Time flew, and in the blink of an eye, it was already the thirtieth. For six days, Hasegawa came over every day to help Alice prepare for the exam, Ronnie played every day, and Alice finally received food at the subsidized station, enough for the siblings to eat for ten days. That morning, Hasegawa came early. He told the siblings, "Let's go, I'll take you to school."
Alice was a little nervous, but Ronnie was completely relaxed. The three of them had no words on the way, lowered their heads to hurry, and before they knew it, they arrived at the entrance of the school, only to see that the sign on the front door of the school said "New World You City Preparatory School. Hasegawa took Alice and her brother straight to the testing room. By this time, there were already two dozen candidates sitting in the classroom. Hasegawa said to them, "You go in, just follow the teacher's instructions, I'll come over after class at eleven o'clock.”
The siblings nodded and entered the classroom, each finding an empty seat and sitting down. A short time later, a man of about fifty came in, a tall, thin man with a clean face, a sharp voice, a bit like a woman's, wearing a suit and holding a folder in his hand. A wave of nausea flooded Ronnie's mind at the sight of this man, especially his crossed orchid fingers, and he actually felt like rushing up and breaking them off. He introduced himself as Diego Rodriguez.
"They should call you Mr. Orchid Fingers," Ronnie thought to himself.
Mr. Orchid Fingers continued, "I will be your examiner today and you will have two hours to complete one hundred and sixty questions. Each question is worth one point, and you can only enter the school if you pass one hundred and forty points. When you hear the bell later, the computer in front of you will automatically enter the question-answering mode and you can begin.” Three minutes later, the bell rang, the computer automatically lit up, only to hear a "click" sound, the camera automatically took a picture of each candidate, the candidates filled in their respective names, and then the tense examination began.
Ronnie saw the test questions and laughed coldly in his heart, "How can you test me with questions like this? you mortals!"
Alice, who was six seats away from him, frowned as she realized that she didn't know a large part of the questions, and couldn't help but have sweaty palms and become more nervous. Time passed, Ronnie suddenly stood up and walked out, Mr. Orchid Fingers saw him and quickly stopped him, "Little boy, are you going to the bathroom? you can't go out during the test, and you can't come back after you go out.”
"I've finished my answers, I'm going out for a while, I'll wait for my sister to finish her exam and we'll go home together." Ronnie finished looking at Alice before leaving the classroom. Mr. Orchid Fingers thought in his heart, so this boy came to accompany his sister and filled in the answers randomly and didn't care.
Two hours passed quickly and most people had already left the classroom. Alice was still answering last minute questions, and as she left the classroom, she shook her head slightly. Ronnie saw her coming out and eagerly walked up to her and said, "Sister, you're so slow!"
"I am not as good as you, you came out first, did you check the questions after you answered them?"
"No need to check, they are too easy for me!"
"You're so smart, let's wait here for Hasegawa, he should be out soon."
"How did you do in the exam, Sis?"
"It looks like I won't be able to pass the test this time, so I'll have to come back next time."
"Sister, when will the test results come out?"
"I don't know, I'll ask Hasegawa later."
The two didn't talk for long before Hasegawa came over from the other side and the first thing he asked was: "How did you do in the exam?”
"I did okay, my sister said she might fail the exam. Hasegawa, when will the test results come out?" Ronnie took the lead and said. Hasegawa first looked at Alice and said, "It's okay, come back next time, Michiko took the test many times too,”then he turned his head to answer Ronnie's question, "the results will be announced tomorrow.”
"I'm sorry to disappoint you," Alice said with some guilt.
Hasegawa patted her shoulder and comforted her, "You did well for your first exam, let's go find Michiko and then go to 'Chirpan Restaurant' for dinner together."
When they found Michiko, they saw her walking side by side with a male classmate. The male student was a fat man, not very tall, with a very white face, wearing a white T-shirt with a drawing of a woman with big red lips. Michiko introduced him to the three of them, "This is my classmate 'Gomez'."
Gomez was generous and smiled at the three people and said, "I heard Michiko say that Alice is a beautiful woman, and I'm sure she is pretty when I see her today."
"Are you Michiko's boyfriend?" Ronnie asked suddenly.
"Not yet, you're Ronnie, aren't you? You look so cute!" Having said that, he reached out and pinched Ronnie's face.
"Piggy, why are you pinching my face?" Ronnie was furious and shook off his hand with force.
Hasegawa was afraid he was going to make a noise and changed the subject sharply, "Gomez, why don't you come and have dinner with us?"
Gomez turned his head to look at Michiko and when he saw that she didn't look welcoming, he shook his head and said, "Better next time! I have a few things to do, so I'll leave first."
After he left, Ronnie turned to Michiko and said, "Why are you with him? What a lack of vision."
"What do you care?" Michiko gave him a stern look.
Chirpan's Restaurant, located just outside the east gate of the school, was a barbecue restaurant that had been around for more than fifty years. They arrived at 12:30 p.m., the restaurant was full of people, waiters and customers were busy, the air was filled with the smell of fried meat, the four of them stood at the door and waited for a long time, and no one came over to greet them.
Michiko was a little impatient: "Brother, there's no more room, why don't we change restaurants?"
"Wait a little longer, I want to eat meat!" Ronnie said.
"But..." Michiko wanted to say something else, but her brother Hasegawa winked at her to signal her to stop talking, so she obediently closed her mouth and stood quietly aside to wait. After another three minutes or so, a waitress came and said to them, "Everyone, there's still a table available upstairs, please follow me. After saying that, she led the way forward and the three of them followed, arriving at the second floor only to see that there was indeed an empty table in the corner, but there were only three seats. The waitress turned to the several people, "Hang on, I'll go find another chair."
Ronnie's first time in such a high-class restaurant, a face of excitement, grabbed a chair and hurriedly sat down, and hands continue to slap the table, shaking his head and said, "I can finally have a big meal! Hahaha..."
Michiko laughed and said, "Ronnie, why are you so happy? haven't you ever eaten meat before?"
"What do you care?" Ronnie replied.
A short time later the waiter brought in chairs and all four were seated. The table lit up with the AR ordering system and rich dishes appeared. Seeing these dishes, Ronnie's eyes went straight up and he exclaimed under his breath, "I want to eat every single one of them!”
"What a bumpkin!" Michiko looked at him scornfully.
Hasegawa looked at Alice and said, "You order!"
"No, it's better to let Ronnie do it, he loves meat."
Hearing his sister say that, Ronnie didn't mind, he pressed a bunch of buttons on the AR system and ordered a dozen dishes, when he was about to order more, Michiko pulled his hand and shouted angrily, "You're trying to make my brother go bankrupt, aren't you?"
"Didn't you tell me to order? "
In the end, it was Alice who made the call and ordered six courses and a bottle of red wine. About five minutes later the first course came out, it was four "flame black pepper steaks" with a layer of black pepper sprinkled on top, smoking hot. Ronnie picked up a knife and fork, took the first one out, cut off a piece and put it in his mouth, chewed it just twice, then spit it out, "so hot!" He yelled, covering his mouth.
"Oh ... deserved it!" Michiko gloated.
The four of them ate for over an hour before Ronnie rubbed his stomach, burped, and said, "I'm so full today, I won't have to eat for a week.”
"Everyone has finished eating, shall we go?" Hasegawa said and stood up, raising his hand and swiping at the AR ordering system, only to hear a beep, the system showing a total of one hundred and twenty-five star coins.
"Hasegawa, what are you doing? why are you swiping?" Ronnie asked with a puzzled face.
"This is Nine Star Payment."
"What is Nine Star Payment?"
"Nine Star Payment is a digital currency issued by the Nine Stars United, an alliance formed by the nine largest companies in the 'Free World'. I heard that the 'Bira Coin' was also privately issued by them."
"How much can a 'Bira Coin' be worth in Nine Star Payments?"
"Probably between sixteen and two thousand!"
"Oh!" Ronnie nodded. The four of them went downstairs, said goodbye to each other, and then went their separate ways home.