front and back of the room.

Clearly, this was a high school entrance exam.

The blackboard had the word “Mathematics” written in white chalk, along with the exam duration.

But no one in the exam hall seemed to notice the boy’s increasingly loud muttering.

Upon closer inspection, the twenty-nine students around him had completely blurred faces no discernible features at all.

The invigilators at the front and back of the classroom were unnaturally tall, at least two meters in height.

Their limbs were long and disproportionate, no longer resembling humans.

Where their heads should have been, there were enormous, rectangular surveillance cameras, constantly rotating.

A red light flickered on and off.

Terrifying and bizarre.

The boy sat at his desk, never lifting his head, as if completely unaware of the monstrous figures around him.

“Why can’t I solve this?”

“What do I do, what do I do… I won’t pass…”

“Damn it! I deserve to die!”

His right hand clenched the pen tightly, stabbing it into the desk in agitation.

His voice became increasingly frantic, muttering over and over like a madman.

“Pa! Pa! Pa!”

The tip of the 2B pencil stabbed into the desk, breaking off again and again.

Yet each time, a new tip would automatically emerge.

At some point, the pencil suddenly released a dark, gray-black ink like melted graphite staining the boy’s palm.

He was completely unaware, still stabbing the desk relentlessly.

The 2B pencil in his hand seemed to have hit an artery, as ink gushed out uncontrollably, flowing across the desk and dripping to the floor.

Before long, the ink began spreading across the exam hall, threatening to flood the entire room.

Zhou Huaixia shifted to the side, avoiding the encroaching gray-black liquid.

Her gaze swept over the exam paper on the boy’s desk.

The text on the paper was unrecognizable, only vaguely resembling Chinese characters.

The lines of text twisted and distorted, as if trapped in a wet, warped mirror.

They appeared fragmented, sticky, and utterly meaningless.

Forget choosing A or D she couldn’t even recognize a single word.

“No time left… It’s too late…”

The boy began pounding his head repeatedly.

His voice, hoarse with despair, cracked with sobs.

“Trash… I’m trash!”

“Tick… Tick… Tick…”

The blackboards at the front and back of the room suddenly transformed into two massive, distorted clocks.

The second, minute, and hour hands spun wildly.

The ticking grew louder and faster, filling the entire classroom with an overwhelming sound.

Too loud!

Even as a mere observer, Zhou Huaixia couldn’t help but cover her ears.

The two warped clocks suddenly lifted into the air, floating toward each other.

All three clock hands stood straight up, parallel to the clock face.

As they ticked frantically, they slowly advanced toward the boy sitting in the center.

The boy glanced up at the approaching clocks but made no attempt to avoid them.

His face was consumed by agitation and despair.

Zhou Huaixia had always been just an observer in dreams.

She couldn’t speak, nor could she alter the course of events.

She simply watched as the two clocks, their hands standing erect like spears, plunged straight through the desks

And impaled the boy’s chest and back.

“Splurt”

The clock hands pierced through his body, and fresh blood spilled out, merging with the black ink pooling on the floor.

The boy trembled violently.

He didn’t even glance at his wounds.

His eyes remained locked onto his answer sheet.

Just then, a piercing bell rang.

The invigilators those monstrous surveillance-camera beings suddenly began stomping forward, collecting the students’ answer sheets.

The boy, drenched in sweat, frantically tried to choose an answer.

“A! No, C! I choose C!”

He tried to fill in the correct answer on his sheet, but his right hand refused to obey, shading the wrong options instead.

“C! It’s C!”

His lips quivered as he desperately fought to select the correct answer, but every attempt failed.

“Thud! Thud!”

Hearing the invigilators’ heavy footsteps approaching from both sides, the boy grabbed his right hand with his left, trying to force it to choose correctly.

But the pen still veered toward the wrong option.

He shook his head violently, shouting in panic.

“No! No!”

By now, the invigilators had reached his desk.

They stepped onto the blood-soaked, ink-stained floor, stopping in front of him.

The giant camera-head atop the nearest invigilator tilted down, its lens focusing on the answer sheet.

The red light blinked twice.

Then, it reached out and snatched the paper away.

“No, teacher, please! Let me finish! I filled in the wrong answer!”

“I didn’t choose that!”

The boy grasped at the answer sheet, his voice raw and shrill.

The surveillance-camera invigilator remained unmoved.

It ripped the answer sheet from his grip.

As the boy screamed in hysteria, it tore the paper into pieces.

A cold mechanical voice announced:

“Violation detected.

Exam invalidated.”

The round-faced boy sitting in the middle of the room finally crumbled completely.

His expression went blank as he dropped his pen.

His entire body slumped to the floor.

Zhou Huaixia, just watching from the sidelines, could feel the sheer depth of his despair.

The two towering invigilators, with their massive camera-heads, slowly bent down, leaning closer to him.

They nearly pressed their cold, mechanical faces against his, their blinking red lights flashing rapidly.

“Click. Click!”

Two shutter sounds echoed.

Like a signal.

The twenty-nine faceless students suddenly stood up in unison, turning toward the boy.

Where their faces should have been, small surveillance cameras emerged each blinking a red light as they advanced.

“Click! Click! Click”

The flood of flashing lights from countless cameras illuminated the exam hall.

The surveillance-camera beings closed in on the boy, as if recording every second of his breakdown and despair.

Almost there.

Zhou Huaixia watched as the surrounding students’ bodies twisted more and more, showing signs of collapsing.

She knew the dream was about to end.

Sure enough, in the next moment, the classroom began to shake violently from all directions.

The entire dream collapsed like a line of dominoes, crumbling piece by piece.

Zhou Huaixia leaned against the corner, looking down at her hands and feet.

They were gradually becoming transparent.

“Boom!”

The ceiling fan in the center of the examination room, along with a large chunk of the collapsing ceiling, crashed down on the round-faced boy, crushing him and the invigilators around him into a bloody pulp.

Zhou Huaixia raised her eyes to see a broken fan blade flying toward her.

She didn’t dodge.

She didn’t even blink.

Dreams cannot harm people.

4:13 AM.

In the darkness, Zhou Huaixia raised her wrist and glanced at her watch.

She lay still for a while.

Not wanting to go back to sleep, she lifted the blanket and got out of bed, heading toward the living room.

The curtains in the living room were open.

Under the moonlight, Zhou Huaixia opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of mineral water.

She leaned against the sofa and glanced out the window.

Zhou Huaixia was no stranger to nightmares about exams.

Late at night, the most common dreams in the residential complex were like this.

However, they usually belonged to neighbors she knew or had seen before.

But she had never seen that round-faced boy before.

She didn’t even know which building he lived in.

The stress of the college entrance exam was overwhelming.

The anxiety in his dream was practically overflowing.

Zhou Huaixia slowly drank half the bottle of cold water.

The chill made her shiver, shaking off most of her drowsiness.

“Xia?”

Zhou Huaixia vaguely heard a familiar voice.

Then, she felt something warm pressing against her forehead.

She slowly opened her eyes and saw her mother bending over, touching her forehead.

“Why did you fall asleep in the living room?

You didn’t even cover yourself with a blanket.

Good thing you didn’t catch a cold.”

“I forgot.”

Zhou Huaixia sat up slowly.

Her father walked over and noticed the half-empty bottle of mineral water on the floor.

He frowned.

“I put a pot of hot water on your desk.

Why are you drinking cold water?”

“Just this once.”

Zhou Huaixia got up and headed to the bathroom, quickly changing the subject.

“Mom, what’s for breakfast?”

Her mother replied.

“I set the rice cooker to make millet porridge overnight.

There are some side dishes too.

If you want something else, I can have your dad go buy it.”

“No need, this is fine.”

After washing up, Zhou Huaixia came out to see the dining table covered with small dishes.

All of them were placed in duck-shaped plates, arranged neatly in front of her.

Her mother looked at her.

“How’s college life?

Are you sleeping well there?”

“I’m used to it.

I sleep a lot in college.”

Her father added.

“Xia, I heard S University has a heavy workload.

Just do your best.

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself.”

This was a common topic in their household.

Zhou Huaixia didn’t show any impatience and simply nodded.

“Okay.”

“Mom, have any new neighbors moved into our building recently?”

As she finished eating, she casually asked.

“New neighbors?”

Her mother shook her head.

“No, it’s still the same few renters.

No one has sold their apartment.

Why?”

Zhou Huaixia thought to herself.

So the range of the dreams she entered had expanded again.

“Just curious.”

She smiled.

“I wonder how many students will be taking the college entrance exam next year.

The complex will be under lockdown again?”

The residents of the complex were very similar in demographic same professions, same age groups, similar family situations.

As a result, the number of students taking the exam each year was always high.

From April to June, the entire complex would voluntarily “lock down,” ensuring complete silence.

Her mother nodded.

“A little fewer than your year.

I saw the list in the community group chat.”

After breakfast, her father stayed behind to clean up while her mother took her out for a walk in the park.

It was still early, not even 8 AM, and since it was a holiday, the park was relatively empty.

Zhou Huaixia walked slowly by the lake, holding her mother’s hand.

Because she was taller, she spotted it first a security guard standing at the stone bridge in the middle of the lake.

He was blocking several elderly residents who were curiously trying to peek over.

But even the guard himself kept glancing into the lake.

Soon, her mother noticed too.

“What’s going on over there?”

The two followed the path toward the bridge.

“Oh no, someone’s in the water!”

As they got closer, an older woman gasped.

Zhou Huaixia turned toward the left side of the lake.

There, a soaked figure lay face down in the water, motionless.

Their face was obscured, and their dark blue pajamas, soaked through, looked almost black.

Another security guard sat on an old inflatable raft, paddling toward the floating body with a plastic oar.

“Are they still alive?”

An elderly man standing nearby asked.

The security guard on the bridge shook his head.

“Not sure.”

Zhou Huaixia listened to the murmurs around her, her eyes fixed on the lake.

The security guards here were all in their fifties, mostly just keeping watch over the complex and chatting with the residents.

None of them had ever dealt with anything like this before.

The guard in the raft struggled to scoop the body up, fumbling with the plastic oar.

Instead, he ended up flipping the body over.

The moment she saw the person’s face, Zhou Huaixia unconsciously clenched her hands.

Her eyes locked onto the boy’s pale, slightly swollen face.

Then, her gaze shifted to his stiff, wide-open eyes.

Only now did she notice the heavy dark circles under his thick, bottle-bottom glasses.