“I’ve given you my name. For the rest of this conversation, I expect complete transparency. No omissions,” Su Jin stated. He pulled a pen and a notebook from his bag, raising his eyes to meet Fu Qingdai’s. “I want your daily routine, family dynamics, the exact wording of what the company told you, and why you are in this hospital.”
Fu Qingdai gripped her knees, her voice earnest. “I’m not crazy. I was sent here by mistake. I’m a student at Longshan Secondary School, and it’s just my parents and me at home…”
Su Jin listened intently, nodding in acknowledgment.
The fact that she was not mentally ill surprised him, but it was good news.
Judging by her daily life, this world’s social structure was nearly identical to Earth’s, though much less developed.
He had lived through a similar developmental era in his youth. He would have little trouble adapting.
Fu Qingdai continued her breathless recounting. When she brought up her nightmares, Su Jin’s pen abruptly halted. “You’re saying there’s an issue with the rain? A five-day downpour, followed by people going mad, then eating each other, and the world falling into chaos?”
“Yes…” she whispered.
Su Jin’s jaw locked. A phantom fist seemed to squeeze his heart.
He had bitten the bullet and accepted this transmigrational nonsense. He even had a heads-up about the impending apocalypse.
A zombie outbreak wasn’t exactly out of left field, all things considered.
But the infection came through the rain?
Omnipresent water contamination. Water was the absolute baseline for survival. If the water was contaminated, how could anyone survive?
“Cousin… are you okay?” Fu Qingdai asked timidly, seeing that he was distracted.
Suppressing a shudder, Su Jin forced a stiff smile. “I’m fine. Keep going. You mentioned the company in your dream. When exactly did they contact you, and when did they send the notification regarding my arrival?”
“I only found out about the company and your arrival a few days ago.”
“A voice just echoed in my dream. It said it was from the Heavenly Dao Company, and asked if I wanted to live. I said yes. Then it announced that the contract was sealed, and an agent would be dispatched to assist me. After that, total silence… That’s pretty much everything.”
“Sounds accurate. That’s standard company procedure,” Su Jin replied smoothly, while internally cursing up a storm.
What kind of high-handed nonsense was that? They had forced the choice on her. Who doesn’t want to live? Wanting to survive equals signing a binding contract?
He had clicked a damn mouse and ended up on an interstellar labor dispatch.
But the timing of her story bothered him. She had been notified days ago, whereas he had only been ‘hired’ by the Heavenly Dao Company a few hours prior.
A massive temporal discrepancy. Was it a side effect of the transmigration?
Could the company predict the future? Was this heavily premeditated?
There were too many possible explanations to untangle just then, and Fu Qingdai knew almost nothing about the company.
Even so, one thing seemed clear: until he completed the mission, he probably could not contact the company at all.
In other words, he had no choice but to complete the mission.
Swearing viciously in his head once more, Su Jin pressed his pen to the paper. “Let’s move on. Wait until I am done asking questions, then you can ask yours.”
“Okay,” Fu Qingdai replied meekly.
“How many days until the rain hits? Do you have a precise countdown?”
“Seven days from today. I remember the date perfectly!”
“Seven days…” Su Jin muttered. “Within that timeframe, can you get yourself discharged? Play the victim, fake a recovery—whatever it takes to get sent home?”
“I don’t know. I’ve begged to go home, but my mom insists I stay for treatment. She is worried, though; she visits every day.”
“Alright, let us set that aside for now… Are there any rental properties near your residence? The closer, the better.”
A faint spark returned to Fu Qingdai’s eyes. “Yes! There are several units for rent right in my apartment building. They have phone numbers taped to the windows.”
“Hmm… Give me the rest of your daily routine, and tell me more about your parents.”
Ten minutes later, Su Jin halted his pen once more.
He had learned a little more about the coming disaster and about this world.
But with only seven days left, he had to move faster.
Fu Qingdai seemed sharp enough, but she had little experience of the world.
Probing further into her personal life might just lead him to the wrong conclusions.
Su Jin twirled his pen and changed tack. “How much does your family spend each month? How much do your parents earn?”
Fu Qingdai blinked, unsure why he was asking. “They both make over two thousand… I think we spend about two thousand a month.”
Su Jin pressed on. “Is this a society governed by the rule of law?”
“Huh? Of course it is. We have plenty of laws.”
“If something goes wrong at work or school, does resolving it require pulling strings and utilizing personal connections?”
“Well, obviously. How else would you get anything done?”
“Understood.”
He tapped his pen against the notebook, calculating. “Do you think you are pretty?”
“Um… isn’t it obvious?”
“What about me? How would you rate my appearance and wardrobe?”
“You’re quite handsome… Your clothes look nice too, just incredibly warm for this weather.”
“Are there any audio-video shops, wet markets, or internet cafes in the vicinity?”
“We have the first two, but I don’t know whether there is an internet cafe.”
“What is the molecular formula for water?”
“H2O.”
“Right… Do you get a period? Do you use sanitary napkins?”
“Excuse me?!” Fu Qingdai’s pale face flushed crimson.
“Just answer me!”
“…Yes. I do…”
Firing off a rapid succession of similar questions, Su Jin finally snapped the notebook shut and leaned back to process the data.
People here had little regard for the law and placed great weight on personal connections.
Seven days until the disaster. A continuous five-day torrential downpour, followed by psychological breakdowns and what looked like a zombie outbreak.
He did not know how far the rain would spread. Authorities in the affected areas might break down quickly. He probably could not count on the military in the short term.
On a molecular level, the water was identical to Earth’s and safe to drink as far as he could tell. However, contaminated water could make survival in the wilderness impossible. He lacked both the capital and the time to construct a proper shelter, and he could not simply abduct Fu Qingdai.
Fortunately, the seven thousand-odd cash on hand had solid purchasing power. It would just barely cover rent and a basic stockpile of supplies. Renting near her home seemed best.
Speech, common knowledge, and appearances were close enough to Earth that he could blend in quickly.
For the next seven days, he needed to keep his head down. Break no laws and provoke no one.
As for the rest of the operational details, he would have to find out for himself once he got outside…
Mid-thought, Su Jin suddenly realized something.
He grabbed his pen, hastily scribbled “H2O” on the notepad, and shoved it toward Fu Qingdai.
“Can you read what I wrote?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Fuck!”
“Why are you swearing at me?” Fu Qingdai shrank back, utterly bewildered. “What is that? I really don’t know it…”
Damn it all!
Su Jin scowled, the realization hitting him like a freight train.
He could perfectly parse this world’s spoken and written language, and his own speech was flawlessly translated. It had to be the company’s doing, or perhaps the mask’s.
But the actual, physical characters he wrote were completely illegible to the locals!
Renting an apartment required a signature on a binding contract. If his handwriting looked like alien chicken scratch, that was a massive operational hurdle.
Navigating the glitch, Su Jin ripped a blank page from his notebook and handed her the pen.
“Write my name for me. The Su from the Chinese word for waking up, and the Jin from the word for ashes. Press hard and write each stroke clearly.”
Confused but thoroughly intimidated, Fu Qingdai obediently complied.
When she finished, Su Jin took the paper and looked it over.
Staring at the two familiar Chinese characters, he reached around and traced his index finger over the back of the page.
Feeling the indentations left by the pen, a wave of profound exhaustion washed over him.
It should match the name on his ID card, but the tactile feedback of the strokes was completely disconnected from the visual output his brain was receiving!
The company’s translation had a bug… Since he couldn’t remove the mask, he was reduced to feeling out the physical indentations just to learn how to write his own name as the locals saw it.
Tucking the makeshift signature guide away with a heavy sigh, Su Jin muttered, “That is all I need to ask for now. Go ahead—what did you want to say?”
Fu Qingdai gave a jerky nod. Gathering whatever scrap of courage she had left, she voiced the burning question in her mind: “Cousin… you’re an alien, aren’t you?”