Kaleidoscope of Death

If this was in the real world, one would probably feel overly sensitive and overthinking when encountering something like this. But this wasn't the real world but the treacherous door, so Lin Qiushi had to think a little more. He carefully watched out the window to make sure that the figure in the bushes had disappeared before returning to bed. This time he did not dare to turn off the light, but left it on in an attempt to fall asleep.

Although the sleepiness was very shallow, Lin Qiushi tried to remember the reassuring feeling he had when he was lying next to Ruan Nancandle, but he actually fell asleep - Ruan Nancandle is really a sleeping pill, even thinking about it can have an effect.

The next morning, Lin Qiushi was woken up by the alarm clock. After washing up briefly, he planned to go look for Ruan Nanzhu. Lin Qiushi didn't sleep too well yesterday, and there were still thick black circles under his eyes, the face of the person in the mirror was still unfamiliar, but if you looked carefully, you would still feel that there was a slight resemblance with the real one. Lin Qiushi changed his clothes, went across the street and knocked on Ruan Nanzhu's room door.

The door creaked open, but the person who opened the door was actually Tan Zao Zao, her face was even uglier than Lin Qiushi's, she looked like she was having a hard time sleeping through the night, and she said good morning to Lin Qiushi without any good feelings.

"Good morning." Ruan Nan Candle also just got up and finished washing up with water dripping on his chin, he had just stepped out of the bathroom when he heard Lin Qiushi's voice and turned his head to greet him.

Tan Zao Zao exhaled and went to the bathroom.

Lin Qiushi was baffled, but he soon discovered the reason for Tan Zao Zao's anger - the girl had actually spent the night in the house, bunking on the floor right next to Ruan Nan Candle's big bed.

"She's sleeping on the floor?" Lin Qiushi looked at the floorboards for a few seconds.

"Or what?" Ruan Nan Candle said, "I don't like sleeping in the same bed with someone else."

Lin Qiushi: "..." he remembered the days and nights he slept with Ruan Nam Candle, wait, why does that sound weird.

Ruan Nan Candle said, "Except for you."

Lin Qiushi sounded a bit uncomfortable with that, so he changed the subject, "How did you sleep last night?"

"It's fine." Ruan Nan Candle replied, "The bed is nice."

The bed was indeed very big and soft, and it was very comfortable to lie on, but no matter how comfortable it was, I'm afraid that not many people could enjoy it as frankly as Ruan Nan Candle.

Tan Zao Zao came out after washing her face and brushing her teeth and muttered straight out, saying that Ruan Nan Candle was really not a person, actually making her hit the floor, causing her to be sore....

Ruan Nan Candle started to ignore her, and after seeing her endlessly, he said without salty words, "Or you'll sleep in the bed tonight?"

Tammy: "Really? Really?"

Ruan Nam Candle: "I can go and squeeze with Lin Lin."

Tan Zao Zao: ".......you pair of dog man-boys. Of course she didn't dare to say yes, yesterday was when she found out that something was wrong, she was so scared that she came to Ruan Nan Candle's room to make it up for the night, if she really dared to sleep alone, why would she run over here to lie on the floor.

Breakfast was served upstairs, and Lin Qiushi had thought that this castle was just the housekeeper and the master, but he didn't expect that there were actually a few servants. These servants left quickly after bringing breakfast, their faces without any expression, their numb looks more like emotionless puppets than people.

While eating breakfast, the owner who had seen her once yesterday also appeared, still wearing the long black dress and the strange hat, sitting by the window, grabbing the food with her large white hands and slowly stuffing it into her mouth.

No one dared to talk to her, and the atmosphere in the restaurant was, quiet and frightening.

Well after the meal, the owner disappeared again, and according to the housekeeper, she was supposed to go to the drawing room on the roof. The housekeeper said that it was free time next, and there were a few places that people should better not go to, one was the painting studio on the roof, the second was the warehouse on the sixth floor where the paintings were kept unfinished, and they could view the other places as they pleased, but be aware that the owner didn't like people touching her paintings....

Everyone carefully wrote down what he said, and there were even people in the team who took careful notes, just in case they missed a word.

The butler also left afterwards, leaving ten people in the dining room.

"I'm going out to see if anyone's coming?" Someone on the team started to get up and want to go out and look for clues to the key.

So one by one, two teams of people left, basically in groups of two.

As Lin Qiushi was about to go invite Ruan Nan Candle, he saw that newcomer little girl squirm and walk up to Ruan Nan Candle and spoke in a small voice, "Little brother, do you have a teammate? Can you take me with you, I'm so scared..." this little girl's appearance wasn't bad, and the pitiful appearance of Chu did make people feel pity for her. Only pitying Ruan Nanzhu was what he was, a professional female costume magnate, he was much better at acting as a girl than the little girl in front of him, so even Lin Qiushi could see that Ruan Nanzhu had no inner turmoil and even wanted to eat another boiled egg.

"Can't." Ruan Nan Candle so simply refused.

"But, I'm really scared, I'll try not to hold you back." The little girl started to cry again.

Ruan Nan Candle raised his eyebrows and privately gave Tan Zao Zao a wink.

Tan Zaizao understood, stood up and walked next to the little girl, saying, "Sorry, I had a date with him yesterday, you'd better go find someone else."

When that little girl saw Tan Zaizao, a hint of indignation appeared in her eyes, she still wanted to say more, but Ruan Nanzhu had already stood up and waved at Tan Zaizao, signaling to set off.

Tan Zaizao followed him and the two went out the door together.

Lin Qiushi sat beside him and also made an excuse to leave, it seemed that Ruan Nan Candle pretending to be a girl did have a lot of advantages, at least he didn't have to worry about a girl coming to team up with him and still not being able to refuse.

"That newcomer isn't quite right." After going out, Ruan Nan Candle said this.

"What's not right?" Zao Zao Tan didn't see it though, "She was crying so badly yesterday..."

Ruan Nan Candle looked at Tan Zao Zao: "Do you think someone that cowardly would dare to come and team up with me?"

Tan Zao Zao raised her eyebrows: "Also right."

Ruan Nan Candle's beauty was not the gentle kind of beauty, instead it was full of aggression and detachment, he was like a bright flower in the jungle, telling the bystanders with dazzling colors that the flower was poisonous. It was still possible to show weakness when pretending to be a woman, but Ruan Nam Candle, dressed in men's clothing, was clearly not in the habit of putting himself in the position of a weakling.

As he sat there, he merely raised his eyebrows and made people flinch, not daring to approach at all. Even Lin Qiushi wouldn't think of teaming up with such a person.

"What if it's a lustful man." Tan Zao Zao walked with them while observing the painting next to them, "It might be possible."

Ruan Nan Candle said carelessly, "No more than ten people have taken the initiative to team up with me, and none of them are newbies, so she won't be the exception." There were advantages and disadvantages to pretending to be a novice, the advantage was that it was not easy to alert others, the disadvantage was that once one's identity was revealed, one would become a target of ostracism for the entire team, after all, no one knew what exactly that person's purpose was in pretending to be a novice.

This castle was too big, there were countless rooms on the second floor alone. The only similarity they saw as they walked from the second floor to the third floor was that this castle was filled with all sorts of paintings wherever they went. Even the place to go to the toilet was not spared.

Lin Qiushi didn't know much about art, nor did he know how well these paintings were painted, but the only thing he was sure of was that they all felt uncomfortable, and if he could, he would rather cover them all up with white cloth.

"Are we not allowed to touch the paintings?" Tanzanian Jujube also remembered the butler's words.

"No, no." Ruan Nam Candle, "Did you notice the words he used?"

"The master doesn't like it?" Lin Qiushi still remembered the steward's exact words.

"Yes, it's the master who doesn't like it rather than absolutely not touching it." Ruan Nan Candle's footsteps stopped in front of a picture, his brows suddenly furrowed.

"What's wrong?" Tan Zao Zao saw that he looked wrong.

"All right." Ruan Nan Candle said, "Do you know anything about painting?"

Tan Zao Zao shook her head: "I don't know, I haven't learned."

Ruan Nan Candle Oh, "I don't understand either, it seems that the three of us can't see anything from the painting, let's go upstairs to the room and take a look."

Lin Qiushi mmmed, and the three of them started walking up the stairs.

The staircase was wooden, stepping on it would make a crisp da-da-da sound, and there was more than one path to the roof, there were stone staircases on both sides of the castle to climb from the first floor to the top floor.

Most of the rooms in the castle are locked, only a small portion open, these open rooms are almost all filled with all kinds of paintings, still there are characters and scenery, but just as they were discussing to go to the painting room on the roof, a scream suddenly came from downstairs.

It was a woman's scream, one that stopped once, and by the time the others arrived, the screamer was gone and there was only the empty staircase.

"Who was screaming?" A middle-aged man in the regiment asked a question.

"I don't know, we just arrived too." Lin Qiushi said, "From what floor did you rush here?"

The middle-aged man said, "The third floor."

Lin Qiushi said, "We're on the sixth floor, that scream must be between the third and fourth floors..."

Because of the sound, most of the people were arriving at the location of the scream, and they soon discovered the identity of the screamer.

"Her name is Xiao Su, she's just teamed up with me." The one who spoke was a man, only his expression was filled with fear, "She just said she was going to the bathroom, but she disappeared."

"What floor are you guys on?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"The top floor." The man gulped, "There's no toilet on the top floor, so she tried to come down..." but ended up appearing between the third and fourth floors and disappeared after screaming. In the world inside the door, disappearance equals death, but no one knows exactly how she triggered the death condition.

"Find out more," Ruan Nam Candle said, "What if it's some kind of misunderstanding."

It seemed as if that was all that could be done, but the man who had lost his companion in just a few minutes seemed to be devastated and joined the other duo shivering.

Ruan Nan Candle looked at Lin Qiushi and said, "Shall we go to the roof?"

Lin Qiushi said, "Yes."

Tan Zao Zao muttered beside her, "You guys are really running to wherever the danger is, and you're not afraid of something happening....

Ruan Nan Candle said indifferently, "If something is going to happen anywhere, getting the key out early is the right thing to do. This kind of thinking is the misunderstanding of you newbies, some things can't be avoided just by hiding."

Tan Zao Zao grunted and didn't say anything. These things were easier said than done, and really being able to face death and ghosts as openly as Ruan Nan Candle, there was no telling how many dangerous and desperate times they would have to go through in the door.

They went all the way up and soon reached the eighth floor of the castle, which was the roof.

The roof was an ancient attic, still filled with paintings, but these paintings seemed to be slightly different from the ones downstairs, Lin Qiushi observed for a while before it dawned on him, "Are these paintings newly painted?"

Ruan Nan Candle sniffed, "I think so, and the smell of paint."

Tan Zao Zao's footsteps suddenly stopped in front of a painting, a little confusion appeared between her looks, and she hesitated for a moment before saying, "You guys come and take a look, isn't your painting a little strange?"

Lin Qiushi walked up behind Tan Zao Zao and saw the strange painting that Tan Zao Zao was talking about.

It was strange indeed, the painting was of a woman's back, the style was always distorted, the woman's back was stretched out infinitely and circled around the staircase like it was a giant whirlpool.

"What does it look like to you?" Tammy asked.

"A woman's...back?" If one were to just look at the contents, it would be basically difficult to recognize what was inside the painting, but both Tan Zao Zao and Lin Qiushi thought of the same thing the first time they saw it - a frightened, climbing staircase woman who seemed to be being chased by something, with an unspeakable fear inside her back.

"New painting." Ruan Nam Candle's voice came out, "The paint isn't even dry."

Tan Zao Zao and Lin Qiushi looked at each other, both thought of the same thing, Tan Zao Zao touched the goosebumps on her arm and forced a smile, "This, this shouldn't be..."

"Guess so." Ruan Nam Candle said, "We can have the girl's male companion come over and take a look." His eyes fixed on the painting and he said slowly, "See if this is his vanished mate."

........

Suu just wanted to go to the bathroom.

She came down from the seventh floor and hurriedly searched for a toilet on the sixth floor, there were many toilets in the castle, and she quickly found the place she was looking for at the end of the sixth floor.

The toilet she entered, Susu found a cubicle and was about to sit down, but she noticed a strange portrait hanging on the wall in front of her. It was of a woman wearing a black hat and a black tunic, her face was white and long and creepy, her eyes half-closed and the rain sliding down her chin through the brim of her hat. Most of the paintings in the castle were abstract, and it was almost impossible to discern what exactly was painted without knowing the context. But the contents of the scroll in front of them were so clear that even Susu wondered at first glance if this was a self-portrait of the castle mistress.

The painting might be some important clue... Susu stood up and walked to the scroll, wanting to observe it carefully. However, ghostly, after getting close to the scroll, Xiao Suo actually reached out her hand to the scroll as if she was possessed, and by the time she came to her senses, her palm was already pressed on top of the scroll.

"Ah!!" Xiao Suo was suddenly shocked and withdrew her hand, she felt a damp patch on her hand, with a smell of dirt after the rain, she looked up again, but the scroll had changed, Xiao Suo stared at the painting in front of her, startled... the painting was still the same painting, but the woman with a pale face in the painting, disappeared.

When Suu saw this, she no longer dared to stop and turned around and ran away, trying to get up the stairs to find her teammates, her feet making a series of rapid noises as she stepped on the sturdy wooden stairs.

"Da-da-da-da-da-da." -- The sound of crisp footsteps echoed in the castle, Susu ran and ran and ran around that staircase for a long time, but the staircase in front of her seemed like an endless cycle, all the scenery was frozen, only the staircase in front of her was still stretching forward.

"Ah, ah, ah." Panting violently, Suu was covered in sweat, her energy depleted, and she was finally about to run out of breath.

However, the sound of da da da da footsteps was actually still ringing, and Susu smelled that smell of rain again, she shivered all over and turned her head, seeing a black shadow, standing quietly at the entrance of the stairs. No, it wasn't a black shadow, it was a woman dressed in black, her body drenched with rainwater, her face incomparably pale, holding a huge picture frame in her right hand, her black pupils like two black holes, staring at the little Suu in front of her in dead silence.

Little Suu was trembling tremendously, opening her mouth to speak but unable to speak, she crawled forward with her hands and feet, crying out with the last of her strength.

"Da-da-da-da." The footsteps sounded again, only this time they were not slow, just following behind Suu.

Suu was covered in sweat, her whole body was as if drenched in water, and the last of her strength was used up, so she could only lie on the ground like a puddle of mud, unable to move.

The woman walked up to her, the room was dry, but the drops of water on her body were flowing down in a steady stream, and even some of them were dripping onto Xiao Su's body.

Susu tilted her head up to see the woman pull out a picture frame, an indescribably twisted smile appeared on her white face, her mouth covered in red lipstick grinned out in a horrifying arc, and then the woman swung the frame and slammed it down on her.

"Ahhhhh!!!" Suu let out a miserable scream, and then darkness assaulted her eyes as she felt her body begin to turn cold and her consciousness begin to blur... it was all over.

........

The male companion who was downstairs quickly returned to the roof to confirm the suspicions that Lin Qiushi and the others had seen.

"It's her, it's her!!!" The man's companion started shrieking the first time he saw the scroll, he looked terrified to death, "That's what she's wearing!"

"What if the painting was done yesterday?" Someone in the crowd shuddered, "Are you that sure?"

"It can't be yesterday!!!" His male companion's expression almost broke down as he tried to touch the scroll, but was afraid to reach out, "She wasn't wearing that yesterday! This dress was put on today!!!"

Inside the castle they were indeed provided with new clothes, and they were very beautiful, and Lin Qiushi had seen those clothes in his locker, but almost everyone else in the entire group changed - after all, this was the world of horror, and who knew what would happen if they changed clothes randomly.

I just didn't know why this girl, Suu, had suddenly changed her clothes.

"She was turned into a painting." The man muttered lowly, "She was turned into a painting..."

"What were you doing before she went to the bathroom?" Faced with such a horrifying fact, Ruan Nam Candle's attitude remained very calm as he said, "Say it carefully."

The man trembled, "Nothing, I did nothing, I just came here to look at the painting, and then she had to go to the bathroom..."

Nguyen Nam Candle: "Any particular painting?"

The man shook his head.

Ruan Nan Candle said, "Let's go to the bathroom on the sixth floor."

So they ran to the ladies' toilet on the sixth floor again.

After checking around, there was nothing special about the toilet, but Lin Qiushi always felt that there was something offensive, and seeing that Ruan Nan Candle's brows were also furrowed, it was obvious that it felt similar to him.

"Wait." Lin Qiushi suddenly remembered something, he looked around and finally decided that something was wrong, "In this room, why isn't there a painting?"

That said, everyone sensed something was wrong.

There was hardly any place in the castle where a painting was not hanging, whether it was a toilet, a bedroom, a study, a corridor, and in almost every corner, a framed scroll was guaranteed to hang.

But not the bathroom in front of him, and after searching every corner, there was no sign of a painting.

"Make sure there isn't one," Nguyen Nam Candle said, "was there already none, or was the painting originally there taken?"

No one knew the answer to that question, and the only person who knew the answer had become part of the painting.

A dead silence spread through the crowd.

The silence was broken by the ringing of a bell in the castle, it was the bell that announced lunch time, and everyone listened and started walking towards the second floor.

Despite the horrible atmosphere, it was time to eat and sleep.

Today's lunch was still steak.

Everyone had little appetite, except for Ruan Nan Candle.

Ruan Nan Candle's movements were graceful and smooth, and cutting such things as steak was hard by him to be artistic.

About him eating too delicious, everyone's eyes gathered on him, Ruan Nam Candle is obviously used to this feeling of attention, very calmly finished eating the steak, wiping his mouth after saying: "What? Not to your liking?"

Lin Qiushi: "No... just a bit unappetizing."

"It's good to eat." Ruan Nan Candle looked around and smiled, "It might be the last meal."

Everyone: "........"

Lin Qiushi looked helpless: "It's not auspicious to say it like that."

Ruan Nanzhu: "Is it possible to say a few auspicious words so you don't have to die?" He said, "Congratulations on your fortune? A long life?"

Lin Qiushi couldn't laugh or cry, but what Ruan Nanzhu said did make sense, death is something that never changes, so it's better to calm down and enjoy every minute of life - that's true, but not many can do that.

Under Ruan Nanzhu's kind consolation, Lin Qiushi also had to eat a few more bites.

The hostess didn't join them for lunch this time, and only when they were about to leave the table did she arrive belatedly and pass by the crowd.

Although it was only one side, Lin Qiushi noticed an extra bit of terrified color on her pale face, as if she had just finished eating some wonderful food, and her eyes were filled with joy, although this joy only looked horrific on that strange face.

"Let's go take a nap." Ruan Nan Candle suggested after lunch.

"Okay." Tan Zao Zao hadn't slept well since yesterday, and she hadn't been very energetic all morning today.

Who knew that Ruan Nan Candle would have a look at her and say, "You still hit the floor?"

Tan Zao Zao: "...can't you just let me sleep on the bed?"

Ruan Nan Candle: "Sleep anywhere you want in your own room's bed, as for my bed." His tone was calm and cold, "You don't have that qualification yet."

Tan Zao Zao: "...Ruan Nan Candle you son of a bitch.

The author has something to say: jujube tan: why are you targeting me?

Ruan Nam Candle: I'm in a bad mood when I can't be pampered.

Tan Zao Zao: I let you wear women's clothes ah!

Ruan Nan Candle: Hmph, wearing women's clothing or not he must like.

Lin Qiushi: ...are you guys talking about scatter oh?

Thanks to the following babies for their mines, grenades and rocket launchers, and special thanks to Catching Demons for going to bed early tonight, for the mines x 46, shallow water bombs x 1, and grenades x 6.