Seven Days, Seven Nights

Chapter 001 – Equipment
「someone said, ___ want to transmigrate. 」

The first lesson during the first day of the new term was the mentor’s. 

The class bell had just sounded and there were some mutterings that hadn’t yet stopped in time. The mentor put down his chalk and turned around, his strict gaze sweeping over everyone. A few students still talking immediately shut up.

“Su Er.” Zhu Yun lowered her voice. “Stop writing.”

Her desk-mate, who was writing at the speed of the wind, paused momentarily. Thinking that he was only missing the last sentence, he decided to still quickly finish up.

A wind blew in his direction.

Every person blocking in front of him caused different kinds of airflow. Su Er didn’t really want to look up, because he already knew what he was going to see.

A hand reached out. “Hand it over.”

Su Er put his newly-baked homework on the table under the pitiful gaze of his deskmate.

The mentor glanced at him. “What were you writing?”

Su Er answered honestly, “I’m still missing the ‘Plan for the New Semester’.”

The mentor narrowed his eyes, then decided his fate with one word: “Read.”

Su Er helplessly began reading aloud what he had scrawled. “A new semester, I shall be studious and will absolutely not do anything that’s not relevant to the classroom…”

A roar of laughter.

Zhu Yun had turned her head, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably; even the mentor was torn between laughing and crying. Originally he had wanted to tell him off, but after seeing the teenager’s eye bags he didn’t have the heart to… This was the oldest child in the class. It’s rumoured that he had been mentally scarred by his parents’ accident and thus dropped out for two years — the principal had specially asked him to take more care of this child.

He swallowed what he was originally about to say, confiscated the ‘Plan for the New Semester’, and once again emphasised, “The third year in high school is very important.”

Su Er nodded, looking like he had learnt something important.

Following this delay, the class passed very quickly. After the mentor left the class, Zhu Yun teased, “Told you to stop writing.”

Su Er twirled his pen around his finger, bored. “What year is it now, we still have to write ‘Plan for the New Semester’.”

The saying goes that plans do not catch up to changes.

A few students had gathered in the corridor near the door, so bits of their conversation was easily audible. Zhu Yun found her handcream and applied it on her hands. “The book’s already been banned and they’re still talking about it.”  

Su Er asked, “What book?”

“‘Seven Days, Seven Nights’.” Zhu Yun said, “It’s really explicit and have some pretty dark and terrifying content. It’s said that someone committed suicide after reading it, so it’s now banned internet-wide.”

Su Er raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were interested in this kind of things.”

Zhu Yun made a ‘qi’ sound [1]. “I heard someone else say it too.” 

Su Er asked, “Who said it?”

Zhu Yun was about to speak, then she suddenly choked on it, unable to recall it for the moment. 

Su Er elbowed her lightly. “A friend from nothing?” [2] 

“I really haven’t read it.” Seeing that she couldn’t explain it, Zhu Yun was too lazy to continue talking to him. She buried her head and laid on the table to nap.

Su Er’s smile was, meanwhile, slowly disappearing. ‘Seven Days, Seven Nights’ had really began becoming popular half a year ago, with almost everyone knowing about it and no one having actually read it. Everyone had curiosity; he had once tried searching for resources online, but had unfortunately found nothing.

There was nothing that could be banned so thoroughly. With enough patience, it could always be found online. This book, however, was different: if it was not the website that had gone 404, then it’s a fake news to clickbait people.

Shaking his head, he sighed with feeling about his too-suspicious mind. Tearing out a new piece of paper, he had to re-write: In the new term, I want to be studious and make good use of all the miscellaneous time. Even in the class, I will enthusiastically revise the next lesson’s con…

He had only written down the first stroke of the word ‘rong’ [3] when he couldn’t help letting out an audible sigh. Zhu Yun heard it and revealed half of her face. “Are you still doubting that thing?”

Su Er’s pen tip paused. “You think I’m delusional too?” [4] 

His suspicious mind didn’t show itself only regarding this book. During the holidays, everyone got together and drank some alcohol in secret. After he got drunk, Su Er went crazy, shouting about how he suspected his own identity, even thinking that his relatives around him were false existences, causing those schoolmates to suspect his mental stability. 

Zhu Yun muttered, “It might be real.”

Su Er looked sharply towards her.

“Your parents left such a huge sum of reparations after passing away, yet not a single relative of yours tried to initiate a closer relationship.” Zhu Yun pursed her lips. “My father won a lottery before the lunar new year this year, and our threshold had almost been trampled flat.”

Hearing this Su Er sucked in a cold breath. “It makes so much sense!”

Anyone could make guesses without evidence. Their calm lives continued and, in the blink of an eye, half a term had passed. As expected, Su Er didn’t follow a single part of his so-called ‘Plan for the New Term’. Seeing that it was soon the mid-term examinations, he couldn’t not brace himself and begin his revision.

Dong-dong-dong.

It was nighttime and the sound of knocking was overly loud, as if someone was ramming into the door.

Su Er put down his book and frowned, then armed himself with a pair of scissors before going to look through the cat-eye. In the corridor there was a very pale, panicked face. He stilled, then hurriedly opened the door. “Zhu Yun?”

He looked behind her and found no one suspicious.

“Keep it!” Zhu Yun’s voice was hoarse. She dug a small taser out of her pocket and forcefully stuffed it into his hand. “Don’t mention it to anyone, use it to keep yourself alive.”

What’s this?

Zhu Yun didn’t give him time to react, turning around and sprinting off.

Su Er hurriedly chased after her.

He’s physical test results had always been pretty good and he’d even once broken the school record for the eight hundred metres race during a sports’ festival. Given this, he still somehow lost her. Standing at the entrance to a dark alleyway entrance, he patted his pocket, releasing a breath when he felt his phone’s metal casing — fortunately, he had brought it.

It rang for a long time, but Zhu Yun didn’t pick up. Su Er hesitated only momentarily before preparing to call the police. Zhu Yun was a very rational person, if not faced with a special situation, she wouldn’t do such baffling things.

What he didn’t know was, Zhu Yun’s father had called the police first. That night, Father Zhu had asked her to come out for dinner and, after not receiving a reply, had entered her room. It was completely empty, with only an extra letter on the table. Its contents stated that she was under too much pressure from schoolwork and wanted to go out to relax; her return date was not fixed, her parents need not worry and think about her too much.

The police took a testimony from Su Er. Skipping over the taser, Su Er mentioned that Zhu Yun’s condition was obviously not right. By the time they were finished with this, it was midnight. The police drove him home and advised him some.

Su Er’s mood was a little heavy and, sitting on his spinning chair, wasn’t in the mood to read. Outside, the rain poured. While he was half-asleep, half-awake, the phone on the table began vibrating crazily, waking Su Er with a start. On the display was an unknown number.

“Hey.”

“It’s me.” The voice on the other side was a little unclear.

Su Er had quite a few questions, such as whose phone she was using to make this call and where she was, etcetera. Before he could even ask a single question, though, Zhu Yun cut him off. “Remember ‘Seven Days, Seven Nights’?”

“That piece of erotic literature that was so explicit it was banned?”

The other was momentarily shocked by his answer, but in the end choose not to explain, instead taking the time to say, “It’s currently 3:42 AM, you will enter that book in three minutes…”

Her voice began breaking up. “Remember to keep the taser on you…”

The conversation cut off abruptly. 

Su Er frowned and tried to call back, but the line was busy.

Reflexively he picked up the taser and played with it. When at the police station just now, he had subconsciously chosen not to mention it. Partially because of Zhu Yun’s words, more because he had a history of mental illness. If he spoke the whole truth it might be mistaken that he used this to do something to Zhu Yun.

He didn’t turn on the power, but there was a very strong surge of electricity sent into his body.

Half his body went numb at once. Su Er moved his fingers with difficulty, planning to call the ambulance, but it was as if his body was being weighed down by the crazy, swelling waves that disallowed him any movements, forcefully dragging him into the centre of a whirlpool. 

It’s leaking electricity!

This was the last thought he had before sinking into darkness. 

When he opened his eyes again he was in a gray world. Su Yi squeezed his eyes shut harshly and, when he opened them again, saw that besides him were a few others like him.

“Where is this place?” Someone asked his question for him.

Clearly, no one knew.

“There’s someone there!” A girl suddenly pointed at someplace ahead of them.

In the direction she had pointed at, a few small tables were set up, resembling a roving admissions office.

The girl who had spoken couldn’t resist running in that direction and everyone else hurried to follow her. Su Er was also in the team, following at a pace that was neither too fast nor too slow, using his periphery vision to take a look around. Including himself, there were four people.

After reaching to the nearest table, the girl huffily began getting ready to ask questions.

“Shut your mic!” The guy sitting with a leg crossed over the other [5] thumped the table hard, scaring the girl into taking one step back.

The lady at another table was more gentle. “On the table are booklets containing the summary of experiences from our seniors, you can take a look for yourselves.”

Su Er and another guy’s reactions were the fastest, their hands reaching the edge at the same time.

“You first.” The adult conceded automatically. Whichever way you looked at it there was a thick stack there, so there wasn’t the issue of having to fight over the resources.

From Su Er onwards, everyone got one booklet each.

“This batch is quite good.” Even the cross-legged guy’s praise seemed to be coloured with ridicule. “Unlike an idiot in the previous batch who would only accept reality after having beaten half to death.”

While he was speaking, Su Er had flipped open the first page.

The title was a huge ‘Seven Days, Seven Nights’, the contents page neatly organised:

Abstract………………………………1
1. Organisations………………………………2
1.1 Major Organisations………………………………2
1.2 Requirements for admissions of new members………………………………3
2 Chimimoryo [6] 
2.1 Ways to deal with them………………………………4

…

While looking down at the booklet, Su Er bit down harshly on his lip, only pretending to lick his wound as if it was unintentional after he began tasting blood.

It hurts and there’s a wound, the possibility of this being a dream wasn’t too big.

So was the industry chain for transmigration into a book perfected now? There’s someone to notify you in advance and, after coming over, there’s even a booklet to introduce the new worldview. 

“It’s about to start soon.” Su Er’s hearing was good and he caught one of the members of the ‘admissions office’ mumble this to themself.

At the same time, a huge water screen rose up in the distance.

The cross-legged guy looked somewhat serious. “Long story short, all of you, remember this: your performance in the newbie round would be screened on that water screen and the major organisations would take this opportunity to assess who to admit.”

Screened?

Su Er frowned, flipping to the relevant page and, when seeing that only their performance in the first round would be screened, lightly let out a sigh of relief.

The guy noticed his actions and sneered. “If the details of every round was leaked, wouldn’t there no longer be secrets?”

And, in order to survive in this world, everyone must have secrets — perhaps it might be better to call them: ‘bargaining chips for their lives’. 

=

t/l: cin; e/d: adventurer
(currently unedited, but will be edited soon)

notes
[1] in this case the ‘qi’ is really a simple sound that zhu yun had made before speaking. for those who are curious, 嘁, which is read as ‘qī’, usually describes a low or soft (or both) sound made; when doubled up (so ‘qī qī’) and used it’s akin to saying ‘jabber, murmur, buzz’, and when used in phrases it might also be referring to whispering, or to telling tales/sowing discord. 
[2] joke here’s that the this phrase is read the same way as the phrase ‘something from nothing’ since the character for ‘friend’ sounds exactly the same as the character for ‘something’. for those who are curious, usually the character for ‘friend’ used here is used with another character to combine into the word ‘friend’, but individually they can both also mean friend; the character for ‘something’ is also used to mean ‘to have’, etcetera, and is one of the more commonly seen characters around. also, the phrase ‘something from nothing’ is a saying, and is in fact a subset of idioms / proverbs — the group of them that are four characters in length (that’s the easiest way to identify them ^-^)  
[3] this character, ‘rong’ (容), is the second character that makes up the word meaning ’contents’, with the previous character ‘nei’ (内) 
[4] so here the author actually used ‘中二’, which could be seen as the adjective form of ‘中二病’ which is the noun whose translation typically is more well-known in the anime/manga community, since transliteration from japanese (chunibyo) sounds nicer than the transliteration from chinese (zhong er bing) and can be known as either ‘middle two disease’ (for those whose education systems have middle schools), ‘eighth grader disorder’ (for those other people who don’t go to middle schools) or simply ‘adolescent delusions’ if one wishes to avoid getting specific — in the original context it refers to the fourteen years old kids. these delusions they get typically is of grandeur, for example, that they are the main character in some novel. i used ‘delusional’ because ‘chuni’ sounds, well. weird. let me know if you have any thoughts!
[5] see this for a visual of this cross-legged position, it’s usually known as ‘erlang legs’ (?) but yeah sounds weird. wherein erlang is a person, somewhat a ruffian.
[6] 魑魅魍魎 (chī mèi wǎng liǎng), refers to the different kinds of demons and monsters and evil spirits inhabiting the forests in legends that harm humans, here a japanese transliteration is used as it’s likely more well-known