You should read this chapter over at Travis Translations – It’s free and the ad revenue is much better for me!
His original name had the ‘Ming‘ character, so his nickname became something like Xiaoming or Mingming. Every time the main person in some story or some exercise question is named Xiaoming, he’d be embarrassed to death. He hated his parents’ naming ability.
Now, faced with the destiny of Future Fleshlight Bright, he sincerely wants to retract his previous childish declaration of “It’s fine to be named anything as long as it’s not Xiaoming.”
Xiaoming is kind of nice too, it feels positive, and feels familiar.
After the bracelet distribution, everyone is taken to their dormitory. Six person a room. Down as he is, he doesn’t respond to anyone.
“The show arranged for a buffet; there’s Starmeat, it’s just downstairs.”
“Hey——You going? What’s with this unresponsiveness, are you looking down on me?”
“Well, well, let’s ignore him. This kinda guy won’t last a day.”
Tomorrow is the preliminaries, 500 down to 200. As for where the 300 people left would go, no contestants would ask. Everyone just accepts the game rules as is.
There’s a last meal before death, is a principle that has been unchanged since the old days.
The remaining people all went to enjoy their meals. He climbs onto the bed and prepares to sleep.
He transmigrated here sleeping, and by the same principle, he can transmigrate back sleeping.
If he can leave here, it’s fine to be anywhere else.
His thoughts are a mess, and he spent a long time making himself fall asleep. His upper body shot up the instant his eyes opened.
The environment has changed. Even if it’s not home, he’s still so happy he cried.
He finally left that hell of a world!
He quickly examined his body. The hands were the same pair, and his clothes didn’t change either.
It’s a body transmigration this time?
“Woof!” A bark drags him back to reality. An adult German shepherd runs to the side of the bed. Its back is black, and is wagging its tail at him. Luckily, there’s no one else around. He can finally give up on maintaining a poker face.
He wraps his hands around like that person in that oil painting, screaming silently——he was afraid of his voice drawing attention.
He composes himself after some good 10 minutes.
He finds the wooden house he’s in quite odd. There’s no ceiling and only three walls.
Rather than a house, it’s better to describe it as a square box without a lid. There’s some random furniture and machinery placed about the place. Compared to the dinginess of the house, the machinery looks very high-class indeed.
The house is in a forest. He carefully walks outside from the side without a wall. Outside the house is a mailbox, wooden signposts and some things like junction boxes.
On the signpost is “Next door Uncle Wang ● Dadiao‘s home.”
Hmm…
This familiar name that reeks of silliness, and this familiar setting.
He suddenly realised, isn’t this the mobile game about surviving in an apocalypse he’d played with for a day or two?
The game was themed around a zombie apocalypse, including elements of strategic management, adventures and exploration. The player had to acquire wood, stone, ores and other resources in settings like the forest, and build a house and manage a base. Guarding against zombie and beast attacks while exploring the world.
To collect wood to build a house, he was attacked by a zombie that suddenly appeared while cutting down a tree. He was shocked and didn’t even switch to his weapon before his ingame character was gnawed to death.
As if to prove what he was thinking was right, a strange roar sounds from afar. A humanoid shadow emerges from the green bushes. It is shambling, moving with an unsettling posture, closing in on the wooden house.
All his hair stands on end.
He could at least live until tomorrow in the novel, yet he can’t manage to live for half an hour here!
He wanted to scream again.
Where’s the buttons on the system menu? He wanted out!
As the word ‘system’ pops into his head, his view changed.
On the upper left is his character portrait. Next to it is the health and stamina meter. On the upper right is the map, and on the lower left an icon of some backpack or such. In the middle is the hotbar, with food and bandages. On the right is a weapon.
He spends half a day before finding the exit button, but it’s greyed out, showing that it is unusable. It’s not working even after half a day of staring.
The zombie moans are getting closer and closer. He grinds his teeth, and changes the axe in his hand to a machete.
What if dying was real and he can never go back? He can’t gamble on this.
The zombies of the newbie area is probably the lowest in level. They act slowly, their attack is weak, and their HP is low. He swings at the zombie haphazardly, and he actually managed to kill it.
How the zombie died he doesn’t know, in the end the health meter the zombie has over its head emptied, and it didn’t move at all after falling to the ground.
A dialogue box reading [Do you want to collect the mutated bones] pops up from the zombie corpse. He wanted to collect it, and then a hint notifies that the item is now in the backpack. At the same time, the zombie corpse disappeared.
No matter how unsettling this is, this still gave him a bit of confidence.
His state of mind that was at the brink of collapse actually stabilised.
For now, it’s time to build the fourth wall first, and then sleep on the bed.
He feels as if not all hope is lost.
Not as Bright, or Uncle Wang next door, he wants to go back to being Xiaoming.
Swinging his axe about, and paying attention to his surroundings, alert against potential ambush by monsters.
He dared not walk far, choosing the tree closest to the wooden house. He discovered that it takes about a minute to cut down a tree, and it refreshes every 10 minutes.
Luckily, aside from the zombie just now, no new monsters appeared to attack him.
He has 16 slots in his backpack, and a slot can hold 200 pieces of log. With enough wood collected, he ran quickly back to the wooden house.
Remembering how to use a machine with his memory from the game, choosing to make a makeshift wall, then closing up the house. There’s no window nor doors on the wall, and the sky is right above. As his building level was insufficient, he couldn’t build a ceiling yet.
Though sealing himself up like this makes him feel calm.
“Woof!” The black-backed dog sits besides his legs, looking at him with loyalty.
He rubs its head, “Latiao●Dadiao, wish me luck.”
He doesn’t think about whether it’s going to rain. Now it’s time to celebrate a bit by sleeping.
He’s certainly E rank in luck.
“All contestants’ attention please, immediately assemble in the lobby. The shooting of the first episode will immediately begin.”
He walks to the destination alongside the crowd like the walking dead.
He feels bitter all over. He realises that he can probably only ever go back and forth between these two worlds. A killing gauntlet and the zombie apocalypse are purgatory for a fragile flower incubated in a greenhouse like him.
He had to accept the name Bright for now.
To forget the fate associated with the name, and live through today for now.
In the lobby, on a huge screen, a beautiful young female anchor appears, introducing the basic rules.
From 500 people down to 200, even though it’s the preliminaries, but to have a grand opening, a gimmick was implemented. The current trend in the City is to be in touch with nature, so the first episode of the seventh season is set as wilderness survival. All contestants, without any supplies, in a lush dangerous forest, had to survive for 24 hours. The last 200 contestants remaining would move on to the next level.
The arena allows any form of competition and plundering, but as soon as the horn signalling the end sounds, all acts of provocation must stop, or it will be seen as a violation of the rules. Each contestant will be followed by an automatic flying camera that stalks and captures, recording footage fit for broadcast.
“Then, is everyone ready? I hereby announce, first episode, 500 down to 200, begins!”
Author’s notes: Hope the review system is friendly to me.
TL’s notes: It begins! Don’t worry about the mobile game thing too much. While it is a crucial thing to the plot it doesn’t have a lot of presence and isn’t resolved properly even at the end, but otherwise the story’s solid.
Oriental Rabbit 
Thank you for the chapter. Wowo so frightening to transmigrated to such desolate worlds. I think i can survive there less than a minute. Lolol
LikeLiked by 1 person