Kaleidoscope of Death

Normally, Ruan Nanzhu has always been sensitive to his surroundings, so he wouldn't have noticed Xu Jin's difference, but he was completely indifferent, his look unchanged the whole time. After eating, Ruan Nan Candle waved at Lin Qiushi, calling him to a remote corner.

"What's wrong?" Lin Qiushi asked him.

"Something might happen tonight, pay more attention." Ruan Nanzhu, "If I sleep too much, make sure you wake me up."

"What will happen?" Lin Qiushi, "Something to do with Xu Jin?"

Ruan Nam Candle couldn't give a complete answer, so he said, "Just a guess."

"Hmm." Lin Qiushi nodded, not asking any further questions, "I'll pay attention to it."

That night, the atmosphere in the house was particularly strange. Cheng Qianli cowered on the bed like a wimpy dog and didn't dare to be naughty, while Ruan Nanzhu went to bed early, so Lin Qiushi was left alone, unable to sleep.

He closed his eyes, but his head was wide awake, and he could hear every movement of the surrounding grass and trees, the breeze, the grass and trees, and even the bright moonlight. It was a state that was difficult to describe in words, but through his hearing, his head presented a complete picture.

But such a tranquil state was soon broken by something else.

Lin Qiushi heard a rustling noise.

Sounds heard at night were always disconcerting, and he clearly heard someone climbing out of bed and gently pushing out the door. Lin Qiushi's eyes opened a crack and saw that the person who went out was Xu Jin.

"Nan Candle, Nan Candle." Lin Qiushi pushed Ruan Nan Candle, trying to wake him up from his dream. However, Ruan Nan Candle didn't move, as if he was not asleep but passed out, he pushed several times and Ruan Nan Candle didn't respond, so Lin Qiushi had to try to call Cheng Qianli, but he didn't expect Cheng Qianli to wake up as well.

If he delayed any longer, Xu Jin might not know where he ran off to, Lin Qiushi hesitated for a moment, then he got up and decided to go out alone.

He quickly put on his shoes and followed the footsteps ahead of him.

Xu Jin passed through the long walkway and left the bamboo house where they lived, looking like he was actually heading deeper into the dense forest. Lin Qiushi didn't dare to follow her into the dense forest and just watched from afar.

Xu Jin was about to enter the jungle when she suddenly stopped in her tracks, she looked up at the bright moon in the sky and suddenly started to take off her clothes.

This scene caused Lin Qiushi to be momentarily stunned, he did not expect Xu Jin to actually come up with such a move.

First was the jacket, then the T-shirt, and finally the underwear. Xu Jin stripped herself cleanly, her white skin, under the moonlight, was like white ivory, faintly emitting a charming glow. Of course, Lin Qiushi didn't dare to read the whole thing. Non-judgmental, non-judgmental, non-judgmental, he only looked at half of it and then averted his eyes - until something else sounded.

It was a sound of tearing fabric, and Lin Qiushi was slightly stunned, then he carefully moved his remaining light back. But just the afterglow glance made his body tremble violently.

Xu Jin was still undressing, and after taking off her clothes, she began to skin herself.

She grabbed her hair hard, then began to tear the skin off whole, one by one, from her head to her neck, to her body, and the originally bare skin turned into a fleshy, bloody texture, and Lin Qiushi could see red muscles, and white bones.

She peeled herself into a bloody man and seemed to notice Lin Qiushi's gaze, turned her head and grinned. The huge mouth formed a completely impossible shape, and Lin Qiushi could even see the white teeth and blood-red tongue inside.

If it was before, seeing such a scene Lin Qiushi would probably be directly paralyzed with fear, but at least after several trainings, he was now strong enough to withstand such a scenario, but even so, his hands and feet were slightly numb from the tremendous fear.

"Sister, sister." Cackling laughter came from the mouth of the monster in front of her as she tilted her head towards Lin Qiushi's hiding place, "Where are you ah, where are you ah."

Lin Qiushi didn't dare to stop and turned around to run.

He ran all the way back to the bamboo building and slapped Ruan Nam Candle's body hard, but it was as if Ruan Nam Candle had slept to death and was completely unresponsive.

And then, the sound of the sticky footsteps had reached the corridor above.

"Knock, knock, knock." The monster was knocking heavily on the door, and she was lying on the floor, her eyes peering in through the door, "Open the door ah, open the door ah."

Lin Qiushi was already starting to regret his damn curiosity.

It was a good thing that the knocking at the door stopped after a while, Lin Qiushi was about to let out a sigh of relief, but he heard a crushing sound coming from the window, he turned his head and saw the thing climbing in through the window.

"Fuck!" Finally unable to stop swearing, Lin Qiushi took a few steps backwards, trying to get away from the window.

The flesh-and-blood monster easily climbed in through the window, and she lay down on the floor and began to reach around.

When Lin Qiushi saw her posture, he suddenly remembered something and hurried onto the bed.

"Where are you ah, where are you ah..." belonged to Xu Jin's voice, but it was cold, the monster was lying on the floor and groping around, she crawled to Lin Qiushi's side of the bed, but she seemed unable to stand up, and could only use her blood red hands to keep touching under the bed.

Lin Qiushi was relieved and knew that his guess was not wrong. He and Cheng Qianli slept on the bed before, but there were bloody hand prints everywhere under the bed, so it shouldn't be that the monster was soft, but that she couldn't stand up at all.

The sound of the monster and Lin Qiushi's voice was only a bed apart, and the fragile wooden board she was gouging with her nails was crunching as if she was going to gouge a hole in it the next moment.

Lin Qiushi closed his eyes and pretended not to hear.

It was unknown how long these sounds lasted, but in any case by the time everything was quiet again, there was already morning light in the sky.

And the outgoing Xu Jin was back in her room once again, but of course, she was already wearing that white skin by this time.

Ruan Nan Candle woke up to the sunlight, and after stretching out her hand to rub her eyes, she greeted Lin Qiushi.

"Good morning." Lin Qiushi responded with a difficult tone.

"Good." Ruan Nan Candle woke up from her hazy sleep and noticed that Lin Qiushi's face looked very wrong, "What's wrong with you?" He quickly realized what had happened, "Something happened last night?"

Lin Qiushi looked at Xu Jin, who was still sleeping, and whispered, "Go out and talk later."

Ruan Nan Candle nodded.

The two of them quietly got up and found a remote corner. Lin Qiushi told Ruan Nancandle what he had seen and heard last night.

In the meantime, Ruan Nan Candle listened: "Why didn't you wake me up?"

Lin Qiushi: "I screamed, you couldn't wake up."

"Oh." Ruan Nan Candle, "It seems that our guess was correct."

Xu Jin was the sister who was looking for her sister, and now that she had the bronze key, and then following the hints, she would bring her sister to her sister, and the door to get out should appear.

"So which one does she really belong to? Does she know who she is?" Lin Qiushi was a bit confused, he felt that if Xu Jin knew that he wasn't human, then it might be a bit too good of an actress, but if she didn't know, what about everything that happened last night?

"Perhaps only under certain conditions does she become a sister." Ruan Nan Candle pondered, "Like nights, what was so special about last night that you recall?"

After thinking about it, Lin Qiushi did eventually discover something different: "...It seems like it was a full moon yesterday." The reason he noticed this detail was because the moonlight last night was so bright. It was almost like daylight, and walking outside didn't even require him to bring lighting equipment at all, so he could see all the scenery in full.

"Mm." Ruan Nan Candle nodded, "I know."

The two of them discussed some more details before returning to the restaurant.

There were already people getting up from bed one after another to eat breakfast. After Lin Qiushi sat in the restaurant for a while, he saw Cheng Qianli and Xu Jin coming over as well.

Cheng Qianli ignored it, but Xu Jin looked like she had enough sleep, and no one could imagine that she was the monster that had crawled around the house last night.

"I found the bloody handprint again." Cheng Qianli drank the porridge and said very scared, "Did you guys see it too?"

"I see." Lin Qiushi echoed

Cheng Qianli: "But I don't hear anything, what the hell is that thing, is that thing going to crawl on our bed?" As soon as he got up, he saw blood red handprints all over the floor of the house, and it looked like something had crawled over them carefully, and it was just too creepy to think about what had happened in the house last night after they'd slept.

"I don't know." Ruan Nan Candle said, "Or would you take a vigil tomorrow night and see?"

"No no no." Cheng Qianli secondly pandered.

Although Lin Qiushi knew what was going on, he couldn't say, he looked at Xu Jin and noticed that when Cheng Qianli said these things, there was nothing different on Xu Jin's face, on the contrary, she seemed to be very scared and her body started shaking again.

"Today, we're going to the temple again." Ruan Nan Candle, "I hope there won't be any accidents."

"Mm." Lin Qiushi nodded.

The tour guide appeared again and led the crowd to their destination.

It was already the third time coming here, and instead of the initial fear and curiosity on everyone's faces, they took on a hint of irritation, all of them wanting to leave here earlier

The only difference this time around was that the music had stopped, the others didn't know why, but Lin Qiushi and the four of them knew exactly why, because the bone flute that could play music was in their backpacks.

"Should we try bringing Xu Jin to the roof?" Lin Qiushi was slightly hesitant when he made the proposal.

"I think it's okay." Ruan Nan Candle said.

They then began discussing going up to the roof again, Seo Jin quietly listening, but showing strong resistance when she heard that she planned to go up with all four of them.

"I don't want to go, I'm scared." Xu Jin shook her head as tears were about to fall, "I really don't want to go, you guys don't want me to go..."

"Why don't you want to go?" In the face of Xu Jin's strong resistance, Ruan Nan Candle did not show a tough attitude, but instead spoke in a tone that was even gentle.

"I'm afraid." Xu Jin replied, "I think I'll die... if I go up there."

Lin Qiushi was about to say something, but Ruan Nanzhu actually nodded, "If that's the case, then don't go up there."

Xu Jin let out a sigh of relief.

Lin Qiushi didn't expect Ruan Nan Candle to compromise so easily, he was a little puzzled and looked for an opportunity to ask.

"If it were a normal situation, she would have wanted to go up there very much, and since she doesn't want to, there must be some other reason." Ruan Nan Candle said.

"Other reasons?" Lin Qiushi couldn't figure it out.

Ruan Nan Candle said, "For now, I didn't think of it either."

They sat in the temple and started thinking about what went wrong while Cheng Qianli wandered around inside the temple with Xu Jin.

After wandering around for a while, Cheng Qianli suddenly came over mysteriously and said that he had discovered something.

"What is it?" Ruan Nan Candle had a look at him.

Cheng Qianli said, "Didn't we see many small rooms locked with statues before? There's a small room with an open door..."

Ruan Nam Candle: "You went in to see?"

Cheng Qianli smiled apologetically: "I didn't dare."

Ruan Nanzhu: "Then lock the door."

Cheng Qianli: "Aren't we going to go in and take a look?" He lowered his voice, not wanting Xu Jin to hear his conversation with Ruan Nan Candle, "I noticed the backs of the statues in those small rooms, there seems to be a mural."

The murals seemed to be an important means of recording events in this religion, and if we could really find other murals, we might be able to discover why Xu Jin didn't want to go upstairs.

Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nam Candle looked at each other, stood up and patted their asses, "Let's go take a look."

Ruan Nan Candle nodded.

So the few people headed over to the place Cheng Qianli said.

The small room was small and could only hold five or six people, it was a bit too crowded to go in together, so Cheng Qianli and Xu Jin were outside, while Ruan Nan Candle and Lin Qiushi went in. In the middle of the room was a statue covered with a red cloth, from the outline it should be a Buddha statue or something like that. Ruan Nan Candle entered the room and bypassed the statue and walked to the back wall.

There was indeed a mural, but it was painted like a ghost painting, making it impossible to read. In the meantime, Ruan Nanzhu also raised his eyebrows.

Lin Qiushi didn't dare to disturb him, so he took a look at the room.

The only thing that caught people's eyes was this statue covered with red envelopes, which was about the size of a man and stood straight in the middle of the room.

Lin Qiushi was about to avert his eyes, but he was stunned, he initially thought that he was mistaken and rubbed his eyes vigorously, but after doing so, he realized that he wasn't mistaken - the statue in front of him was indeed moving, although the magnitude was very small.

"Southern Candle." Lin Qiushi tugged on Ruan Nanzhu's hand without moving, "Let's go out."

Ruan Nan Candle's attention was still on the mural, he said, "I want to take another look."

Lin Qiushi was smart, "I'll take a picture of it with my phone, can you go back and look at it slowly?" As he spoke, he noticed that the red cloth began to tremble, like something was coming out of it.

Ruan Nanzhu also noticed Lin Qiushi's strange appearance, he swept around the room and immediately found something wrong, so he nodded and said go.

Lin Qiushi let out a sigh of relief.

As soon as they left the room, the sculpture began to shake violently, Lin Qiushi pulled the door shut smoothly, and the red cloth happened to fall down.

Only under the red cloth was actually the flayed monster they had seen in the main hall before, the monster was carrying a long, sharp knife in its hand, and its originally stiff body began to become flexible.

"Fuck, good thing it came out fast." Lin Qiushi was frightened in a cold sweat.

"Wait... "Cheng Qianli's seemed to have discovered something and his tone became filled with fear, "How come all the locks of the small rooms in the corridor have been unlocked."

Lin Qiushi was stunned, then he looked up and found that the locks of the entire corridor had actually fallen off, and it looked like someone had opened them on purpose. He hurried forward to pick up a lock and simply twisted it twice, and his face darkened: "It was violently destroyed."

And that kind of sound of the cloth drapes falling to the ground more and more, Lin Qiushi looked around and found that just where they were, there were three or four drapes falling to the ground, revealing the blood and flesh of the monster behind, and of course, the most noticeable thing was those long knives that the monster was carrying in its hands.

The first time I was in the room was when I was in the room.

The four people turned around and ran, wanting to leave the place, and on the way met the rest of the team also greeted two, soon everyone gathered in the main hall, someone broke down and recounted the whole thing, pointing at the gallery and shaking.

"Do we still have to wait in there to die?" Someone wants out.

"But have you forgotten what happened to the person who ran out before?" Someone retorted.

"But it's not raining now..." someone else spoke.

Noisy arguments filled the entire palace.

But soon, they didn't have any more time to think about that, as the monsters dragged their long knives and slowly appeared in front of everyone, and Ruan Nan Candle saw the situation and said, "Go, out of the temple!"

Lin Qiushi followed behind him and the four of them hurriedly ran out of the temple.

There were also some people digging out after them, but there were still some people who were about to remember the blond young man who had been overtaken by the heavy rain and were still hesitating in the temple.

But after a few moments of hesitation, someone inside the temple was caught by those monsters.

And at this moment, the people outside finally understood what the sharp knife in the monster's hand was for - it was actually a good tool for skinning.

The sharp knife stabbed in from the head, and as soon as it was picked and broken, the skin opened, and with a miserable scream, the soft skin of the human body separated from the sides, revealing the red muscle inside.

"Ahhhhh!!!" A man and a woman who had been caught screamed miserably, and they struggled like mad, but were pressed to death until they were stripped to the point of their chests, and then they were completely cut off.

Because of this horrific scene, there was only dead silence among the crowd.

"Skin... give me the skin... give me... sister..." the voice that belonged to the girl came from the roof, in the darkness that was invisible to everyone, a pair of blood red hands appeared, those hands held the newly peeled skin, sniffed it carefully, then as if they found something, they heavily threw it on the ground, "Not mine, not mine-" this voice became increasingly sharp, piercing people's ears hurt.

After the remaining two people in the temple had been skinned and their bodies hacked to pieces, Lin Qiushi finally understood at this moment where the broken flesh on those wooden platforms had come from.

The monsters killed the two men and turned their attention to them outside the door.

Everyone was breathless from the dark eyes staring at them, and Lin Qiushi even smelled the stench of urine - someone had been scared to pee.

"Creak, creak, creak..." the sound of sharp blades dragging on the ground, so piercing, finally, someone couldn't stand the terror and ran screaming into the jungle.

The rest of them didn't move, but the fear in their eyes was all overflowing.

Cheng Qianli shuddered and asked if they were going to come and kill us too.

Ruan Nan Candle said, "You guys calm down, they can't kill everyone."

But what they didn't expect was that the monsters ended up staying at the edge of the temple, they seemed to be stopped by something and started wandering around the entrance.

Everyone heaved a heavy sigh of relief at this sight.

"Looks like they can't leave the temple." Lin Qiushi said, "Unless it's raining... when it's... raining."

"Hmm." Ruan Nan Candle's eyebrows didn't loosen though, he looked at Xu Jin, "We seem to have missed something important."

"Something important?" Lin Qiushi repeated, "Something important..." a thought sprang into his mind and he was startled, "Did we forget to take that drum with us?"

If it is the sister in the temple, then the skin she was stripped of was made into a drum, and her drum is in the hands of her sister, so is she searching for her sister as well as her own skin?

"Tsk, I can't believe I forgot the drums." Ruan Nan Candle, "I really am in a bad state." He had actually forgotten something so important, or none of them had thought to take the drum with them when they left there.

"No, I don't blame you," Lin Qiushi said, "After all, no one knows what the conditions are for triggering death, what if the drum is moved and dies instead."

Ruan Nan Candle shook his head and didn't say anything.

Witnessing the scene of the people around them being flayed alive, everyone didn't want to enter the temple again, besides, no one knew if the monster was still in place.

Everyone sat in front of the temple in a depressed state, waiting in silence for the guide to arrive.

The people who had run into the jungle before came back in a trance, and there was even one who kept mumbling to himself, literally as if he had gone crazy.

The accident had hit everyone very hard.

Lin Qiushi's mental state was fine, and he occasionally chatted with Cheng Qianli to ease the tension. Xu Jin, on the other hand, hadn't spoken and looked dumbfounded in front of her, as if she couldn't even hear Cheng Qianli calling her.

If this was before, Lin Qiushi would probably think that she was afraid, but after last night's incident, he had other thoughts.

Was Xu Jin really being afraid? Is she afraid of ghosts, or something else?

Of course, none of these things could be answered at the moment.

The tour guide was still on time, and when he saw two people missing from the crowd, he didn't make any comments, and led everyone back with a smile on his face.

Few people ate this dinner, and most people went to rest early.

But Li Dongyuan didn't show any signs of being affected, he quietly ate his food and asked Ruan Nanzhu out for a chat.

What exactly they talked about was still unknown, but when they returned, both of their faces were much less gloomy.

"Get some rest." Ruan Nan Candle said this before going to sleep, "It's best not to wake up tonight."

Lin Qiushi nodded.

"Good night." Cheng Qianli yawned and closed his eyes.

"Goodnight." Lin Qiushi turned off the light, leaving the house in darkness.