Kaleidoscope of Death

After a simple dinner, the sky darkened.

Everyone went back to their respective rooms to prepare for a rest, and Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming were no exception. Lin Qiushi finished washing up briefly in his room and did not rush to bed, but stood by the window, observing the opposite room.

The place where the baby cried yesterday was right across from them. The room that Lin Qiushi had moved out in the middle of the night was right in the middle of them.

After checking during the day, Lin Qiushi didn't find anything strange inside those rooms, except for the small holes on the window paper that could be easily overlooked.

The windows here were separated into small pieces of wood, with glass on top and paper on the bottom, Lin Qiushi could see the outside scene through the glass if he stood by the window, but if he sat down, he couldn't see anything.

"What are you looking at?" Lying on the bed, Gu Longming looked over his shoulder at Lin Qiushi and asked.

"I want to see how that room is different from ours." Lin Qiushi said, "You sleep first."

Gu Longming said, "Then let's chant together."

Lin Qiushi said, "I'll be fine on my own, I won't keep watch for too long, you go to sleep first, you won't be much help when you're awake anyway."

Gu Longming then blinked his eyes as he stared at Lin Qiushi, and didn't insist, "Alright." He yawned and rolled over, and actually fell asleep in less than two minutes.

Looking at him, Lin Qiushi couldn't help but think of Ruan Nan Candle... Ruan Nan Candle's skill at falling asleep was also top-notch, but then again, the people who entered with him to do the mission seemed to basically sleep faster, even Cheng Yixie was no exception.

The night was gloomy, and the cool breeze hit the corridor, blowing the lanterns hanging in the corridor to shake.

The firelight was bright and dark at times, and Lin Qiushi could only vaguely see the scenery of the corridor outside through the darkness. He looked down at his watch, it was now eleven o'clock at night, almost midnight.

Lin Qiushi was going to wait until twelve o'clock, and if the room across the hall hadn't changed, he would go back to bed.

As he was thinking this, Lin Qiushi noticed a blurred red figure at the end of the opposite corridor, moving slowly in the darkness, and when he reached the bottom of a lantern, Lin Qiushi finally saw what the red figure was by the light of the lantern.

It turned out to be seven or eight children in red clothes, who were resting on the shoulders of the person in front of them, hanging their heads, moving slowly forward step by step. I don't know if it was because they were too far away, Lin Qiushi couldn't see their faces clearly, but judging from their walking posture, these children were clearly not human.

They walked slowly in line, and when they reached the bottom of a window, they suddenly stopped in their tracks. The first child showed a strange smile on his white face, slowly turned around to face the window, stood on tiptoe, stretched out a tiny finger, poked a small hole out of the paper paste on the window, and then stuck his face on the hole.

When Lin Qiushi saw this scene, a layer of white hair sweat formed on his back, he now finally understood why there were so many tiny holes on the window of the room he had changed before... If he hadn't brought the baby skeletons out and changed rooms, then those kids would have seen them from the other side of the window paper at this time.

Those things seemed to have discovered that there was no one in the room and turned around towards the next room. Lin Qiushi remembered that room was occupied, so he then saw those kids, after poking a hole in it, turn into a stream of blood that flowed right into the house through the hole on top of the window paper.

This happened quietly, but in a flash the corridor was calm once again.

Lin Qiushi thought of what had happened during the day, and whispered the clue several times: "Terror in heaven and earth, there is a cryer in my house, a past benefactor recites three times, and sleeps until dawn..." he recited three times in a row, and was about to go back to bed to sleep, but then The back of a woman was seen in the middle of the courtyard. The woman wore a long red dress and had long black hair, and looked to be the same hostess who had received them during the day.

She stood there quietly, facing the room that those children had entered, her cold back like a frozen statue.

Lin Qiushi didn't want to look any further, he carefully turned around and walked towards the bed. However, as soon as he sat on the edge of the bed, a bright light suddenly appeared in front of him, and Lin Qiushi revealed a startled look, discovering that the oil lamp placed on the table had somehow lit itself.

The oil lamp's light illuminated the entire room, and undoubtedly attracted the attention of everything in the darkness of the night - both good and bad things.

Between the lightning and the flames, Lin Qiushi a flying dive in front of the oil lamp, unable to care about anything else, reached out and picked up the lamp shade and quickly covered the oil lamp.

The fire of the oil lamp instantly went out, yet Lin Qiushi's body stiffened. He felt a line of sight, a line of sight that was projected in from outside the window, he was half squatting, not daring to straighten up, very worried that something outside would see him.

I don't know if it was because Lin Qiushi was too nervous or what, but he even heard the slight sound of the breeze blowing through his skirt outside.

Then, something slowly rubbed against the window paper, and a moment later, a finger coated with red nail polish poked through the thin layer of window paper.

Lin Qiushi was crouched right next to the window, right at the dead end of this hole, but the people inside the hole couldn't see him, but he could see the people inside the hole - a black eye appeared behind the window, peering unkindly towards the inside of the house, searching for a target.

Gu Longming on the bed was still breathing evenly and hadn't been awakened by it all.

Lin Qiushi held his breath, trying to make his presence as low as possible.

Those eyes looked outside for a long time, but eventually she still didn't find Lin Qiushi crouching in the corner, she sighed with some regret and slowly moved her eyes away.

But Lin Qiushi didn't dare to move, he had a feeling that it was still near the house....

As expected, a few seconds later, the black eyes appeared again, and if Lin Qiushi had just started to believe that she had left, he was afraid that this thing would be looking right at him, as to what would happen, it was unknown.

There was still no search for Lin Qiushi, the black eyes smelled of anger and displeasure, and the sound of a shift came from outside Lin Qiushi's yard again, the owner of the black eyes heard this sound before disappearing behind the window paper.

Lin Qiushi squatted in the same spot for a long time again, making sure that what was outside had left, before slowly standing up from the ground. His legs were numb from squatting and he staggered back to the bed.

Gu Longming was still asleep, unaware of everything that had just happened.

Lin Qiushi exhaled a breath and lay down on Gu Longming's side, all he could think about was those kids and the mistress of the courtyard, he always felt that there was a key clue hidden inside this courtyard.

If this was an ordinary person, he would definitely not be able to sleep after experiencing that scene just now, but the rich experience of passing through the door before made Lin Qiushi quickly calm down, he closed his eyes and began to try to recall the peaceful feeling of lying down beside Ruan Nan Candle, and actually fell asleep really quickly.

It seemed that Ruan Nan Candle, the sleeping essence, was really effective, basically thinking about it was enough to fall asleep.

On the third day, the movement of Gu Longming waking up woke Lin Qiushi up as well, he opened his eyes and saw Gu Longming greeting him with a big grin, "Good morning, didn't anything happen last night, right?"

Lin Qiushi said, "It almost got cold when I encountered it."

Gu Longming: "...Are you serious?"

Lin Qiushi said, "Of course I'm serious." He sat up from the bed and briefly described what happened last night.

Gu Longming didn't take it seriously at first, but when he heard the thing standing by the window looking at him for a long time, he revealed a horrified expression: "Fuck, she just looked at me all night?"

Lin Qiushi: "Pretty much."

Gu Longming said, "Good thing I'm wearing pajamas." He shyly said, "If I slept naked like I did at home..."

Lin Qiushi: ".......you might just die.

After joking about it, Gu Longming got serious again and said, "So do we still need to change rooms tonight?"

Lin Qiushi thought about it and said, "Let's go have breakfast first."

When he arrived at the place for breakfast, Lin Qiushi noticed that two people were missing from the team, the same two that lived in the room where the little child had stopped yesterday.

"The two of them were back last night, right?" Everyone was whispering about the two missing people.

Lin Qiushi quickly settled the breakfast and gave a wink to Gu Longming.

Gu Longming wasn't full yet, and after stuffing another steamed bun into his mouth, he vaguely said, "Go go go."

Lin Qiushi stood up and walked towards the outside of the house.

"Where are you going?" Someone was asking them.

"Let's go over and check their room." Lin Qiushi replied, "See if they're still there."

"I'll join you." The Yan Shihe who entered the shrine after Lin Qiushi and the others yesterday also stood up, his partner Xiao Shallow seemed a little reluctant to go but eventually said nothing and followed along.

As the four of them walked down the corridor, Yan Shihe asked them if they had heard any sounds last night.

"No." Gu Longming said very straightforwardly, "I slept until dawn, and I didn't hear anything."

Lin Qiushi also shook his head.

"Oh." Yan Shihe nodded, "I did hear the cries of little children last night... It probably came from next to where you guys live, you guys should be careful at night."

Lin Qiushi didn't say anything at the news, he hadn't heard anything strange last night, with his hearing, even Yan Shihe could hear it, there was no reason for him to miss it.

Either Yan Shihe was lying to them by saying such words, or he was the only one who could hear this cry.

As they spoke, they walked to the door of the missing two's residence.

Lin Qiushi raised his hand and knocked on the door, waiting for a moment before unsurprisingly finding no movement inside.

"Go straight in?" Lin Qiushi.

"Okay." Yan Shihe didn't mind, "But it seems like it's locked inside."

Lin Qiushi said, "Let me try." He had started to learn the craft of opening doors with Ruan Nanzhu outside the door, but he wasn't progressing fast enough to handle some of the more complicated locks yet. This kind of old lock in front of him was still fine, and if he really couldn't open it, breaking the door would be fine, but it wasn't difficult to really want to get in anyway.

A minute later, the lock opened in response to the sound of the door.

Gu Longming cast an admiring look at Lin Qiushi: "Brother, you're amazing, I now believe that you're unemployed."

Lin Qiushi: "..." he always felt that there was something wrong with that sentence.

Yan Shihe reached out and pushed open the door in front of them, displaying the scene inside the house. There was only blood everywhere in the modest bedroom, but it wasn't like it was splattered, but more like it was left behind after the dragging.

There was no doubt that the owner of the room was already in mortal danger at this point.

Lin Qiushi walked into the room and after pretending to check around carelessly, he slowly walked over to the window. He saw the holes again, but compared to yesterday, seeing the holes today was a little more complicated.

Yan Shihe was also quite meticulous and soon found the small hole in the window, he looked at the small hole and couldn't find a clue, instead Gu Longming pretended to come carelessly, "How come I remembered the incense in the martial arts drama, it wouldn't be people who killed them, right?"

Yan Shihe sniffed and looked at Gu Longming.

Inside the house, there was another rather concerning place, which was that Lin Qiushi noticed that there was no oil inside the oil lamp placed on the counter, which was filled to the brim when they first moved in, and it had only been used for two days and nights, so it was impossible to run out. But the oil lamp in front of them had burned until it was dry, and it wasn't clear if someone had emptied the oil out of it, or if it was for some other reason.

"Where are the bodies, where are their bodies?" After searching around inside the house, Yan Shihe didn't even see the bodies of these two, he was a bit confused, "Even if they're dead, they should always see the bodies."

But the bodies were gone, and there was no place to hide the bodies in the not-so-big bedroom.

"I don't know." Shallow replied, "Could it have been eaten by those things?"

Yan Shihe frowned and didn't say anything. There was actually a possibility of this, after all, anything could happen inside the door.

Lin Qiushi was also thinking about the corpse, but what he wanted to know more was where the mistress was now.

It was as if there wouldn't be any more clues in the house, but instead, Gu Longming found another child's bloody handprint in a very remote corner, and he didn't tell this to Yan Shihe, but quietly told Lin Qiushi after the four of them had separated.

"Mm, got it." Lin Qiushi nodded, "Where do you think their bodies were taken to?"

Gu Longming: "I don't know... isn't it normal to be killed by something like this without a body?"

Lin Qiushi said, "It's not good." Gu Longming's words actually made sense, but he just felt that something was wrong, as if his intuition was telling him that the whereabouts of the corpse was very important, but this was just intuition, but there was no evidence in the proof. It was like what Nguyen Nam Candle had said about the experience, it was hard to describe it in concrete words.

"You're so concerned or we'd be looking around?" Gu Longming noticed that Lin Qiushi's brow had been furrowed and said, "There are still some parts of this courtyard that we haven't walked through."

"Then let's look for it." Lin Qiushi nodded.

The two of them then began to wander around the courtyard again.

It had to be said that this courtyard was very large and the roads were set up in a mess, so it was easy to get lost in it. Fortunately, Lin Qiushi had a very good memory, so it wasn't difficult to navigate through it with Gu Longming.

Instead, Gu Longming walked around with a foggy head and said, "Didn't we just walk through here?" He remembered the surrounding scenery seemed to be exactly the same.

"No walk." Lin Qiushi said, "This rock is a little smaller on the path we just walked."

Gu Longming: "......." he stared at the stone even though he was staring at the flowers and didn't find anything different from just now, so he cast his admiring eyes on Lin Qiushi and said, "You're amazing! ...This can be discovered."

Lin Qiushi smiled and didn't say anything.

He actually didn't have such a memory before, but his memory had started to get better since he entered the gate, and this kind of memory of fixed scenery was not difficult at all for him to speak.

This courtyard was simply like a deliberate attempt to get lost, many places were built exactly the same, even the grass, trees, potted plants and rockeries were all using the same pattern.

Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming spent the entire morning in the courtyard, and finally found the place they were looking for - they found the courtyard where the mistress lived.

Why were they sure it was the place where the mistress lived, because there Lin Qiushi saw a long red dress that was hanging from the treetops and swaying in the wind. He remembered that this long dress was the same one that Mistress was wearing last night.

"Do you smell anything." In the meantime, Gu Longming arrived here and sniffled, "It stinks."

Lin Qiushi also smelled it, it was a smell that was hard to describe in words, a bit like blood, a bit like something rotting, all in all very disgusting.

Luckily Cheng Yicher wasn't here, or else it would probably be very unpleasant.

The place where the mistress lived was only separated from where they were by an iron door, which was half-hidden and allowed a vague view of the scene inside.

Lin Qiushi first observed outside for a moment.

It was a large courtyard, but inside it was empty, no plants could be seen except for a huge dead tree. And the long skirt that the mistress was wearing was hanging from the top of this dead tree.

After making sure that there was no movement inside, Lin Qiushi gently pushed open the door and they walked into the courtyard.

After looking around, Lin Qiushi soon found traces of blood in the corner of the courtyard, the traces looked like something had dragged across the ground, very similar to the traces in the two missing persons' rooms.

Gu Longming seemed to dislike this courtyard very much and covered his nose with his hand.

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

Gu Longming said, "The feng shui of this courtyard is so bad, it's like a place where dead people live."

Lin Qiushi said, "Isn't the place where we live the place where the dead live?"

Gu Longming shook his head, "It's a bit more serious here, normal houses are better for being square, but this one here is actually purposely missing a corner..."

Lin Qiushi took a closer look and found that the house here was really missing corners, and the corners were hardened into a circular shape, which looked extremely strange.

As the two of them were talking, Lin Qiushi suddenly changed his appearance and said, "Hide, someone is coming." After saying that, he found a corner and hid in with Gu Longming.

A moment later, the red-clothed mistress appeared at the door, her beautiful face wearing an indifferent expression, she didn't notice Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming's presence and went towards a certain room.

When she entered the house, Gu Longming was relieved and whispered, "Scared the hell out of me... Are we leaving?"

Lin Qiushi: "No, I want to go over there and take a look."

Gu Longming: "Go over there and take a look? It's so dangerous to go and see?"

Lin Qiushi made a gesture of silence. In fact, not long after his mistress entered the house, he heard a very subtle sound, a sound that sounded like a sharp blade cutting something hard, slashing and thumping one after another.

Although Gu Longming was very disapproving of Lin Qiushi still wanting to go over to look, he still didn't object anymore, but instead followed Lin Qiushi obediently and crept forward, although it was indeed quite funny for such a big man to do this action.

Lin Qiushi reached Mistress's doorway and peered sideways towards it with a cautious view.

The Mistress had her back to them, holding a long knife in her hand, and was chopping something with her head down, and after Lin Qiushi took a closer look, he found that it was a large piece of flesh... and from the part of the ribs that distinguished it, it was clearly part of the human body.

Obviously, the bodies of the two people who had disappeared last night should be what the Mistress was dealing with under her hands at this point.

Inside the room where the mistress was, there was something even stranger that caught Lin Qiushi's attention. It was a row of shelves filled with densely packed oil lamps, some of which were empty and some of which were filled with solidified lamp oil.

The hostess hummed and easily broke apart several pieces of meat, and Lin Qiushi saw the parts that belonged to the hands and feet, confirming his suspicions even more. Only after separating the pieces of meat, the mistress began to light a fire and placed an iron pot on top of the stove.

What was she going to do... Gu Longming silently asked Lin Qiushi with frightened eyes.

Lin Qiushi spread his hands, indicating that he didn't know.

Gu Longming's eyes were a little panicked and lowered his voice, "Fuck, the meat I'm fucking eating during the day, wouldn't that be..."

Lin Qiushi: "...I don't think so."

Lin Qiushi's tone also contained hesitation, clearly unsure as well. Thinking about the fragrant food he had eaten during the day and the bone soup he had drunk last night, Gu Longming simply wanted to vomit it out on the spot, he tried to hold it back and warned himself in his heart that it was safer to be good and eat compressed biscuits and the like inside the door in the future....

The hostess, however, had already heated the pot and began to put pieces of meat into the pot.