Pokémon League Calendar 2016, June 24
My name is Jiang Jing. By the time you read this, I'll be dead (crossed out). I've been in this world for almost three months. No, I can't say I came to this world—I was born here. It's just that a "tiny" change happened.
More than three hundred years ago, near the end of the Ming dynasty, the sky split open and the earth shook. The whole world was turned upside down: Pokémon appeared in the real world.
As a chuuni kid who'd watched countless episodes of the Pokémon anime and played games like Ruby and Emerald, I was instantly thrilled.
At the time, the first line of the Original Series opening theme involuntarily rang out in my mind.
"I got a Pokémon!"
I was so excited then that I could hardly wait to grab a Poké Ball and head out into the wild to catch Pokémon.
But reality gave me a hard slap in the face. When I found out that one Poké Ball cost two hundred yuan, I just couldn't take it.
Though dreams were grand and reality was harsh, I would never give up on becoming a Trainer.
One last thing: damn it, when am I going to get my first Pokémon?!
Jiang Jing sat at his desk and put down his ballpoint pen. Then he picked up his notebook. It was a black-covered notebook, and although it had once been thick, only a thin section remained.
"Hiss!"
Jiang Jing tore out a page covered in writing with practiced ease, ripped it into shreds, and tossed them into the wastebasket beside him.
"Ugh!"
He let out a heavy sigh and muttered to himself, "What kind of proper person keeps a diary?"
"Who writes down what's really on their mind?"
After complaining for a while, Jiang Jing closed the notebook and placed it on top of the other books. When he noticed it was a little crooked, he adjusted it.
He'd been transported here for three months. The world was both familiar and strange, and some things had changed a great deal. He couldn't find anyone to confide in, so all he could do was secretly vent by writing in his diary. He was also afraid someone might discover it, so he had to tear out each page as soon as he wrote it.
He glanced at his roommate, lying on the bed across from him and using the curtains to hide himself as he played on his phone. Then he looked at the four empty desks nearby.
It was a standard six-person room, with beds above and desks below, as well as a private bathroom.
Most people would definitely think it was a college dorm, but unfortunately, it was a student dormitory at a public middle school.
Jiang Jing currently attended Rongcheng No. 8 Middle School. The school ranked in the lower middle among all the middle schools in Rongcheng, and almost anyone whose entrance exam score wasn't too bad could get in.
Jiang Jing glanced at the time on his phone: 11:45. He'd planned to scroll through Douyin for a while, but he really wasn't in the mood today. He set his phone beside his pillow, drew the curtains, pulled up the covers, and went straight to sleep.
The next day
"Beep, beep, beep!"
Jiang Jing woke to his phone's alarm. After turning it off, he saw that the time on the screen was six o'clock.
He climbed out of bed and walked straight to the washbasin on the balcony. The first thing he saw was a black basin mounted on the wall, with a Plate hanging above it and a huge mirror affixed higher up.
A washing machine from some unfamiliar brand stood beside the sink. Its logo seemed to be based on Psyduck.
Jiang Jing picked up his electric toothbrush and began washing up. Three minutes later, after washing his face, he felt completely refreshed and looked at himself in the mirror.
He was 176 centimeters tall and only sixteen, so he could still grow. Before he'd been transported here, he'd only reached 175 centimeters. He didn't know why he'd gotten taller after arriving.
He had a well-proportioned build, and you could even make out his muscles and the contours of his eight-pack, though they weren't especially defined yet. He was a classic case of looking slim in clothes but muscular without them.
He also had shiny black hair, a handsome face with sharply defined features, and bright eyes. He looked like a combination of Yang Yang, Louis Koo, Daniel Wu, and Eddie Peng. In a word, he was insanely handsome.
All right, he hadn't been that handsome in his previous life—only about seventy percent as good-looking as he was now. But after being transported, he'd not only grown taller, he'd become more handsome, too. At first, he'd looked exactly the same as he had in his previous life, but over the past three months he'd kept getting taller and better-looking.
He didn't know how it worked, but he suspected it had something to do with the bead-shaped pattern on his chest.
In his previous life, he'd bought a cheap Arceus figurine on Taobao. It came with a colorful bead.
He'd asked customer service what it was, since it hadn't appeared in the anime or the movies. The customer service representative had replied that they didn't know either.
In the end, he'd concluded that the seller had probably just tossed in some random bead from home and shipped it along with the package.
The day after the package arrived, he'd gone to sleep and woken up in this world. At the same time, a bead-shaped pattern had appeared on his chest.
He still didn't know what it was, but he felt sure it had brought him to this world. And having read countless online novels, Jiang Jing had a hunch that it would be his cheat. He just didn't know what it did yet, but it had given him the confidence to rise to the top.
So he wasn't worried at all. The bead was his greatest source of confidence.
While he was washing up, his other roommates began getting up one after another.
A guy about 175 centimeters tall, with an average build and a fairly handsome face, walked to the bathroom, still bleary-eyed. As he relieved himself, he asked, "Brother Jing, how come you're always up so early?"
Jiang Jing picked up his toothbrush cup and walked away as he replied, "What time is it? If we don't get to the cafeteria early, all the good food will be gone. Would you be able to stomach what's left?"
The one who'd just called him Brother Jing was his good friend, Liu Bin. They were neighbors who lived in the same building in the same residential complex, and they'd known each other for more than a decade.
Just then, a chubby classmate wearing glasses and sporting a bowl cut climbed out of bed. He looked honest and dependable. This was Guo Yong.
He was one of the top three students in their class, and his dream was unusually down-to-earth: he just wanted to become a civil servant.
Next was Li Peng, tall and thin as a bamboo pole, who was still asleep.
Then there was Wang Zhiyi, short and funny-looking, with a prominent black mole on his chin.
And finally, Chen Ze, who had a square face and a few pimples on his cheeks.
These were the six people in Room 404. In his previous life, they'd also been roommates for three years.
But the world had changed so much now. He had no idea whether things would still be the same in the future.
Just then, a figure sprang out from the bed nearby. It was a blue-and-white Pokémon with a huge tail that looked like a squirrel's.
That's right, it was the Electric-type Pokémon Pachirisu. It leaped onto the desk and started looking for something. It was probably hungry.
Jiang Jing put down his toothbrush cup, got dressed, put on his school uniform, and scooped Pachirisu up. Then he started petting it.
It was warm and smooth, and felt especially nice to touch. Pachirisu let out a contented cry.
It was Chen Ze's Pokémon. He didn't plan to become a Trainer; he wanted to start a business, make money, and become a boss.
That had been his dream in his previous life, too. He'd gotten an average score on the National College Entrance Examination and only made it into Tiancheng College. Even before Jiang Jing was transported, Chen Ze was still working hard to start his own business.
As for Pachirisu, it was his pet. Even if he didn't plan to become a Trainer, he still wanted to keep one or two pets.
Pachirisu had been the first Pokémon Jiang Jing saw after arriving in this world. For the past three months, he'd had to pet it every day, or he just didn't feel right.
At this point, he seemed more like Pachirisu's owner than Chen Ze did.
After everyone had finished washing up, the six of them slung their backpacks over their shoulders and headed out.
It's been several months, and the new book is finally here.
Before you continue