Seven Days, Seven Nights

Chapter 010 – Prelude

Characters of note so far:

Su Er – Main character; third year high school student. If he hadn’t taken time off from school, he’d be in his second year of university
Zhu Yun – Su Er’s classmate; third year high school student, currently missing
Ji Heng – Tall man in previous chapters; leader of Return to the Grave Organization (future male lead)
Zhao Sanliang – previously called Punk, Shamate; member of Return to the Grave
Yao Zhi – Su Er’s Mathematics teacher

It rained last night, and Su Er had gone to bed late, so he inevitably got up with a headache.

Reflexively, he first picked up the mobile phone from the bedside table, and there was an unread message from Zhao Sanliang: [Just take care of yourself.] (1)

After carefully pondering the deep meaning of these words… It seemed that Ji Heng had rejected his excellent proposal.

Shaking his head and stuffing the textbooks on the table into his school bag, Su Er didn’t pay it much attention. They were all members of the same group. Business wasn’t righteous, and he expected that as captain, he wouldn’t do anything to Su Er. (2)

Zhao Sanliang also sent a document last night, containing some important information. Su Er printed it out and stuck it between the third and fifth exam paper before completely deleting the email.

“Go to sleep, go to sleep my dear baby…” He hummed as he walked down the road. Other pedestrians avoided him.

It only took 20 minutes to get to school from home. The moment he pushed open the door, he heard a lot of noise. After seeing him, many people took out the homework they were making up from their desks and said with lingering fear, “We thought you were the teacher.”

Su Er sat down in his seat, and a student wearing glasses in front looked up at the door. “Zhu Yun isn’t here yet? I still have one large question left.”

Su Er took out his exercise book: “I’ll lend it to you to copy.”

The student wearing glasses refused: “You skip too many steps in your problem-solving, and the answer’s correctness can’t be guaranteed.” (3)

The head teacher very unusually arrived at the last minute before class, His expression full of seriousness. He said a few words, gently implying that they should learn to properly relieve the pressure from studying. (4) After class, Su Er saw that a few girls who usually played well with Zhu Yun were called to the office.

The classmate wearing glasses noticed that something was wrong and asked him if Zhu Yun had taken sick leave. Su Er smiled and responded vaguely.

The school stipulates that senior high school students study by themselves in the evening. The weather has been bad the past two days, and it has darkened very early. The moment the bell rang, many students couldn’t wait to go home together.

“Su Er, aren’t you leaving?”

Su Er made up an excuse casually, “I’m waiting for someone.”

The other party winked ambiguously: “Secretly found a girlfriend?”

After teasing each other for a while, the people in the classroom gradually left, and in the end he was the only one left.

Zhu Yun only brings her homework back home every day. There were many books on the table, and her drawer was also full. He carefully turned over the remaining textbooks page by page. It took a lot of time and energy to read the densely packed notes.

As the students left school, everything around him gradually quieted down. Su Er didn’t know when a slight rustling sound from the corridor registered in his ears. At first, he didn’t pay much attention to it, but when the sound approached, he frowned, closed the book and listened carefully… It seemed to be extremely slow footsteps.

The uncle downstairs who was responsible for locking the door usually shouted if anyone else was there before heading upstairs. Such a regulated pace obviously didn’t belong to him.

Silently grasping the taser, Su Er stood up and moved the table blocking the back door to the side to make sure there were more exits he could run out of in case an accident occured. Everything is ready. He sat back down and pretended to read nonchalantly. 

There were no other students on this floor, and the night wind blew in from an open window, rustling the papers that hadn’t been collected.

The sound of the dragging footsteps was finally close at hand, and he raised his head. Because Su Er saw an unexpected person, his eyes shifted slightly: “Teacher Yao?”

The man was a little fat and wore a pair of rimless glasses, which made him look a little solemn. He looked at Su Er and asked, “You haven’t gone back yet?”

“I’m about to go back.”

Yao Zhi walked very slowly to his side, almost in the same pace as he had before. Su Er found that the other party’s eyes faintly swept over the hand in his pocket. He took out two walnuts without any change to his face, and handed one to Yao Zhi. “Teacher, do you want to eat?”

Yao Zhi was slightly stunned. “You have walnuts with you as snacks?”

No wonder the pocket of the school uniform were slightly bulging. (5)

Su Er nodded and naturally walked to the back door. He used the gap to forcefully open the shell smoothly. He stood next to the garbage can and ate, keeping a safe distance from Yao Zhi: “Is the teacher looking for me?”

He never thought Yao Zhi would actually nod.

Su Er narrowed his eyes. Yao Zhi taught mathematics. He is a little weak in this respect, and the latter would mention a few words from time to time. But his intuition told him that Yao Zhi didn’t come here because of his grades.

“Your ranking is in the upper middle of the class.” Yao Zhi said slowly. “Your math grades are falling behind, but this teacher has always believed that you are a good student with diligence and self-discipline.”

“Don’t worry,” Su Er patted the crumbs off his hands and put on a cheeky smile. “I will try my best to reach the top.”

There are different ways to struggle,” Yao Zhi said sternly. “A good student shouldn’t think about cheating.”

“…” Su Er’s smile faded a little. “Where does this come from?”

Yao Zhi stared at him: “Ji Heng told me that someone wanted to cheat with the time difference in the game.”

Su Er’s complexion changed slightly, and he quickly reacted: “You shouldn’t…”

Yao Zhi uttered four words: “Seven Days, Seven Nights.”

As soon as his voice fell, Su Er unconsciously stepped back, greatly shocked. After a while, he came back to his senses: “you slow down for me first. Teacher Yao and Ji Heng know each other?”

Meeting his eyes, Yao Zhi smiled. “Zhao Sanliang said you were a fox. It seems to be true.” (6)

His eyes fell on a blind spot in front of Su Er. “Don’t be sneaky.” (7)

Hearing that, Su Er raised his eyebrows and covered his face with his hands as if accepting his fate: “It seems I’m not capable enough to make small movements under the teacher’s eyes.”

When Yao Zhi first exposed his identity, Su Er had secretly called Zhao Sanliang first. If the other party was talking nonsense, he could try to stall for as long as possible to wait for Zhao Sanliang’s rescue. (8)

After putting the phone on speaker, Zhao Sangliang’s voice came out: “Boy, you’re clever enough. Don’t worry, Yao Zhi is an experienced player.”

The first sentence dispelled Su Er’s doubt, but the next sentence shattered his dreams. “So don’t even think about cheating within the game. (9) I’m not sure if you’ll have to make up lessons in the future.”

“…” After hanging up, Su Er gently rubbed his temples.

“It’s late.” Yao Zhi looked at the sky outside and told him to study hard and go back as soon as possible. The uncle in charge of locking the door had a bad temper. Past this time, everyone will get scolded.

Su Er agreed upfront. While packing up his things, he took advantage of Yao Zhi’s inattentiveness to pull out a few books from the bottom of Zhu Yun’s drawer and stuffed them into his schoolbag to take away.

When he came downstairs, Su Er quickly caught up to Yao Zhi: “I didn’t expect you to be a participant in the game. With that said, he scratched his head embarrassedly: “I suddenly feel more at ease.”

Yao Zhi nodded: “It’s okay. When the pressure gets too high, you can come and talk to me.”

Su Er smiled bitterly. “Actually after entering the game, the pressure from learning has been much lighter.” Out of the corner of his eye, he paid attention to Yao Zhi’s expression.

“Indeed, I have seen a lot of people do stupid things because of their grades. It’s really not worth it.”

“Yeah.” Su Er pretended to sigh and lowered his eyes. “I don’t know if Zhu Yun has been found or not. She came to see me before she ran away from home and looked very stressed. I just wanted to stop her at that time.” (10)

Yao Zhi’s eyes also held regret. “Excellent people often like to go to the extremes.” (11)

Su Er retracted his gaze. It seemed the other party didn’t know that Zhu Yun was also a player.

Before parting, Yao Zhi suddenly said: “Tomorrow, there will be an in-class quiz.”

Su Er came back to his senses and asked in surprise: “Didn’t we just have one?”

Yao Zhi: “I heard what happened in the game from Zhao Sanliang.”

Su Er had an ominous premonition.

When people who don’t laugh often suddenly laugh, it’s either amazing or terrifying. Yao Zhi belonged to the latter: “I heard that you created the charm method to fight ghosts.” (12)

“…” The most worrying thing happened.

“I haven’t been in a game for a week, so I don’t know how much my charm value is right now,” Yao Zhi said lightly. He stopped and turned to look at Su Er. “How many points do you think I can get?”

Ji Heng was the best-looking person Su Er had ever seen. His appearance and temperament were all first-class, and yet his charm value did not exceed 20 points, let alone Yao Zhi.

“By the way, the players who haven’t entered the games recently won’t know what they are,” Yao Zhi looked at him: “When they enter, they will definitely be very ‘surprised.’”

Su Er vaguely had a feeling that he had become both popular and the public enemy of the masses overnight. (13)

Yao Zhi turned his back and walked in the opposite direction. His voice drifting over with the night wind, he left saying something similar to what Zhao Sanliang had said: “Young people still have a long way to go. Take care of yourself.”

“…”

In this city with a rapidly developing economy, the house Su Er lived in was nothing compared to the real rich, with only three bedrooms and one living room.

But now that he lived alone, it felt inevitably empty.

The first thing he did when got home was to look at the family photo. Everyone had their mouths hooked up at the corners just right. In comparison, t felt a little unnerving to think how the family that had been brainwashed by a cult in the game could show such sincere smiles when taking photos.

Exactly what was the problem? (14)

‘Bzz.’

The phone vibrated. There was a message from Ji Heng to psychologically prepare himself to enter the copy the night after tomorrow.

On Friday night, Su Er packed up in advance and was the first to leave school after evening self-study.

Under a big tree, two people could be vaguely seen talking, though mainly the one with the eye-catching appearance (15) was talking, while the other occasionally nodded.

“Yo!” Zhao Sanliang waved his arm and called out familiarly. “How courageous, you didn’t ask for leave at this time.” (16) He had seen many people quit their jobs after entering the games, drinking away their lives.

Su Er glanced at him before staring at Ji Heng: “Why did you need to specifically inform Teacher Yao?”

“The rules prohibit players from killing each other in reality, but there is no absolute certainty,” Ji Heng said quietly. “Yao Zhi has a sense of responsibility and can protect you at critical moments.”

Su Er nodded slightly, accepting this statement.

But Ji Heng continued: “But we can’t delay the college entrance exam. I’ll try my best to find a game for you and Yao Zhi later so he can tutor you.”

“…” How to make up? Others fight ghosts, while he solves equations!

Thinking of this, Su Er’s face changed. “I heard that team props are precious, so don’t bother.”

Ji Heng had no expression and said indifferently, “no matter how poor you are, you cannot give up your education. I’ll solve the problems with the props.” (17)

Zhao Sanliang held back his laughter and nodded harmoniously: “That’s right, as the strongest camp, we have this condition!”

The author has something to say:

Teacher Yao: Braving the wind and dew, I shall wait for you in the game. Let us solve this equation first. (18)
Su Er: …

FOOTNOTES

[好自为之吧。]买卖不成仁义在 – I am not sure how to translate this. I got “business is not righteous” or “did not buy or sell.” I suppose it means it’s not like they’re saints and will not cause problems just because of Su Er’s request?“Your problem-solving process is too omitted,” “Your problem-solving method is too lacking”“委婉” – Euphemistically, saying something indirectly, or in a more gentle way. Not being blunt about it. “要学会适当缓解学习压力” – “We should learn to appropriately relieve the pressure from learning.”Su Er pretended that what he had in his pockets were just walnuts without acting suspicious, so the teacher wouldn’t search him or question what was in his pocket.“Born in the year of the fox”觉死角 – dead corner, blind spotSu Er first called Zhao Sanliang when Mr. Yao first entered the classroom, and had the phone record their conversation for Zhao Sanliang to hear I believe.Was more literally translated as “copy,” but refers to each individual game the players participate in. Again, for sake of consistency, I’m translating it as “game,” though I personally am used to calling them copies当时能拦住她就好了 – it would have been nice to be able to stop her at that time钻牛角尖 – Chinese idiom meaning “to drill into an ox’s horn” – “To split hairs/to head into a dead end” – Yao Zhi is saying excellent students often like to split hairs or make distinctions on things they think are important, but are actually unnecessary or not worth worrying about.流 – process, stream, methodTo reiterate, every player now has three values: Force, Spirit and Charm Values. If either the Force or Spirit values become lower than one, the player will be annihilated. The Charm value is a newly added mechanism, so the players do not know if the rules that applied to the Force and Spirit values apply to charm. However, other than Su Er who has a charm value of 59, most players have very low (in the single digits) charm value, which places a lot of stress on them. If they can’t figure out how to raise the Charm value, and if having a Charm Value of less than 1 can cause them to be annihilated, then well… Either way, what Yao Zhi is implying is that the other players will have a lot of animosity towards Su Er since they see him as the person who caused this third value (and thus death flag) to be created. The use of Charm Value will be explained in a future arc. Yao Zhi probably said he’d give Su Er’s class an extra quiz because he was irritated as well lmao. Additionally, because they still don’t know how charm value works, people are assuming your appearance/attractiveness plays a role in determining your charm value as well, which is why Su Er dreaded guessing how many charm points Yao Zhi might have… because he is no where near as attractive as Ji Heng, and Ji Heng only has a measly 19 charm value points.Su Er is referring to his family pictureZhao Sanliang’s appearance looks like that of a Shamate who tend to have outlandish, colorful hair.有胆识，这时候还没请假。- not sure how to translate thisLol basically Su Er doesn’t want to use team props to be in the same copy/game as Ji Heng or Yao Zhi, using the excuse that team props were too expensive and not worth using, but Ji Heng said he’ll take care of any money or supply problems that might arise when using the props so you done goofed Su Er风里雨里 – “In the wind and dew” – a chengyu (Chinese idiom) meaning to brave many arduous or toiling hardships to reach an end goal