请看《Sixth Tone》的详细报道：
When Zhang saw the ad on social media, he felt like he’d been offered a chance to turn his life around. Unemployed and drowning in debt, he needed cash fast. And the company was offering just that — if he could complete a simple-looking “self-discipline challenge.”
当张先生在社交媒体上看到这则广告时，他觉得自己有机会改变自己的生活。他失业且负债累累，急需用钱。该公司提供了这样的机会——只要他能完成一个看似简单的“自律挑战”。
All Zhang needed to do was spend days inside a small hotel room rigged up with several surveillance cameras. If he could stay there for 26 days — without covering his face at any point — he’d win a jaw-dropping cash reward of 859,000 yuan ($118,000).
张先生需要做的就是在一间装有几台监控摄像头的小旅馆房间里呆上几天。如果他能在那里呆满26天，且在任何时候都不用遮住自己的脸，他就能赢得一笔惊人的现金奖励——85.9万元（约合11.8万美元）。
Zhang signed up and paid the 6,900-yuan registration fee without hesitation. But what seemed like a lifeline soon turned into a nightmare, as Zhang failed the challenge within hours.
张先生毫不犹豫地报名并支付了6900元的报名费。但看似救命稻草的挑战很快就变成了一场噩梦，因为张先生在几个小时内就未能通过考验。
第一，学习turn around的用法。这个词组表示if a situation, game etc turns around, or if someone turns it around, it changes and starts to develop in the way you want，（使）转变〔指好转〕，例：After I met him, my whole life turned around. 我遇见他后，整个人生都发生了改变。
第二，学习drown的用法。这个词作不及物动词，表示to have a very strong feeling or a serious problem that is difficult to deal with，（为）〔强烈的感情或严重的问题〕困扰，烦恼，例：Relief agencies are drowning in frustration. 救援机构里弥漫着沮丧情绪。
第三，学习lifeline的用法。这个词作名词，表示something which someone depends on completely，生命线，命脉，例：The telephone is her lifeline to the rest of the world. 电话是她与外界保持联系的生命线。
Desperate, Zhang made a second attempt, then a third. But each time, he was quickly disqualified. After days of effort, he had paid over 20,000 yuan in fees and won nothing. He found himself even deeper in debt — and feeling like he’d been conned.
绝望之下，张先生再次尝试，然后是第三次。但每次他都被迅速取消资格。经过几天的努力，他支付了2万多元的费用，却一无所获。他发现自己负债更深，感觉自己被骗了。
“A relative told me that this is an outright scam,” Zhang told domestic media outlet Huashang Daily. “The rules sound simple, but the challenge pushes the limits of human endurance and is essentially impossible to complete.”
“一位亲戚告诉我，这完全是一场骗局，”张先生告诉国内媒体《华商报》。“规则听起来很简单，但这个挑战超越了人类的耐力极限，实际上是不可能完成的。”
Zhang had become a victim of a dark trend that has emerged on Chinese social media in recent months, which has eerie similarities to the Netflix series “Squid Game.”
张先生成为了近几个月在中国社交媒体上出现的一种黑暗趋势的受害者，这种趋势与Netflix系列剧《鱿鱼游戏》有着令人毛骨悚然的相似之处。
第一，学习con的用法。这个词作及物动词，表示to get money from someone by deceiving them，骗〔钱〕；诈骗，常用搭配为con sb out of sth，例：He conned me out of £300. 他从我这里骗走了300英镑。
第二，学习eerie的用法。这个词作形容词，表示strange and frightening,怪异可怕的，例：the eerie sound of an owl hooting at night 夜间猫头鹰那怪异恐怖的叫声
Companies are luring the poor and unemployed to take part in dubious “challenges” with the promise of winning a hefty cash prize. Most are isolation challenges similar to the one attempted by Zhang, with participants spending days inside small rooms under the gaze of clusters of CCTV cameras.
一些公司诱使穷人和失业者参加有争议的“挑战”活动，并承诺将赢得一笔可观的现金奖励。大多数都是类似于张先生尝试的那种孤立挑战，参与者在一群监控摄像头的注视下在狭小的房间里度过数日。
If the contestants win, they can earn life-changing sums that often run into hundreds of thousands of yuan. But they rarely do. Instead, like Zhang, they often find themselves handing over registration fees only to be disqualified for minor violations of the competition rules.
如果参赛者获胜，他们可以获得足以改变人生的巨额奖金，通常高达数十万元人民币。但他们很少能赢。相反，像张先生一样，他们经常发现自己只交了报名费，却因违反比赛规则而被取消资格。
To cap things off, the companies will often broadcast livestreams, short-videos, and photos of their attempts via their social feeds to attract more future contestants.
为了吸引更多的未来参赛者，这些公司还会经常通过社交媒体发布他们尝试的直播、短视频和照片。
It’s unclear when the trend first started, but it has rapidly gained popularity this year. A quick search on China’s version of TikTok, Douyin, produces dozens of accounts promoting so-called “self-discipline challenges.”
目前还不清楚这种趋势是从何时开始流行的，但它今年迅速获得了广泛的关注。在中国版TikTok（抖音）上进行快速搜索，会出现数十个推广所谓“自律挑战”的账户。
第一，学习dubious的用法。这个词作形容词，表示probably not honest, true, right etc，可疑的，靠不住的，例：The firm was accused of dubious accounting practices. 该公司被指控有不诚实的会计行为。
第二，学习hefty的用法。这个词作形容词，表示a hefty amount of something, especially money, is very large，〔尤指金钱〕大量的，巨额的，例：a hefty fine 巨额罚款
第三，学习cluster的用法。这个词作名词，表示a group of things of the same kind that are very close together，串，束，簇；群，组，例：a cluster of low farm buildings 一片低矮的农舍
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