You fill my lungs and take away the air [Global Examination]

Chapter 3: Lost souls dancing

154 looked away from his book as he let out a small cough, and he reached up, rubbing his throat.

His cough was getting worse, but it still wasn't too bad. At least, if the cough had gotten so bad that it made 154 want to die, he would be able to narrow it down to some kind of throat disease or something like cancer.

He had no fucking idea what kind of illness he had caught that had persisted for weeks, because the only symptoms he had was a gradually worsening sore throat... and a little difficulty breathing, which was nothing in comparison compared to how long 154 had been bothered by his throat.

The incessant tickling at the back of 154's throat was just getting more and more annoying, as if something was trapped at the back of his throat, something unfamiliar... which, really didn't help at all; with 154's utter lack of life experience and only recently having a physical body for a few months, compared to the years of memories from both You Huo and Chu Yue, pretty much everything could be considered unfamiliar to him.

But he wasn't suffering from anything else; no fever, no rashes, no injuries, and it wasn't like 154 had swallowed fish bones that had injured his throat by accident.

Just a really, really irritating sore throat.

Urg.

How annoying.

Eventually, 154 decided that getting rid of the offending object should probably be a priority, lest he choke and suffer even more, his hand flying towards his mouth automatically, because it was simply right to cover one's mouth when coughing, even in the privacy in his own room-

...

What was this?

154 stared blankly at what looked like to be a purple flower petal sitting on the palm of his hand... because 154 had no idea how he had ended up coughing up a fucking flower petal. For one, 154 was quite confident 922 had never served up a dish with flowers, and 154 was sure that he himself wasn't going around eating flowers...

Heck, were there even real flowers in the System? 154 wasn't too sure about that...

154 rubbed his chest, his thoughts racing.

Well, at least that explained the itchiness in his throat.

Of course his body was complaining, and wasn't too happy about some foreign object like a fucking flower petal being somehow lodged down there for so long... and yet, how the petal appeared was still a mystery to him.

...

Well, now that 154 thought about it, there probably were some decorative flowers that were scattered around the various invigilators' quarters, and purple flowers weren't that rare.

Perhaps 922 had accidentally let a stray petal into his water bottle, since he could be a little absent-minded and clumsy, or maybe 154 himself had been too tired to notice a petal falling into his drink.

154 made a mental note to double check just what he was putting into his mouth, letting out a sigh as he casually tossed the petal into the trash bin, before going to the bathroom to wash his hands.

There was nothing to worry about.

It was probably just a one-off incident.

-------------------------------

It was not a one-off incident.

Of course, of all the things that 154 inherited from You Huo, his older brother's poor luck had to be one of them.