Kaleidoscope of Death

Walking through the long road through the snowstorm, the four people at least didn't encounter any strange incidents halfway, and returned to their residence smoothly.

But as soon as a few people returned, they felt that the atmosphere in the house didn't seem right, a few people sat in the living room with pale faces and didn't move, the air was silent, the atmosphere was simply worse than when the people first arrived here.

Lin Qiushi's gaze shifted to the few people and quickly counted the number of people, slightly relieved after making sure that there weren't fewer people.

"What's happened?" Bear Paint asked questions.

A man sitting inside shivered, "Upstairs, upstairs the bodies are gone."

"Just the bodies are missing?" Bearpaint said, "Are you guys new, what's there to be afraid of when a body is missing."

"It's been eaten." The girl next to him whimpered, tears streaming down her face, "There's blood everywhere..."

Xiong Lacquer and Ko looked at each other, knowing that there was no way they could get any useful information from these people, so the four of them decided to go to the third floor to see what was going on.

They climbed up the stairs to the second floor, and when they reached the second floor, Lin Qiushi noticed something wrong - there were blood stains on the walls of the second floor as well.

Since the house was a wooden structure, the walls were also a tan color of wood, and Lin Qiushi saw some black spots attached to the walls, like something had spilled on them.

"Be careful, there might be something on it." Xiong Lacquer walked at the front.

Finally reaching the third floor, Lin Qiushi finally understood what they meant by being eaten.

The place where the corpses were originally placed was empty, it would have been fine if that was all, but with the corpses gone, there was something else. There were only bits of flesh and bones all over the ground, as if the corpse had been viciously torn apart by something and gnawed to pieces, leaving behind only broken fragments.

Lin Qiushi couldn't help but see such a situation, feeling his stomach churn in discomfort.

"You're eating pretty clean." Kohaku was used to it, "I wonder what the hell it is."

"Ugh." Bearpaint sighed, "Let's go, lock the third floor, we'll all stay on the second floor today."

"Hmm." Curt, "I'll go ask them for specifics."

They went back to the first floor and asked in more detail about what had happened.

It was only then that the people downstairs told them what had happened in the house.

It turned out that after Bear Paint and the others left, a group of people searched the building, and when they got to the second floor, they heard a very strange sound coming from the third floor. It was like someone chewing something, with a gobbling sound of gobbling on the outside.

Then after everyone counted their numbers and made sure the third floor was clear of them, they started to break out in a cold sweat.

The crowd didn't dare to go up to see what was going on, stiffly observing the situation on the second floor, and only when the chewing sound disappeared did they get brave enough to go to the third floor to see what was going on - but all they saw was a trail of broken flesh and bones.

"It's horrible." Another older girl on the team, who already looked a bit dazed, said, "I'm only in the doorway for the third time, how did we come across a world like this, will we get out alive? What the hell is that thing..."

No one could answer her question and the house was silent.

The bear paints a small sigh and says he's hungry and looking for something to eat and asks if anyone will join him in the kitchen.

Lin Qiushi said, "I'll go with you."

Ruan Baijie sat next to Lin Qiushi and said in a fine voice, "Qiushi, I'm also hungry, I want to eat noodles."

Lin Qiushi: "I'll go see if there's any, if there is, I'll cook you a bowl."

"Okay." Ruan Baijie curled her eyes and looked at Lin Qiushi tenderly, "Be careful of safety oh."

Lin Qiushi nodded.

The kitchen was to the left of the living room, there was no natural gas here, only the most primitive firewood.

Bear Paint and Lin Qiushi both didn't talk much on the way until they reached the kitchen, and only after Bear Paint lowered his head and started a fire did he say, "I'm not going to tell them everything."

"What do you mean?" Lin Qiushi was stunned.

Xiong Lacquer silently looked at the doorway to make sure there was no one outside before he whispered, "I can't be sure that our team is full of people."

Lin Qiushi's back got goosebumps from that statement.

"It's happened before," Bear Paint said, "What we thought were teammates weren't actually teammates, but those things."

Lin Qiushi said, "Then why do you believe me? What if I'm one of those things?"

Bear Paint looked at him: "You don't look like it."

Lin Qiushi: "........"

Xiong Lacquer continued, "And it's not at all like they've been through this sort of thing a few times, they're all too panicked, more so than you."

Lin Qiushi was a bit embarrassed to be praised like that: "Actually, I'm quite scared too."

Xiong Lacquer laughed to himself when he heard this, "What are you afraid of, I peed my pants three times the night I first entered the door."

Lin Qiushi thought of the terrifying woman from last night and silently looked at his own crotch, thinking that he was lucky to hold it in....

Bear Paint: "I suggest you'd better keep some clues as well and not tell them all."

Lin Qiushi nodded: "I know, thanks for the reminder, can I ask how many times you've been in here?"

Bear Paint: "Six times now."

"Oh... "Lin Qiushi tried his best to digest the information Bear Paint had given him about the door, the team, and some hidden clues.

"It's no use thinking about it so much, try to get out alive." Bearpaint smiled to himself, "Though I see the world is hanging by a thread."

The fire in the stove was ignited, bringing the water in the iron pot to a boil.

Lin Qiushi found a basket with ingredients next to it, there were noodles and eggs and even some green vegetables, he lowered the noodles down and fried another egg, the aroma of the food filled the kitchen, dispelling the fear of that coolness. The bear lacquer praised at the sight, "Good craftsmanship."

"Fine." Lin Qiushi smiled.

Four bowls of noodles were cooked, Xiong Qiu Ke, Lin Qiushi and Ruan Bai Jie, the others Lin Qiushi couldn't care less.

Ruan Baijie was also hungry, holding the bowl and began to eat noodles, normal people eating noodles will always be a bit noisy, but she quietly ate the entire bowl of noodles clean, not even soup left a mouthful. After finishing the noodles, she didn't say a word and turned around to look at Lin Qiushi with eyes wide open.

Lin Qiushi was hairy from her fiery stare and helplessly said, "You didn't eat enough?"

Ruan Baijie: "Full." The words just fell out, and her stomach rang very cooperatively.

Lin Qiushi: "...You eat, I'll get something else to go."

Ruan Baijie: "No no no."

Lin Qiushi: "Really no?" He made a gesture to continue eating, but he saw Ruan Baijie's eyes glazing over, this look was so cute that Lin Qiushi couldn't help but smile, "Alright, you eat, I'm almost done."

"Fine fine." This time Ruan Baijie wasn't polite.

With two bowls of noodles down, the cold feeling from the trip out was finally gone, and as Xiong Lac ate, he told everyone the information they had received from the old carpenter, but of course, he didn't say everything, keeping the last clue of filling the well.

"Could the key be in the coffin?" There were still relatively calm people in the team, and one of them, a man named Zhang Zishuang, said, "Since the key clue is the coffin, I think the probability is this..."

"Ay, I hope so," Xiong Lacquer said, "I plan to go to the mountain tomorrow morning to cut down the trees together, all the men will go, and the women can follow beside, those who are really afraid of the cold, let's hide in the house, but if anything happens in the house, we can't help."

After the discussion, everyone agreed to the proposal of the bear paint, although some people felt that it was too dangerous to go up the mountain in this kind of snowy weather, but the most dangerous thing in this world was actually not the weather, but those godforsaken dirty things. Being able to build the coffin earlier and leave here was obviously the best thing to do.

After such a delay, the sky darkened again.

After nightfall, everyone simply washed up and went back to their rooms early without any desire to do anything else. Lin Qiushi asked a question about why we couldn't all get together, and Xiong Lacquer said, "Because if we get together, we'll all fall asleep at a fixed time."

"What do you mean?" Lin Qiushi was a little blinded, "Meaning that by the time the point is reached, everyone will be asleep?"

"Hmm." Bearpaint, "Maybe it's the mechanism of this world, as long as the number of people in the same room exceeds a value, everyone will fall asleep at a fixed time, and then there's nothing we can do about whatever happens."

"Then wouldn't we just be at the mercy of the world?" Lin Qiushi knitted his brows.

"Actually, those things can't just kill people." Xiong Lacquer said, "They need some specific conditions to kill, and the higher the difficulty of the Gate World, the broader the conditions are, and some of them are very... incomprehensible."

Lin Qiushi: "Such as?"

Bear Paint: "Like can kill people with shoes on their feet."

Lin Qiushi: "......." he silently looked at the shoes on his feet.

Xiong Lacquer saw his appearance and laughed, "I'm just giving a random example, what if the conditions of this world are such that you can kill people without shoes on their feet, and you take off your shoes and die instead. Moreover, these conditions are not single, some require many conditions to be superimposed, so after summarizing the rules, sleeping at night until dawn is a safer approach instead." He paused at this point, "Of course, the prerequisite is that you can fall asleep."

Lin Qiushi remembered what happened last night because of what the bear varnish said, he looked at Ruan Baijie who was carelessly knocking around with a handful of melons in his hand at his side, he always felt like he had a brush with death last night.

It seemed that if one was not careful, he would become one of those two cold corpses in the third floor.

"Go to sleep." Xiong Lacquer, "Good night."

Lin Qiushi nodded, "Good night." He summoned Ruan Baijie again and told her to go to bed with him.

Ruan Baijie yawned and put the rest of the melon seeds on the table with her hand, she rubbed her eyes and muttered, "I'm so sleepy, go to bed early today."

Lin Qiushi said, "Okay, go to bed early."

The third floor was completely unusable due to what happened last night, so everyone moved to the second floor.

Lin Qiushi still slept on the same bed as Ruan Baijie, this time he was prepared and decided to lock the windows first, intending to pull the curtains as well, but it seemed like it hadn't been used for a long time, so he couldn't pull them.

Ruan Baijie lay in her pajamas in her bed humming, "Qiushi, it's so cold."

Lin Qiushi was still studying the curtains and didn't turn his head back at the news: "Wear more if you're cold."

Ruan Baijie: "...You don't have a girlfriend, do you?"

Lin Qiushi was baffled: "Girlfriend, why do you need a girlfriend?"

Ruan Baijie fell silent, and by the time Lin Qiushi pulled the curtains and turned back she was as hard as a dead fish on the bed.

Lin Qiushi still didn't understand: "What's wrong with you?"

Ruan Baijie's voice was soft as she said, "Don't you... have anything you want to say to me?"

Lin Qiushi was in deep thought, he looked at Ruan Baijie's beautiful face and finally had an idea, he said, "There."

Ruan Baijie smiled with satisfaction, "What do you want to say?"

Lin Qiushi: "That, that's it... If we meet a ghost today, can you run slower?"

Ruan Baijie's indifferent face: "No."

Lin Qiushi was furious: "Then you fucking ask what I want to say, sleep!"

So each of them went home, each of them found their own bedding, and started preparing for sleep back to back.

According to Xiong Qi, the best way to survive the night was to sleep quietly, but Lin Qiushi's mind was filled with all sorts of thoughts, and he couldn't sleep at all. Ruan Baijie behind him was like a pig, sleeping as soon as her eyes closed, making Lin Qiushi's teeth itch.

As the night grew deeper, the temperature became lower and lower. Fortunately, the blanket was quite thick and there was a warm living person sleeping beside him, so it wasn't too hard to stay up.

Lin Qiushi closed his eyes and combed through the clues of the day, his consciousness began to blur, and he could see that he was about to fall into a deep sleep. However, just as he was about to fall asleep, he faintly heard a somewhat strange sound. Unlike yesterday's banging sound, it came from the ceiling above them, the sound of something sticky and heavy, dragging slowly across from the third floor roof. Lin Qiushi's hearing was keen and his original sleepiness was instantly removed, he paused for breath, or slowly opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling above them.

There was nothing there, only stale wood.

However, Lin Qiushi's body began to chill as he clearly heard the sound stop as it moved above him.

"Bar, bar." The sticky knocking sound irritated his eardrums, it became louder and louder, causing goose bumps to appear all over Lin Qiushi's body, he bit his teeth and was about to sit up from the bed, but a hand stretched out beside him and hugged his waist.

"What are you doing." It was Nguyen Baijie's confused voice.

"Did you hear any strange noises." Lin Qiushi lowered his voice, "On the roof."

"Sound? What noise." Ruan Baijie said, "I didn't hear anything, so don't move, I'm cold." Her breath gently sprayed on Lin Qiushi's ears, carrying the scent of ice and snow.

"You..." what else did Lin Qiushi want to say, but he felt Ruan Baijie's arms tighten around him.

"Sleep." Ruan Baijie said so.

Lin Qiushi had to close his eyes.

Ruan Baijie slowly hooked the side of Lin Qiushi's waist with her fingers, an action that should have been somewhat ambiguous, but was now full of soothing flavor.

The banging on the roof continued, but Lin Qiushi seemed to be less scared than he was just now, sleep began to float in his mind again, and he finally fell asleep.

The next morning.

Lin Qiushi woke up in Ruan Baijie's arms.

Ruan Baijie stretched out her arms and hugged his entire body, her chin resting on the top of his head, and was still confused and dawdling after being woken up by him: "Stop it, sleep some more."

Lin Qiushi: "....... "Fuck.

He lay down for a while and saw that Ruan Baijie still had no intention of getting up, so he had to say: "I'm going to get up."

Ruan Baijie: "Umm..."

Lin Qiushi: "Ruan Baijie?"

Ruan Baijie: "Last night, you called someone Sweetie, but today you're calling someone Ruan Baijie."

Lin Qiushi: "........"

But despite that, Ruan Baijie let go of her hand and then leaned on the bed to watch Lin Qiushi dress. Lin Qiushi always felt that the atmosphere was a bit strange after dressing for a while, and after wondering about it, he turned his head to look at Ruan Baijie: "Can you stop that look?"

Nguyen Baijie: "What eyes? The money is on the table, take it yourself and go, pass me the cigarette, I want one."

Lin Qiushi: ".......Is this an afterthought cigarette or something?

Ruan Baijie: "What, still won't leave ah, five hundred but we agreed yesterday, don't want any more than one point."

Lin Qiushi had nothing to say and thumped downstairs after putting his clothes on.

The others were already sitting in the living room, eating breakfast brought by the villagers, Lin Qiushi routinely counted the number of people and found that three people were missing from the house besides Ruan Baijie.

Xiong Lac saw him and motioned for him to sit over.

"Nothing happened yesterday, right?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"No." Xiong Lacquer, "No dead people."

It was good that no one was dead, Lin Qiushi breathed a sigh of relief.

In fact, last night was very quiet, so much so that the crowd didn't even hear any extra noise. Lin Qiushi tentatively asked them if they had heard any noise upstairs, but everyone's story was the same - a very quiet night, except for the sound of the wind outside, there was no other sound.

"After dinner we'll go cut down the trees and send the wood over to the carpenter, we'll have to be quick," Bearpainted, "It looks like it's only going to get colder, and I can't believe nothing happened last night..." he seemed confused under his words.

"Well, yeah." Lin Qiushi casually responded.

The remaining three people also went downstairs one after another, Ruan Baijie was the last one to go downstairs, she was still wearing that beautiful long skirt, but she had added two relatively thick jackets and a pair of large cotton pants. Because the long skirt was long, she walked very slowly and had a very elegant posture.

When Lin Qiushi saw her coming, he averted his eyes a bit uncomfortably.

"Qiushi." Ruan Baijie called his name.

Lin Qiushi hmmmed helplessly.

"Why are you ignoring people." Ruan Baijie, "People want to eat the noodles you cooked."

Lin Qiushi, "I'll make it for you at noon, it's too late now."

Ruan Baijie, "That's not what you said last night when you were in bed."

Ko was drinking porridge and almost choked to death when he heard this poof. Xiong Lacquer's expression was also subtle, his eyes intentionally or unintentionally darting between Lin Qiushi and Ruan Baijie.

Lin Qiushi was laughing and crying, "Okay ah, stop it, last night I did thank you for making you noodles for lunch and frying you two extra eggs."

"Alright." Ruan Baijie compromised, "Ugh, it would be nice to have green onions."

It was already lucky to have green vegetables to eat on such a cold day, as for the green onions and such, don't be delusional.

After everyone had a rough breakfast and put on their warm clothes, the group prepared to head out with axes in hand.

The place to cut the trees was in the mountain forest at the edge of the village, and there was only a small path leading there. Because of the snow, the path became even narrower, allowing only one person to walk.

Going up the mountain was fine, going down the mountain would be even more troublesome, Lin Qiushi thought to himself as he walked on the path.

Among the eleven of them, it was fortunate that someone knew how to do carpentry work, that person was a middle-aged man in his thirties, claiming to be a carpenter, he knew how to cut down trees and make simple furniture, but he didn't know much about coffins. He went ahead and chose a few trees then started teaching everyone how to cut them down.

Most of the people here had never done this before, and although they were taught, they were quite rusty the first time they started.

Lin Qiushi gestured twice with his axe, and after chopping down the first time, only a faint mark was left on the tree trunk.

"Your technique is still not right." Ruan Baijie stood beside her, putting her hands in her pockets and breathing white air, "The strength has to go down, otherwise the axe is so heavy where can you lift it."

Lin Qiushi: "You've cut down trees?"

Nguyen Baijie: "I've seen people cut down trees."

Lin Qiushi Oh.

Ruan Baijie said, "Be careful oh, don't hurt yourself."

Lin Qiushi nodded and continued swinging his axe. It was a lot more trouble than they thought it would be, and in one morning several grown men had cut down a tree by taking turns resting.

"What to do, Brother Bear." Someone said, "What should we do?"

Bear Paint looked at the weather and gritted his teeth, "Let's go, we'll carry this tree back and continue tomorrow."

Although it was only three o'clock in the afternoon, the sky was already dark and large snowflakes had started to drift in the air again, it looked like there might be a heavy snowfall at night.

Lin Qiushi said, "How many pieces of wood do you need in total for a coffin?"

"The mayor says it's three." Bearpainted, "Two days of effort and it's almost done, come on, who's coming over to take a hand."

Lin Qiushi was about to go forward to carry the tree, but he heard Ruan Baijie come, "Oops, I seem to have twisted my foot, Qiushi you carry me down the mountain."

Lin Qiushi: "Huh?"

Ruan Baijie: "Ah what ah, hurry up, aren't there so many people here, what are you going to make fun of."

Lin Qiushi was about to speak when Xiong Lacquer patted him on the shoulder and said, "Go."

Lin Qiushi: "..." he took a look at Ruan Baijie's expression and didn't see anything else from her pitiful appearance, but he was sensitive enough to smell an end, as if Ruan Baijie's sudden request wasn't as simple as he thought it would be.

The author has something to say: Ruan Baijie is the attack ah ha ha ha ha ha, it feels like we all guessed it.