The Red Eyes - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Translator:rrrrr     Editor: Kassy

Before even hearing her roommate’s call, an unknown sound woke Xiao Yutang up.

「Eh, I thought you decided to sleep in.」 Su Ying who was already dressed in her uniform watched as Xiao Yutang sat up from her bed

「Is something broken again?」Yutang’s voice sounded tense.

Su Ying looked left and right and started giggling,「No. Did you hear something in your dreams? Has the same thing happening several times in a row caused you to hear imaginary sounds?」

Xiao Yutang did not reply, silently climbing down the stairs of her bunk bed after folding her bedsheets.

Su Ying squinted her eyes at her, 「Are you mad?」

「No.」she lowered her head to gather her toiletries, using her hair to cover her face.

「Oh I know, because there’s a lesson from the *G.I. today, you were so stressed that you got nightmares. I get you. 」Su Ying said matter-of-factly.

(T/N) G.I. is  the initials used to describe the soldiers of the United States Army and airmen of the United States Air Forces

「You think too much.」

「I’m just kidding, I’m going to class first kay, be careful not to be late.」Su Ying picked up her bag and went out.

Now Xiao Yutang was the only one left in the lavatory of the dormitory.

The mirror reflected a pair of slightly reddened eyes. Just now, she couldn’t look Su Ying in the eye for fear that the other party would find out she had cried.

『Did you hear something in your dreams? 』

Dream? She was indeed dreaming, and this wasn’t the first time she had this dream.

The first time she ever had this dream was two months ago, in the dream was the blurry face of a stranger. She couldn’t see it clearly, nor could she make out it’s stature, but just had the vague impression that it might have been a small child.

But just looking at the indistinct silhouette in the fog, she was overwhelmed by an indescribable intensity of emotion, suffocating her from the pressure that she couldn’t help but weep.

She was crying uncontrollably in her dream. A loud bang came in right next to her ears, scaring her three other roommates awake. They found that a strong typhoon had broken through the window of the dormitory, shattering the glass all over the floor. Lashing rain and gusting wind were pouring in. The room was a wreck.

The room was uninhabitable, so the school authorities had to urgently relocate them to an empty room, it was only when the housemaster hugged her to calm her down, did she notice that there were streaks of dried tears left on her face. The roommates thought that she was scared by the typhoon, so they joked that chances of seeing her tears were lower than the chance of a strong wind breaking the window.

Only she knew what was going on.

A month ago, she had the same dream again. Just like before, she once again awoke to the sounds of shatters and screams.

「You scared me, what’s broken?」Su Ying who was studying shouted in alarm.

「Oh gosh, it was my cup !」Chen Xiangxiang rushed to the locker, noticing in the corner of her eye that Xiao Yutang has shifted slightly, apologizing profusely: 「Sorry that I woke you up, Yutang, 」

「No worries.」with eyes full of tears, she looked shaken and turned her body to face the wall stiffly.

「Hey, what’s that noise? 」Yang Xin opened the dormitory door and walked in.

「Yang Xin, the mug you gave me broke !」Chen Xiangxiang cleaned up the broken porcelain in dismay 「I had placed it carefully, why would it suddenly fall down?」

「Nevermind, I’ll just give you another one .」Yang Xin comforted her.

The day after the dream, because there was a leak in the dormitory on the third floor, the bathroom toilets would get renovated, a few of the dormitory rooms would have to be moved, including Xiao Yutang and the other’s dormitory.

The school transferred Chen Xiangxiang and Yang Xin to a room with two empty beds on the fourth floor, while Xiao Yutang and Su Ying moved to a windowless room on the fifth floor. Although the room was stuffy because of the lack of windows, the fact that the both of them could share a four-person dormitory exclusively made Su Ying feel that it was worth it.

To this day, Xiao Yutang still shared the windowless dormitory alone with Su Ying on the fifth floor. And Today, she had that dream again. Only this time, nothing was destroyed.

Since Su Ying did not hear any sounds of shattering, then it must be true, Xiao Yutang inevitably suspected that she might be hallucinating, when similar scenarios happen again and again, it’s easy to give people the illusion of inertia.

Xiao Yutang returned to the dormitory full of suspicion. She opened her desk drawer as she was packing her bag and a goose-yellow envelope unexpectedly caught her eye. She couldn’t help but stop what she was doing.

After reading the letter yesterday and absent-mindedly putting it in her drawer, she nearly forgot its existence.

This was the third time that she had received such a letter.

The sender of the letter was called Jiang Wanqian, her elementary school classmate, though when she first saw the name, she couldn’t remember who the other person was at all.

Yutang, how are you?

I’m Jiang Wanqian, I was in the same class as you when I changed schools in 5th grade, we used to play together, do you still remember me?

Ever since you had been admitted to the hospital and never came back, I had lost contact with you after graduation. Recently, I found out that you’re now studying at a Deyin highschool, so I picked up my pen and wrote this letter.

If it’s possible, I would like to meet up with you, can you please contact me?

This is my phone number and LINE account.

LINE: wanchXXX

Telephone: 0937-0XX-XXX

The first letter came inexplicably.  She read it over and over again for quite a while before slowly remembering that there had once been a tiny, dark-skinned, chubby little girl always beside her, though she couldn’t remember the other girl’s face.

We’ve been out of touch for so long, what’s the point of seeing each other again? She threw the letter away without replying, but she never expected that the other party would be so persistent and would write again after a month. In the letter, Jiang Wanqian apologizes and hopes that Xiao Yutang will forgive her for her haste and abruptness, and emphasizes that she genuinely misses Xiao Yutang as a friend, that she wants to meet up with her to chat.

Xiao Yutang hesitated for a moment, but in the end, she still threw the letter away.