My bizarre resurgence: My price is the ability to trade everything.

Jiangcheng, November, 11:30 PM.

Lin Xiaofan was curled up in bed scrolling through his phone, the screen's light illuminating his face and highlighting his dark circles. He had been pulling three all-nighters in a row—not to binge-watch dramas or play games, but to study a "survival guide for the civil service exam."

"Summary of Civil Service Exam Question Types, Essay Templates, and 100 Common Interview Pitfalls"

He muttered to himself, his fingers flying across the screen. Seven or eight reference books lay open on the table beside him, each covered in colorful sticky notes. The alarm clock by the bedside showed a countdown: forty-seven days until the provincial exam.

"As long as I pass the civil service exam, I can relax and enjoy life." Lin Xiaofan told himself, his tone filled with an almost devout belief. "No need for 996, no need to be scolded by the boss, full social insurance and housing fund, stable retirement pension—that's life."

My phone vibrated; it was a message from the class group chat.

He casually clicked on the message and saw a notification from the class monitor: "The graduation photo shoot will be held tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM. Please be at the school gate on time. Also: Zhang Hao's farewell ceremony will be held at Nanshan Funeral Home at 2:00 PM the day after tomorrow."

Zhang Hao.

Upon seeing this name, Lin Xiaofan's finger paused for a moment.

Three days ago, the boy who was usually not very noticeable in class was found dead in his rented apartment. The official cause of death was "sudden heart attack," but rumors were circulating in the class that the scene was particularly eerie—Zhang Hao's body was sitting at his desk, his hands resting on the keyboard, with a Word document open on the screen containing only one line of repeated text:

"777777777777777777"

A total of seventeen 7s.

Police reviewed surveillance footage and found that Zhang Hao had not left the apartment in the 72 hours prior to his death, nor had anyone entered or left. The doors and windows were locked from the inside. The forensic examination determined the time of death to be approximately 3:00 AM, but during that time period, no unusual activity was captured on the building's surveillance cameras.

"This is too weird." When Lin Xiaofan finished reading the discussion in the group, his first reaction was to close WeChat and pretend he hadn't seen it.

He's been afraid of ghosts and spirits since he was a child. When his grandmother told him ghost stories as a child, he was so scared he wouldn't dare go to the bathroom all night. Even though he knows he should believe in science now, that ingrained fear isn't easy to shake.

So when the counselor asked students in the group to help with Zhang Hao's funeral arrangements, Lin Xiaofan did not hesitate to play dead—he specifically sent a message in the group: "Sorry, I'm preparing for the provincial civil service exam recently, and time is very tight, so I really can't spare the time."

In fact, he spends most of his time reading and doing practice problems every day.

But it's better to avoid trouble than to get involved; this is Lin Xiaofan's life motto.

His phone vibrated again; this time it was a private WeChat message. The sender was Su Mingyue, the top student in the class and the girl Lin Xiaofan had a crush on for two years.

"Xiao Fan, did you see the message in the group chat?"

Lin Xiaofan stared at the screen, his heart skipping a beat. Su Mingyue rarely initiated conversations with him, unless it was about academic matters. This sudden private message must be related to Zhang Hao.

He hesitated for three seconds, then decided to pretend he hadn't seen it.

Just as his finger hovered over the screen, about to tap "back," Su Mingyue's second message popped up:

"The police contacted me this afternoon, saying they found your number in Zhang Hao's phone contacts, with the contact name marked as 'key contact.' They may need to speak with you to understand the situation."

Lin Xiaofan's breath hitched for a second.

Key contact person?

He and Zhang Hao weren't even that close! In their four years of university, they barely exchanged more than ten words. The last time they met was at a class reunion six months ago, where they clinked glasses of beer and exchanged a few meaningless pleasantries like "How have you been lately?" and "Have you found a job yet?"

Why did Zhang Hao mark him as a key contact?

"Do you know something?" Su Mingyue's third message followed immediately, her tone tinged with inquiry. "I've noticed you've been unusually quiet in the group lately, not even offering your opinion on Zhang Hao's matter. This isn't like you."

Lin Xiaofan cursed inwardly.

He wasn't as enthusiastic about discussing this as his classmates, but that was purely out of cowardice, not because he knew anything inside information.

"I don't know anything," he typed quickly in reply. "Maybe Zhang Hao saved the wrong number."

After sending it, he added, "And I've been really busy lately, the provincial exam is stressful, you know what I mean."

A typical Lin Xiaofan-style response—first disclaim any connection, then play the victim and beg for forgiveness.

Su Mingyue's phone displayed "typing" for a few seconds before sending a message: "Okay, then be careful. If the police really contact you, don't panic, just tell the truth."

"Mmm, thanks for reminding me."

Lin Xiaofan breathed a sigh of relief, tossed his phone aside, and picked up the civil service exam question bank again. But the numbers and graphs just wouldn't register in his mind.

Key contact person.

These four words are like a thorn stuck in my heart.

He forced himself to concentrate and did two graphic reasoning questions, but got them both wrong.

"Damn it." Lin Xiaofan threw down his pen and collapsed onto the bed.

The night outside the window was so dark it seemed impenetrable, and the distant neon lights blurred into indistinct patches of light in the mist. Winter had arrived in Jiangcheng, and the damp, cold air seeped in through the cracks in the window, making him shiver.

He recalled Zhang Hao's perpetually expressionless face.

That boy usually kept to himself, rarely participated in group activities, had average grades, and was of average appearance—the kind of person you wouldn't notice in a crowd. The only thing that was somewhat special about him was that Zhang Hao seemed to have a particular talent for numbers—once in math class, the teacher gave a complicated calculation problem, and Zhang Hao mentally calculated the answer in two seconds, faster than a calculator.

At the time, Lin Xiaofan thought it was pretty cool, but now when he thinks about it, he feels a chill down his spine.

Seventeen 7s.

Why is it 7? Why are there seventeen?

He took out his phone, hesitated for a moment, opened his browser, and typed "the number 7 is taboo" into the search box.

The page redirected, displaying a whole host of results: the "Seven Deadly Sins" in Western culture, the "First Seven Days" in China, the "Seven Lucky Gods" in Japan, and various folk tales and urban legends.

Lin Xiaofan randomly clicked on one of them, which mentioned a saying: "In some supernatural legends, writing or saying seven '7's in a row will bring bad luck."

He scrolled down and saw a more detailed description:

"If someone writes down seventeen '7's in a row at 3 a.m., it may trigger a kind of rule-based anomaly. This anomaly uses the 'number 7' as its core rule to curse the triggerer and their associates."

"Related contacts include: people marked as 'key contacts' in your address book."

Lin Xiaofan's fingers froze.

3 a.m.

Zhang Hao died at 3 a.m.

Seventeen 7s.

Key contacts in your address book.

All the clues suddenly came together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, forming a scene that sent chills down his spine.

"Impossible," he muttered to himself. "It must be a coincidence."

But his heart began to pound uncontrollably, and that familiar, deep-seated fear surged up again. He had been afraid of the dark, of ghosts, and of anything that couldn't be explained by common sense since he was a child. This fear wasn't feigned; it was real.

My phone suddenly rang.

The piercing ringtone shattered the silence of the room, startling Lin Xiaofan so much that she almost jumped out of bed.

He picked up his phone and saw that the caller ID showed an unfamiliar number.

"It's probably a scam call," he thought, but he answered anyway—what if it was a delivery?

"Feed?" he asked tentatively.

There was no sound on the other end of the phone.

There was only a strange, faint electrical sound, a crackling sound, like the static from tuning an old-fashioned radio.

"Feed? Can you hear me?" Lin Xiaofan asked again.

The static lasted for a few seconds, then a very faint sound came from the receiver:

"Help me!"

The voice was very soft and intermittent, but Lin Xiaofan recognized it instantly—

It was Zhang Hao's voice.

Cold sweat instantly soaked through my back.

"Zhang Hao? Is that you?" His voice trembled. "You're kidding, this isn't funny."

"Seven, seven, and ten more"

The sound stopped there, leaving only an increasingly rapid hum of electricity. The hum began to form a regular rhythm, ticking like the ticking of a second hand.

Lin Xiaofan abruptly hung up the phone and threw it far away.

The phone fell to the floor, screen down, making a dull thud.

The room fell silent again.

Only his own heartbeat could be heard, thump-thump-thump, as if it were about to burst out of his chest.

He sat on the bed, completely frozen, his mind blank. After a long while, he shakily got out of bed and picked up his phone.

The screen wasn't broken, but it showed a new message.

The sender was still that unfamiliar number.

The message contained only two words: "Seventh".

Lin Xiaofan stared at those two words, feeling all the blood rushing to his head. He wanted to throw the phone away again, to get rid of this hot potato completely, but his fingers disobeyed him and opened the call log.

The duration of that phone call just now was seven seconds.

Call time: 11:33 PM.

Lin Xiaofan glanced at the alarm clock subconsciously—it was 11:34 PM.

In other words, the call came a minute ago.

But Zhang Hao has been dead for three days.

How can a dead person make a phone call?

"Hallucination, it must be a hallucination." He pinched himself hard, wincing in pain. "I've been under too much pressure lately, and I'm having auditory hallucinations."

He forced himself to calm down and began to analyze the situation rationally:

First, it's possible that someone played a prank by using a voice-changing software.

Secondly, it's possible that a fraud ring obtained Zhang Hao's contact list through some channel and wanted to use this incident to extort money from him.

Third, it could also be no; there is no third, it must be one of the first two.

Lin Xiaofan took a deep breath and decided to take the safest approach: he would go to the police station tomorrow to report the case and let the police handle it. As for Zhang Hao's funeral arrangements, he would never attend. The provincial exam was approaching, and he couldn't afford to be distracted.

Yes, that's it.

He lay back down on the bed, turned off the light, and closed his eyes.

But in the darkness, that faint voice of "Save me" kept echoing in my ears.

And there was that rhythmic hum of electricity.

Da, da, da, da

Like a second hand.

Like a countdown.

Lin Xiaofan suddenly opened his eyes, groped in the darkness to find his phone, and turned on the flashlight. A beam of white light pierced the darkness, illuminating a corner of the room.

There was nothing there.

He breathed a sigh of relief, turned off the flashlight, and prepared to go back to sleep.

But in the instant the light disappeared, he caught a glimpse of the screen on the bedside alarm clock out of the corner of his eye.

The electronic digits emitted a faint green glow in the darkness.

23:47

But the next second, those numbers suddenly started jumping wildly, as if they had gone out of control.

23:48

23:49

23:50

00:00

Then, all the numbers became:

07:07:07

Lin Xiaofan thought he was seeing things and blinked hard.

The alarm clock showed the normal time again: 23:47.

What just happened seems like it never happened.

"I'm under so much pressure," he said with a wry smile, flipping the alarm clock over so the screen was down. "I need to buy some calming and brain-boosting tonics tomorrow."

He closed his eyes again, trying to fall asleep.

But deep down, a voice was quietly telling him:

This is just the beginning.

The curse associated with the number 7 has come knocking.

And he, as a "key contact" in Zhang Hao's address book, is very likely to be the next target.

Unbeknownst to Lin Xiaofan, while he was trying to fall asleep, a man in a black trench coat was silently observing his room from the rooftop across the street, using binoculars.

A smile of interest curled at the corner of the man's mouth.

"The seventh Balancer has finally awakened."

He muttered to himself, then put away his binoculars, turned and disappeared into the night.

Only a single card remained, drifting down and landing on the concrete ground of the rooftop.

The card has a simple design printed on it: an old scale.

On one side of the scale is the number "7", and on the other side is a blurry human silhouette.

On the back of the card, in neat handwriting, was a line of small print:

"The price must eventually be paid."