Chapter 210: Before the Spring Exam
After the health check, it was time for the spring college entrance exam.
The exam was held in the provincial capital and lasted two days. There were only four subjects: Chinese, Math, English, and a specialized subject.
The school had already put up bright red banners to encourage the students, and the whole atmosphere was starting to feel tense and serious.
On the afternoon before the exam, several buses arrived on campus.
“Get on the bus, get on the bus! Check your ID cards and exam permits again. And don’t forget to bring enough money, the school won’t cover your food or place to stay these two days.”
Yang Ye was keeping things in order, helping his students board the buses.
There were three classes taking the spring exam, and three buses were just enough for all the students, with some seats still left.
Li Mu felt a bit nervous. Because of her gender and the strange things she had gone through, she had lost at least two months of study time. Now that the exam was right in front of her, she was starting to feel very uneasy.
“It’s okay. You only choose your college after the exam. If you do well, we’ll pick a good school. If not, we can still choose one in the same city,” Yu Fan said, trying to comfort Li Mu. He knew she wasn’t very good at studying. Memorizing things was always hard for her.
“After the exam, I’ll take you and Xiao Jing on a trip.”
“Let’s talk about that after the exam…” Right now, she really wasn’t in the mood to think about traveling.
The hotel they were staying at was booked online by Yang Ye half a month ago. There were over thirty students, and he booked ten double rooms. That meant three to four students would share each room.
They were only staying for two nights anyway. If you pushed the two beds together, four people could barely sleep there.
Most hotels near the exam location were already fully booked, so Yang Ye had to choose one that was over a kilometer away.
It took more than an hour to drive from their town to the city. Once they arrived, they had to check in with their ID cards, assign rooms, and go to the exam center to find their seats and learn the way there.
By the time everything was done, it was already 5 p.m.
“Li Mu, don’t you think it’s kind of cold in here?”
Li Mu was sitting on a small single-seat sofa in the room, reading. Chen Li walked over and brought a stool to sit next to her.
“Maybe a cold front is coming again?”
After New Year’s, the cold weather had gone, and the temperature had gone back up to over 10°C. But today felt a lot colder.
Li Mu had gotten used to strange things, so she didn’t feel cold or warm easily. But once Chen Li mentioned it, she realized it was a bit chilly.
“I haven’t heard anything about cold weather coming…”
Chen Li muttered and peeked at the practice paper in Li Mu’s hand. “You should solve this question like this. I’ll go get some scratch paper and show you.”
“Okay.”
Chen Li was one of the top students in the class and often helped Li Mu with her studies.
Too bad Li Mu was doing okay with Chinese, Math, and her specialized subject, but English was still a big problem. She kept forgetting the words she had memorized and had to start over again and again…
“It feels cold inside the room.”
After a while, Chen Li frowned and looked around. “You don’t think the hotel turned on the air conditioning, do you?”
“Really?”
Li Mu started to wonder if there was a ghost in the room. She checked news about the hotel on her phone but didn’t find any stories about hauntings.
“Go ask one of the hotel workers, see if they’ve been getting sick a lot lately.”
“Why ask that?” Chen Li looked up. Then she saw Li Mu’s face turn serious.
Li Mu said in a low voice, “There might be a ghost here.”
Chen Li shivered and instantly got scared. “No way!”
“I’m just joking.” Li Mu smiled a little. “You’re scared that easily?”
“Not that scared…”
Li Mu didn’t tease her anymore. “Go ask, just in case.”
If this hotel really has signs of being haunted, it would be best to change to a different one tonight.
But it’s said that all the hotels near the exam center are already fully booked. If they want to change hotels, they would have to go even farther away.
After Chen Li left the room, Li Mu took out her phone and called Yu Fan.
“Yu Fan, where are you?”
“I’m in the lobby on the first floor, about to go eat with Xu Ze and the others. Want to come?”
“Chen Li said our room feels strangely cold. Do you think it could be haunted?”
There was a pause on Yu Fan’s end. It seemed like he moved to a quieter place before replying, “Oh, I felt that too earlier. I asked around, I don’t think it’s haunted. Maybe they just used cheap materials for the insulation.”
“Okay, then I’ll come downstairs with Chen Li.”
Now Li Mu felt more at ease. Some buildings really are colder inside than outside, especially in the damp and chilly southern regions. It’s actually pretty common.
After she hung up the call, Chen Li came back into the room looking worried.
“They said no one’s been getting sick lately.”
“Then it should be fine. Let’s go have dinner.”
Li Mu put on her coat and asked, “Where are Yuanyuan and Ruoyan?”
“I think they went out to play.”
They didn’t even invite me…
Li Mu complained silently in her mind, then left the room with Chen Li. But just as they stepped out, she suddenly felt a strange sensation, her eyelid twitched, and she saw a shadow flash across the end of the hallway.
“Did you see that?” She stared toward the end of the hall and kept walking. “I think I saw something.”
“A ghost?” Chen Li got scared and grabbed Li Mu’s arm, half-hiding behind her.
“Probably not.”
When they got to the end, they found it was the hotel’s cleaning room. Usually only cleaning staff came here.
The shadow from earlier turned out to be a middle-aged cleaning lady wearing a black hotel uniform. She was inside the room washing bedsheets. When she saw the two girls peeking in, she looked a bit confused and glanced at them.
Okay, I guess I was just being paranoid.
Li Mu didn’t think too much of it. She turned around and pressed the elevator button nearby. Then she casually asked, “Auntie, is this place haunted?”
The cleaning lady paused. “Why are you asking that? If it were haunted, why would people even open this place for business?”
“It just feels really cold, so I thought I’d ask.”
Chen Li gently tugged Li Mu’s arm and whispered, “Do you think it really is haunted?”
“Not sure. Doesn’t really feel like it.”
Li Mu shook her head and sniffed the air a little. Something felt strange, so she walked back to the cleaning room and took another look.
“What is it?” The cleaning lady looked up and met her eyes.
“I smelled something… something familiar.”
She stared at the woman’s face until the woman looked down and kept washing the bedsheets.
“Li Mu, the elevator’s here.”
“Coming!”
Li Mu gave the cleaning lady a small smile, then turned and left.
When she reached the hotel lobby, she looked around at every staff member. With Chen Li beside her, she finally found Yu Fan on the first floor, looking a little helpless.
“I heard there’s a good restaurant nearby,” Yu Fan said. Xu Ze, Zhao Pan, and Wu Lei were also there. “We’ve been waiting for you two forever. What happened?”
Li Mu usually hated making people wait.
“I’ll explain later,” she mumbled. “We just randomly picked a hotel, how did we end up in a place like this?”
“Huh?”