Kaleidoscope of Death

Soon, Lin Qiushi's mind had an answer to Ruan Nanzhu's proposal - he decided to enter the ninth door of Cheng Yixie together with Ruan Nanzhu.

Ruan Nanzhu wasn't surprised at Lin Qiushi's decision, he just asked Lin Qiushi again, "Have you made up your mind?"

Lin Qiushi nodded, "Think about it."

"The ninth door will be more difficult, and I can't guarantee you'll get out safely." Ruan Nanzhu said bluntly, "This could be your last door."

Lin Qiushi said, "It doesn't matter."

Ruan Nan Candle gazed at Lin Qiushi's expression for a moment and nodded his head to show that he knew.

Lin Qiushi always felt as if he wanted to say something, though in the end, Ruan Nan Candle didn't say anything.

After confirming that Lin Qiushi was going to enter the ninth door, Ruan Nan Candle told Lin Qiushi the clue of the ninth door, Lin Qiushi took a brief look at the clue and showed a surprised expression, "This is a clue?"

Ruan Nanzhu: "Hmm."

I only saw a sentence written on the note: using copper as a mirror, you can straighten your clothes; using history as a mirror, you can know the rise and fall; using people as a mirror, you can understand the gains and losses.

"What does this mean?" Lin Qiushi remembered that it was a famous quote spoken by Li Shimin of the Tang Dynasty and had made it into the textbook, but placed in the environment within the door, such a clue would be almost tantamount to nothing.

"I don't know." Ruan Nanzhu said, "The door clues after that will be vague, and won't have the same clear pointers as before, so we'll have to talk about what's going on after we enter the door."

Lin Qiushi pinched the clues for a moment and said goodbye.

The specific time of entry is on the 15th of next month, this is what Cheng Yixie told Lin Qiushi, he acted calmly after he knew Lin Qiushi was going to enter with him, and seemed to have expected that Ruan Nanzhu would bring Lin Qiushi with him.

Cheng Yixie is probably the least talkative one in the entire villa, and is always quiet all day, except when he's lecturing his brother.

Cheng Qianli and Cheng Yicher are twin sons, but their personalities are very different. Cheng Qianli is always shouting like a child, while Cheng Yicher is very mature.

Lin Qiushi continued to rest in the villa while there was still some time before he entered.

In the meantime, Tan Zao Zao and that movie emperor Zhang Yiqing also came over, along with the man who brought Zhang Yiqing through the door.

The man's name was Bai Ming, and he was very sunny in both looks and temperament, with slightly naturally curly hair and a lovely pear on his cheeks when he smiled.

To be honest, it was hard for Lin Qiushi to relate such a person to the big man inside the gate, he was really a little curious as to what this Bai Ming looked like inside the gate.

But this question was a bit of an invasion of privacy, so Lin Qiushi didn't ask.

Zhang Yiqing's state was much better than before, at least she didn't look like she was having a mental breakdown.

Bai Ming was interested in Lin Qiushi as well, but of course he didn't dare to show it too obviously in front of Ruan Nanzhu, but Lin Qiushi still noticed his if anything, measuring gaze.

"Yiqing's movie is coming up in May, you guys must go see it." The first thing Bai Ming did when he arrived at the villa was to distribute tickets for the on-demand screening of Zhang Yiqing's movie, "I've already seen the unedited version, but it's so good."

Zhang Yiqing sat beside him and listened to Bai Ming sell him the encore, his face was a bit unpleasant. Lin Qiushi guessed it was because he felt ashamed....

"Yi Qing is really too good, I super like him." Bai Ming's confession was like a star-struck idiot, which was usually fine, but now the praise in front of the person concerned was simply unbearable. Lin Qiushi saw with his own eyes that although Zhang Yiqing had a serious face, his ears were already red, so he calmly stood up and said he wanted to go to the balcony to have a cigarette.

Lin Qiushi was secretly amused at the sight of Bai Ming, who was able to cure Zhang Yiqing.

Zaizao Tan was also very rude and laughed loudly.

"Jujube are you going to enter the house again?" Lin Qiushi calculated the time and felt that the next door of Tan Zao Zao should be soon.

"Mm." Tan Zao Zao nodded, "This time it's Chen Fei who brought me in... How about you, how many doors have you passed?"

Lin Qiushi said, "Or the sixth door." He didn't mention that he was going to enter the ninth door with Ruan Nanzhu and the others.

"Oh... "Tan Zao Zao was a bit distracted and seemed to be thinking about something.

Lin Qiushi asked her, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Tan Zao Zao sighed, "Just wondering what to do with the door after that." She wasn't able to completely put down her work in the real world to focus on passing doors like Ruan Nan Candle and Lin Qiushi and the others, nor did she have the courage to constantly paint doors, which meant that she had less luck when facing advanced doors, and besides, even Ruan Nan Candle would barely take the doors after six doors.

It was said that after six doors, there would be a qualitative change in the difficulty of the doors. As for how it would change Tan Zao Zao was unclear, but it was difficult anyway.

After a few people chatted for a while and had lunch, Lin Qiushi understood from the conversation between Ruan Nan Candle and Bai Ming that the two of them had known each other for four years and were considered old friends.

Bai Ming had already passed the ninth door and was waiting for the tenth door to arrive.

After eating, Bai Ming and Ruan Nan Candle went to the study, and it seemed that they had something they wanted to talk about in private.

Tan Zao Zao, on the other hand, pulled Lin Qiushi Zhang Yiqing to play a game downstairs.

What exactly they had talked about Lin Qiushi didn't know, but when they both came down from upstairs, their eyes were on him.

Lin Qiushi was slightly stunned and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Bai Ming smiled, "Just a little curious about you."

Lin Qiushi: "Curious?"

Bai Ming said, "Don't you think you're special?"

Lin Qiushi thought about it and whispered, "Especially like cats?" When he said this, he was still secretly squeezing Chestnut's meat pad, and Chestnut looked at him with an unhappy face with slanted eyes.

Ruan Nan Candle: ".......This is something special.

Bai Ming laughed at the words and said, "You're so interesting." He didn't mention anything about Lin Qiushi anymore, and after sitting for a while longer, he left with Zhang Yiqing and Tan Zao Zao.

Lin Qiushi looked at Ruan Nan Candle, who was sitting next to him, and asked in a low voice, "What's so special about me?"

Ruan Nan Candle looked at him, "What do you think?"

Lin Qiushi shook his head, unable to understand.

Ruan Nan Candle: "Don't you ever feel like there's something wrong with you?"

Lin Qiushi: "No."

Ruan Nan Candle stood up: "No even if you don't have it." He turned around after saying this and walked away without giving Lin Qiushi another chance to ask. Lin Qiushi however somehow felt that Ruan Nan Candle didn't seem to be in a good mood....

Cheng Qianli also knew that they were going to enter the ninth door, he was very worried and even set up incense in his room and worshipped seriously.

Lin Qiushi was forced to be dragged by him to burn three incense sticks.

"Be sure to bless them with a safe return." Cheng Qianli's look was very pious.

Lin Qiushi originally didn't believe in this, but the world within the gate had overturned his worldview, so he didn't say anything disrespectful in front of the incense.

"I'm so scared." After Cheng Qianli finished the incense, he sat on his own bedroom bed and muttered to Lin Qiushi, "Just especially scared."

"Don't be afraid, it'll be fine." Lin Qiushi touched his head, Cheng Qianli was only sixteen years old and only half a child, "There's your brother Ruan."

"Mm." Cheng Qianli said, "I want to become a bit more powerful, and then, when the time comes..." he seemed a bit embarrassed when he said that.

Lin Qiushi asked him, "Just can what?"

Cheng Qianli said, "It'll be me protecting my brother!" He puffed out his chest and looked proud of himself.

Lin Qiushi laughed, "Well, then you can work hard." Cheng Qianli looked really silly and cute some times.

Cheng Qianli said, "Although he has a bad temper and dislikes me, but who called him my brother." He lay on the bed and said to himself, "After all, he looks exactly the same as me..."

Lin Qiushi listened quietly beside him.

In fact, he didn't quite understand the sibling love that Cheng Qianli was talking about, he hadn't been exposed to any kind of family or other atmosphere since he was young, nor did he have any siblings, he had lived to twenty-six and didn't even have a favorite person. Lin Qiushi thought so, and suddenly felt some regret in his life, if he had died inside the door, he felt like he had never experienced many things in his life.

Cheng Yicher that door opening time advances a little bit.

The atmosphere in the villa was also tense.

Aside from Ruan Nanzhu, Cheng Yicher's door rank was the highest, and Lin Qiushi roughly calculated the time it took Cheng Yicher to open the door and found that he was actually eleven or twelve years old. To be able to come out of so many doors at such a young age, Cheng Yixie was indeed amazing.

Whereas his younger brother Cheng Qianli had only opened the sixth door, the time difference between their first doors was at least several years.

This time Ruan Nan Candle didn't let Lin Qiushi wear women's clothing, and while celebrating, Lin Qiushi actually felt a trace of regret deep inside. He was shocked when he sensed this regretful emotion, not expecting that such a thing as wearing women's clothing could be addictive.

Of course, Lin Qiushi quickly disposed of this regretful emotion and was still quite happy that he didn't have to pretend to be a mute woman - as for things like pseudo-voice, he still didn't have a clue.

Time flew by so fast that it was almost time to enter the door as soon as the eye could see.

The weather was also getting hotter, so Lin Qiushi had dinner and was sitting on the balcony to cool off when he saw Cheng Yixie standing in the garden downstairs. His expression was very serious and he was actually holding a cigarette in his hand, slowly smoking it.

Lin Qiushi looked at him condescendingly, thought for a moment, and called out to him, "Cheng Yicher!"

Cheng Yicher looked up.

Lin Qiushi said loudly, "Underage people can't smoke-"

Cheng Yixie frowned, his looks were nine points similar to Cheng Qianli's, the only difference was the cold temperament on his body. Although he was young, his temperament could make it obvious that this person wasn't easy to mess with, and he actually put out his cigarette after hearing Lin Qiushi's words.

Lin Qiushi took out a handful of candy from his pocket and threw it down from the second floor: "Eat this."

The colorful candies fell on the green grass, like exploding fireworks, and looked very pretty instead.

Cheng Yixie bent down, picked up one peeled off the candy paper and stuffed it into her mouth.

Lin Qiushi looked at him with a smile, "Is it delicious? The purple one is grape-flavored-"This sugar is the hard candy he bought online for his juice, and it tastes great.

Cheng Yixie looked at him, didn't say anything, just carefully picked up all the sugar, stuffed it into his pocket and turned around.

Lin Qiushi was quite happy to see his back. Although Cheng Yicher arrived inside the door before him, in his eyes, Cheng Yicher was just a kid who hadn't turned eighteen yet.

The day before entering the door, Ruan Nan Candle changed into a woman's outfit again, and all three of them put on that special bracelet and started waiting for the door to arrive.

Cheng Qianli's mood became very anxious and he walked around the house nonstop.

In the end, it was Cheng Yicher who couldn't take it anymore and said, "What are you spinning for, my eyes are getting tired."

Cheng Qianli innocently said, "I can't even spin around."

Cheng Yicher: "No."

Cheng Qianli: "...Hmph, I won't, I'm partial to spinning." Although his mouth said he wanted to keep spinning, he sat back on top of the couch and grabbed the toast next to him to jerk it off.

The toast was jerked around by Cheng Qianli, staring at the black eyes and whimpering in frustration.

"Don't you toss it." Cheng Yicher spoke again.

Cheng Qianli: "Wow, you've gone too far, you won't let me do this, you won't let me do that-"

Cheng Yicher didn't say a word either, just looked at Cheng Qianli with a blank expression. After a dozen or so seconds of stalemate, Cheng Qianli was defeated again without any suspense, and let go of Toast's fat ass with regret in his eyes, watching it run away.

Cheng Yicher looked at his watch.

Cheng Qianli watched Cheng Yicher's actions, his mood grew more and more agitated, his lips moved for a moment, inaudibly squeezing out a sentence: "Be sure to come back."

Cheng Yicher raised his eyes to look at him.

"Hey, I'm talking to you." Cheng Qianli said, "Do you hear me, Cheng Yicher, you must come back." It was as if he mustered up the courage to say the words, "Definitely come back!"

Cheng Yicher hmmed softly.

Only then was Cheng Qianli satisfied and muttered some other words of advice.

When the brothers interacted, Lin Qiushi was sitting right next to them, and when he witnessed Cheng Qianli muttering with his own eyes, the corners of Cheng Yicher's mouth quirked upward slightly, but the arc was so small and fleeting that it was easy to think it was his own fault.

The time of entry was the evening of the next day.

Lin Qiushi finished his meal and went back to his room.

He sat in front of his computer and had just pressed the on button, but a very strange sensation appeared on his body. This feeling was very familiar to him - the door was open.

Lin Qiushi got up, opened the bedroom door, and unsurprisingly saw twelve iron doors appearing in the hallway. Eight of them were already sealed, and the other three could not be opened.

The only one that could be opened was the ninth door that belonged to Cheng Yixie.

Lin Qiushi reached the door and pulled open the iron door - the scenery around him reversed and Lin Qiushi appeared on an open road.

After looking around at the scenery, his expression was slightly surprised, as the surrounding area wasn't a desolate wilderness, but a bustling commercial street. Colorful signboards hung on both sides of the road, and although it was too late for most of the shops to be closed, one could still vaguely imagine the bustling daytime scene.

The road beneath his feet was very flat, and as Lin Qiushi followed the road forward, he saw a towering apartment building. The outside walls of the apartment were covered with a special coating on top, just like a tall building paved with mirrors, absorbing all the surrounding light and attracting attention even in the darkness of the night.

Lin Qiushi saw this apartment, but one word inexplicably came to mind: phototropism.

Phototropism was a biological habit that manifested itself in animals and plants, most notably at night when insects would lunge towards a light source, even if that light was a flame that would burn them.

Humans are also a type of creature, Lin Qiushi thought, and in the dark of night, seeing the light always makes you want to walk towards it. Not to think about what was at the end of the light.

The door of the apartment was wide open, so Lin Qiushi slowly walked in and saw eight to nine people standing in the hall. These people had been divided into teams, and when they saw Lin Qiushi walk in, most of them had a measured or assessing expression.

This time, Lin Qiushi didn't see any newcomers who weren't in the situation.

With the difficulty of the ninth door, if there really was a newcomer, then Lin Qiushi could only wonder if that newcomer was going to die in the next second before he was pulled inside the door.

Looking around, Lin Qiushi didn't find the person he was looking for, so he found a random couch and sat down and started observing the situation around him.

There were now a total of nine people plus him, five men and four women, divided into about three groups. Probably all of them were veterans, and these people didn't pretend to not know each other anymore, but instead whispered to each other and discussed about the door in low voices.

After Lin Qiushi sat on the sofa for a while, he saw two people walk in from outside. A tall one and a short one, the tall one was a woman in a long skirt and the short one was a young man with an indifferent expression.

Although their looks were completely different, Lin Qiushi still recognized the two from their clothes and looks - it was Ruan Nanzhu and Cheng Yixie.

The two of them also saw Lin Qiushi sitting on the sofa and came towards him.

"Is everyone here?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"There shouldn't be any yet." Ruan Nan Candle sat down next to Lin Qiushi, "Someone is still looking out towards the outside, they should be waiting for their teammates."

Hearing that, Lin Qiushi had to admire Ruan Nan Candle's observation, as if he had walked in here for just a few minutes, he had gathered almost all the information about the people around him.

As expected, about three or four minutes later, two more people came in from outside, also a man and a woman, and they walked towards the corner as soon as they entered.

Lin Qiushi was slightly surprised to see the direction they were going, "They... there are five in one group?"

Ruan Nam Candle: "It should be."

"A numerical advantage exists inside the door?" Lin Qiushi thought about it and felt as if something was wrong.

"In a way it is." Ruan Nan Candle leaned against the sofa and said, "If you bring more people, won't you be able to rule out a few more death conditions."

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

Ruan Nan Candle looked at the corner and smiled coldly, "There are people who will do anything to survive."

Some people would deliberately bring in many newcomers when they passed through the door in order to rule out the death condition. These newcomers don't know anything and can easily have accidents inside the door. Of course, it didn't matter if they had an accident, it was rather a good thing for the people who brought them in - after all, they took up the quota of the day's deaths, and according to the rules of the door, there was a limit to the number of people who died each day, so this way they were safe instead.

Lin Qiushi didn't think it could still be like this: "Those newcomers are willing to come in?"

"What's not to like." Ruan Nan Candle lazily said, "Some people always want to become fat in one bite."

Who wouldn't want to dispense with those intermediate processes and go straight through the ninth door. Risk and reward were usually equal, and to get something, you always had to give something.

The same is true in life.

People finally arrived, there were seventeen in total, roughly divided into five or six groups. The group with the most people had five in total, and Lin Qiushi could clearly feel that the leader of them was the woman with a bad expression, she seemed to be the leader of the five.

All of them gathered inside the hall, and the noises became louder and louder.

Just then, a man in a waiter's uniform came out from the direction of the elevator, holding a handful of door cards in his hand, smiling at the people gathered in the hall.

"Sorry to keep you all waiting." The waiter said, "Here are the door cards for your rooms."

He began handing out door cards to everyone.

Someone in the crowd asks, "How many rooms is this? Single room or standard room?"

The waiter said, "It's a standard room oh." He smiled, "The red door card is a king room, the white door card is a double room, and the green one can accommodate three people, but someone needs to sleep on the couch." His voice was soft, "Welcome to the tour, I hope you enjoy your stay here."

So they were tourists, Lin Qiushi's heart moved.

"When do we end the tour?" The leader of that group of five suddenly spoke up, "Are there any tourist attractions around here?"

The waiter smiled, "Tomorrow a guidebook will be handed out for everyone, it will contain the tourist attractions around the area." He handed out the cards in his hand, "Please have a good night's sleep today."

Lin Qiushi got up and went to get a green card. The attendant said that the green card allowed three people to sleep together, and the three of them were just right.

The room cards were handed out one after another, so everyone dispersed.

Lin Qiushi's room was on the 34th floor. There was a thick carpet on the floor and the corridor emitted a strong smoky scent.

The lights were dim, and when they arrived at the room they plugged their room cards into the power supply and the house lights came on.

Lin Qiushi went to the window and looked out through the glass, he saw the city plunged into darkness, the whole city atmosphere was dead silent, not even a street light could be seen - but when he walked in from outside, he clearly saw that the street light was on by the side of the road.

Ruan Nan Candle said, "This house is really interesting."

Lin Qiushi turned his head: "Huh?"

Ruan Nan Candle said, "There are mirrors everywhere."

Lin Qiushi looked around and realized that there were indeed many mirrors in the house, the most incredible of which was that there was even one on the floor.

And when he saw the mirrors, Lin Qiushi couldn't help but remember the line in the clue about using copper as a mirror, and he intuited that the key had something to do with the mirrors, but there were too few clues to hold on to for a moment.

Cheng Yixie stared at the mirror at his feet and didn't speak for a long time, until Lin Qiushi intended to walk away when he suddenly said in a low voice, "This is a double-sided mirror."

Lin Qiushi's expression froze.

Cheng Yixie's voice was slow as he said, "The people downstairs can see our house."

When Ruan Nanzhu heard this, she suddenly looked down at her skirt: "Then wouldn't I be seen naked."

Cheng Yicher: "........"

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

Ruan Nanzhu: "Come to think of it, it's still a bit embarrassing."

Lin Qiushi: ".......Why are you lifting up your skirt even though you're so embarrassed....