Chapter 16: Not Sparing Curiosity

The exam hall the next day proved that Aomo's words during the interview on the first day were meaningless.

He once again found himself immersed in the Shen yuan of resentment and deathly aura.

Moreover, a new negative‑energy powerhouse was added.

It seemed as if the first day's exam experience had completely crushed the spirits of several people, shattering the gemstones in their hearts, so that every moment thereafter they could recall their former brilliance, and because of that brilliance they felt an even deeper pain.

Their grip on the pen was so tight, as if they could not discard the fragments of their ideals and goals; the tighter they held, the deeper those fragments would pierce their bones, turning into bone‑eroding pain and poison.

What on earth have they gone through?

Staring at the wailing phantom that seemed substantive, staring at the grudge that bared its teeth and claws like a skull, Aomo dared not analyze or guess further; he felt that even the shadows on those few people's faces were spreading black lines capable of covering everything.

What the hell is this... Aomo muttered in his heart, and as soon as he thought of Bi Ze, who had waited together with David yesterday until they both finished the exam, his mind became even more unbalanced.

Yesterday, Bi Ze proudly described how calm and normal his exam hall was, even managing to catch the stereotypical 'college entrance exam cheater', showing that differences between people are deeply reflected even in luck.

Is there any possibility... I'm saying possibly, that something is buried underground in this exam hall, turning it into an overly perilous heavy‑spirit place......

Aomo, forced to run trains in his mind to escape reality, felt that the time the chief examiner spent opening the sealed envelope was agonizingly long, while the sound of the exam paper landing on the desk was wonderfully beautiful—just like stepping into an air‑conditioned room during the dog days of summer, making his whole body feel relaxed, with no hesitation.

But as soon as that feeling came, he caught a glimpse of the surging resentment flow, which was even more terrifying!

It's over; after looking through the exam paper once, they became even more desperate...

Having come to this point, Aomo painfully conceded territory, looking only at his own small plot of land, no longer hoping for a wide aerial view or the vast sky outside the window.

There's still one day... one and a half days...... Aomo silently calculated his sentence, wondering whether he could develop resistance to negative emotions in this ghostly environment, and perhaps once he reached the Spirit‑vs‑Spirit division of the Energy Source major in college he could really shine, gaining a classic campus‑style show‑off opening——

——When the second round of mental train‑running heard the exam start signal, it was as if the tracks were switched, the route shifted to a different question bank, and he focused his mind.

The second day's exam officially began.

"Do we really have to stay here......, Suzi."

Disguise amounted at most to putting on a hat and changing clothes, maybe adding sunglasses, yet the hat with holes revealed the slightly drooping ears, unmistakably exposing her horse‑girl nature.

In this city with Central Treesen, many people, upon seeing horse‑girl features, reflexively think of the Uma Musume brain circuit.

So this petite horse‑girl with black hair and golden eyes had already noticed the gazes beginning to fall on her; she instinctively shrank back, looking toward the friend who was forcibly pulling her along to show the way.

Compared to her, who was somewhat wary of the surroundings, her friend was the complete opposite—possessing a self‑centered mindset that ignored the onlookers; hearing her words, the friend's dark‑red eyes showed a hint of puzzlement, as if unable to understand why she wanted to retreat.

"What's there that you can't stay? Are you afraid someone will attack you? Chazuo."

Ailisuzhi, who normally never left the college laboratory, only going out to catch 'guinea pigs', a horse‑girl fond of research, raised her hand to her chin, struck her usual assessing pose, and sized up her timid companion.

She then lifted her head toward the high slope directly opposite.

Manchester Chazuo followed her gaze and turned his head, seeing that the figure, completely unchanged in attire and wearing the Treesen uniform directly, drew countless stares—a horse‑girl cyborg.

""

For a moment, Manchester Chazuo was so astonished he could not speak, unsure whether to be more surprised by the other's calm composure or by the fact that they too were present here.

She actually still hadn't figured out what was happening; she had been grinding coffee beans when Ailisuzhi suddenly grabbed her and asked whether she remembered the location of Limen Middle School.

As soon as she answered that she did, she was seized.

Coming to her senses, she realized how convenient a navigation map was; Suzi didn't need to lead the way at all—she just wanted to drag her along.

As for what exactly had happened, that became clear along the way.

To her, this was nothing out of the ordinary—just another person caught Suzi's eye, deemed to have potential as a 'guinea pig kid'; the only difference was that this time Suzi had fixed her gaze on someone off‑campus.

"I've avoided two rounds of matches and still got noticed—don't you think that guy has some issues? Chazuo, if we grab him we'll surely gain something; look, even Mei Pu Bo Fang could draw that conclusion."

"I think she might not reach that conclusion..." Chazuo muttered.

However, horse‑girls' hearing is always extraordinarily keen; upon hearing the other's reply, Ailisuzhi swung her arm, her whole body spirited, striking a pose that said, 'Come on, let's begin the test.'

"No matter what, catching him is definitely right!"

Manchester Chazuo remained silent, especially as he prick up his ears as if hearing something, after which he became even more listless.

Even 'friends' advised her to give up the struggle, for whenever Ailisuzhi was this enthusiastic, her dissuasion and resistance were utterly useless.

They advised her to prepare the resolve to write a self‑critique.

Moreover, this time it happened off‑campus, so a single self‑critique might not even resolve it.

Coincidentally, harboring a similar unease, the person who came together with Mei Pu Bo Fang, Xino Hana, at least chose voluntarily to accompany Mei Pu Bo Fang, not expecting the other to be so sincere as to not even bother with disguise.

If it weren't for the security personnel and security robots already maintaining order outside the exam hall, she really wouldn't know what to do.

Although she aspired to become a respectable adult and, more importantly, a sister everyone could rely on, this certainly couldn't be settled simply by becoming a sister……

No, even with security personnel and Mr. Robot, facing those numerous slight click‑click sounds and even people's blunt behavior of not turning off flashlights, Xino Hana's mood had already given up completely, like a smashed jar.

Anyway, tomorrow—or even possibly today—she and Mei Pu Bo Fang would surely appear in some magazine or even news, let alone Line, Twitter, or forums; this would definitely be sought out by the student council... although it might only be a verbal warning, after all, strolling around during break time doesn't violate any rules.

Although Mei Pu Bo Fang had once been called a robot, sounding cold‑hearted and prone to trouble, the reality was the opposite: Mei Pu Bo Fang was not only enthusiastic but also quite observant of the rules, and would never truly violate school regulations.

But... but!......

"Bo, Bo Fang, why don't we... change clothes....."

The voice was like a mosquito's buzz, too low to be heard.

As a horse‑girl who had skipped grades to enter Treesen, Xino Hana hadn't even run many races; facing public gazes she was extremely nervous, yet even so she had not retreated, which already made her quite remarkable.

"By directly identifying as a Treesen student—that is, as a horse‑girl—I can immediately verify the other party; for this reason I have decided to visit in this guise. Any objections, Xiao Hana?"

Just hearing those words sounded remarkably calm, but Xino Hana knew that Mei Pu Bo Fang was likewise somewhat nervous, even if the other's tension might not stem from the crowd but from something else.

"Well, I guess it's okay..." Xino Hana's gaze swept again over those staring at her, and she saw several TV station workers holding microphones and lugging cameras appear; her inner tension grew even further, "I'll say it now—I won't accept any interviews!"

This is the bottom line!

She wanted to be an older sister to her classmates and friends, not an older sister on TV in someone else's exam hall.

"I haven't planned to attract their attention this way."

Mei Pu Bo Fang said, her gaze locked on the exam hall doors; since reporters had begun to appear, the time until the exam ended was not far off, and she focused all her attention on exerting a horse‑girl's eyesight—although a horse‑girl's static vision actually offers no advantage.

For a creature of swift motion, dynamic vision is naturally excellent, but static vision... horse‑girls can have myopia, which, though curable with modern medicine, its very occurrence shows that horse‑girls gain no racial bonus in this regard.

Especially, some horse‑girls' eye problems actually stem from the soul rather than the body.

Some problems are inherent to the horse girl souls brought from another world—dealing with them is quite troublesome, although not completely unsolvable, but those horse girls aren't obsessed with fixing such 'defects'.

After all, as long as it doesn't affect the race, it's not considered a problem for them.

A century ago horse girls could run while wearing glasses, and a century later they haven't become overly pampered.

Of course there are also more direct reasons—some horse girls are extremely afraid of injections, and thus also afraid of surgery and such, which is reasonable.

Moreover, there are horse girls who likewise focus on self‑improvement cultivation, firmly reject all long‑term enhancement drugs or surgery, and the proportion of such 'pure' horse girls is quite high.

However, these have nothing to do with the horse girls present right now; they are paired up, each guarding a spot and waiting patiently, and the exam‑related personnel waiting outside the testing hall are also sensible, so everyone's waiting has yielded a string of:

"Hey hey hey, they're out! They're out!"

The sound— the first person to walk out of the exam hall, although prepared for the feeling of being stared at by many, didn't expect today's treatment to be even more extravagant than imagined; he even saw two horse girls!

But before he could eagerly go over to talk, he was intercepted by a reporter and a photographer who hurried up.

"Not him."

"Hmm."

"What about the one wearing a hat?"

"Not him either."

"Well... uh, that's a woman."

"Hmm, not her."

"Didn't he leave the exam early last time? Could it be that today he's taking a subject he's not good at?"

"I'm not sure, I can't answer."

"Tsk, what's the guinea pig doing, not coming out at all?"

"Suzi, maybe we should go back... the number of examinees coming out is increasing, and lots of people are looking our way......"

"The examinees coming out have become so many it's hard to tell them apart, Bofang, have you seen anything?"

"Unconfirmed......"

Whether persisting or wavering, or becoming irritable and losing patience, the four horse girls ultimately gained nothing, and upon one side's initiative they gathered and left—this was completely unnoticed by the person involved.

"I heard there are horse girls guarding the exam hall entrance today, supposedly even that cyborg! Meanwhile, few people recognize the one beside her."

"Beautiful Shore Bofang? Really? Could there still be a horse girl taking the college entrance exam?"

"No need—Telesen graduates also get diplomas, right..."

Hearing the examinees' chatter as they walked by, Aomo frowned and turned to Bi Ze: "When you came out, did you see any horse girls?"

"We came out together—if you didn't see me, how could I have seen anything? Your eyesight isn't better than mine." Bi Ze shrugged. "What's up? You're not going to believe what those few were chatting about, are you?"

"If it's Beautiful Shore Bofang…" Aomo turned his head toward the direction they had come from.

Although it might be seen as overconfidence, Aomo clearly remembered what he had said in yesterday's interview.

This possibility isn't low, and since it isn't low......

"Hey, we already set a meal time with Dawei, and he even messaged saying he'd bring an old buddy to meet—I'm starving!"

When the exam was about to end, he had diarrhea, went to the infirmary after, and was diagnosed with food poisoning—Bi Ze, this unlucky guy, was indeed famished.

Also because he was accompanying that unlucky guy, Aomo didn't hand in his paper early this time; forced to exit with the crowd, it felt like reaching rush‑hour subway, or like stepping back into a discount‑store battlefield.

Directly 'crushing' this battlefield novice Bi Ze to the point of having nothing left to live for, he never imagined that his second intense clash in another world would be against a group of same‑sex examinees.

The first was the rush‑hour subway crush.

"You don't need to go," Aomo said, checking the time via the crystal, "If I hurry, I can make a round trip; I'll contact you if anything comes up."

"Hey hey hey," seeing him really start to make a running motion, Bi Ze hurriedly tried to call out, "What the hell are you running this trip for?! Even if it's true, you should have left by now!"

"No problem, just one trip—just to put my mind at ease."

Aomo said that and then strode off at a sprint.