Kaleidoscope of Death

Zhu Ruyuan isn't human, which means they can't find her now. But even though they can't find her, they can find Zhou Hanshan who is still alive.

Ai Wenrui knew the address of Zhou Hanshan's dormitory, so the three of them went straight to the dormitory.

On the way there, Lin Qiushi met the girl named Zuo Sisi again. She and her partner were sitting by the flower bed of the school with an object in their hands, and seemed to be discussing something.

Gu Longming saw the object in their hands from a distance, and he said in surprise, "It's a puppeteer, where did they find a puppeteer-"

Lin Qiushi remembered the two outsiders who had died last night, thought about it, walked up to Zosi and greeted them, "Zosi, what are you doing?"

Zuo Silk saw them coming over, smoothly hid the wooden man, smiling, "Nothing, just chatting."

Lin Qiushi had a good impression of this girl, and didn't beat around the bush, saying, "You found the wooden man too?"

"Well..." left Silk vague, "What?"

"Now that we've found it, let's keep it safe." Lin Qiushi said, "I also found the Wooden Man on the man who died this morning, with the head on top of the Wooden Man missing I suspect the Wooden Man has something to do with the way those two died."

The companion next to Zuo Silk turned pale at the news, "What?"

Gu Longming saw how panicked he was, "Hey, you're not throwing it away already, are you?"

"I...I..." he pointed to the pond behind him, his face white, "I just thought it was unlucky, so I just threw one at it Get in!"

"What about it? Nothing will happen to you!" Zosi panicked too.

"I'm going to get it back!" His companion spoke hurriedly.

"Wait-"Before Lin Qiushi could remember to stop it, he saw Zuosi's companion plunging directly into the pond behind him.

This was the school's landscaped pond, very shallow, a man of one and a half meters standing in it with water only up to the bend of his legs, according to normal circumstances, could not drown in it by any means.

But the world inside the door, apparently, cannot be measured by the word normal.

The man was bending over trying to feel the wood out after getting into the water, and the water around him was like boiling, and the water began to roll violently, Lin Qiushi saw this and was busy calling out, "Come out quickly-"

As soon as the man heard the news, he took a step towards where they were, and countless pairs of stiff, pale hands emerged from the turquoise water, grabbed his body, and began dragging him under the pond.

Lin Qiushi reacted the fastest, rushing to the edge of the pond with one healthy step and grabbed the man's panicked waving hands, "Quickly help him-"

Zuo Silk Gu Longming and Ai Wenrui also hurried to follow, holding Lin Qiushi's body and dragging the two of them backwards.

Working together, the four of them finally rescued the man who was almost dragged down in the pond, and the man almost didn't cry when he was dragged up, saying, "It's so fucking horrible - my pants were dragged off -" his outside jeans were dragged hard into the pond, and now all that was left was a pair of flowery quadrupeds.

"Tsk." Zoss cast a disgusted look at him, "I can't believe you're wearing these pants."

Companion: "...Yeah, if he knew he would be taking off his pants in public he would have chosen a nicer flowery color.

Lin Qiushi exhaled and said, "I suggest you stay away from places with water lately."

"Well, thanks for reminding me, where are you going?" Zuo Silk also felt that there was something different about Lin Qiushi's group.

Lin Qiushi said, "A trip to the dormitory... where exactly did you guys find this woodsman?"

"It was in the sculpture club's activity room." Zuo Silk answered Lin Qiushi's question this time, "We found out that all the dead students seemed to have joined the sculpture club, so we went there to have a look."

It seemed like almost everyone knew this information, but they just weren't as lucky as Lin Qiushi's and didn't meet an NPC like Evan Rui who knew the details.

"Let's go, if we don't go, we'll all have to go to class again." Ai Wen Rui whispered beside him.

Zuo Silk looked at Ai Wen Rui with a little more meaning in her eyes, and she said, "Good luck to you."

"Good luck." Lin Qiushi nodded and pointed to Zuo Silk's companion, "You guys go put on some pants first."

The companion in underwear: "...Okay, thanks for asking."

The three of them went to the dormitory, and according to Evinrude, Zhou Hanshan was living in room 307.

But the three of them knocked on the door outside for a long time, but no one inside responded.

"It's not there, or let's go." Ai Wenrui said.

Gu Longming said, "What's the walk, what's the walk, can't we go in here?" He turned his attention to Lin Qiushi.

Lin Qiushi: "..." he was silent for three seconds, "You guys help me watch to see if anyone else sees it."

It was only then that Ai Wen Rui remembered that Lin Qiushi could unlock the door, his expression was a bit complicated and he softly hmmed.

A few minutes later, they entered Zhou Hanshan's dormitory.

But after entering it, they found that the dormitory was empty, no one lived here at all. Both the inside and outside balconies were empty, and judging from the state of the sinks and dust, no one had lived here for a long time.

"Has Zhou Hanshan gone home?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"I don't know, I really haven't seen him for a while since the accident," Evangeline said, "But I haven't heard anything about him dropping out of school." He said this and laughed to himself, "Maybe he dropped out of school, but I don't know... After all, who has the extra energy to care about other people at a time like this."

Lin Qiushi thought about it and suddenly asked, "Can you contact that friend from before?"

"Which one?" Ivory said.

"The three that were in the classroom at the time." Lin Qiushi said, "you, Kazuhiro, and the one who ran away from the door - you can relate to that one, can't you?"

"I'm not sure." Evangeline shook her head, "I'm sure he'll take my call..."

Lin Qiushi said, "You call him first."

Ai Wen Rui nodded and picked up his phone and dialed a number, after the phone rang for about ten seconds, it was still connected, and a boy's voice came from the other end, saying, "Hello."

Hearing this person's voice, Ai Wen Rui was about to open his mouth, but the glass next to him let out a loud bang, and Lin Qiushi looked up to see that a round object had been thrown straight in through the window, and after smashing the glass, the object rolled straight in front of them.

Evangeline looked at the ground and fell into a daze of emotion, his phone on speaker and his friend's voice still coming out of the speaker.

"Why aren't you talking?" The person on the other end of the phone asked, "Is there something wrong, do you need me to come over to you?"

Evangeline hung her head and looked at the ground.

It was a man's head, cut off by something sharp right above the neck, and dripping with blood, it would have been fine if it was just a normal head, but....

Ivory turned his head stiffly to the still-vocalizing telephone, whose owner's head, now lying still in front of him, was staring at him with those sightless eyes.

"You speak ah, why don't you speak ah-" something on the other side of the phone, I don't know what, still continues to voice, only this voice has a few more strange and twisted taste. " It was mixed with some jumbled background music that sounded even creepier.

"It's obviously you..." the voice continued while it was still going on, but Evangeline screamed like she couldn't take it anymore and threw her phone out the window, saying, "Aaaahhhh!!!! If he's dead, I'm dead!!!! Help!!! Help!!!"

"You calm down!!!" Gu Longming saw that Evan Rui looked like he was going crazy and reached out to grab him, he was really afraid that the kid was overstimulated and would just jump out of the window.

"Help, help, I don't want to die-" cried Ai Wenrui.

Lin Qiushi said, "You take him back to the dormitory!"

Gu Longming said, "What about you?"

Lin Qiushi said, "I have something to confirm-"

Gu Longming looked at Ai Wenrui and then at Lin Qiushi, his expression somewhat hesitant, clearly torn between Lin Qiushi and Ai Wenrui. Although Ai Wen Rui looked very real, in the end he was just an NPC inside the gate, if he caused any accidents to Lin Qiushi in order to protect him, it would be more than worth it.

"It's fine, you go ahead." Lin Qiushi said, "I'll be back soon."

When Gu Longming saw Lin Qiushi's determination, he finally could only nod his head and carried Evan Rui away.

While watching their backs, Lin Qiushi turned his attention to the smashed window and the dead head on the ground.

"You were what when you died." Lin Qiushi looked at the head and muttered to himself, "Was it today, yesterday, or..." he stopped here and turned around to look for what he was looking for downstairs.

Soon, Lin Qiushi found a phone with a cracked screen in the corner of a bush. He pressed the on button and kept praying in his heart that he was lucky, the phone showed a screen that turned on, although the screen was cracked and some of the details couldn't be seen clearly, it was generally unaffected.

Lin Qiushi took the phone and started looking through the contacts inside. He found the row of names that started with the letter Z, but he couldn't find the name Zhou Hanshan.

It seemed that Ai Wenrui shouldn't be lying when he said that he didn't know Zhou Hansan well.

Lin Qiushi squeezed the phone and suddenly thought of something else, he opened the call record and saw the name in the note on the latest call record: Xiao Zhuan.

Small Seal should be Ai Wenrui's friend's name.

Lin Qiushi returned to his desktop and clicked into the SMS list, he saw the message from Little Seal to Ai Wenrui, he clicked directly into it and saw a recent text message sent to him.

The text message was sent last night, and Lin Qiushi's expression froze when he saw the content of the message.

Because at the top of the text message, there was a name they were very familiar with written: Zhou Hanshan, what the hell should we do.

Seeing this message, Lin Qiushi felt that the situation was not good, immediately remembered Gu Longming who had brought Ai Wenrui back to the dormitory, and immediately turned around and ran towards the dormitory.

All this way Lin Qiushi was sorting through the messages Ai Wenrui had given them.

Almost all of the information they knew about the sculpture, Zhu Ruoyuan, and the wish was given to them by Ai Wen Rui, which meant that even if Ai Wen Rui lied, they had no way to tell. Ai Wen Rui says he's just an innocent victim, but the name for the owner of the phone in the text message reveals his identity.

He's Zhou Hanshan, the one who fell in love with Zhu Ruyuan.

He tricked the members of the sculpture club into smearing their blood on the wooden sculpture and then making a wish afterwards. Ai Wen Rui naturally wouldn't die, because he was most likely, the only one who knew the truth... Of course, all of this was Lin Qiushi's speculation.

Lin Qiushi reached the bottom of the dormitory building panting, he climbed to the second floor with great difficulty and knocked heavily on the door, "Gu Longming, Gu Longming are you there!"

A moment later, the door opened, revealing Gu Longming's face behind it, "Keep your voice down, he's asleep."

"Evangeline's asleep?" Lin Qiushi looked into the house and indeed saw a thin figure shrinking on the bed in the corner, and judging from the back, it was Evan Rui.

"Hmm." Gu Long chirped softly, "Why are you in such a hurry, what did you find out?"

Lin Qiushi said, "Come out and say it."

They walked to the end of the corridor and found a secluded corner, Lin Qiushi went straight to the point, "Ai Wenrui is not Ai Wenrui, it's Zhou Hanshan."

"What? What?" Gu Longming apparently failed to react at once to what Lin Qiushi meant by this, repeated it several times, and also reached out and grabbed Lin Qiushi's arm, startled, "Zhou Hanshan, is that Zhou Hanshan?"

"Well, yes." Lin Qiushi said, "That's him."

"Then what's going on here." Gu Longming said, "He's been lying to us... is he trying to get us killed? Or was there some other purpose..." he was a bit confused now, and Ai Wenrui... no, it was Zhou Hanshan, who had pretty much taken them all the way through the whole picture.

From the sculpture club, to Zhu Ruoyuan, to the spirit game, and the wishes they had made, Gu Longming really didn't understand what he wanted to do anymore.

"So what are we going to do next?" Gu Longming touched his face, "Damn, he actually lied to us, thanks to me carrying him for so long."

"Showdown." Lin Qiushi said, "Don't waste time guessing."

"Fine." Gu Longming said, "He's a human anyway, so I'm not afraid of him being a demon."

He seemed a little angry at being tricked by Ai Wenrui, and turned menacingly and pushed the door open, grabbing the sleepy Ai Wenrui out of bed and saying, "Zhou Hanshan-"

Zhou Hanshan looked dazed when he was woken up, "What's wrong?" He asked this for two seconds before he realized that the name Gu Longming had called out was not Ai Wenrui but Zhou Hanshan, then his face changed and he shuddered, "You guys know it..."

"Hmm." Lin Qiushi threw his phone in front of Zhou Hanshan, "This name was mentioned in your phone text message."

Zhou Hansan looked numb.

"Say it, who the hell are you and why did you lie to us." Gu Longming said, "What do you want?"

Zhou Hanshan smiled bitterly, "I... I didn't want to lie to you, but if I told you that I am Zhou Hanshan, you would definitely not believe me."

Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming didn't speak.

"They all know that Zhou Hanshan is in love with Zhu Ruyuan." Zhou Hanshan said, "I'm just afraid that you guys might think I have some bad intentions... actually..."

"Actually, you didn't?" Lin Qiushi looked him in the eyes, "You think we can believe that?"

Zhou Hanshan was silent for a moment: "Then what will it take for you to believe me."

Lin Qiushi: "Do you know that Zhu Ruyuan is a dead person?"

Zhou Hanshan shook his head, "I don't know, until that time when I played the game..." he covered his face with his hands, his shoulders began to shake, "I found out that there was no shadow of her."

At that time, everyone's attention was on the sculpture, Zhou Hanshan was holding a smiling Zhu Ruoyuan in his arms, and they were whispering, but Zhou Hanshan sensed something was wrong.

He lowered his head, looking a little confused, and even raised his hand to rub his eyes.

However, no matter how much he rubbed his eyes, the shadows on the ground only belonged to him... while the girl in his arms was as if she didn't exist at all.

After discovering this incident, chills crept up Zhou Hanshan's spine a little bit, and the person on his side seemed to have noticed something strange about him and softly asked, "What's wrong, my dear?"

"Not much." Zhou Hanshan said, "Just a little tired." He saw his friends standing in front of him, hip-hopping to prick their fingers and put bright red blood, smearing it on top of the little man made of wood. His arm was originally around the person next to him, yet after realizing that there was no shadow of the person next to him, he felt the position of skin to skin with her become stiff and cold, as if... he was holding a statue.

At the memory, Zhou Hanshan's entire body trembled as he shuddered, "I tried to stop them then, but I couldn't say anything at all."

"You dripped blood as well?" Gurung asked.

"Dropped, I was the first." Zhou Hansan said here, his tone filled with remorse, "It's just that I wasn't sincere when I made my wish, and I didn't register for that competition afterwards."

Without registering, it was naturally impossible to win a prize, and Zhou Hansan dodged a bullet.

Gu Longming said, "Why didn't you sign up? Doesn't your sculpture club care about this award?"

"Haha." Zhou Hanshan laughed dryly twice, "I'm not getting bad grades..."

"Really?" Gu Longming still didn't believe it.

"It's true!" Zhou Hanshan is a bit desperate, "You guys believe me... there are still photos of my sculpture in my phone, don't believe me, don't believe you guys look through it."

Gu Longming, full of suspicion, took the phone, "Don't you think I can't look at it." He flipped to the photo album and really found Zhou Hanshan's sculptures.

Lin Qiushi took one look at that sculpture and fell silent with Gu Longming, and finally Gu Longming stifled out a sentence, "Fuck, you really studied art? What kind of stupid hanging thing is this carving."

Zhou Hanshan: "...Overdoing it ah."

Although most of the time Zhou Hanshan had a headache about his homework, he didn't expect to avoid it this time due to misfortune.

When the results were announced at that time, the winners were all very happy and were discussing with each other that they didn't expect the campus legend to be true... Of course, what they didn't expect even more was the painful price that this award needed to pay.

"So what exactly were you trying to do by lying to us?" Gurung asked.

"Actually...actually I just want to stop everything." Zhou Hanshan trembled, "Everything started because of me, so I should naturally let it all end..."

"How does it end?" Lin Qiushi asked.

"I went to look up a lot of information, but the school has actually had this campus legend for a long time." Zhou Hanshan said, "Only, the last part of this campus legend, Zhu Ruyuan didn't tell us."

"The last part?" Gurung sat up straighter.

"It has to be an equal exchange, the statue helped you fulfill your wish, you have to help the statue fulfill her wish as well." Zhou Hanshan said, "It's just that I really can't figure out what the statue's wish is right now, what if her wish is for us to die?"

Hearing Zhou Hanshan's words, Lin Qiushi, however, recalled the phrase inside the clue, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

He and Gu Longming looked at each other for a moment, and the two reached a full understanding at this point.

"Why didn't you tell us about this earlier?" Gu Longming was still struggling with the fact that Zhou Hansan had lied to them.

Zhou Hansan lowered his head and didn't say anything.

Lin Qiushi, however, saw the hidden meaning in his expression, and he said, "Is Zhu Ruyuan's wish related to you?"

Zhou Hanshan shuddered and said with a cry, "I don't want to die..."

His words were almost an endorsement of Lin Qiushi's speculation.

Zhu Ruyuan and Zhou Hanshan were lovers, and Zhou Hanshan hadn't dared to tell them about it, so Lin Qiushi had reason to guess that Zhu Ruyuan's wish was for Zhou Hanshan to accompany him.

And it was impossible to resurrect someone who was going to die, so the simpler way was for the living person to die.

"Please guys, I really don't want to die." Zhou Hanshan cried, "I'm really scared-"

"Do you like her?" In the meantime, Kulong asked.

"Maybe, I don't know anymore." Zhou Hanshan said, "Ever since we found out that she wasn't alive, all the memories of being with her before have become blurred... and I'm even about to lose track of them." He was speaking at a loss for words, but stopped, looking at the window next to him with intense fear in his eyes.

Lin Qiushi followed his gaze, but saw a woman with long hair and a pale face standing quietly by the window, looking at the house with an extremely resentful gaze - they were on the second floor, there was nothing outside the window, and there was no doubt that this girl was the girl who had once been with Zhou Hanshan, Zhu Ruyuan.

When Zhou Hanshan saw Zhu Ruyuan, he let out a miserable scream and fainted on the bed again. And in just a short while, the silhouette by the window had disappeared, and it was as if the pale face just now was just their illusion.

But Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming were very clear that Zhu Ruyuan had really been here....