Kaleidoscope of Death

The oil lamp that had fallen from the backpack rolled to the ground.

When Lin Qiushi turned around, he also saw his mistress who was staring at them with a knife in her hand. What made Lin Qiushi relieved was that she seemed to be unable to leave the courtyard with a knife, so she just watched them from a distance.

Gu Longming slapped Lin Qiushi's shoulder, exclaiming, "Lin Lin, you're really amazing..."

Lin Qiushi didn't know what to say, so he simply smiled and said, "You can put the oil lamp in your bag first."

"Mm, good." Gu Longming nodded and began to quickly clean up the oil lamps on the ground.

Many of the oil lamps in the backpack had deep knife marks on them, and one should know without thinking, if the knife had been cut on Lin Qiushi's back instead of on the oil lamp, Lin Qiushi would have been cold on the spot. Under the watchful eyes of the mistress of the house, the two of them hurriedly picked up the oil lamps from the ground and turned to go.

They had stolen a total of seven oil lamps, so even if something went wrong, they would definitely make it to the end, but if Lin Qiushi's guess was right, something would definitely happen tonight.

The two of them went back to the house and put the oil lamps away, not planning to go out again, planning to just stay inside the house and keep watch. After all, so many lamps were too heavy to carry around, and it wasn't safe to leave them inside the house. In case it is replaced or stolen by that Yan Shihe guy again, it would be more than worth the loss.

Gu Longming was still immersed in that scene from earlier, he said, "Lin Lin, do you encounter things like this often?"

Lin Qiushi nodded as he recalled.

"Fuck." Gu Longming was so full of admiration that he didn't even know how to praise Lin Qiushi, he danced and gestured, "You don't even know how terrifying it was. Forty meters long ah - good thing you ran thirty-nine meters first!"

Lin Qiushi: "..." he didn't really know what to say for a moment.

They were afraid that the oil lamp would be stolen, so they even ate their lunch inside the house, Lin Qiushi was really bored, so he flipped out the genealogy from his bag to see if there were any clues on it.

The first thing you need to do is to take a look at the photos of the family tree.

Gu Longming was standing right next to Lin Qiushi and also saw this change happening inside the genealogy, he stared at Lin Qiushi and said, "These kids disappeared after we took the oil lamp, it seems that the mistress really locked them up..."

Lin Qiushi nodded, "It should be." Then their guesses were not wrong.

Gu Longming hesitated, "But..." his finger pointed at some of the remaining photos that remained intact, "What's up with these kids?"

Lin Qiushi opened his mouth and said, "The ancestral hall."

As soon as he said that, Gu Longming immediately recalled the human oil lamps that were densely placed inside the ancestral hall that was as bright as day. Apparently, in this small town, placing the tablet inside the ancestral hall didn't only serve the purpose of making offerings, it also suppressed those devils at the same time.

Originally, Lin Qiushi thought about whether or not he should go and release these devils as well, however, given that Yan Shihe had taken people to get the lamps before and the last person to get the lamp ended up in a very miserable situation, so Lin Qiushi didn't want to take the risk unless it was necessary.

The two of them thought so at first, but soon, Lin Qiushi realized that something didn't seem right.

Just in the evening, the mistress appeared outside their window.

She didn't have a knife in her hand though, just standing on the corridor, her black eyes were very obvious grudges, as if she was waiting for something.

Gu Longming spotted her first and quickly called Lin Qiushi over.

"What is she doing out there?" Gu Longming felt creepy looking at her now, rubbing the goosebumps on his own arms, "Looking like she's waiting to kill us..."

In the meantime, Lin Qiushi didn't feel quite right either, he thought, standing up from the house and walking outside.

The mistress was still staring at him.

Lin Qiushi attempted to walk towards the outside of the courtyard, he didn't expect the mistress to follow him out as well. Although it wasn't fast, but when it was really like a spirit behind it, the malicious eyes were almost glued to Lin Qiushi's back.

Gu Longming looked towards Lin Qiushi and said, "What are we going to do?"

Lin Qiushi pursed his lips, he looked at the sky, the sun was already going down, the sudden strange condition on his mistress was clearly signaling something. He pondered for a moment and gritted his teeth, "Let's go, let's go to the ancestral hall."

"Go, go to the ancestral hall?" Gu Longming was a bit stunned at Lin Qiushi's words, "But aren't there all brats there?"

Lin Qiushi said, "Did you see Mistress' face?"

Gu Longming hmmmed.

Lin Qiushi said, "Do you feel that she's waiting for the night."

Gu Longming: "....... "Lin Qiushi didn't say it was fine, as soon as he said it he had a sudden feeling, the way the mistress was following them obviously wanted to be afraid of them running away, and would be afraid of them running away, did it also mean that she would do something to them at night?

They couldn't say what would happen this evening because they had taken the mistress' oil lamp during the day.

"Let's go." Lin Qiushi saw that it was about to get dark, and without any further hesitation, he stuffed all the oil lamps into Gu Longming's bag and they headed towards the ancestral hall.

On their way out they just met Yan Shihe, Yan Shihe saw their hurried appearance and asked with a smile, "It's so late, where is this going?"

Lin Qiushi ignored him and walked straight away.

The shrine was still some distance away from the courtyard where they lived, and the mistress kept following them out the door, only stopping when she was almost at the shrine.

She seemed to be very concerned about the place, and her resentful expression had more than a little bit of fear in it, even as she slowly took a step back.

Lin Qiushi's heart was relieved at the sight.

Gu Longming said, "Wow, she really went back..." he saw his mistress reluctantly turn around and slowly leave.

Lin Qiushi sighed, "Hmm... finally gone."

The two of them reached the entrance of the shrine and saw that the gatekeeper was still dozing off, not planning to greet them at all.

Lin Qiushi was slightly hesitant, he saw at the entrance the plaque that was enshrined inside, as well as a few vacant spots where the lamps had been stolen by the people Yan Shihe had brought over.

"Let's light the three lamps first." Lin Qiushi said, "Fill up the empty places."

Gu Longming nodded.

They took the lamps, lit them, placed them on the empty spot, then sat down against the corner and began to wait for the night to come.

It had to be said that spending the night in a place like this was really quite a test of courage. Sleep was definitely out of the question, and Lin Qiushi leaned against the wall with his head down and started playing Sudoku again. Gu Longming was idly watching, he watched for a while and said, "You're so good at playing sudoku?"

Lin Qiushi said, "I like to play when I have nothing else to do."

It was already dark outside, and the oil lamp inside the ancestral hall was still on, illuminating the entire ancestral hall as if it were daylight, but it wasn't as scary as one would imagine.

But in the end, there were so many plaques standing behind them, and the two were afraid of any accidents, and they couldn't sleep - in fact, the one who really couldn't sleep was Lin Qiushi, and Gu Longming, a product whose head was already a little bit dizzy, looked drowsy. He also seemed to feel a bit uncomfortable, and managed to break free from his sleepiness, wiping his face with his hand and saying somewhat awkwardly, "Sorry, I almost fell asleep..."

Lin Qiushi: "Why don't you sleep first? I'll call you if there's something." He felt a bit bad looking at Gu Longming's desire to sleep.

Gu Longming shook his head, rejecting Lin Qiushi's good intentions and explained, "I'm actually really not usually like this, this is the first time..."

"Alright, alright, I get it." Lin Qiushi waved his hand, indicating that he didn't care.

Gu Longming smiled helplessly.

The night was getting deeper, the outside was stuck in darkness, only the inside of the shrine was brightly lit, everything was silent.

As the time turned to twelve, Lin Qiushi, who had been playing Sudoku, suddenly stopped what he was doing. He heard a sound, the sound of a sharp instrument dragging on the ground, accompanied by the sound of tiny footsteps. Gu Longming saw Lin Qiushi's heavy look and said, "What's wrong?"

Without speaking, Lin Qiushi stood up from the wall and looked out the window. He saw a slowly approaching silhouette in the dreary night.

As the figure got closer and closer, Lin Qiushi saw clearly what the figure looked like, she was the mistress of the courtyard, wearing a long skirt and having black hair. She was carrying a long knife in her hand, and on top of it, it was stained with bright red blood and something that somewhat resembled a piece of meat.

She tilted her head towards the shrine, and half of her face was stained with blood.

It could be seen from the appearance of the mistress, there was no doubt that she had just carried out a brutal massacre, no one knew how many people she had killed in the courtyard.

"There's something on her foot!" Gu Longming suddenly spoke.

Lin Qiushi looked up and found that there was really something on Mistress's leg, it was a brat attached to her leg, these brats were gnawing on something with their mouths full of tiny teeth. If one looked closely, one would see that the flesh on Mistress' leg had been gnawed away, revealing the white bones.

They were taking revenge... Although they were a bit slow, in the end, they were causing serious damage to Mistress.

As Lin Qiushi was thinking this, he saw Mistress raise her hand and then make a throwing motion, actually swinging the long knife in her hand directly over.

The long knife sliced through the air and pierced directly into the window frame, almost breaking it.

Gu Longming was so shocked that he involuntarily took a few steps back, he said in shock, "What is she, what is she going to do, it can't be that we are hiding in the ancestral hall and she wants to kill us too!"

In the meantime, Lin Qiushi said, "That's not possible."

As they were talking, they saw Mistress slowly walk to the window and pull out her long knife, she looked at them through the window with her blood-covered face coldly.

Mistress suddenly opened her mouth, "Even if I die, I will kill you all." After she said this, she actually went towards the door.

Gu Longming was scared and jumped straight up, saying, "Fuck, what to do!" Lin Qiushi's guess was right, fortunately they were hiding in the ancestral hall, if they were still in the courtyard they would have been dead long ago.

Lin Qiushi turned his head to look at the neatly placed oil lamp under the plaque.

Gu Longming saw Lin Qiushi's action: "You're not thinking-"

Lin Qiushi calmly said, "There's always a fight." Mistress wasn't human, they definitely couldn't fight, but these vengeful brats might not be able to. Mistress had already wrapped a few brats around her legs, they would have only needed to continue stalling and Mistress would naturally disappear, but Mistress clearly hated them so much that she was planning to finish the two of them off while she was on her last breath.

Mistress had already reached the door, Lin Qiushi saw the situation and knew that he couldn't wait any longer, he bit his teeth and went under the oil lamp, extinguishing five or six of the oil lamps on the platform in one breath.

As soon as the oil lamp went out, Lin Qiushi felt the sight from the ceiling, he lifted his head and saw eyes that were glowing red on the ceiling, and at that moment, those eyes were looking over towards the mistress at the door.

The mistress had already entered the door with a knife, she seemed to be planning to break the jar, after entering the house, she pounced towards Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming. Lin Qiushi quickly turned around to dodge, but the shrine wasn't very big, and the mistress slashed down, directly cutting down a row of tabletops.

"A soft creak sounded and Lin Qiushi heard the sound of the door closing, then the wailing of a baby came from the ceiling. Fortunately, neither Lin Qiushi nor Gu Longming were any weak chickens with four bodies and five grains, and they tossed and turned in the shrine, and although they were in a mess, they dodged the first few slashes from the mistress.

What finally fell from the ceiling was a blistered and edematous baby, and they landed directly on Mistress's body and began to open those fine teeth and gnaw on her body.

Mistress screamed in pain, her hands did not stop moving, and Gu Longming was unlucky enough to be slashed on the arm, nearly falling to the ground in pain.

As the baby gnawed faster and faster, the mistress gradually changed from a human form to a skeletal form, her movements became slower, and eventually her entire body fell to her knees.

First the flesh was eaten, then the bones, and after the last piece of bone was eaten, Lin Qiushi heard a crisp sound. That noise was the sound of bronze falling to the ground, Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming looked up and saw a striking bronze key in a pool of blood.

Although Lin Qiushi already had a sneaking suspicion, he was still slightly surprised when he saw that the key was inside his mistress' body.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!" Gu Longming almost jumped up in his place in excitement, saying, "The key, the key! We found the key!!!" He was about to rush over, but he saw a circle of kids around the key, all of them looking terrified and drunk, but still a little scary.

Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming were trying to get the key from the innermost part of the children, but they found that the appearance of the children had changed, their swollen faces gradually returned to their original appearance, and their tiny teeth had become milk teeth that had not yet grown.

The headache-inducing weeping also stopped, and turned into giggling.

After satisfying their final obsession, their bodies became transparent and finally turned into a dot of light, disappearing inside the shrine.

Lin Qiushi slowly walked over and picked up the key, he said, "It worked."

Gu Longming was incoherent with joy and said, "What do I, what do we do, go out? Where are the keys, where's the door?"

The key was found, and now there was still the door left. Lin Qiushi turned around inside the ancestral hall to make sure there was no door and said, "It should be in the courtyard, let's go back and take a look."

"Good." Gu Longming was very happy.

So they went back to the courtyard in the night, the mistress was gone, the kid was gone, and it was quiet and reassuring outside.

As soon as they returned to the courtyard, they entered and saw the tragedy inside.

There were only two people lying in the middle of the courtyard that had been cut in half, they seemed to have been cut in half by the Mistress and were directly out of breath.

"All dead?" Gu Longming was creeped out.

Lin Qiushi shook his head, as he entered the courtyard he heard voices talking from a room not too far away, he didn't think that the mistress would actually strike out at the others after they left. According to the rules inside the door, there was actually a limit to the number of people she could kill in one night, otherwise I'm afraid the other people in the courtyard would also be less fortunate.

Lin Qiushi didn't want to waste any more time, so he and Gu Longming went straight to the courtyard where the mistress was, and after going in, they indeed found the iron door hidden inside the cabinet in the mistress' other bedroom.

Seeing the iron door, Lin Qiushi's entire body relaxed, he was about to take out the key to open the iron door, but the door closed behind him suddenly opened, Yan Shihe walked out from inside, he was actually holding a gun in his hand.

"Good evening." Yan Shihe greeted them with a smile.

Lin Qiushi opened the door with a pause, needless to say he understood Yan Shihe's meaning.

"Give it to me." Yan Shihe extended his hand.

Lin Qiushi was silent for a moment, but he still handed over the key in his hand to Yan Shihe, who knew that after Yan Shihe got the key, he shot at Lin Qiushi's feet. Lin Qiushi was momentarily unprepared and screamed in pain, his entire body falling to the ground.

"Haha." Yan Shihe laughed, "Looks like it's not a knife or gun yet."

"Grass you-" Gu Longming held Lin Qiushi and cursed obscenities in anger, "What the fuck is wrong with you? Just take the key, and shoot for what!"

"I like it." Yan Shihe coldly said, "What do you care." He turned the key on his finger and said, "Make way for the door, I'm leaving."

Gu Longming knew that they were no match for Yan Shihe at this point, so although he was indignant, he still made his way out of the way.

Yan Shihe walked towards the front, he squeezed the key and opened the iron door, then bent down to pick up the clues that had fallen off the top of the door.

Xiao Shallow was standing behind Yan Shihe and hadn't dared to look towards Lin Qiushi and the others until Yan Shihe picked up the clue, but Lin Qiushi saw her suddenly quicken her pace and walk behind Yan Shihe.

Then, suddenly, she raised her hand and made a stabbing motion.

"Ah!!" Yan Shihe let out a scream, and both the clue and the gun in his hand fell to the ground.

Xiao Shallow bent down and smilingly picked up the clue, then kicked Yan Shihe's gun to the side.

Only behind Yan Shihe's back, there was actually a shining dagger stuck in his hand, and Xiao Shallow smiled, "Thank you, Brother Yan." Her appearance at this time was completely different from her previous appearance of only following Yan Shihe, she put the clue in her pocket, pulled out the dagger on Yan Shihe's body and smiled, "If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have been able to get through this door." Then she looked to Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming, "Of course, thank you two as well."

After saying this, he went towards the door.

"Let's go too." Lin Qiushi looked at the fallen Yan Shihe and gritted his teeth, "Bring his gun over first."

Gu Longming took advantage of Yan Shihe's inability to move and picked up the gun that had been kicked away by Xiao Shallow, then helped Lin Qiushi up. Lin Qiushi took the gun from Gu Longming and stuffed it into his pants pocket, and the two slowly entered the glowing door in front of them.

After passing through the tunnel, the images around Lin Qiushi spun and finally he was back in reality, however, as soon as he returned, he felt severely unwell and fainted after a difficult phone call to Ruan Nanzhu.

Two days later, Lin Qiushi woke up from his coma.

He had gotten used to the fact that he often went into the hospital, so instead of being surprised when he saw the white-colored ceiling, he breathed a sigh of relief - at least he came out alive.

"Awake?" Ruan Nan Candle's voice was heard.

Lin Qiushi turned his head and saw Ruan Nan Candle, sitting backlit, somewhat unable to see his face clearly, but his voice was gentle.

Lin Qiushi inexplicably felt like he missed him a little, but he quickly shook this somewhat strange emotion to the back of his mind and made a low mewling sound.

"High fever again." Ruan Nan Candle said, "Injured inside, I guess."

Lin Qiushi thought about it, but said, "Got shot on the way out at the end."

Ruan Nam Candle said, "Is that the one you brought out?"

Lin Qiushi nodded.

Ruan Nan Candle was quiet for a while: "Normal guns can't be brought in."

Lin Qiushi was stunned.

Ruan Nan Candle explained, "That gun, it shouldn't be a normal firearm."

"Not a normal gun...?" Lin Qiushi remembered the appearance of the gun, it was silvery white and felt quite heavy in his hands, "Did you bring it from inside the door?" Now that I think about it, I'm afraid that Yan Shihe is also an old man who brought someone through the door.

"Most likely." Ruan Nanzhu said, "You rest well first."

Lin Qiushi sniffed, but he seemed to have good luck, he was just afraid that Yan Shihe would attack them again, but he hadn't expected to bring out a prop.